Asesoría sin honorarios para Uribe

Por León Valencia

OPINIÓN  Sería bueno que le contara a la Corte lo que le han dicho a la justicia colombiana y a los medios algunos testigos claves de las andanzas de la Drummond.

 

Sábado 26 Febrero 2011

Hasta el 11 de marzo tiene plazo el Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos para decidir si obliga al expresidente Álvaro Uribe a comparecer ante la Corte Federal de Columbia para presentar su testimonio en el proceso que se adelanta contra la Drummond Company por colaborar con paramilitares en Colombia o acepta la petición de inmunidad que hizo el gobierno colombiano al final del año pasado.

No es fácil la decisión. Decidir que Uribe asista a la Corte es perder la autoridad para reclamar que los mandatarios norteamericanos sean cobijados por la inmunidad en juicios de otros países. Pero acordar que Uribe no se presente es subordinar los derechos humanos y la justicia a las conveniencias políticas.

En Colombia se da por hecho que la justicia de Estados Unidos protegerá al expresidente Uribe, pero en caso de que esto no ocurra, en caso de que el Departamento de Justicia decida privilegiar los derechos humanos, sería muy bueno que nuestro exmandatario le contara a la Corte que lo cita lo que le han dicho a la justicia colombiana y a los medios de comunicación algunos paramilitares o testigos claves de las andanzas de la Drummond.

Rafael García, exjefe de informática del DAS; Edwin Guzmán, exmilitar y desmovilizado de las AUC; Alberto Visbal, paramilitar; Isnardo Ropero, vigilante de casas en Valledupar, y George Pirce, extrabajador de la Drummond, han señalado que la Drummond sostuvo relaciones con Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias ‘Jorge 40’, y contribuyó por largo tiempo a la financiación del Bloque Norte de las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia; también que pagó por los asesinatos de los dirigentes sindicales Valmore Locarno y Víctor Orcasita, en hechos ocurridos el 14 de marzo de 2001.

Entre las versiones está la aseveración de que Rafael Araújo, gerente de Relaciones Comunitarias de la Drummond, amigo desde la infancia de alias ‘Jorge 40’, fue quien sirvió de enlace entre la multinacional y los paramilitares.

En 1999, después de varias reuniones, acordaron que la Drummond financiaría la creación del frente Juan Andrés Álvarez, un grupo que rápidamente reunió a 200 hombres bien armados y fue responsable de varias masacres y de una campaña de terror alrededor de la vía férrea por donde se transportaba el carbón de la compañía.

En el caso de la muerte de los sindicalistas, el testimonio más concreto es el de Alberto Visbal, quien manifestó que uno de sus hombres aseguró haber visto cuando Augusto Jiménez, gerente en Colombia de la Drummond, le entregó 200.000 dólares a Jorge 40 para neutralizar a los sindicalistas Locarno y Orcasita.

La justicia de Estados Unidos ya emitió un fallo desestimando la responsabilidad de la Drummond en los asesinatos de sindicalistas y ahora se apresta a culminar un proceso en el que las víctimas insisten en la vinculación de la compañía con los grupos paramilitares.

Bastaría que el expresidente Uribe enunciara estas informaciones, que se pueden corroborar fácilmente en los expedientes o en los artículos de prensa, para que el juicio tomara un nuevo impulso. La voz de Uribe no pasaría inadvertida ante las Cortes norteamericanas.

Sería un gesto hacia las víctimas. Con un testimonio de estos, Uribe compensaría en algo las decisiones que tomó el Estado colombiano para favorecer a la compañía. No hay que olvidar que el Ejército decidió instalar una base militar para prestar seguridad especial a la operación en la mina y al transporte del carbón hasta Santa Marta.

Así mismo, no hace mucho, concedió 17.000 hectáreas más para que la compañía ampliara sus dominios a la mina El Descanso, Rincón Hondo y el Hatillo, con lo cual la empresa se ha convertido en la más grande explotadora de carbón a cielo abierto del mundo.

