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Anniversary of a Political Murder in Colombia

Pan-Macedonian Association USA responds to Zlatko Kovach’s Allegations on Macedonia: Reaching Out To Win L. American Hearts

Zlatko Kovach, in his Macedonia: Reaching Out To Win L. American Hearts, proves one more time that he is the product of the continuous brainwashing condition and lies, provided by an education system which emerged from a Balkan nation, under Tito’s and Stalin’s tutelage.

Mr. Kovach begins his elaborations, stating: “Macedonia historically and culturally did transcend the country’s current borders. In 1912-13, through two brutal regional wars, Macedonia was forcefully partitioned among Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. The Macedonians were subject to qualified genocide and many were driven from their land. It is this reality that Greece tirelessly tries to cover up.” Mr. Kovach fails to bring up that during the Ottoman era which lasted for five hundred years and ended in 1912 in that area, there was no use of the term Macedonia (meaning the boundaries of the geographic or ancient Macedonia). Ancient Macedonia was divided in two vilaets, the vilaet of Thessaloniki and the vilaet of Monastiri (Bitola). Skopje was the capital of the Kosovo vilaet and was never included in the so-called geographic Macedonia.

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COLOMBIA

• Gaitán and the 9 de abril movement

• Colombian democracy sputters rather than soars

The one thing that those living outside of Latin America are likely to know about Colombia, besides its association with the illegal drug trade, is its unremitting violence. The country evokes images of ruthless drug lords, merciless paramilitary killers, and militant guerrilla armies, piles of bloody corpses and despairing kidnapped hostages.

The Colombia of today is directly linked to these antecedents. Colombia is a “managed” democracy,—free, but not necessarily fair—with the far right government of Álvaro Uribe largely trusting its political future to the aid and goodwill of the Bush Administration, as well as acting as a bulwark against the Latin American left-leaning movement led by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.

Historians, however, can point out that this Andean template did not always exist. In the 1930s and early 1940s, during the so-called “Liberal Republic,” Colombia stood out as a relatively stable and democratic nation—one of the most respectable in the hemisphere. In fact, Colombia’s political culture spawned a massive populist movement led by prominent labor lawyer and politician on the Liberal left, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán.

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Obama on Latin American Trade: Muddled and Confused

Uribe—Latin America’s Most Disgraced President

• Legacy of Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty will be a heavy cross for Uribe to bear.

• Honored in Washington, Uribe is scorned throughout Latin America for being Bush’s favored hemispheric figure.

However muffled the language may be, President Uribe is destined to be Latin America’s most scorned president in modern times. Condemned by voice and written denunciations throughout the hemisphere, Uribe did manage to solely win enthusiastic, if almost meaningless praise, from lame-duck President George Bush, who saw nothing wrong with Colombia applying Iraqi-style tactics on Ecuadorian territory. Even the most accommodating analyst would have to inform Uribe that he has just finished the most catastrophic week of an already catastrophic presidency and effectively the demise of his presidency and influenced on the hemisphere. There is no question that, ironically enough, Farcista Raúl Reyes has posthumously inflicted the most devastating and lasting defeat on Uribe. Metaphorically speaking, Reyes has scalped Uribe and then hung the Colombian leader’s tattered presidential sash upon a pike and walked the macabre sight through the streets of Latin America.

A Heavy Burden to Bear

At the end of the day, the price of gunning down Reyes will prove to be excessively high for Uribe. On going negotiations for the release of scores of FARC-held hostages, which has eagerly sought after by Uribe, have been unquestionably terminated, at least for the foreseeable future. Reyes was the FARC figure most identified with the hostage-release dialogue with Colombia and European intermediates. In the past, Reyes was the FARC official most engaged in talks that had taken place with high level figures abroad, working for the release of a number of FARC detainees, particularly Ingrid Betancourt, whose freedom was especially sought after by the French, due to her holding both Colombian and French citizenship. Additionally, Reyes was said to have maintained liaison with Venezuela’s efforts, which had been abruptly guillotined last November, when Hugo Chávez was sacked by Uribe as Colombia’s unofficial negotiator. By ordering the killing of Reyes, Uribe guaranteed that former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt will remain in guerrilla custody indefinitely.


