US academics write letter of protest against Uribe .

[Judi Lynn]

US academics write letter of protest against Uribe .
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 09:01
Teresa Welsh

Academics from around the United States voiced their support of Colombian Jesuit Javier Giraldo's protests against former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's appointment at Georgetown, according to Caracol Radio.

A letter, addressed to Georgetown president John DeGoia, is circulating across the country and requests that DeGoia "reconsider his decision to name Alvaro Uribe in Georgetown in light of the concerns raised . His presence here is an affront to academics and their educational mission."

Uribe has been appointed as a guest lecturer at the Washington, D.C. university's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, amid protests from students and human rights activists.

The original letter written by Giraldo on September 6 was sent to U.S. Jesuit John Dear saying that Uribe's presence at Georgetown is "offensive" and "puts at risk" the ethical development of students who attend his lectures.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12080-academics-uribe-protest-georgetown.html

[rabs]

1. A "special homage" to uribe from obama

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, United States President Barack Obama praised former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's "courage" for "voluntarily leaving power."

-http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12007-obama-uribe-democracy.html

-------------------

"voluntarily leaving power."

Yep, one day after Panetta visited uribe for one hour in Bogota on the eve of the Constitutional Court decision that scrapped uribito's bid for a national referendum that would have given him a third term.

It is highly unlightly that obama even has heard of the yidis-political scandal that allowed uribito's second presidential term in 2006, and which now is sending a bunch of crooked, uribista politicians to jail.

Once again it shows the White House guy is clueless about Latin American realities.

---------------------

The Spanish news agency EFE reported that Obama had expressed "a special homage" to uribe.

Obama rinde un homenaje al ex presidente colombiano Álvaro Uribe en su discurso ante la ONU
Por Agencia EFE – hace 6 días

Naciones Unidas, 23 sep (EFE).- El presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, rindió hoy un homenaje especial al ex mandatario colombiano Álvaro Uribe, en su discurso ante la 65 Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5hwp9wTHR_9Y4m7bS9m4REX0u8DOw

[Bacchus39]

2. when Uribe first went to the WH and met Obama, Obama said "two terms is enough"

right there when both were together.


Obama WAS clueless about Latin American realities during the campaign when he said he would meet with Chavez and Castro. Now that he has been president for awhile and obviously has since learned that 1) there is no reason to meet with them 2) its best to ignore them

Obama is living the reality that there is no use in talking to Hugo or Castro, rather expend his efforts with countries willing to partner with the US to some degree or the other. Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Argentina and all the other non-Alba nations there might even be some coordination with Ecuador for that matter.

[subsuelo]

4. No, Obama is living the reality that the U.S. is an imperialist bully

and he can't (or won't) do anything about it.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Uribe's "courage" for "voluntarily leaving power"? That's hilarious.

And, unfortunately, I don't think Obama is clueless. I think he knows what went down with Uribe. My suspicion is that one of the conditions Obama agreed to, to be permitted into the White House, was no investigation/prosecution of the Bush Junta's war crimes, and another condition was appointment of Leon Panetta, a member of Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group," to head the CIA. One of Panetta's jobs, in my opinion, is to cleanse Junior's bloody trail. And one of those bloody trails, I strongly suspect, runs through Colombia.

And these may be among the clues:

1) The secret military agreement that Uribe signed, last year, with U.S. Bushwhack ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield (whom Obama left in place until about a month ago), granting total diplomatic immunity to all U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia, no matter what they do (or did?) in Colombia;

2) the extradition of key witnesses in death squad investigations, to the U.S., on mere drug trafficking charges, and their being buried in the U.S. federal prison system, with complete sealing of their cases, putting them out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors (who remain very angry about it);

3) the recent U.S. State Department "fining" of Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" in Colombia "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan";

4) the La Macarena massacre in the midst of a 'pacification' program that was certainly Pentagon/USAID-designed and involved a Colombian commander "trained" by the UK military (or so he said); and

5) Uribe's pervasive spying program, including creating a "list" of trade unionists likely for targeting by death squads.

Brownfield was left in place to get the first two things done--get Uribe's SIGNATURE (however dubious it was constitutionally) on a total diplomatic immunity document, which also granted SIGNED official permission for the U.S. military to occupy at least 7 more military bases in Colombia, and U.S. military use of all civilian infrastructure in Colombia, and some other similar things, that were apparently occurring ILLEGALLY or were skirting legality, and to get the key death squad witnesses out of the Colombia prosecutors' control and into U.S. control.

