Peculiar alliances
▻http://africasacountry.com/2016/10/peculiar-alliances
One of the most counterintuitive sights in the referendum on #Colombia’s historic peace agreement between the government and FARC rebels, was a coalition between #Human_Rights_Watch (HRW) and former President Álvaro Uribe in favor of a “no” vote. At the beginning of October, Colombian voters narrowly rejected a comprehensive historic peace agreement that would […]
Did Human Rights Watch Sabotage Colombia’s Peace Agreement? | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/did-human-rights-watch-sabotage-colombias-peace-agreement
“No” won because the right wing, led by former President Álvaro Uribe, was able to turn a vote that was supposed to be on peace into a vote on the FARC. The geographic breakdown of the referendum indicates that “no” won in areas where Uribe and his political party have their support. Take a look especially at the department of Antioquia, where Uribe got his political start as a champion of paramilitary death squads. Sixty-two percent of Antioquia’s voters cast “no.” In the department’s capital, Medellín, a city that has been sold in the United States as a neoliberal success story—Modern! Urbane! Fun! Come visit!—63 percent of voters said “no” (for Medellín’s neoliberal “makeover,” see this essay by Forrest Hylton).
Uribe served as president from 2002 to 2010. He is best thought of as a Colombian Andrew Jackson, riding to the top office of his country on the wings of mass murder, rural ressentiment, and financial speculation. As an ex-president, he has been toxic, doing everything he could to keep the war going.
The Colombian elite, especially the retrograde sector Uribe represents, has much to lose with peace: The end of fighting would create a space in which the country’s many social conflicts—having to do with land, labor, and resource extraction—could be dealt with on their own terms, rather than distorted through counterinsurgent politics. And peace would be costly for some sectors, especially for all those Colombians in the “security” business who for years have fed off the Plan Colombia trough.
Polls show that a majority of Colombians favor peace. But Uribe and his allies in the media and congress lied, obfuscated, and scared. They managed to convince a small minority (the 54,000-vote victory margin for “no” is about a quarter of the number of civilians killed or disappeared by the state since the start of the civil war) that the agreement was a giveaway to the FARC and that Santos was “delivering the country to terrorism.” The Times identifies Uribe and the “far right” as the “biggest winner.” The former president “had argued that the agreement was too lenient on the rebels, who he said should be prosecuted as murderers and drug traffickers. ‘Peace is an illusion, the Havana agreement deceptive,’ Mr. Uribe wrote on Twitter on Sunday after casting his ‘no’ vote.” Thus Uribe has forced himself on the bargaining table, with Santos saying, as paraphrased by the Times, that he would be “reaching out to opposition leaders in the Colombian Congress like former President Álvaro Uribe,” with the Times adding that “experts predicted a potentially tortured process in which Mr. Uribe and others would seek harsher punishments for FARC members, especially those who had participated in the drug trade.”
The campaign to keep Colombia’s war going had an unlikely ally: Human Rights Watch. José Miguel Vivanco, the head of HRW’s Americas Watch division, emerged as an unexpected player in Colombian politics when he came out strongly against the “justice” provisions of the peace agreement. Vivanco agreed with Uribe by offering the most dire reading of the agreement possible, saying that perpetrators—in the FARC and the military—of human-rights violations would receive immunity. Vivanco was all over the press in Colombia, with his comments used to build opposition to the accords. Once it became clear that he was lining up too closely with Uribe, he staged a mock public dispute with the former para-president, even while continuing to basically support Uribe’s position (h/t Alejandro Velasco).
Et au Brésil: Is Human Rights Watch Too Closely Aligned with US Foreign Policy?
