Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
Gore's Latin Diplomacy
April 26, 2007; Page A18
Last Friday the president of Colombia flew to Miami, where he was supposed to discuss mutual ways to save the environment with Al Gore. Instead, Mr. Gore stiffed President ?lvaro Uribe, saying he found accusations of human rights violations against the Colombian "deeply troubling."
The charges against the twice-elected and popular president are false, and Colombia's newspapers are full of fury at what they are calling Mr. Gore's "rude gesture." But the fact that a former Democratic Vice President would so publicly insult the best U.S. ally in South America is, well, at the moment not so astonishing.
Mr. Uribe's chief accuser is Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro, a former member of the pro-Cuban terrorist group M-19. The senator is also a close friend and political ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez.
Mr. Uribe has become an ideological target because he has succeeded in reducing the influence of left-wing terrorists in Colombia. The human rights accusations are now getting a revival thanks to Mr. Petro and the hostility of the AFL-CIO for the pending U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Both know that discrediting Mr. Uribe's government is their best hope of killing the trade deal. That Mr. Gore would buy all this despite the Colombian president's shared environmental concerns suggests that the former veep's partisan interests trump his concern for Mother Earth.
A defeat for the Colombia FTA would set back economic development in Latin America and represent a major win for Hugo Ch?vez's anti-American agenda. Remind us again, who is losing the Americas?
Gore's Latin Diplomacy
April 26, 2007; Page A18
Last Friday the president of Colombia flew to Miami, where he was supposed to discuss mutual ways to save the environment with Al Gore. Instead, Mr. Gore stiffed President ?lvaro Uribe, saying he found accusations of human rights violations against the Colombian "deeply troubling."
The charges against the twice-elected and popular president are false, and Colombia's newspapers are full of fury at what they are calling Mr. Gore's "rude gesture." But the fact that a former Democratic Vice President would so publicly insult the best U.S. ally in South America is, well, at the moment not so astonishing.
Mr. Uribe's chief accuser is Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro, a former member of the pro-Cuban terrorist group M-19. The senator is also a close friend and political ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez.
Mr. Uribe has become an ideological target because he has succeeded in reducing the influence of left-wing terrorists in Colombia. The human rights accusations are now getting a revival thanks to Mr. Petro and the hostility of the AFL-CIO for the pending U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Both know that discrediting Mr. Uribe's government is their best hope of killing the trade deal. That Mr. Gore would buy all this despite the Colombian president's shared environmental concerns suggests that the former veep's partisan interests trump his concern for Mother Earth.
A defeat for the Colombia FTA would set back economic development in Latin America and represent a major win for Hugo Ch?vez's anti-American agenda. Remind us again, who is losing the Americas?
