We interrupt the destruction of our democracy...
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... to focus your attention on the strength of Colombia's, where the Constitutional Court is set to reject a referendum on allowing Alvaro Uribe to run for a third consecutive term.
The Court's decision has not been announced, but it has been widely leaked. You can follow the developments in the mainstream media, or better still, via the great Colombian blog La Silla Vacía.
To a lot of people, Uribe is an authoritarian leader. But he's an authoritarian leader of a democratic state.
Chávez, on the other hand, is the authoritarian leader of an authoritarian state. This distinction makes all the difference in the world.
Update: El Tiempo has confirmed the Court rejected the referendum on a 7 to 2 vote.
Update 2: Quote of the day: "Citizens' participation cannot go against the Constitution." Alvaro Uribe. You can put that one in stone.
Francisco Toro
Juan Cristobal.jpg)
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As if on cue to underline the importance of free courts...
...could we have a more vivid Compare & Contrast?
exactly
PSFs ... start your fuming ... what was that again about Alvaro Uribe being a worse autocrat than Esteban??
I'm thinking the exact same
I'm thinking the exact same thing. Sure, Uribe may have something of an authoriratian bent, but he'll grit his teeth and accept this decision. Esteban would have thrown the entire court in jail for being agents of the Empire.
Good News
Yes, the parallel with whatever we call He who has so many names because when all is said and done, he has no name, is worth noting.
No tiene nombre. Esteban, Chacumbele.....
It is also good news.
Boludo Tejano
No, he DOES have a name
You got it right, except for the comma.
Esteban Chacumbele
Esteban Dido Chacumbele.
EA
Esteban Dido Chacumbele.
EA
Good one!
Good one! Maybe you can sell that to some comedian.
BT
name or not
I am not sure about Venezuelan slang, as I don't recall hearing it in Venezuela, but in Bolivia and Argentina, "no tiene nombre" is used as a term of condemnation. Like calling someone a bastard in English, but much stronger. Sin valor, sin vergüenza, sin nombre. First time I heard the phrase: the local airline bumped me and several others off a flight when we got to the next city, and had to wait three days to get back on the flight. At least the airline paid for our hotel rooms.
Boludo Tejano
Silence from the nut PSF gallery...
... I eagerly await their continued argument that Colombia is a fascist dictatorship.
Juan, chamo, don't be a rookie...
...don't you know that under neoliberal imperialism it's the *Alliance* of transnational capital and the local ruling class that holds power? Uribe's neither here nor there - the reactionary, paramilitary-infused right wing dictatorship will go on under one guise or another, killing peasant and labour leaders, helping the CIA smuggle drugs north, etc.
The left's discourse can assimilate an event like today's in stride. It's no problem for them.
And while I find that kind of analysis 98% silly, when you think through the chances of a guy like Santos taking over from Uribe you can't call it 100% silly.
Santos Paracos, Batman!
(That last comment was mine, btw...I have to log in as admin to erase comment spam and sometimes I forget to switch back to this account after I do...)
I don't really understand enough about Colombian politics to know if this comment is sensible or not, but here goes anyway:
From my limited knowledge of the situation, it sure seems like the dynamic in the presidential race over there is going to be dominated by a mad-rush to be "more Uribista than Uribe." Uribe's brand is so powerful that nobody can afford to be seen as a weaker version of him, people need to portray themselves as being AS tough or tougher than the incumbent to be competitive.
So it seems perfectly possible that we'll end up with a Colombian president who's even to the right of Uribe, possibly someone like Santos of unimpeachable hawkish credentials.
Could that *seriously* destabilize relations with Venezuela? What happens if Chávez becomes a kind of scarecrow in the campaign, with candidates competing in trying to stake out *the* toughest line on Venezuela? What if the one-upmanship dynamic ends up with somebody in a debate vowing to bomb FARC camps inside Venezuelan territory?
That's a lot of what-ifs, but the point remains. We need to be cautious here. With Uribe, we knew what we were dealing with: lots of tough-guy talk, but no serious chance of a shooting war along the border. With some whacked-out paraco well to Uribe's right?!
Seems dangerous...
