Colombia Free Trade Agreement: Congressional Democrats Need To Step-Up

By now, most everyone is aware of the problems Columbia is facing with FARC, Ecuador and Venezuela and the world is watching and awaiting reaction from the United States.

As Columbia is one of our strongest allies in South America and has a large, effective military and I think assisting the Colombians militarily is unwarranted at this time. What I (and others) think we as a nation should do is replace "hard power" with "soft power" -- meaning use aid and trade to support Columbia and help ease any hardship imposed by Hugo Chavez and his cronies in the region by blocking billions of dollars in Colombian imports and investment

Read On...

Venezuela is starting to block billions of dollars in Colombian imports and investment under orders from President Hugo Chavez, threatening economic havoc in both nations in response to a Colombian military attack on rebels hiding in Ecuador.

Chavez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa demanded international condemnation of Colombia's U.S.-allied government on Wednesday night, while Chavez predicted a sharp fall in the $6 billion annual Colombia-Venezuela trade: "That's coming down."

"We aren't interested in Colombian investments here," Chavez said, standing beside Correa. "Of the Colombian businesses that are here in Venezuela, we could nationalize some."

He said Venezuela will search for products from other countries to replace those from Colombia. Noting that Colombia traditionally supplies food to Venezuela, he said now "we can't depend on them, not even for a grain of rice."

This is where our congress can intervene and do some good for our friends in Columbia. They can approve The Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement that has been held up by congressional Democrats for Over a year since Sep 8, 2006 when President Bush put forth the trade agreement with Colombia.

Reid and Pelosi need to stand up and get this agreement signed into law ASAP! Democrats have been pounding this administration for years about being too quick to use force when helping our allies, to this I say -- Here's your chance to help the President use our influence in a non-military way to assist a friend in need!

Of course I won't hold my breath... these two haven't shown a sliver of the intestinal fortitude it takes to actually do anything to benefit our country. Beside Reid and Pelosi there are many Liberal Democrats who oppose this agreement based on manufactured, miss-stated or just plain old data points.

Cato has a great piece on this entitled A U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: Strengthening Democracy and Progress in Latin America and detail Why Congressional Democrats Oppose a Colombia Trade Agreement:

In a June 29, 2007, statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders announced their opposi­tion to the Colombia FTA. "There is widespread concern in Congress about the level of violence in Colombia, the impunity, the lack of investigations and prosecutions, and the role of the paramilitary," they explained. "We believe there must first be concrete evidence of sustained results on the ground in Colombia, and Members of Congress will contin­ue working with all interested parties to help achieve this end before consideration of any FTA. Consequently, we can­not support the Colombia FTA at this time."2

Violence is a real issue for union members in Colombia. Since 1991, more than 2,200 union members have been assassinated, mostly by right-wing paramilitaries. Colombia is the most dangerous country in which to be a union mem­ber, as a recent publication from the AFL-CIO points out.3 And the justice system has failed in most cases: Out of so many murders, there have been only 37 convictions.4 However, Democratic leaders and their union allies fail to credit the Colombian government with the dramatic progress it has made against what only a few years ago seemed to be hopeless odds.

The real story in Colombia is not the current level of violence but its dramatic fall in a relatively short period, and the credit due the Colombian government for the progress. The number of assassinations of union members in Colombia has dropped sharply since 2001, a year before Colombian president Álvaro Uribe was sworn into office. From about 200 assassinations a year in 2001 and 2002, the number fell by half in 2003 and has continued to fall since then. (See Figure 1.) The AFL-CIO claims 38 unionists were assassinated in 2007, while the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection counts 25. Even if the higher AFL-CIO fig­ure is accepted, that would mark a plunge of more than 80 percent in assassinations of trade unionists during President Uribe’s time in office; the decrease would be nearly 90 per­cent if the Ministry of Social Protection figure is accepted. Either number represents remarkable and welcome progress under President Uribe.



Trade unionist killings must also be seen in the context of a society that for decades has been one of the most violence-plagued in the world. Since independence from Spain in 1819, the country has been engulfed in violent civil conflicts that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. In the 1960s two Marxist armed groups, the FARC and ELN, started a guerrilla war against the Colombian government. Later in the 1980s, power­ful drug cartels battled the authorities and each other in the streets of important cities such as Medellin and Cali. Medellin was, until a few years ago, the deadliest city in the world. In the early 1990s, right-wing paramilitary groups were formed by landowners to battle the left-wing guerrillas. These groups soon became criminal forces of their own.

In the mid 1990s, once the drug cartels were dismantled, both guerillas and paramilitary groups moved into the nar­cotics business. Colombia’s rugged geography makes it an ideal place for growing illegal crops such as marijuana and coca. It is estimated that 90 percent of powdered cocaine consumed in the U.S. comes from Colombia.5 This repre­sents a multimillion dollar business that illegal armed forces have exploited for over a decade.

Against this daunting backdrop, the Uribe administration has taken decisive action. The government has established a protection program for vulnerable groups of society. Currently 1,504 union members have enrolled in the program, more than any other group of civil society. Working with the International Labor Organization, Colombia has created a spe­cial unit under its Attorney General to investigate priority cases of violence against trade unionists.6 Union members still get assassinated, but they account for less than one in ten civil­ian assassinations by illegal armed groups.7 Other groups tar­geted for violence include teachers, journalists, business lead­ers, and politicians, most of whom are members of President Uribe’s own party.

The AFL-CIO repeatedly cites the figure of 2,245 labor union members killed in Colombia since 1991 as a central argument for not approving the trade agreement. But that fig­ure is heavily front-loaded, with more than four out of five of those killings taking place prior to President Uribe’s adminis­tration. Instead of giving Uribe due credit for the dramatic decline in killings, the AFL-CIO insists on punishing the cur­rent president and the people who elected him for the failures of past administrations.

Unfortunately, left-leaning groups in Colombia have col­luded with labor interests in the United States to convince the Democratic leadership in Congress that this FTA should be defeated on humanitarian grounds. There is more ideolo­gy behind the opposition to the agreement than real concern for union members in Colombia. For example, Gustavo Triana, an official at the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, Colombia’s largest labor federation, says that "Free trade is killing us as much as bullets are."8 Equating peaceful, volun­tary trade with murdering bullets is a gross comparison that shows the ideological agenda behind much of the opposition to an FTA.

The Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement is exactly what's called for in this instance and we should all be contacting our Representatives and Senators to make sure this option is pursued with vigor!