▻http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/is-human-rights-watch-too-closely-aligned-with-us-foreign-policy
Part of that right-wing agenda is a close alliance with the United States and its Cold War strategy of “containment” and “rollback” with respect to the left governments in Latin America. And that is where Human Rights Watch, the most prominent US-based human-rights organization — its Americas Division in particular — comes in. HRW abstained from offering the slightest criticism of the impeachment process; even worse, the executive director of its Americas Division, José Miguel Vivanco, was quoted in the Brazilian media — on the day that the Brazilian Senate voted to permanently oust the president — saying Brazilians “should be proud of the example they are giving the world.” He also praised the “independence of the judiciary” in Brazil. Sérgio Moro, the judge investigating the political corruption cases, has been far from independent. He had to apologize in March for leaking wiretapped conversations to the press between former president Lula da Silva and Dilma; Lula and his attorney; and between Lula’s wife and their children.
Santiago Uribe Vélez Recluido en búnker de Fiscalía - La Nación
▻http://www.lanacion.com.co/index.php/actualidad-lanacion/item/266747-santiago-uribe-velez-recluido-en-bunker-de-fiscalia
Como resultado de una investigación que se extendió por más de una década, ayer la Fiscalía capturó en Medellín a Santiago Uribe, hermano del expresidente y hoy senador Álvaro Uribe, para que responda por los delitos de homicidio agravado y concierto para delinquir. Supuestamente este ganadero habría participado en la conformación de grupos paramilitares, concretamente una organización denominada ‘Los 12 Apóstoles’, la cual operó en el norte de Antioquia y tuvo su centro de operaciones en el municipio de Yarumal durante el auge en el país de los grupos de autodefensa en los años 90.
A esta organización delincuencial son atribuidos varios crímenes en la región de personas que supuestamente hacían parte de la guerrilla o eran simpatizantes de ésta.
La investigación contra el ganadero Santiago Uribe se inició a finales de los años 90, pero en un par de ocasiones fue archivada. Sin embargo, la actual Fiscalía le dio un nuevo impulso al caso, al punto que Eduardo Montealegre dijo que se estaba cerca de tomar decisiones en este caso.
La orden de captura contra el hermano del expresidente Uribe fue impartida por un fiscal delegado ante la Corte Suprema de Justicia, quien consideró que existe plena evidencia de que Santiago Uribe participó en esta organización delincuencial.
Hay varios testimonios de desmovilizados de las autodefensas así como del mayor (r) de la Policía, Juan Carlos Meneses Quintero, y algunos trabajadores de la finca del ganadero que comprometen a Santiago Uribe con ‘Los 12 Apóstoles’.
Le président colombien sortant Juan Manuel Santos a été réélu dimanche avec 50,95 % des voix. Opposé au candidat de l’ancien président Alvaro Uribe, dont il fut pourtant ministre de la défense, M. Santos a reçu le soutien d’une large partie de la gauche colombienne. Celle-ci souhaite en effet voir aboutir les négociations de paix engagées avec les guérillas, auxquelles s’oppose M. Uribe.
Pourquoi la Colombie peut croire à la paix, par Gregory Wilpert (octobre 2012) ▻http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2012/10/WILPERT/48247
L’opposition vénézuélienne en proie à ses vieux démons, par Renaud Lambert @rl
Les blogs du Diplo, 1er mars 2014
▻http://blog.mondediplo.net/2014-03-01-L-opposition-venezuelienne-en-proie-a-ses-vieux
Depuis le début du mois de février, des manifestations violentes ont fait « dix-sept morts et deux cent soixante et un blessés » au #Venezuela, selon la procureure générale du pays, Mme Luisa Ortega Diaz. Mercredi 26 février, le président Nicolas Maduro – qui dénonce une tentative de coup d’Etat soutenue par Washington et des groupes paramilitaires proches de l’ancien président colombien Álvaro Uribe – a convié les différents secteurs de la société à une « conférence sur la paix ». Cette rencontre entre syndicats, patronat, partis et intellectuels devait participer au retour au calme.
Álvaro Uribe, un professeur embarrassant | Hernando Calvo Ospina (Le Monde diplomatique)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/carnet/2011-03-25-Alvaro-Uribe-professeur
L’Ecole nationale d’ingénieurs de Metz (ENIM) s’est dotée d’un professeur pas tout à fait comme les autres : l’ancien président colombien, Álvaro Uribe (au pouvoir de 2002 à 2010). (...)