A Man for Few Seasons
Uribe cultivates a hard-line image that brooks no flexibility when it comes to visiting affliction upon the Farcistas, which has won him considerable popularity within Colombia. But it is a popularity that is more broad than deep. As for FARC, it is not a soft and fuzzy organization at all, but it must be understood that all of their actions have an end in mind. Behind the drug trafficking and kidnappings lies a resolve to obtain the freedom of their imprisoned comrades and to guarantee their own securities. Yet here again, Uribe’s instincts were antipathetic to a rational assessment of how to peacefully resolve on internecine strife that had been going on for decades, with honor and with homage to the Colombian nations.

Now prepared to retire from office, the Bush administration already has reached the nadir of its popularity on the Hill and when it comes to its Latin American policy, no one can suggest that it was even faintly credible. In fact, Bush’s policy was a parody of a policy; in effect, with no exaggeration, it could be called an anti-policy. Uribe is unlikely to witness the U.S. Congress passing a beneficial trade measure on his behalf. In terms of the high price that Uribe is being forced to pay, the toll is there to clearly be seen.

The Colombian president does not have a compelling reputation which can make him proud. Uribe is anything but an apostle of democracy. He is armed with a grim personality that is more Dick Cheneyesque in impact than Helen Keller, he had no problem with packing the country’s Supreme Court when he was encountering problems in convincing it to make a decision that the Constitution would allow him to be re-elected.

Nor did the U.S. make much of a fuss when, for a token guilty plea and a minimum prison sentence, AUC vigilantes are guaranteed against being extradited to the U.S., even though the extradition policy had been at the heart of Washington’s anti-drug strategy. Another sore point is Uribe’s reputation for playing fast and loose when it comes to personal matters of corruption, and his years of very murky connections to some of the country’s worst rightist extremists. He has worked tirelessly to provide these AUC extremist vigilantes (classified as “terrorists” even by the State Department) to see to it that their future isn’t bleak even now, many of the people who Uribe protected from doing jail time have gone back to a life of major drug trafficking. In a recurring scandal involving Uribe, some 35% of the legislative representatives of his conservative party have direct ideological and/or financial arrangements with these death-squads. Nor should it be forgotten that even the State Department acknowledges that the AUC was tolerated and afforded sweetheart deals by Uribe while it still was carrying out massacres of trade union leaders and hundreds of other civilians.

Larry Birns
Director of COHA

Obama on Latin American Trade: Muddled and Confused

As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Barack Obama, a contender for the Democratic Party nomination, has been reluctant to discuss U.S. policy towards Latin America. In recent years, the region has undergone a major tectonic shift towards the left, prompting many to wonder how the young Illinois Senator might deal with progressive economic change if elected President.

In South America, there has been considerable resistance to the Bush Administration’s free trade initiatives. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has even set up his own trade and barter scheme, the Bolivarian Alternative to The Americas (or ALBA), as a foil to Washington’s private sector model. Realizing that it cannot push through a hemispheric-wide free trade initiative, the Bush administration has sought individual free trade agreements on a country-by-country basis. However, recent deals have been questioned by many due to their lack of regard for adequate labor and environmental mandates.

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Separating Chavez’s Bite from his Bark: Seeking a Rational Hemispheric Security Policy

Latin America and the U.S. Presidential Campaign:COHA Research Associate Monica Shah on Barack Obama

In a February 2008 campaign rally in Alexandria, VA, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was applauded as he declared “Our Latin American policy can not just be ‘I oppose Castro’ and ‘I oppose Chavez.’” Even more applause was registered when he lamented the United States’ past neglect towards Latin America because, “We have been so obsessed with Iraq and the Middle East.” In his campaign strategy driven by ‘change’, Obama has strived for a different foreign policy towards Latin America in contrast to past presidents, and especially the catastrophic regional policies that were followed under the Bush administration’s Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, both of whom served as assistant secretary of state to Latin America, as well as a distempered John Bolton, a senior officer under Collin Powell.