Other Uribista candidates
I think Santos has the right-of-Uribe market cornered, but there is a real possibility of someone to camp out the slightly-left-than-Uribe-and-yet-Uribista camp, someone like Noemi Sanin. The other wild card seems to be Sergio Fajardo, the former Medellin mayor.
Regardless, none of these three seem like they would change things significantly with regards to Chavez. In Colombia, the oligarchy is always in charge. In that sense, Chavez is right.
But what the hell do I know...
oh, and let's not forget
Colombia has a runoff vote.
How chavistas spin it
Juan, it is amazing how chavistas interpret the whole story. Take a look at the Aporrea site or VTV: "no es no", "el pueblo le dijo que no", etc.
These guys are more rabid fanatical than anything I ever thought possible: never mind the Venezuelan judges don't have the cojones to do what the colombian judges did.
Of course he will not run
and now it's time to finally really give it back to the asshole that has offended him soooo many times. And if "his" people don't understand that he just had to blow off some steam for his mental sanity, so be it.
I guarantee y'all he is at peace with himself, while his nemesis is not.
Now that Uribe won't be running...
I wonder if the next Colombian president would be able to change the rules of the game, like Uribe tried to do, or will the candidates be able to understand the consequences of such action and not touch that subject.
I'm looking at those pretenders who are the candidates for the Partido Liberal and the Polo Democratico, respectively. But also at the soon-to-be-candidate for one of the other has-been parties, like the Conservador.
and he's bee so
http://impresodigital.el-nacional.com/ediciones/2010/02/27/PV/20100227_Z...
A moment to think about Chile...
I wish to take a moment to send my condolences to our brothers in Chile who are suffering and counting their dead today. Chile, another victory for liberal democracy in Latin America is managing the after-affects of a massive earthquake that damaged buildings and infrastructure in their capital, killed an unknown number of people and injured far more.
However, all of the institutions of that country are functioning. Civil defense is working to rescue the trapped, hospitals and doctors are treating the injured. The police are maintaining order and the public has been described as "calm". The government is coordinating all efforts and keeping the public informed and reassured. All of their technical data has been shared with international agencies to allow tsunami predictions and warnings to take place. So far, it appears to be a model of how these incidents are supposed to be handled.
So, I offer Chile my condolences in this hour of grief, but also my admiration for how well they are managing this disaster.
Ask yourself, how would today's Venezuela manage an equivalent disaster?
Thinking about Chile
Roy - I concur with your sentiments about Chile. However, you appear to have jumped the gun. Watching a host of channels from Telesur, the CNN's, to Chilean TV, the extent of the damage has not yet been fully established at this moment in time which is almost 1pm Caracas time.
Your final comment questioning Venezuela's ability to handle a similiar distater is contentious since we do not know how well the Chileans will handle it themselves with international help due to go pouring in.
The epicenter was in the Maule valley which is sparsely inhabited. Thus, when you say "handle a similar distater" you should really be honest and accurate and differentiate between outlying virtually uninhabited areas and conurbations such as Port au Prince and, what you are probably thinking of, Caracas.
Remember, or maybe you don't, the good job the government did here after the vaguada in Vargas in December 1999 when rescuing people. Thus, don't imply that Venezuela could not handle a similar tragedy when most recent evidence points to the complete opposite of what you are implying.
John, are you under drugs?
The government was completely inept. JVR kept telling us also there were just a few dozen dead...for days, when the many corpses were reaching the coast along Patanemo-Puerto cabello-Morón.
Actually, several organizations warned the government and asked it to POSTPONE the referendum but Hugo the Small did not want to, so he was against taking people out of those places...this lead to the death of many more. That was Hugo.
As for today: Vargas is still a wasteland.
You must be thinking about a different episode, Kepler
My sister went to La Carlota, volunteered and was sent to Vargas in December 1999 as a paramedic. She never came back from there saying that the government was inept as you do Kepler, but what else can we expect from you knowing your track record?
The dead bodies actually reached Curaçao one week later. In the case of such natural disasters, such as the one today in Chile and the recent one in Haiti, the death toll is progressive as more dead are found. This happened in the Sichuan earthquake and also in the Vargas tragedy. It wil also happen in the current Chilean situation.
