(06/26/09) - Mr. Uribe Goes to Washington, Again
The Colombian president will once again try to convince Democrats in the White House and Congress of the benefits of signing a free trade agreement with his country.
Gabriela Perdomo – Álvaro Uribe arrives in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Jun. 29. He will hold a private meeting with his counterpart Barack Obama in which two major topics will certainly be discussed: one is the continuation of Plan Colombia, a generous yearly aid package that the United States has granted Colombia for the past 10 years. The other one is a stalled bilateral free trade deal.
Gabriela Perdomo – Álvaro Uribe arrives in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Jun. 29. He will hold a private meeting with his counterpart Barack Obama in which two major topics will certainly be discussed: one is the continuation of Plan Colombia, a generous yearly aid package that the United States has granted Colombia for the past 10 years. The other one is a stalled bilateral free trade deal.
The discussion on Plan Colombia is most likely to go well. There is no indication of a change of heart on either side on what is the core value of this package—fighting illegal drug production and trafficking by supporting Colombia’s military and other institutions. The plan has a good chance of surviving this first one-on-one between Obama and Uribe.
The fate of the free trade deal, on the other hand, is harder to predict. Since earlier this year, the Obama administration has hinted at the possibility of the president finally backing the agreement and urging Congress to approve it by the end of the year. But this is yet to be confirmed.
Meanwhile, critics of the deal in the legislature have fresh ammunition to block it. Obama’s apparent softening stance on the free trade agreement with Colombia—he was openly against it during the 2008 presidential campaign citing concerns over the safety of union leaders in the South American country—comes at a time when the standing of the Colombian head of state has not gotten better, but worse.
Uribe is actively—if not outspokenly—working towards securing an unprecedented third term in office, one that would only be possible if he changes the Colombian constitution once again (his second term followed a constitutional amendment pushed by his loyal lawmakers). The most influential voices in the Western media, including The Economist, the New York Times and the Washington Post, have all published editorials against a second Uribe re-election. They all agree that the president would harm Colombia’s democracy by indulging in this form of Latin American caudillismo, and assure that Washington would be forced to condemn such a quest for permanence in power by one of its close allies in the region.
On Monday, Uribe will surely be required to give a straight answer on his intentions to remain in power. He will also face other tough questions about his record on human rights and corruption. Over the past year, a major scandal has grown dangerously closer to the Colombian leader. At this point, about 30 per cent of all members of Colombia’s Congress are either under investigation, detained or sentenced to jail for their alleged ties to paramilitary death squads. To put this in perspective, in the last legislative election, more than half of Colombians (53.5 per cent) voted for people who are tarnished by the serious accusations today.
More recently, dozens of army officers have been involved in the deaths of innocent civilians that they have falsely presented as rebel combatants to earn kudos and perks from the commander in chief. The state’s security agency is currently under fire for wiretapping members of the political opposition, journalists and activists.
Notably, none of these important events are included in the main argument used by those who oppose the trade deal in Washington, which is the Colombian government’s inability or unwillingness to protect the lives of trade union leaders. If on every other front Uribe has an appalling record to bring to the meeting with Obama, this is the one area in which he can show some progress.
Recent data from an independent study by Universidad de los Andes shows that homicides of union leaders have diminished faster than homicides of the overall population since 2002. It also reveals that the rate of killings of union leaders is six times lower than the rate of killings in the overall Colombian population, and equal to the number of overall killings in the U.S. Fierce critics of the Colombia-U.S. deal, including Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi, cite impunity in crimes against union leaders as a major factor in their opposition. The same study assures that this has also dropped.
Besides the long dossier that critics and supporters of the trade agreement have now learned by heart, Uribe’s visit to Washington has yet another reason to be of much importance. If one thing is terribly wrong with this agreement it is its timing. The FTA was first approved by U.S. and Colombian trade representatives in November 2006. Colombian lawmakers approved it a year later. Ever since, the document has sat in the hands of the U.S. Congress for final approval. In late 2007, it was pushed in Congress by George W. Bush, who was already a lame duck president. Democrats used the free trade agreement to demonstrate their power against a cause dear to the unpopular leader, in a fight that had little to do with the deal itself. The U.S. then went into campaign mode, and it was clear that no lawmaker would approach the issue until a new president was elected.
Now the free trade agreement with Colombia faces yet another outside force. As the U.S. endures its deepest recession in decades, the government is cautious not to implement any new legislation that could further hurt the domestic economy (or the president’s political capital). Moreover, the deal sits in the middle of a more complex dilemma: President Obama has not decided yet how much—if at all—he is in favour of free trade.
So Uribe will face this ideological storm when he meets Obama on Monday. With a storm of his own growing faster by the minute, it would be a real surprise if the Colombia-U.S. trade agreement has a good day in Washington next week.
