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As part of the “Americanization” of Sarah Palin, the whirlwind tour of the UN organized by the Palin-McCain campaign to qualify her as an expert in foreign relations ahead of her term as VPOTUS, Palin met with no other than the sadly famous Alvaro Uribe, a.k.a. the “para-president” of Colombia. As one of Uribe's faithful sycophants described the meeting in the forums of El Espectador, Uribe is nothing less than a “world class leader and statesman”. A real hit, Sarah! Way to go!
Indeed Uribe is recognized around the world for his outstanding services to the nation, from the very beginning of his brilliant career as statesman, in creating and fostering the most horrendous gang of political assassins ever known to earth, known as the “paramilitaries”, with the purpose of combating the longstanding insurgency of the equally infamous FARC, while at the same time taking control of the drug trade, expropriating vast extensions of productive land, displacing millions of peasants, eliminating all left-leaning opposition, weakening trade unions by the outright killing of members and leaders, and insuring power for the Colombian right-wing per secula seculorum, Amen.
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Surely the para-presidente found in Palin a twin soul, who just like him is on a mission from God. As the beachhead for US foreign policy in Latin America, one can suspect that Uribe was warmly congratulated by Palin for his successes, most of them involving maiming and blood, without knowing, of course, what she was talking about.
The “very constructive” meeting was dedicated to push for the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, a major concern of Uribe, who pretends to make it one of his major achievements, to cover up for the rest which all have a reddish tint. The Colombian FTA will insure the flow of international capital to Colombia while destroying local industry, commerce and running into the ground the flaky rate of employment, but with expected successes like achieving a rate of poverty beyond the current 50%.
With that Uribe will secure a place in history, and why not, maybe a Nobel prize in Economics, or even better, Peace. Why not? He's such a genius, truly a superior intelligence, and besides, he's one of the few political leaders in history to govern with close to 100% of popular approval. Democracy as we know it will not be the same after him. According to Uribe, who just last week invaded Washington DC with a force of about 80+ furybistas to lobby for the FTA (TLC in Spanish), the meeting, coming after another one the previous night with Bill Clinton, was part of the “bipartisan strategy” that Colombia is allegedly pursuing in order to get the FTA approved by the current Congress.
According to Uribe, from Bill Clinton he received strong support from inside the Democratic Party. It is well known that the Palin-McCain ticket will support it. Wall Street, after all, will be the main beneficiary from it, together with its Colombian counterparts.
In the immortal words of the Colombian Chancellor “for Colombia, bipartisan support in the US is fundamental; we have a tradition of bipartisan support from congress since Plan Colombia; and of course, we aspire to have the TLC approved with bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans alike. The meetings we had, to talk with one and the other to reach that goal, sought to insure that we have an excellent relationship with whoever is the next president of the United States, like we traditionally have.”
It doesn’t matter that most Colombian analysts discount the victory of the Palin-McCain ticket as a sure thing. Or that future US President Barack Obama himself told Uribe that he will not support the Treaty until the murder of trade unionists in Colombia ceases, and the culprits are thrown in jail. That means, never.
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Colombia, a society of opportunity and non-violence, says Uribe.
During a meeting Uribe had with Colombians “coming from all the territories of the Americas” (according to SEMANA) a presentation was made of a public relations campaign entitled “Colombia is Passion.”
The presentation was criticized by the attendees not only because they, who send more than 4 billion dollars yearly to Colombia, were not represented, but because the presentation only showed the beautiful side of Colombia, its abundance of “sunny beaches, fruits, colorful birds” while the murderous passion that has bloodied the land with the “war on drugs” and Uribe’s trademarked “democratic security” policy was not well represented. We need to see more blood, more bombs, more maimed, more displaced peasants, more murdered trade unionists, the millions of unemployed college graduates, more beheadings, and a few bloodied chainsaws, or in other words, the reality of the Uribe legacy, the attendees complained.
Like the good and patient father he is, Uribe responded that recently his legislators had proposed a law to replace the depiction of Panama in the Colombian coat of arms, with a bloody chainsaw, the tool of choice of his friends and political allies the paramilitaries, for disemboweling their victims while still alive, so they did not float once they were thrown into the Colombian rivers of death.
“Uribe suavely reprimanded the presenter for the omission,” says the report in SEMANA, and underlined the efforts and work ethic of Colombians for getting ahead. In words that will no doubt be engraved in stone by future generations of furybistas and will certainly be taught in many a Colombian bilingual school, Uribe spoke about the circumstances that forced many Colombians to leave the country: “Whoever wants to leave, he/she may do it; but it is never because of the lack of opportunity nor because of violence. They leave because they want other opportunities, not because they don’t have them here.”
Unfazed, some of the attendees requested the support of the government to obtain Temporary Protected Status (TPS) , granted by US immigration authorities to those who cannot return to their countries because of especial circumstances like an armed conflict, a natural disaster, or other temporary conditions.
Ambassador Carolina Barco sagely expressed that “the issue is complex” and spoke about the work done with other Latin American countries (Ecuador? Venezuela? Nicaragua?) in that regard.
One of the commenters to this article relates that
“five years ago many Colombians got together to push for TPS... we initially contacted Chancellor Carolina Barco, who wrote a petition to be delivered to Colin Powell, the secretary of State. We celebrated that with many a party since we considered it done.
The Chancellor then returns to Colombia, Uribe comes, returns to Colombia and two days later Powell publishes a communiqué rejecting the petition, explaining that Uribe told him that there was no armed conflict in Colombia.”
Concludes the commenter, “a normal person can’t understand, that we have millions of Urine followers in the US, who have no papers [are illegal, in other words], who don’t even have a driver’s license, and still pee on themselves, overcome with emotion, for Uribe.”
Saint Uribe for eternal president.
The crowing jewel of the meeting was the petition of the attendees that the Colombian government should help them to get organized in order for the Colombian community to gain some political power. We Colombians always go to daddy for help.
In many localities the number of Colombians should make possible to elect someone to public positions but they have not been able to do so. Candidates have been presented but with little success, while “other communities, like the Dominicans, have done it, often with Colombian votes.” Perhaps Uribe will repeat these complaints to papa Bush.
Surely the hopes are high that Uribe will come and lend a hand so that Colombians in New York, for example, who are deeply divided by opportunism, regionalism, class, racism and partisanship, can at least elect a councilmember in the next century (Like EL Cid, Uribe will do battle even after death).
Unfortunately, like many recent immigrant groups, they continue to be preoccupied with the politics of Colombia, remain ignorant about the political system in the US, are not citizens or are not registered to vote “because all politicians are the same,” and besides, live dispersed from one another because they cannot tolerate one another, much less the success of other Colombians.
As a consequence of those important series of meetings between the statesman and community "leaders" we can look forward to the great contributions that Colombians will make to New York and to US politics, where they will run a campaign of "arepas and ponchos for all" in order to get their foot into the doors of power, while they -if ever- organize to launch the candidacy of Uribe for President of the United States. “Eh! Ave Maria, Virgen San Pedro, sin pecado concebida.” Keep on praying, furybistas, because that will take you to high places, and soon.
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SEMANA
El Espectador
Photo from El Espectador
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To conclude, I leave you with a You Tube video that is witness to the welcoming support that 95% of Colombian residents in the US gave to our world-class statesman.
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This diary was edited Sunday October 7, 2012 to correct typos and turns of phrase.
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