Only someone with such an idioitc point oif view as yours on the world as a whole would focus on what JVR allegedly said instead of congratulating the government and President Chávez who personally commanded the rescue efforts.
People I know who are now escuálidos like you said at that time, "Thank God that Chávez is President. Could you imagine Caldera trying to handle a situation like this".
BTW, Kepler, how is life in das Vaterland? You certainly know what is happening in Venezuela living there. Right on the scene and an eye witness, I guess. Hehehe...
Your sister volunteered?
I suppose she did not come saying that because she has the same kind of brain you have.
I know several physicians who worked there actually.
As I said: there was plenty of warning, but Hugo wanted his little referendum.
As for how the regime tackled it all: it seems most people in Europe have a better idea about what is happening in Venezuela than you do. Stop taking so many drugs.
Anyone going through Vargas now can see what a waste the whole area still is.
By the way: do you also think, like Hugo the Small, that that was not a blackout?
Stop the name calling
John, Kepler, this is supposed to be a place for rational discussion. Shouldn't rational people stop calling names about each other, or stop judging the state of each other's brain, or stop judging the intake of drugs of each other?
Also, John, the fact that one person said that Caldera couldn't handle the situation is a proof of nothing concerning the topic. It only accounts for the opinion of that person, who, as we have no idea who said it, might not have given an informed opinion.
How would Venezuela handle a disaster?
Anon,
While I suspect that the current Venezuelan government would handle a similar disaster poorly, I cannot "know" that. That is why I framed my comment the way I did. I simply asked people to consider it and come to their own conclusions.
As for how well Chile is handling it, I am sure their are plenty of opportunities for blunders, and we were only hours into the disaster when I wrote that. However, I was watching the coverage on CNNE and was impressed that the civil authorities appeared to be well in control of the situation and the government was making regular announcements and appeared on top of it. I did not compare it to the situation in Haiti. I am sure that the Chavistas, on their worst day, could do better than that. I was not thinking of a disaster in Caracas, or any other place in particular.
As for Vargas, I wasn't here then and can't really comment, though someone else did. In any case, that was quite some time ago. After so much time in which the civil authorities have been under the control of the Chavistas, I shudder to think about their current level of training, equipment and preparedness.
In any case, the last time we had an earthquake here, as I remember, the correct authorities could not even be contacted by the news channel to confirm what had happened. The real story turned out to be the reaction of the government when Globovision reported the earthquake before they did.
In any case, let's just hope we can avoid having anything happen here that would serve to allow comparison.
Your facts are incorrect, Roy
Roy - the earthquake you refer to was in May last year with its epicenter not far from Cúa. Since then there have been two more - one 6.2 off the coast of Falcón and another one in the same area as the one you refer once again to the south of Los Teques.
Yes, I agree we dod not want "comparisons " here but I see that you continue to make inane statements such as "I shudder to think..." with no foundation for such fears and when you have no idea about what would happen. It sounds to me as if you watch too much Globovisión.
John (Evers)
To begin with
Thank you guys for thinking about Chile right now. It was a heavy earthquake, really big: 8.8 Richter scale.
I won't enter the debate regarding Venezuela's capacity to handle a terremote like this. However, keep in mind that Chile is located in a sysmic area, hence it is prepared to tackle the situation. Contingency strategies have existed for decades. When it comes to readiness, Chile is much, much closer to Japan's capabilities to manage the disaster than to Haiti. Of course, it would have been worse if the epicenter had been Santiago, but it ridiculous to think that it Santiago would look anything like Port Au Prince. In 1985, a similar quake hit Santiago and the city held its own, save for some very old buildings. The same happened today, there's some damaged infrastructure, but it is not very serious. The same cannot be said for Juan Fernandez island, which is under water. Nonetheless, the alert system worked just in time, so plenty of people were able to "run to the hills"
It is too early to tell whether Chile will need, or not, international assistance. So far, President Bachelet and her cabinet are handling the situation just fine. The upcoming administration is also following closely the situation and are working in close collaboration.
