Harper's Free Trade Mantra: Hush, Rush, and Sign
Written by Dawn Paley
Tuesday, 01 July 2008
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1356/1/
This January, after little more than 6 months of negotiations, the
Canadian Government announced the completion of negotiations of the
Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland.

Six months later, on June 7, 2008, Canada announced that negotiations
for a controversial Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia were
finalized.

The negotiations with Colombia were controversial from the get go: the
country has the worst human rights record in the hemisphere, and the
government of Alvaro Uribe is riddled by ongoing scandals that have
revealed proven links between Uribe's allies in Congress and
paramilitary death squads.

In a corruption scandal that would most certainly bring down a
Canadian Prime Minister, Uribe himself is the subject of a recent
Sentence by the Colombian Supreme Court. The justices condemned him
for buying the key vote of Congresswoman Yidis Medina in exchange for
political favours, a crime necessary for the constitutional changes
that opened the door to Uribe's re-election in 2006.

On June 26th, Medina was sentenced to 3 ½ years of house arrest for
accepting bribes from the president. The president promptly responded

Canada-Colombia FTA: When Democracy Gets in the Way, Just Sign It, eh?
By: Michèal Ó Tuathail
http://canadacolombiaproject.blogspot.com/2008/06/canada-colombia-fta-when-democracy-gets.html

On June 7 2008, less than one year after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the beginning of bilateral free trade talks with Colombia, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade announced the conclusion of negotiations.

While the US-Colombia free trade agreement has been stalled in the US, due mainly to the grave human rights situation in Colombia and, some say, a US election campaign, Canada has offered transnational capital an opening through the back door.

Canada-style, eh?

"The Government of Canada is delivering on its commitment to open up opportunities for Canadian business in the Americas and around the world," stated the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade David Emerson, revealing the true beneficiaries of this agreement. Emerson went on to note that "the free trade agreement will expand Canada-Colombia trade and investment, and will help solidify ongoing efforts by the Government of Colombia to create a more prosperous, equitable and secure democracy."

Building its Ties to Colombia: Canada’s Imperial Adventure in the Andes

May 25, 2008 By Todd Gordon
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17729

On May 5th, 2008 Canada's Trade Minister, David Emerson, proudly declared that Canada is "very close" to concluding free trade negotiations with Colombia. According to Foreign Affairs officials, a deal could be reached in a few short months, meaning that Canada would complete its free trade agreement with Colombia before the United States completes its own deal with the Andean country. In the U.S., Bush faces strong Congressional opposition to such a partnership.

Canada's push into Colombia is part of its broader interest and growing economic influence in Latin America going back to the 1990s. Canadian political and business leaders have been clear that economic expansion into Latin America (and the Caribbean) is a central priority of Canadian foreign policy. This agenda has been stepped up under the Stephen Harper Tory government, with cabinet ministers scurrying across the region building up Canada's political and economic ties. By 2006, Canada was the third largest foreign investor in Latin America and the Caribbean. It's the biggest investor in mining and has a strong presence in financial services, telecommunications and oil and gas among other industries.

ZNet Commentary
Colombia Assassinates Raul Reyes of FARC March 02, 2008
By Justin Podur
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-03/02podur.cfm

ZNet Commentary
The Harper-Uribe Handshake July 22, 2007
By Justin Podur
I
The photo in Colombia's daily newspaper "El Tiempo" from earlier this week, of Canadian Prime Minister Harper and Colombian President Uribe gazing into each other's eyes, locked in the sort of handshake the Canadian PM gives his sons in the morning, turned a few Canadian and Colombian stomachs. Uribe's government, after all, is infamous for having had its politicians heading off to jail for their collusion and links to paramilitaries that are steeped in massacre, assassination, kidnapping, and narcotrafficking. Paramilitary chiefs like Salvatore Mancuso have given evidence of their connections to politicians. Computer files from paramilitary leaders contain memos of signed agreements between Uribe's supporters and paramilitary killers. The massacres have been spectacular - paramilitaries cut people up with chainsaws and play soccer with people's heads. They've used terror to clear territories of their rural and indigenous inhabitants and concentrate land in the hands of landowners - some of whom are these same politicians - who have contracts with corporations to produce various things, the hottest one being biofuels. Palm and sugar cane plantations stand where campesinos used to live, and fortunes are being made speculating on the fuels of the future. If ripping up most of the Canadian province of Alberta for oil sands development can make Canada an "energy superpower", as Harper said, perhaps slaughtering tens of thousands of Colombians and displacing 3.5 million of them for palm and sugar plantations can make Colombia one as well. Perhaps Canada, with its oil sands and militarization, Harper told Latin Americans, could be a better model for the region than Chavez's Venezuela, with its serious efforts to address poverty and inequality.

Ottawa Citizen
May 18, 2007 Friday
NEWS; Dan Gardner; Pg. A15
The Colombia experiment; If the Americans are teaching Afghans the tricks of the trade based on what has 'worked' in South American drug wars, look out
Dan Gardner

On Wednesday, a feature story in the New York Times began with an unusual scene. In a compound outside Kabul, a group of raw Afghan recruits was being instructed in the basics of enforcing drug laws. "It's Narcotics 101," one of the instructors, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, told the reporter. "We are at a stage now of telling these recruits, 'this is a handgun, this is a bullet.' "

Latin America is preparing to settle accounts with its white settler elite
The political movements and protests sweeping the continent - from Bolivia to Venezuela - are as much about race as class
by Richard Gott
November 19, 2006
The Guardian
The recent explosion of indigenous protest in Latin America, culminating in the election this year of Evo Morales, an Aymara indian, as president of Bolivia, has highlighted the precarious position of the white-settler elite that has dominated the continent for so many centuries. Although the term "white settler" is familiar in the history of most European colonies, and comes with a pejorative ring, the whites in Latin America (as in the US) are not usually described in this way, and never use the expression themselves. No Spanish or Portuguese word exists that can adequately translate the English term.

Colombia Electoral Results of March 12th and Perspectives for the May 28th Presidential Election.

by Manuel Rozental; March 23, 2006

Official reports called it a “comfortable” victory for President Alvaro Uribe. Of the 100 contested seats for the Colombian senate, Uribe’s supporters obtained 61 seats while those counted as opposition (Liberals and the leftist Polo Democratico Alternativo) obtained 29 seats, while “Independent” parties obtained the remaining 10 seats. At the Chamber of Representatives, the seats went 91 for Uribe, 45 for opposition and 30 for independents of the total 166 seats. In practical terms, this means that Uribe counts with an absolute majority for the upcoming legislative agenda which includes ratification of the recently signed Free Trade Agreement with the USA and a number of reforms that will facilitate corporate control over wealth, resources and territories, as well as savings, investments and cheap labor.