Free Republic

The War On Drugs: Only Osama bin Laden had a higher price on his head than cocaine lord Diego Montoya, No. 2 on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Now he's in custody, and the U.S. owes Colombia a debt of gratitude. The Colombian army's capture of Pablo Escobar's successor couldn't have been more satisfying. Montoya, capo of Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel, whose spies tracked U.S. Navy warship positions to ensure control of 70% of the cocaine headed for the U.S., got busted Monday wearing only his dirty underwear. "I lost," was the toppled kingpin's only observation. The rest of...

Colombians reckon that Álvaro Uribe saved their country. It's a pity for them that so many outsiders don't see their president that way WHEN hundreds of thousands of Colombians poured into the streets on July 5th to protest at the killing of 11 hostages who had been held by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), President Álvaro Uribe chose to read this as support for his tough security policies. “This demonstration is notice to the international community that we cannot, in this hour of pain, give in to the criminals,” he said. But much of the...

Free Trade: Congressional Democrats justify scrapping a U.S. trade pact with our best ally in the hemisphere on vague claims its government violates human rights. Last week, Colombia's people saw a different enemy. It was couched in syrupy language, but it was as bad a blow to Colombia as any dealt by its enemies. The U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, in a statement by Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel and Sander Levin declared the Democratic Party would deny free trade indefinitely to 46 million Colombians over a few dozen unsolved murders of union activists in the last year....

In the five years between the 2002 kidnapping of 12 state legislators by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the rebels' recent announcement that 11 of those hostages have been killed, much has changed for the better in Colombia. The lawmakers were taken at a time when the state was very weak. Their murders, on the other hand, appear to be a desperate act by a frustrated band of thugs who have failed to achieve their desired results with terror. Colombia today is significantly more secure and economically healthier than it was in 2002. Yet as events in...

"We are not going to allow our relationship with the United States to become that of Master and Colombia as the servile republic" "We are loyal and sincere, we comply with this alliance with the United States" "Why U.S. Congress did not protest in 2000 and 2002 when the country was in hands of guerrillas and paramilitary forces, and now that Colombia is coming loose from that grip they are horrorized? "We are not telling the United States to look after Colombia as its only solid ally left in Latin America; we are instead telling the United States to respect...

How the U.S. Congress deals with U.S.-Colombian relations in the next few weeks will have a lasting impact on U.S. and regional security and prosperity. Colombia is an important country, among other factors because of its seldom-recognized strategic value. Colombia is the keystone of South America, with gateways to the Andes Mountains, the Amazon basin, two oceans, and its close proximity to the Panama Canal. Our enemies recognize that significance. And make no mistake, the Marxist guerrillas who have been fighting for nearly five decades to gain control over Colombia are enemies of the United States and ofthe freedoms we...

First... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi refused to meet with the Pro-American President of Colombia Alvaro Uribe when he came to Washington to personally beg democrats to release funding to aid their military. Pelosi shut him out. In late April the American Spectator wrote this about the destructive actions by Speaker Pelosi: She has third parties (Far Left groups) who have encouraged her not to take the meeting," says a leadership aide, who said a coalition of labor organizations and MoveOn.org had been pressuring her to not meet with Uribe. "We've never seen anything like it. It's not like...

Colombia has its human rights problems, but in one respect it's a poster child for law-enforcement progress. Once the kidnapping capital of the world, Colombia claims to have slashed its snatching-for-profit business by 88% since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002. The man who may know the kidnapping business personally is Uribe's vice president, Francisco Santos, who was snatched in 1990 and held hostage by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Escobar, head of the Medellin cartel, was seeking to pressure the Colombian government not to extradite him to the United States to face drug charges. Santos was a young editor...

Latin America: As U.S. allies go, we can't get one better than Colombia. It helps us a lot and now seeks free trade. But all it gets from Congress is a slap in the face. We now risk losing a vital ally. President Alvaro Uribe is Colombia's greatest leader since its 1824 independence. His achievements in diminishing a 44-year war and turning Colombia into a free-market garden spot are on a par with Lincoln's and Reagan's. Yet as little as he has to be modest about, his leadership is derided and undercut in Congress. In six short years, Uribe has...

The recent deal between Congress and the White House clears the way for the ratification of free-trade agreements with Panama and Peru, two American allies in Latin America. But what about Colombia? Colombia has risked the lives of its police and military and sustained huge casualties in an effort to do us a favor by keeping drugs off our streets. Our military aid to Colombia has not been frittered away on useless hardware or used to line some general’s pockets, but has paid for a military that has disarmed the drug dealers’ personal armies — 30,000 have been disarmed —...

BOGOTA - Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday the U.S. Congress must stop treating his government like a pariah over a scandal involving right-wing paramilitaries and approve a free-trade pact like those proposed with Peru and Panama. Uribe is Washington's closest ally in Latin America but is struggling to convince U.S. Democrats who control Congress that he has curbed suspected ties between some of his political allies and illegal paramilitaries accused of atrocities. "We will not accept approval of trade pacts for Peru and Panama and that Colombia, in this battle, gets treated like a pariah. That is unacceptable,"...

Consider the record of Alvaro Uribe, president of Colombia, since his election in 2002. A deal with paramilitary forces has resulted in more than 31,000 fighters surrendering their weapons. By boosting the size and strength of security forces and going after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Mr. Uribe was able to reduce the guerilla's presence in central Colombia. The country is safer -- the annual murder count, on a steady increase before Mr. Uribe took office, has declined by more than one-third -- and Colombia is more prosperous. The rate of increase in gross domestic product has gone...

BOGOTA, Colombia – A roadside bomb planted by leftist rebels killed 10 soldiers as they patrolled in southwestern Colombia on Thursday, the deadliest attack on security forces this year, authorities said. A similar attack killed nine police officers a day earlier. The new attack, which also injured 13 soldiers, occurred shortly after midnight Thursday morning, said the commander of the army's 3rd Division, Gen. Hernando Perez Molina, who blamed Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

  FOR COLOMBIA, A CHILL ON HILL By ROBERT D. NOVAK May 10, 2007 -- COLOMBIA'S President Alvaro Uribe re turned to Bogota this week in a state of shock. His three-day visit to Washington to win over Democrats in Congress was described by one U.S. supporter as "catastrophic." Colombian sources said Uribe was stunned by the ferocity of his Democratic opponents, and Vice President Francisco Santos publicly talked about cutting U.S.-Colombian ties. (snip) dictator Hugo Chavez can only exult in Uribe's embarrassment as he builds an anti-U.S. bloc. (snip) A truer portent of the Colombian reaction to the rebuff...

Sen. Patrick Leahy last week put a hold on $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia, citing the increasing number of reports of collaboration between Colombian officials and right-wing paramilitaries. The scandal, widely called "para-politics," has rattled Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's government, hurting the president both in Colombia and in the United States. Nine Colombian legislators and a governor have been arrested, and the former foreign minister and head of the national police have also been implicated. The revelation most devastating for Mr. Uribe's reputation in the United States came last month, when a CIA report that alleged collaboration between...

The US Senate has frozen the transfer of millions of dollars in funds to the Colombian military pending investigations into concerns over human rights abuses and alleged ties between the country's armed forces and paramilitary groups. The decision to suspend 25 per cent of US military aid, worth $55.2m (€40.6m, £27.5m), was adopted by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate appropriations committee's subcommittee on state and foreign operations, who is an outspoken critic of the level of military aid being sent to Colombia.