People are prepared, and know what to do when a quake strikes. Schools train kids for situations like this,every 4 months or so, students have safety and evacuation rehearsals.
Again, thanks for caring :)
Colombia is not authoritarian it is terrorist
Just read this news story which I found on Axis of Logic. The source is Pravda. http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58654.shtml
Why was this not reported widely as the author of the piece questions? If this had happened in Venezuela, for example, you would be at the OAS Human Rights commission right now. Has this commission condemned this finding? The answer is a definite "no". So much for objectivity and fairness by Santiago Canton and his mob.
Now, Juan, if you admire a state which allows such slaughter, you must still admire what Pinochet did and support the Pinochet Foundation?
It's open to debate whether Venezuela is "authoritarian" as you so gleefully put it but it is not open to debate that Colombia certainly practises state terror against its own citizens. TYhis is just the latest evidence.
At least Venezuela is fully democratic after a referendum was held on term limits and the result was to remove them - whether you like it or not.
Instead of trying to twist the Colombian court's decision to suit your anti Chávez stance, why not report on the reasons why the 2009 law (1354?) was rejected by the court?
It makes you realize how manipulative the whole Uribe campaign had been to try and change the constitution yet again. Check it out and then answer. I heard the whole "sentencia" yesterday live on Globo.
John (Evers)
John, how can you have a Venezuelan passport
tell us...when did you arrive to Venezuela?
Arrival in Venezuela
Kepler - I arrived yesterday.
John (Evers)
John (Evers)
Congratulations on your new employment. I know it is not much. It is sort of like being a prostitute... you were going to do it anyway, so you might as well get paid for it. Anyway, I suppose it pays the bills. Keep up the good work.
Level of intelligence indicator
Roy - your last comment which amounts to little more than a backhanded insult is the real indicator of your deficient intelligence level. It would help is you reined in the insults and got your facts correct instead of just typing inaccuracies and speculative claptrap.
John (Evers)
Wow, are you irritating...
John,
You have to learn your new job better. The idea is appear to be the voice of reason, while spreading the party-line propaganda. This means that you can't take offense and thus appear petty. To do this effectively requires some subtlety.
I, on the other hand, am beholden to no one, and free to call 'em like I see 'em. That means I can freely insult you and not lose. You are not in the same position. By the use of an insult that was almost too direct to even be called back-handed, I got you to come out and call me "stupid" in so many words, meaning I got under your skin.
Go back and read the PSF Handbook again.
Why doesn't IACHR investigate paramilitary massacre in Colombia?
Oh wait, they do.
Thanks you Quico.
Excellent news Quico. Thank you for taking time to find the link for us all. I stand corrected and will now have to elevate the IACHR one notch in my appreciation. Thanks again!!
John (Evers)
You know how I know you're retarded, John?
You link to an article that claims things like "After Chavez successfully gained the first release of the FARC prisoners ever, on January 11, 2008" (emphasis mine), which points to an article from pravda (aka, the Russian version of Weekly Word News or The National Enquirer), which in turn was a translation of an article in portuguese published on "O Estado de Sao Paulo".
And THEN you claim crap like "Now, Juan, if you admire a state which allows such slaughter, you must still admire what Pinochet did and support the Pinochet Foundation?"
Let's see, the AUC activities cover a period of around 20 years (1980's-2003). Should I mention how many people have been murdered in Venezuela in the last five years? (Hint: the number is much higher than the deaths caused by the AUC). Now tell me, Johnny, which country's government spent the most money trying to capture/kill those who committed those murders? The Colombian government who has their military on full alert every day trying to smack down all the various groups of retards-with-guns-and-a-mission who plague the hillsides, or the Venezuelan government who has never moved a single finger to even pretend to try to reduce the murder rate in Venezuela and actually does a lot to arm the various groups (La Piedrita, Tupamaros, etc) that committed a sizable amount of those murders?
Which "state allows such slaughter", eh? The one that spends a huge chunk of its GDP trying to stop it or the one that it's too busy creating ALBA houses in Bolivia and giving gifts to Cuba to bother thinking about all those that get killed in the barrios every day?
