The “Colombia is Passion” Advertisement
A commercial for Colombia: “We have actors”
Partly funny, partly sad, mainly corny and to be taken with a grain of salt. And as an attempt to change Colombia’s image on the world stage.
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“We certainly would like to see . . . other countries take advantage of Colombia’s strengths.” -Robert Gates
The stalled pact has long been supported by U.S. businesses but opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Bogota’s intolerance of labor activists.
The proposed agreement, first signed during the George W. Bush administration, has long been supported by U.S. businesses but opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Bogota’s history of harsh intolerance of labor activism.
Defense Department officials have favored the pact as a way to reward Colombia for its successful effort at beating back drug trafficking and the country’s insurgency.
At a news conference in Bogota, the Colombian capital, Gates said he met this week with James L. Jones, the White House national security advisor, to discuss an administration push for congressional ratification of the accord.
“I would hope we would be in a position to make a renewed effort to get ratification of the free trade agreement,” Gates said. “It is a good deal for Colombia; it is also a good deal for the United States.”
President Obama was skeptical about the agreement as a senator and during his presidential campaign, citing Colombia’s record of labor crackdowns. But after meeting last year with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Obama said Bogota had made progress on human rights issues and ordered U.S. trade officials to move ahead on the deal.
Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Bogota was pleased by the Obama administration’s growing support for the accord.
“This agreement will help further consolidate security in Colombia,” Silva said.
Gates is traveling in Latin America to showcase U.S. military partnerships with Colombia and Peru in the hope of enticing other countries to follow suit. U.S. officials hope to replicate a scaled-down version of their pact with Colombia in other South and Central American countries battling drug trafficking and corruption.
American special operations forces spent years training the Colombian army, helping it roll back the rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Now, however, few countries in the region are likely to permit a substantial American military presence. And U.S. trainers are heavily committed to Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving few available for other countries.
Gates suggested that neighboring countries could learn instead from Colombia, noting that Mexican and Peruvian forces have received training from Bogota.
“Colombia’s success against terrorists and narco-traffickers does offer a lot of opportunities for them to share their expertise,” Gates said. “We certainly would like to see . . . other countries take advantage of Colombia’s strengths.”
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-colombia-gates16-2010apr16,0,1179782.story
It’s 1984 in Colombia…
With so much focus on the legacy of drug exportation that Colombia is famous for, sometimes we tend to miss, or even overlook the human rights violations surfacing, and then getting covered up, in Columbia even as the U.S. amends its free trade agreement with the South American country to create a stronger political bond. Below is an article from “Colombia Reports,” an online news source for Colombian culture, news, entertainment and sports.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ‘BARELY EXISTS’ IN COLOMBIA
Friday, 16 April 2010 10:25 – Brett Borkan (ColombiaReports.com)
Catalina Botero
Catalina Botero, the special rapporteur for freedom of expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), said Friday that journalists in Colombia lack freedom of expression due to death threats and government spying.
In an interview with W Radio Botero argued that, “It is difficult to to say that there is freedom of expression in a country where the state intelligence agency has a few officials who systematically conduct espionage, stigmatization, and issue death threats against the people who are performing the heroic labor of informing the public what is going on in the country.”
The IACHR official’s comments refer to Colombian security agency DAS’s role in the illegal wiretapping of journalists, judges, human rights activists, and politicians in Colombia.
Botero considers that the country is at a “point of red-alert,”and is close to being added to the list of countries where “you can barely say that there is freedom of expression,” due to the level of threats faced by Colombian journalists,
Botero went on to explain that the IACHR has been in Colombia for the past few years and has “asked the [government] to stop stigmatizing journalists and human rights defenders.”
The spokesperson recalled an incident in which a journalist received a threat saying that they were going to slaughter her daughter, describing the situation as “chilling.”
Botero’s comments come following the publication of an IACHR report on Thursday which included Colombia in a list of countries that need to improve their protection of human rights.
Responding to complaints about the lack of freedom of expression in Colombia, Carlos Franco, director of the presidential Human Rights Program, told W Radio that IACHR reports present Colombia under a very narrow lens, and do not take into account improvements the country has made in recent years.
The Colombian ambassador to the Organization of American States also criticized the IACHR reports on Friday, claiming that Colombia has done a lot to promote press freedom in the country, saying that “the recovery of the monopoly of force by the state and the weakening of organized armed groups outside the law, has meant that journalists have a new environment that facilitates the free exercise of their profession and the expression of opinion.”
Image Source: http://colombiareports.com/pics/2010/04/catalina_botero.jpg
Representations of Colombia 