Sé que estas son sugerencias atrevidas para un exmandatario que se pone furioso cada vez que le mencionan alguna diligencia judicial en relación con los paramilitares, pero con su versión ayudaría mucho a hacer justicia en un caso dramático de abuso de una compañía extranjera sobre ciudadanos colombianos.

The coalition has sneaked a coup on a sleeping public

Its project to drastically remodel British society is speeding ahead without any regard for what it told voters last year

John Harris

Sunday 27 February 2011

As people elsewhere are killed for their belief in democracy and the rule of law, the supposed controversies of British politics inevitably rather fade. By comparison, we live in an Eden of stability, and argue over mere increments: to be getting in a lather about Cameron and Clegg can easily feel not just indulgent, but indecent.

Still, in the broadest terms, there is a tale to be told that includes Westminster as well as Tripoli and Cairo, and underlines what watershed times these are. Much of the world's current tumult is traceable to the long and tangled fall-out from the crash of 2008 (note the role of rising food prices in Middle Eastern unrest). And though most commentators seem either too polite or deluded to recognise it, the British side of this story is rapidly being revealed: not just cuts, but the most far-reaching attempt to remodel British society in 60 years, undertaken at speed, and with a breathtaking disregard for what was offered to the country only months ago. Last week, Labour MP John McDonnell wrote to the Guardian arguing that the increasing gap between claims of fiscal necessity and a transparently ideological project merited another election. It won't happen, but he has a point.

The other day, I picked up a copy of Naomi Klein's underrated book The Shock Doctrine, and was reminded of a celebrated quotation from Milton Friedman: "Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."

The Klein book, published in 2007, examines how Friedman's instructions were followed, and free-market "disaster capitalism" forced on Iraq, eastern Europe, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, in the wake of wars, natural disasters and revolutions (watch out Libya and Egypt). Four years after it came out, I was struck by a simple and mind-boggling fact. Here, as the coalition sets about the benefits system, marketises the NHS, threatens to do the same to schools and now apparently plans to put the entire public sector out to tender, what crisis was it that set the stage? Answer: that of the very economic model that is being pursued as never before. Welcome, then, to a new phase of history, when a crisis of laissez-faire capitalism begets that same system triumphant, something which brings to mind not so much Friedman, as Marshal Foch: "My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I am attacking."

Around the time of last year's comprehensive spending review, some highlighted a "democratic deficit" between what was being proposed and what the Tories and Lib Dems had put before the public. The Fabian Society's Sunder Katwala accused David Cameron of "amnesia about what he did and did not ask for a mandate for". As Katwala pointed out, the central deceit was embodied in a reading of the election in Cameron's 2010 conference speech: "The result may not have been clear-cut when it came to the political parties. But it was clear enough when it came to political ideas." It takes Etonian chutzpah to spin a line as disingenuous as that.

From there, via Cameron's famous insistence that "frontline reductions" weren't an option and a jaw-dropping commitment in the coalition agreement to "end top-down reorganisation of the NHS", the about-turns and unexpected proposals have extended into the distance. Certainly, on VAT, child benefit, the educational maintenance allowance, increasing NHS spending "in real terms every year", incapacity benefit and more, the merchants of anti-politics have conclusive proof that some politicians will say anything to get elected. By way of a contrast, you may think back to Labour's travails over the introduction of top-up fees in 2003, which was ruled out in their pitch to the electorate two years earlier. "It is not a lot for the electorate to expect the government to keep their manifesto commitment," the Lib Dems' then education spokesman told the House of Commons. Now, an entire legislative programme contravenes scores of pledges and offers transformative plans of which there was no warning. No one even flinches.

What are we faced with? A polite kind of coup, in the service of an all-encompassing project that Klein and her followers surely recognise, and of which Friedman would be proud. The Labour party seems punch-drunk, and racked with confusion about how much the coalition has taken from peak-period Blairism (a simple solution: disown those aspects of your disgraced past, and start truly opposing). Every lurch to the free-market right shreds the idea that the Lib Dems are there to pull the Tories back to the centre. With Lib Dem backbench MPs and such grandees as Shirley Williams, I keep having the same conversation. They say they oppose some policies, but are heartened by others, and all is just about OK. In response, the old hippie phrase comes to mind: you are either on the bus, or off the bus.

