As important, there are strong indications that significant amounts of Russian arms purchased by Venezuela are being transshipped to FARC camps for use in their “liberation movement”.
Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe seeks to implement a multi-faceted effort to free more hostages and to strengthen his country’s anti-guerrilla position:
- Surprisingly, Uribe has acquiesced in Hugo Chavez serving as a clearly biased “mediator” in hostage relief efforts. With more than 700 hostages, results to date are miniscule, but every release or escape is widely welcomed by the Colombian people, whatever the reason.
- A strong government effort to win over guerrillas has been spectacularly successful, especially with the ELN, the second most powerful terror organization. Inducements to lay down their arms include cash as well as technical training programs sponsored by America’s Plan Colombia.
- Simultaneously, Colombian military efforts to eliminate guerrilla leaders and encampments are steadily progressing.
- Critical to the Colombian strategy is approval by the U.S. Congress of the pending free trade agreement. To date, Democrats and their labor union allies have offered multiple excuses for holding the agreement hostage [big labor has committed to spending $200 million in support of Democrats during the 2008 election cycle].
In an effort to offset the pull of American labor bosses, Colombia has shown several Congressional delegations the results of the Uribe administration’s ongoing efforts to curb violence, quell the narcotics trade and curtail what have always been minimal human rights abuses.
Unfortunately, the latest group of Washington travelers ended their visit with a carefully balanced pair of utterances. Representative James McGovern [D-Massachusetts] earned positive points by demurring from Chavez’s call for Colombia’s guerrilla groups to be legitimized as belligerents.
However, Rep. George Miller [D-California], chairman of the House Education & Labor Committee, said it was not an appropriate time to take up the free trade agreement, because of “new realities” facing the U.S. economy, including rising unemployment and recession fears. Sadly, Miller ignored the economy-strengthening fact that the FTA allows more than 90 percent of American products and services duty free status, which combined with the undervalued dollar provides significant export growth potential. This was the Democrats’ fifth rationale for refusing to take up the bilateral trade deal since its agreement by both parties in late 2006.
Such a position is extraordinarily frustrating to Colombians in and out of government, because very few of the country’s existing and prospective exports – key among them coffee and fresh flowers – prove a threat to U.S. producers. That said, encouraging legitimate agricultural exports is a strong means of discouraging farmers from cultivating the coca plant, the source of 90 percent of the world’s cocaine.
Given a little help from its friend to the north, Colombia has a very good chance of achieving the Uribe government’s ambitious plans. Despite Hugo Chavez’s current coup in the freeing of two FARC hostages, it can be hoped that truly bipartisan Congressional consideration of the free trade agreement will result in its passage, to the benefit of both countries and a particular boon to efforts to stabilize Colombia.