In a 2007 statement to the Senate, Obama claimed, “As has been the case throughout the world, our standing in the Americas has suffered as a result of the misguided policies and actions of the Bush Administration. It will take significant work to repair the damage wrought by six years of neglect and mismanagement of relations,”—work that Obama has now pledged to engage in, including the matter of political prisoners in Cuba. The Illinois Senator and presidential contender also has a special interest in helping to revive stagnant aspects of the Mexican economy, which is among the primary causes of the influx of illegal immigrants to the United States.
Barack Obama believes that, “we ignore Latin America at our own peril”, and insists that Latin American countries are deserving of “mutual respect and dignity.” In contrast to President Bush and Hilary Clinton, Obama has stated that he would not need any “preconditions” before meeting with U.S.’s most bitter foes like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Cuba’s Raul Castro.

As Fidel Castro announced his resignation from office, Obama stated that it is, “the end of a dark era in Cuba’s history”. But in an effort to replace failed policies with effective ones, Obama has proposed to slowly ease the embargo that has existed for nearly five decades. He previously has voted twice against further funding of the U.S. anti-Castro television network, T.V. Marti, which relays propagandized news to Cuba. Furthermore, it costs tens of millions of dollars a year yet has only been able to reach a miniscule audience. In a 2007 Time Magazine article, Obama stated that, “A democratic opening in Cuba is, and should be, the foremost objective of our policy,” and later declared “I will grant Cuban-Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island.”

In terms of trade, Obama has stated that he doesn’t oppose free trade but wants it to be fair and, “reflect the interests of workers and not just corporate profits.” He stated in the recent Ohio debate that he wants to ensure that NAFTA and any other agreement the U.S. signs has labor, environmental, and safety standards “that are going to protect not just workers, but also consumers.”

While some of his critics argue his foreign policy stands are naïve, Obama has a focused and positive concept of constructive engagement as well as a tough revaluation of the troubled state of U.S. hemispheric ties for the first time in decades.

How Chávez Moves
A growing number of Latin American countries suspect that U.S. foreign policy in the region is still riveted with the callous interventionist goals of the Cold War. The new wave of socialism (or quasi-socialism) being called for throughout the region can largely be attributed to the area’s decision to take a more critical look at Western capitalism. Regional integration groups such as MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market), CAN (Andean Community of Nations) and ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for People of our America) are becoming increasingly popular models of development. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales are spurring examples of how regional leaders are trying to promote their own local networks on order to decrease their dependence on international loan agencies such as the World Bank and IMF. Chávez, the outspoken socialist president of Venezuela, is one of the major proponents of these interdependent initiatives being tested in the region today. The new Latin American attitude encourages nations to work amongst themselves to improve trade, social development, infrastructure, financial cooperation, and now defense. On January 27, 2008, Chávez called upon several of his left-leaning compañeros to join together and form something akin to a defensive alliance against U.S. expansionism. This alliance was suggested to counteract the perceived North American threat to South American unity. But some skeptics are asking whether Chávez’s recent efforts to form a regional alliance against the U.S is a legitimate act of national security or an overzealous blunder?