And do take into account that most of the time when the AUC was ravaging through Colombia, the presidents were liberals (Virgilio Varco 86-90, César Gaviria 90-94, and Ernesto Samper 94-98). But clearly Uribe is to blame for what the AUC was doing before he became a president, right?
Anoymous - you know very little ie nothing
Educate yourself. Uribe was the intellectual drive behind the setting up of the paracos in the 1980's after his father was murdered by the FARC.
"From 1980 to 1982, Uribe was head of Civil Aviation (Aerocivil) in Colombia and controlled all of the aviation licensing throughout the country at a time when small planes did most of the drug running.When Uribe was governor of Antioquía department in the mid-1990s, he helped set up a paramilitary force called Convivir," http://www.narconews.com/Issue29/article729.html
There's your link. He also worked for Pablo Escobar.
Don't confuse paramilitary death squad operations with homicides in Venezuela. If you do then you are more stupid than your comment betrays.
John, I resent being compared to your girlfriend that way
Again, your quotes:
"Colombia is not authoritarian it is terrorist"
"Now, Juan, if you admire a state which allows such slaughter"
First, the presidents of Colombia, you know, the ones who are supposed to make the decisions regarding what "the state allows" and what it doesn't, were LIBERAL. Two of them (Gaviria and Samper), are known Chavez sympathizers. If you want to qualify them (and the states they presided) as terrorists, be my guest.
"Don't confuse paramilitary death squad operations with homicides in Venezuela. If you do then you are more stupid than your comment betrays."
I'm pretty sure the children whose father was killed an AUC death squad suffers in a completely different way that a child whose father was killed in a Venezuelan barrio to steal his shoes. Clearly the suffering is completely different.
Death is death. And it's the government's job to prevent the death of its citizens no matter what causes the death.
Your pitiful point was that the Colombian "state" (a word that doesn't mean what you think it means) allowed the AUC killings and therefore it should qualify as a terrorist. Was Gaviria the one who allowed it? Or was it Samper? Maybe you'll blame Virgilio Varco, then. Because nobody outside the president at the time and his cabinet would qualify as the Colombian "state". What a Dilbert-lookalike was doing somewhere else on his own accord (according to a laughably biased source) doesn't qualify as the doings of "the Colombian state". And last I checked, the AUC exists no more thanks to Uribe, and all former leaders are either dead or in jail. Perhaps the word "allows" doesn't mean what you think it means either.
And the comparison with Venezuelan crime is dead on. The notion that the AUC Death squads (who killed people to protect their illegal businesses), are a completely different thing from the Venezuelan barrio mafias (who kill people to protect their illegal businesses) is retarded. And the fact that the Colombian "state" did more to attack the AUC that Chavez has ever done to reduce the murders in the barrios is undeniable as well.
FYI
It is Virgilio Barco, and yes you are right...
Colombian and Honduran Constitutions
"To a lot of people, Uribe is an authoritarian leader. But... "
LOL.
It's a sign of progress that you oppo folks are beginning to flake away from the essentially leftist notion that anyone who opposes Che Guevara and defends private property and constitutional law is a no-good right-wing power-hungry so-and-so.
(well, the "Che" remark is an unfair exaggeration, but I want you to be as upset as I am..)
Your essentially hostille reactions to Honduras's self-defense was a case in point, and now it seems Uribe's deferral to the rule of law looks to you like - dunno exactly, but somehow an uncharacteristic aberration that just happens to be lucky for Colombia.
SO I REPEAT - what will YOUR constitution look like in 2025 when you are running the country? Have you given it any thought at all? If Colombian constitutional law is strong enough to withstand what you say is an "auithoritarian", is it because the authoritarian isn't one after all, ("democratic authoritarian" or not) or is it because there was a well-conceived constitution to begin with? One that the people will support for a change?
Will you not take a look at the Colombian constitution's provisions that protect the nation's electoral rules, and see if they just might be fit to be in yours someday?
Or will you keep telling me gringos should butt out of your business and besides Chavez is too striong for you and the job of fixing things is impossible in your lifetimes, given your culture or whatever?
