BOGOTA, Colombia.
Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, an Irish-American, often explained arcane acts of Congress by saying, “All politics is local.” Friends of the United States in Colombia’s capital use a somewhat different term, “loco” — crazy — referring to machinations by congressional Democrats and their labor union allies on the U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement.
Colombia’s armed forces commander Gen. Freddy Padilla de Leon is incredulous, noting in an exclusive interview, “We are charged with allowing the murders of ‘thousands’ of union leaders by paramilitary assassins.
“In 2002, the year President Uribe took office, 99 union leaders were murdered. Last year, the number was 25, and during the first half of 2007, there have only been four union fatalities. We are working to cut the number to zero, but frankly, several of those murdered were members of the FARC or ELN guerrilla movements, while others perished for reasons of strife or corruption.” (An important question is how many leaders have perished, as distinct from union members killed when fighting as guerrillas or in industrial strife.)
In 43 unionist assassinations in the 2005-07 period, 75 alleged perpetrators were arrested, held for trial and often convicted. Colombia’s government is deeply concerned about pursuing and punishing murderers. A leading Colombian human-rights activist says paramilitary assassins, acting on behalf of local Coca-Cola operations, are among those apprehended.
By refusing to consider the U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement, Democratic leaders in Congress pervert local U.S. politics and are acting loco, as they put America’s best friend in Latin America in grave danger, thereby seriously threatening the stability of Latin America, accurately described as the United States’ backyard, geographically and strategically.
Washington has neglected our backyard for several years, as radical socialist dictator Hugo Chavez seeks — and wins — allies in countries as diverse as Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Panama. And Mr. Chavez has not finished. High on the list of new recruits to his Bolivarian Revolution is Venezuela’s western neighbor Colombia, where a sophisticated campaign to subvert the 2010 presidential elections has already been launched.
The threat comes not just from Venezuela to its east. Ecuador, recently radicalized under President Rafael Correa and Vice President Lenin Moreno, is immediately to Colombia’s west. FARC and ELN revolutionary cadres operate from Venezuela jungle bases, with more than 500 (estimated up to 3,000) communist narco-trafficking guerrillas making lethal cross-border raids and fleeing across the Meta River, where Colombian troops may not pursue. Colombian intelligence also has tracked dozens of concentrations of 40-50 guerrillas in Ecuador.
In the last three years, there has been a dramatic rise in the lethal effectiveness of guerrilla explosives. The types of bombs are identical to those found in Iraq.
Gen. Padilla notes: “We call our strategy ‘Plan Consolidation,’ and its first emphasis is on territorial control. We must also bind our armed forces together in the fight against the narco-traffickers, plus work in partnership with the government’s social programs. As important, we must have close contact with the people, with no tolerance whatever for corruption or the undermining of human rights.
“Our country has an enormous internal challenge,” he continues. “We must fight the narcotics scourge at every level, especially in the agricultural sector. Growing cocaine allows the farmer to buy his family rice, meat and other necessities. But our farmers don’t want that. To work cleanly and legally gives a man peace; to work illegally puts the FARC in control of his life. With solid economic growth, hundreds of thousands of small farmers can enter the legal economy, decimate the cocaine crop and sharply cut the FARC’s income options.”
Avoiding entanglement in the free-trade agreement debate, Gen. Padilla still concludes, “It is absurd to contemplate, but we could lose the dual advantage of growing our economy and simultaneously attacking the narcotics scourge.”
Ambassador Manuel Rocha, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer whose career focused on Latin America, including tours in Havana, Buenos Aires, and as ambassador in La Paz, Bolivia, is appalled at Washington’s “self-punishing neglect of the region. Not renewing Plan Colombia and not ratifying the FTA with Colombia does far more than undermine our closest friend and the most entrenched democracy in Latin America.
“It tells those who wish to be friends and allies of the United States they cannot rely on us, and opens the door for more lethal mischief by Hugo Chavez. We set the stage for a revolutionary hotbed south of the Rio Grande,” the well informed Colombian-American concludes, “and face the loss of Latin America to the Free World for a generation.”
The increasingly close military relationship between Venezuela and Iran opens the door to mischief not just in Central and South America, but increases the danger of terrorist infiltration across the porous U.S. border with Mexico.
Tip O’Neill was right about the local nature of politics. What his Democratic successors in Congress miss, however, is the local nature of the threat from south of the border. The specter of thousands of Hispanic terrorists — trained by Iranian and al Qaeda allies — infiltrating cities across our country is very real.
It doesn’t get much more local than that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Nor, as querulous Colombians are putting it, does your refusal to approve the free trade agreement get much more loco — crazy.
John R. Thomson is a businessman, journalist and former diplomat who writes frequently on geopolitical issues. He can be reached at thomson.john.r@gmail.com .
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