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Separating Chavez’s Bite from his Bark: Seeking a Rational Hemispheric Security Policy

Fellow ALBA members and supporters qualify their support but back up Venezuelan leader

How Chávez Moves
A growing number of Latin American countries suspect that U.S. foreign policy in the region is still riveted with the callous interventionist goals of the Cold War. The new wave of socialism (or quasi-socialism) being called for throughout the region can largely be attributed to the area’s decision to take a more critical look at Western capitalism. Regional integration groups such as MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market), CAN (Andean Community of Nations) and ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for People of our America) are becoming increasingly popular models of development. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales are spurring examples of how regional leaders are trying to promote their own local networks on order to decrease their dependence on international loan agencies such as the World Bank and IMF. Chávez, the outspoken socialist president of Venezuela, is one of the major proponents of these interdependent initiatives being tested in the region today. The new Latin American attitude encourages nations to work amongst themselves to improve trade, social development, infrastructure, financial cooperation, and now defense. On January 27, 2008, Chávez called upon several of his left-leaning compañeros to join together and form something akin to a defensive alliance against U.S. expansionism. This alliance was suggested to counteract the perceived North American threat to South American unity. But some skeptics are asking whether Chávez’s recent efforts to form a regional alliance against the U.S is a legitimate act of national security or an overzealous blunder?

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Latin America and the U.S. Presidential Campaign: Nikolas Kosloff on John McCain

In the event that John McCain is elected president, the stage soon could be set for a confrontation with the present Dominica leadership if it continues to follow an independent road regarding its relation with Hugo Chávez’ Venezuela, the vehicle for this could be his ties to a relatively obscure body based in Washington. The Arizona Senator has chaired the International Republican Institute (IRI) since 1993. Ostensibly a non-partisan, democracy-building outfit, in reality the IRI serves as an instrument to advance and promote a far right Republican foreign policy agenda. More a cloak-and-dagger operation than a conventional research group, IRI has aligned itself with some of the most antidemocratic movements in the Third World.

In Haiti, IRI aggressively funded anti-Aristide groups and in Venezuela, IRI generously financed anti-Chávez civil society operations. When Venezuelan opposition politicians, union and
community leaders went to Washington on a private mission to meet with U.S. officials just a month before the April 2002 coup, IRI picked up the bill. The IRI also helped to fund the country’s notoriously corrupt Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (which played a major role in the anti-Chávez destabilization campaign leading up to the coup). IRI also arranged for Súmate, whose director just happened to be at the presidential palace in Caracas with the other backers of the coup, where she decided to sign her name to a document identifying her presence with the other golpistas.

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Dominica: The Caribbean’s Next “Terror Island”?

In 1983, while aboard a New York subway, I noticed someone reading that day’s issue of the New York Post. The front page headline screamed, “YANKS INVADE TERROR ISLAND.” It was early on in the Reagan administration and the U.S. had just militarily intervened in the Caribbean nation of Grenada, ending the island’s short-lived socialist experiment. The landing was based on the pretext that the Reagan administration had suspected that the new commercial airport—which Cuban laborers were aiding Grenada to construct on the island—actually would be used to transport Cuban troops to fight alongside African revolutionaries. Today, another Caribbean nation, Dominica, has been forging links with leftist Cuba and Venezuela. Authorities on that small Caribbean island had better watch out, or they may be presiding over this generation’s “Terror Island,” but this time the name of the island is Dominica.

A tiny nation of 133 square miles whose population could barely fill the Rose Bowl, Grenada had posed no strategic threat to the U.S. But Maurice Bishop of the leftist New Jewel Movement, which had ruled Grenada since 1979, had become positively irksome to Washington. Inspired at least as much by Bob Marley as by Karl Marx, Bishop, a young LSE graduate and an island intellectual and visionary, had embarked on an ambitious social and economic program aimed at diversifying agriculture, developing cooperatives, and creating an agro-industrial base that was leading to a reduction in food imports. Bishop also established a free health service and secondary education system, resulting in a markedly higher literacy rate on the island.

The Reagan administration sought to halt the New Jewel Movement in its tracks: economic assistance through the World Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank was mysteriously blocked, aid from the International Monetary Fund was restricted, and any participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative was dismissed out of hand. Reagan even refused to meet with Bishop when the Grenadian Prime Minister visited Washington in June, 1983. According to the Washington Post, the CIA had been engaged all along in a campaign to destabilize Grenada both politically and economically.

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