I still say the time to get on the ball is NOW. I'd do it for you if I could, but I can only kibitz and pester you until you take time out from Chavez-bashing and think about what comes next.
The future belongs to you young Venezuelan Turks, and you're blowing it if you don't soon write a "shadow" constitution to tell the world just what kind of law you'd like to be ruled by in your "rule of law". Once you see your own ideas in writing, and like it, maybe others will like it too. I dare you to make it agreeable to the barrios as well. I think you can. You're the ones who think it may be a waste of time for this reason or that, not me.
Maybe these "right-wingers" can teach you something about the power of strong, fair rules.
[Hey. Don't jump to any conclusions about my politics, just because I did it to you... My liberal mother and Socialist father taught me to respect everyone's opinions - just not those goddam right-wingers... They'd be horrified at me today for defending anyone who makes sense.]
Well. I still love you guys. Especially Katy.
:-D
Best,
Deedle
Which part of Colombia's constitution brings back these 2000?
Sorry, Deedle - Uribe stepped over lines that would land anybody normal in jail for a very long time.
Not to defend Uribe or anything...
... but how is he guilty of this?
Juan, ask that about
Hugo of Sabaneta, about anyone else anywhere. At the very least, he is not aware of what his people are doing. And 2000 (min) is a lot.
This is nothing new and he needed at the very least to keep an eye on it, to push for investigations, etc.
Uribe had to have known about Macarena murders
carried out years into his term, apparently by elements of an army that Uribe dedicated all of his time to leading, it's very, very hard to see how an operation this size gets going without the top guy knowing about it, or at least creating a climate in the security forces that generates incentives for this kind of thing (c.f., in this regard, "false positives.")
This is classic Draining-the-Swamp counterinsurgency: FARC were hard to counter in that area because they had solid support from the civilian population. Get rid of the civilian support network and you get rid of FARC.
Here, again, is where we get to Colombia's weird double nature as a functioning democratic state led by a guy with a terrifying comfort level with violence, because the Colombian state *is* investigating the mass grave (through the Fiscalía) and it doesn't seem that's a process the army or the executive can really control.
I don't know how you can prosecute a National Hero like Uribe, even if direct evidence linking him personally to these crimes is produced. I do think that, in time, Colombians are going to reckon squarely with these issues. We're talking about mass graves, man...
But here we come back to why it's so important that Uribe won't be allowed to stand again. The Colombian state's ability to sustain the independence of the branches of government isn't limitless, and nothing would do more to undermine it than perpetual re-election.
Macarena graveyard
Adam Isacson had an article about this:
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1325
Basically, it's waaaay too early to point fingers in any directions.
Santiago García
Good catch, Santiago...
...so the violations aren't as brazen as first appeared.
My sense is that, over the next generation, Colombians are going to have to reassess the Uribe period. For ordinary Colombians, finally able to live and travel around in safety under a state that actually asserts control over most of the places where people actually live, is a massive improvement, no doubt about it, and nobody's going to take that away from Uribe.
That Colombians don't seem to much care if a few hundred indigents got shot up in the process by overeager army commanders looking to juke the stats is a testament to the coarsening of public morals there under the anguish caused by war. I find it really hard to accept, but then again, I didn't ever have to live in a country constantly on the edge, so it's hard to put myself in their shoes.
For now, though, the important thing is that there appear to be state structures independent enough to take up the strain in Colombia, investigating what needs investigating and responding to citizens demands. That Colombia appears to be emerging from 45 years of civil war with a democratic state more or less intact is an amazing achievement. But by trying to stay on and on in power, Uribe shifted his role from that of the Hero of the story to something much more mixed: someone who might have destroyed his own achievement if he'd gotten his way.
Macarena long the Wild West
Over three decades ago Sierra de Macarena was a wild zone. Even then it was a FARC stronghold- at least enough of a stronghold for the FARC to have a reputation for killing and kidnapping in that zone. For that very reason,Peace Corps members were directed to not go there. That leads me to conclude that some of those unidentified bodies have been there for a while.
The Peace Corps left Colombia circa 1981.Perhaps they returned. I haven't checked.
Boludo Tejano