Bastardisation of the East: I'm going to hold you to this, Obama

Saturday, October 18, 2008

I'm going to hold you to this, Obama

It’s 26 August this year and in Canatgallo, Colombia, Alexander Blanco Rodriguez is living out his last day. Naturally he and his co-workers don’t know this yet, but that hardly makes his fate a surprise. He works for the state oil company ECOPETROL and also happens to be a leader with the oil worker’s union USO (La Unión Sindical Obrera). As he finishes his shift and prepares to leave work, an armed group guns him down in front of his workmates, making him the 41st trade union member to be murdered this year.

Exercising ones right to participate in a union and bargain for better working conditions is a risky business in Colombia, a democracy that has been subverted by a Marxist guerrilla insurgency and by paramilitary groups. Already scarce Western media attention is dominated by the former, particularly the FARC, the group that held Ingrid Betancourt and still holds numerous other less newsworthy individuals hostage. However, it is the latter faction, the paramilitaries, that are responsible for the vast majority of civilian murders across the country, and their dirty work has been facilitated and covered up by alliances with the national military, landowners, businessmen, politicians and very probably the president and secret service too. Human Rights Watch claims in a report published today that President Alvaro Uribe has “Opposed and effectively blocked meaningful efforts to reform the Congress to eliminate paramilitary influence” and has smeared the Supreme Court and its members who are investigating their abuses.

In a parallel universe this government would be the object of at least a fair bit of scrutiny from the government of the United States, certainly more than Hugo Chavez’s regime next door. Yet the powers that be in Colombia have literally gotten away with murder for years, even becoming the third highest recipient of aid from Washington under Clinton. In a continent that has taken a sharp turn to the left in its politics, the current Uribe administration is firm friends with that of George W Bush (who, contrary to what you may think, still actually is the President of the United States. He’s just been very quiet lately).

Back in April this year, when he could still be described as a higher-profile personality than some jumped-up Alaskan seemingly trying to choke on her foot, Bush was desperately trying to force a free trade deal he negotiated two years earlier with Uribe’s Colombia, that would have eliminated tariffs on their US imports, through Congress. To Bush’s dismay the partisan House of Representatives voted to delay action on the deal, effectively leaving it for the first post-Bush administration to deal with. Members of the House opposed to the deal, generally Democrats, were worried about its impact on American workers and also their feeling that Uribe had not been doing nearly enough to stop paramilitary violence against union members.

The pair competing for the opportunity to make us sigh with relief as George W Bush becomes no more than a distant if traumatic memory, disagree strongly on the free trade issue, and their differing opinions were on show in the third presidential debate, even if they were overshadowed by the ridiculous appeals to Joe the plumber. Showing the kind of principle that his become his trademark in this campaign, McCain, who is strongly in favour, stated that "Free trade with Colombia is something that's a no-brainer”, something many a labourer in Colombia would agree with, if for different reasons. Obama on the other hand had the honesty to point out that labour leaders were targetted for assasssination and for this opposed the agreement. That’s great. In the run up to the House of Representatives vote on the deal in April Obama said that he didn’t want to reward the behaviour of the Uribe administration with this deal.

It is nice when the supposedly more down to earth, centre left party doesn’t just disagree with the GOP on something, but also takes practical action to effect change. It is also a ray of hope that under Obama some things at least will be better. In the polls he is maintaining a strong lead over McCain and will be greeted as a saviour by many. But making principled declarations out of power is one thing, sticking to them while staring out of the Whitehouse is another. Power does things to people and forces them to jump through hoops that maybe they wouldn’t ordinarilly want to. Outside of power Al Gore has become a noted environmentalist and refused to share a stage with Uribe last year due to his involvement with the paramilitary killers. But in the 1990s he was content to stand at Bill Clinton’s side as VP at a time when horrific massacres like the military-assisted killing of 49 in Mapiripán in 1997 were taking place. As mentioned earlier, military aid increased under Clinton, who signed a waiver on a set of human rights provisions for a $1.3 billion aid deal in 2000 (and incidentally backs this free trade agreement, which even his Republican-lite wife is against). According to the Washington Times that same year the future Nobel prize-winning bleeding heart tree hugger Gore ignored the pleas of environmentalists uncorrupted by power who didn’t want to see Occidental Petroleum, a company in which his family has considerable stock, drill for oil under a forest on sacred Indian land in Colombia. The Clinton administration sent aid to protect the company’s security interests in Colombia, while Gore gave short shrift to other Democrats who urged him to meet the indigenous people whose lives his company’s project would have ruined. Out of power Jimmy Carter has been a comendable human rights advocate, in office he chummed up to Suharto of Indonesia and was with the last of Nicaragua’s ugly Somoza dynasty until almost the very end. A list of campaign promises dropped once the candidates of elections across the world would go on and on. High hopes the left had for Clinton, Blair and Brown are a sore point. Cynics like myself need to see the likes of Obama keep their word on the few decent policies on offer to retain a glimmer of hope in mainstream politics. And though I wont be able to convince him, I know someone that surely can.

PS

As Colombia’s leading ally the USA has to take the lead in diplomatic pressure for reform, but that does not excuse the pathetic stance of the British government or that shower at the European Union. On 3 October, in response to a petition organised by the UK based network Justice for Colombia calling for a suspension of all military aid to Uribe’s government until human rights abuses were dealt with, Downing Street stated that it had no intention of doing so and that “we are encouraged by Colombia’s efforts to root out this problem.” And the EU provides Colombia with trade preferences that are exclusive for countries with respect for worker’s rights. Countries like Colombia, Israel and Saudi Arabia should not be allowed to be sitting pretty, sheltered from criticism.

¶ posted by the leech at 10/18/2008

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