It speeds on, anyway. And it really is the most amazing thing: not just that this most illegitimate of revolutions is happening, and fast, but that we are sleepwalking into it.

The price of food is at the heart of this wave of revolutions

No one saw the uprisings coming, but their deeper cause isn't hard to fathom

By Peter Popham Sunday, 27 February 2011

Revolution is breaking out all over. As Gaddafi marshals his thugs and mercenaries for a last-ditch fight in Tripoli, several died as protests grew more serious in Iraq. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah tried to bribe his people into docility by splashing out $35bn on housing, social services and education. Across the water in Bahrain the release of political prisoners failed to staunch the uprising. In Iran, President Ahmadinejad crowed about chaos in the Arab world, but said nothing about the seething anger in his own backyard; in Yemen, the opposition gathers strength daily.

And it's not just the Middle East. This is an African crisis: Tunisia, where it started, is an African country, and last week in Senegal, a desperate army veteran died after setting fire to himself in front of the presidential palace, emulating Mohamed Bouazizi, the market trader whose self-immolation sparked the revolution in Tunisia. Meanwhile, the spirit of revolt has already leapt like a forest fire to half a dozen other ill-governed African nations, with serious disturbances reported in Mauritania, Gabon, Cameroon and Zimbabwe.

Nowhere is immune: dozens of activists in China are in detention or under other forms of surveillance, and the LinkedIn network was shut down as authorities seek to stamp out Middle East-style protests there. In what is arguably the most repressive state on the planet, North Korea, the army was called out and five died in the northern city of Sinuiju after violent protests erupted there and in two other cities. The generals who rule Burma under a trashy façade of constitutional government were keeping a close eye on the Middle East, ready to lock up Aung San Suu Kyi again at the first sign of copycat disturbances.

Nowhere is immune to this wave of rebellion because globalisation is a fact; all the world's markets are intricately interlinked, and woe in one place quickly translates into fury in another. Twenty years ago, things were more manageable. When grain production collapsed in the Soviet Union during the 1980s and what had been one of the world's greatest grain exporters became a net importer, the resulting surges of anger brought down the whole Communist system within a couple of years – but stopped there. Today there are no such firebreaks, and thanks to digital communications, events happen much faster.

Why are all these revolutions happening now? Plenty of answers have been offered: the emergence of huge urban populations with college degrees but no prospect of work; the accumulation of decades of resentment at rulers who are "authoritarian familial kleptocracies delivering little to their people", as Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation put it; the subversive role of Facebook and Twitter, fatally undermining the state's systems of thought control.

Absent from this list – to the combined bewilderment and relief of the US and Europe – are the factors that were universally supposed to be driving populist politics in the Middle East: Islamic fundamentalism coupled with anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism. As one Egyptian pointed out after the fall of Mubarak, at no point during weeks of passionate revolt did either the Israeli or the US embassies become a target of the crowd's fury, even though both are within easy reach of

Tahrir Square

. "Not so much as a Coke can was thrown over the wall," he said.

Of course, that does not mean that allies of al-Qa'ida will not seek to exploit the growing chaos in Libya in particular, striving to turn it into a new Somalia-sur-Med. Nor does it guarantee that any of the other revolts will produce stable democracies. Because the real cause of these revolutions, beyond all the chatter about social networks, is a problem that is liable to get worse in coming years rather than better, and that is largely beyond the power of anyone to contain or control.

The first warnings of what was to come appeared in the form of a briefing paper on the website of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in December. "Recent bouts of extreme price volatility in global agricultural markets," it said, "portend rising and more frequent threats to world food security. There is emerging consensus that the global food system is becoming more vulnerable and susceptible to episodes of extreme price volatility. As markets are increasingly integrated in the world economy, shocks in the international arena can now transpire and propagate to domestic markets much quicker than before."