Missions accomplished.

One other thing: Those who were promoting the secretly negotiated military agreement, after it was revealed, defended it as merely ratifying "existing arrangements." (Both Pentagon and Colombian military spokespeople said this.) The agreement has since (recently) been declared unconstitutional by Colombia's Supreme Court. So Uribe and the Bush Junta were conducting unconstitutional military operations in Colombia.

What these "tip of the iceberg" items point to--items that have come to us in fragmented fashion, in various news articles over the last year--is a list of possible Bush Junta crimes in Colombia that includes:

--the Bush Junta Pentagon/'contractor' involvement in killing Colombians, whether unarmed civilians exercising their civil and human rights, or random civilians in the hideous "false positives" program or armed leftist guerrillas, for instance, in the bombing/raid on Ecuador, with the U.S. operating illegally, or extra-legally, in Colombia (without the knowledge or consent of the Colombia legislature and the courts)

--Bush Junta Pentagon technical aid to Uribe for vast domestic spying (and death squad targeting)

--Bush Jr authorization of the above

--Bush Junta (transition to Obama) coverup of Uribe's crimes, of the crimes of high up Colombian military personnel with close ties to the Pentagon and its private "contactors", and coverup of Bush Junta authorization of crimes by U.S. personnel.

And I would add suspicion of...

--stateside corruption in the $7 BILLION in military aid to Colombia (--if they could 'lose' a billion dollars in Iraq, they likely 'lost' some in Colombia)

--corrupt use of the U.S. "war on drugs" to displace 5 million peasant farmers from their lands, with state terror, for U.S. corporate purposes and for favoring the Uribe/Bush protected drug lords.

--Bush Junta drugs and weapons trafficking

--a Pentagon war plan against Venezuela, with Colombia as the launching pad.


Uribe was in great peril of being prosecuted in Colombia, for the same list of crimes--close ties to the death squads, bribery, spying and drug trafficking--that some seventy of his closest political cronies are being investigated/prosecuted for, or are already in jail for. If Uribe is prosecuted, he is not going to go quietly. He knows where the Bush Junta "bodies are buried" (so to speak--and maybe quite literally). Panetta visited Uribe amidst rumors of a Uribe coup to stay in power. Uribe was not about to yield power with so many prosecutable crimes piled up. Panetta wanted El Stinko out, for various reasons, including the obdurate labor Democrats in the U.S. Congress who have been holding up the U.S./Colombia "free trade for the rich" agreement (over the Colombian military/death squad murders of trade unionists). So Panetta had to guarantee Uribe CIA protection (physical protection, legal protection, political cover) as the price for his silence. Thus, Obama appointed Uribe to a prestigious international legal commission (the one investigating Israel's firing on aid boats), and the Jesuits gave him a juicy academic sinecure at Georgetown (which at least one Jesuit in Colombia, who is living with threats from the death squads, has strongly objected to).

And Obama has praised Uribe's "courage" for "voluntarily leaving power."

:rofl:

:puke:

[EFerrari]

3. Invisible rec. I guess there are supporters for that butcher here.

Who knew.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Over 150 Scholars Call on Georgetown U. to Fire Alvaro Uribe

September 29, 2010
2:59 PM

Over 150 Scholars Call on Georgetown U. to Fire Alvaro Uribe

WASHINGTON - September 29 - Students are delivering an open letter to Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia today, signed by over 150 scholars, urging the university to reconsider its appointment of former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe as a visiting scholar. Signed by a number of Georgetown professors, leading scholars on Colombia, and many others, the letter objects to Uribe's ties to paramilitary groups, the "false positives" scandal (in which members of the Colombian military killed civilians and dressed the bodies in the uniforms of guerrillas), corruption and human rights violations in his administration, manipulation of the judiciary, and a notorious wiretapping scandal, among other concerns.

"Given the human rights scandals associated with Álvaro Uribe's administration, and the ties between his administration and illegal paramilitary groups, it is disturbing that Georgetown University has chosen to host him this year," said Lesley Gill, Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University.

Signers of the letter include Joanne Rappaport, a Colombia expert and Professor of Anthropology and Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University; Greg Grandin, Professor of History at New York University and author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist book Fordlandia; Yale University professor Gilbert M. Joseph; and Father Ray Kemp, Senior Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown, among many others.

The full text of the letter follows:

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/09/29-2