The "shocks" all occurred a long way from Cairo and Tunis. They included fires in Russia last autumn which wiped out hundreds of thousands of acres of grain; heavy rains in Canada, destroying the wheat crop there; hot, dry weather in Argentina which destroyed the soybean crop; the Australian floods which ruined the wheat harvest. The Middle East accounts for one-third of worldwide wheat imports. The combined effect of these far-flung agricultural problems was to bump up the food price index by 32 per cent in the second half of 2010.

The FAO likens "extreme price volatility" to great natural disasters – major earthquakes, tsunamis, catastrophic cyclones. "Historically, bouts of such extreme volatility... have been rare," they say. "To draw the analogy with natural disasters, they typically have a low possibility of occurrence but bring with them extremely high risks and potential costs to society."

A similar chain of unconnected farming catastrophes in early 2008 led to a similar outbreak of "extreme price volatility" around the world which provoked food riots in more than 40 countries, from Haiti to Bangladesh, including Mexico, Uzbekistan and Eritrea but also involving several countries caught up in the present round of uprisings, including Egypt, Yemen, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Zimbabwe. All were among the 80 countries around the world that combine low incomes with food deficits – the need to import food, bringing exposure to wildly fluctuating world market prices. In these poor countries, food purchases can consume 70 per cent of income. The result, when prices of flour and grains shoot up by 30 per cent, is extreme distress – the sort of distress that sends people out into the streets in fury.

Abdolreza Abbassian, FAO's chief economist saw – in his dry, cautious, academic manner – the present turmoil coming. "It's getting a little bit uncomfortable," he said back in December. "A lot of countries, especially the poorer ones, have to rely so much on world markets. They have to import food at much higher prices. Whether or not this will lead to domestic problems, turmoil, demonstrations, riots, the kind of things we saw in 2008, it is not possible to predict."

For the poor of the Middle East, the price shocks at the start of this year were like experiencing a second killer earthquake in three years – but unlike with an earthquake, there was someone you could blame. So angry were the food price protesters in Tunisia that, after Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali declared a state of emergency and promised to reduce the price of food. But it was too little, too late: by mid-January he was gone.

Tunisia's turmoil, warned The Washington Post as the toppled president flew off into exile, "has economists worried that we may be seeing the beginning of a second wave of global food riots". As we know now, it turned out somewhat differently. Food riots in 2008, revolutions in 2011 – what, where, who is next?

Wisconsin is making the battle lines clear in America's hidden class war

The brazen choices of the Republican governor shows the real ideology behind attacks on unions – in the US and beyond

Gary Younge

Sunday 27 February 2011 17.59 GMT

You can tell a great deal about a nation's anxieties and aspirations by the discrepancy between reality and popular perception. Polls last year showed that in the US 61% think the country spends too much on foreign aid. This makes sense once you understand that the average American is under the illusion that 25% of the federal budget goes on foreign aid (the real figure is 1%).

Similarly, a Mori poll in Britain in 2002 revealed that more than a third of the country thought there were too many immigrants. Little wonder. The mean estimate was that immigrants comprise 23% of the country; the actual number was about 4%.

Broadly speaking, these inconsistencies do not reflect malice or wilful ignorance but people's attempts to make sense of the world they experience through the distorting filters of media representation, popular prejudice and national myths. "The way we see things is affected by what we know and what we believe," wrote John Berger in Ways of Seeing. "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."

When it comes to class, Americans have long seen themselves as potentially rich and perpetually middling. A Pew survey in 2008 revealed that 91% believe they are either middle class, upper-middle class or lower-middle class. Relatively few claim to be working class or upper class, intimating more of a cultural aspiration than an economic relationship. Meanwhile, a Gallup poll in 2005 showed that while only 2% of Americans described themselves as "rich", 31% thought it very likely or somewhat likely they would "ever be rich".

But trends and ongoing events are forcing a reappraisal of that self-image. Social mobility has stalled; wages have been stagnant for a generation. It is in this light that the growing resistance to events in Wisconsin must be understood. The hardline Republican governor, Scott Walker, has pledged to remove collective bargaining rights from public sector unions and cut local government workers' health benefits and pension entitlements.

As the prospect of becoming rich diminishes, many are simply trying not to become poor. Inequality of income and wealth has been more readily accepted in the US because equality of opportunity has long been assumed. The absence of the latter raises serious questions about the existence of the former. This tension brought thousands to the streets in all 50 states to support the Wisconsin unions last weekend.

For Walker's measures to pass, a certain number of local senators must be present in the chamber for the vote. To prevent that happening, the entire Democratic delegation fled the state and is refusing to return until Walker agrees to negotiate. Meanwhile, thousands of pro-union demonstrators have descended on the state capital to protest, sparking solidarity rallies nationwide.

Polls suggest the public is siding with the unions locally and nationally. A survey last week showed 53% against cutting benefits and pay for government workers and 61% opposed to removing collective bargaining. Even conservative polls suggest a majority in Wisconsin is opposed to Walker's attempt to eliminate collective bargaining.

Coming so soon after Republican electoral victories at federal and state level, Walker might have anticipated an easier ride for his agenda than this. After all, membership of unions is at an all-time low and public support for them does not fare much better. Moreover, support for unions ordinarily falls when unemployment rises. But these are no ordinary times. For if organised labour has fallen out of favour, the illusion that you can make it on your own is not far behind. A Pew survey in 2008 – before the banking system imploded – showed that fewer Americans than at any time in 50 years thought they were moving forward in life. The number of those who don't believe you can get ahead by working hard has doubled in 10 years. Half the country thinks its best days are behind it. While many may question the role of the unions, few believe firing 12,000 government workers, as Walker has pledged to do, is the answer.

Walker's case is as predictable as it is weak. Government workers, he claims, have higher pay and better benefits than others in a bloated state that must slim down if it is to keep running. This is hardly true. Accounting for age and education, US local government employees earn 4% less than their private sector counterparts. Yes, the shortfall in pensions is real. But if the political will existed, calamity could be avoided with a fairly modest increase in the budget allocation. Union members do generally enjoy better benefits. That's the whole point of being in a union: to improve your living standards through collective action. And that is precisely why Republicans like Walker want to crush them.

His agenda has nothing to do with redressing a fiscal imbalance and everything to do with exploiting the crisis to deliver a killer blow to organised labour. If fixing the budget deficit were really Walker's priority, he would not have waved through $140m in tax breaks for multinationals or refused to take federal funds for transport or broadband development. Like 10 other states, he might even have raised taxes progressively.

None of these contradictions are particular to Wisconsin. Similar stories could be told as far away as Ireland and as nearby as Indiana, where Democrats also fled the state to defeat a union-bashing bill. Nor are they coming exclusively from the hard right. Democrats in the US and social democrats around Europe are attacking unions too, albeit with less relish. What Wisconsin does offer is a transparent illustration of the ideological sophistry and political mendacity driving these attacks.

But having started this fight in such a brazen manner, Walker has little option but to pursue it to its bitter end. That is why it has taken on national significance. Faced with an existential threat, the labour movement has broadened its horizons and galvanised a pluralistic, national opposition. That is a precondition for success but by no means a guarantee.

Last weekend's demonstrations do not necessarily reflect a new sense of class consciousness, but they do suggest the potential for it. The idea of a class system where only a handful can ever be truly wealthy intrudes awkwardly on a culture rooted in notions of self-advancement, personal reinvention and rugged individualism, even if it is closer to reality. Old habits die hard. The weekend protests were organised under the banner "Save the American Dream".

Democratic politicians, funded by both unions and corporations, pretend not to take sides, casting the national conversation not in terms of bosses and workers or wages and profits but of rich and poor.
The problem with this, explains Michael Zweig, the director of the centre for the study of working-class life at the State University of New York, is that "most people want to be rich and most of them don't know what rich is. If you put class in terms of power, you start to get to the source of the problem."

Leaders like Walker are making it clear which side of the class divide they stand on. A growing number of Americans, it seems, have begun to understand that this is precisely the problem and are discovering the source of their own power.