Big money: Capitalism and the $700 billion bail-out

These are tough times for us, the defenders of capitalism. Banks and financial institutions in the United States and Britain have collapsed, fused with other institutions or been nationalized. The name Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Northern Rock, HBOS and AIG have fallen into the dark list of economic failure, making many feel uneasy about the virtues of the free enterprise. Of course, all this gives socialists the upper hand: they will take this crisis, and the solutions being drafted, as the proof that capitalism has to be reigned, heavily regulated, heavily taxed and developed side by side with a big State that spends more and provides more services. The US$ 700 billion bail-out, which still has not yet been voted by the American Congress, is an incredibly huge amount of money needed to save a financial system immersed in an incredibly huge crisis.

However, the crisis was created by the players of the financial system themselves, in the first place. It was they (Lehman, Bear Stearns, etc) who gambled recklessly with other people's money, buying toxic assets related to subprime mortgages. The companies of the housing market, who lent money to people with little or no credit history, thus creating those 'toxic assets', also helped put everyone in this mess --But it is the American taxpayer who is going to save the day, paying US$ 700 bn (6% of GDP) that could as well be used in things like improving roads, schools and hospitals. The entire War in Iraq, for instance, has cost less (between US$ 500 and 600 bn) than this new rescue plan. In essence, that is why this government bail-out makes us capitalists uneasy --yet the consequences of inaction would be so overwhelming that we are compelled to welcome it as a good measure that (hopefully) will stabilize the markets.

Now, Congress needs to pass the rescue plan --and they probably will. American lawmakers are conscious of the great risks at hand. Nonetheless, they also need to make sure that the plan does not compensate CEOs for their stupidity and shortsightedness. They must feel the full burden produced by the decisions they made. Also, congressmen and congresswomen have to be careful about the powers they will give to Henry Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, regarding how he can allocate the 700 billion in question. Mr Paulson, an intelligent man, has understood that no liberal democracy can accept one person having so much power to shape such a vital sector as finance, and he has accepted to be subject to more checks and limits than when he first proposed the plan.

All in all, this will be a very interesting week -a defining one. Many will come saying that this is the end of American supremacy, that capitalism is agonizing and on its way out. But we know better. To paraphrase Maggie Thatcher, economies, like human beings, can become ill and weakly -but what really matters is whether they, like human beings, have within themselves the necessary elements to overcome hardship. And the US, the largest, most diversified and one of the freest economies in the planet, is full with those necessary elements, no doubt. Just wait and see.

On Why UN Security Council Reform is Wrong

Every September, Heads of State gather in the aging United Nations headquarters in New York and blame each other for the problems of the world. Yesterday, George W. Bush "chided" Russia for its invasion of Georgia, while Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary-General, warned countries against the "uncritical faith in the 'magic' of the markets", which supposedly is bringing doom to mankind. Never mind.

But today I want to write about another issue, which sooner or later will come up in this session of the UN General Assembly. I am referring to the reform of the UN Security Council. And I am here to tell you why it is a bad idea.

Nowadays, afirming that the Security Council is in bad need of change has become cliché. Everyone seems to agree (I don't) about the unfairness of the fact that only five countries (Russia, China, France, Great Britain and the United States, of course) have both permanent representation and veto power in the most powerful UN institution. Moreover, so the argument goes, the world order today is not the same as that of 1945, the year when the UN was founded. Hence, the Security Council needs to adapt to the new state of the world -it needs to have the permanent representation from more people and more governments, which ideally, should be given veto power as well. We cannot let five great powers manage the world as they like, after all! Democratize the council! Bring in the Brazilians, the Japanese, the Germans, the South Africans, the Indians! Bring anyone in! -Reform! Reform! Reform!

Of course, our friends who believe in Security Council reform put their arguments forward in a more serious and sophisticated way -but the above summarizes the spirit of their ideas. Nevertheless, we often overlook the very obvious arguments that show why reforming the Security Council would be a useless and probably counterproductive endeavor. Let me elaborate.

First, we need to dispel the notion that the Security Council (UNSC) is a democratic institution ruled by the same abstract values and principles as national parliaments. No. The Security Council's main objective is to preserve international peace and security -above all, UNSC delegates talk (directly of indirectly) about war. Thus, the purpose of the UNSC is not to ensure that as many states as possible can have a voice in world affairs. In that sense, it is not a representative institution -and it should not be one: peace and security crises need to be dealt with quickly, before they escalate and grow in complexity and scope. For this purpose, the UNSC needs to remain small, so that debates do not drag on for hours and resolutions can be voted expeditiously. The larger UNSC proposed by reformers would, by default, not be able to react to crises as fast as it should. This is why it is extremely important to keep the restricted membership to the Security Council.

But then, the UNSC has already been reformed once. In 1965, the number of members was raised from 11 to the current 15. Nine of these (the non permanent members, which do not have veto powers) are elected every two years by the General Assembly, respecting a regional framework. So, after all, there has been some in the UNSC since it was founded.

However, it is important to talk about the second reason why reforming the UNSC is simply a bad idea. Let's look at the facts: Germany, Brazil, Japan and India (the so-called Group of Four) are pushing for their inclusion in the UNSC as permanent members, preferrably with veto power. Other proposals support the inclusion of another permanent seat for one African and one Arab country. Koffi Annan, former Secretary-General, supported an elargement of the UNSC along these lines, and augmenting the number of members from 15 to 24. Although such a reform would certainly make the UNSC more representative and "fairer", if you like, it would achieve little in making our world a safer place, which is the council's main aim, after all. Why? First, it is not obvious how the inclusion of Brazil would help boost security: South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey spend more on their militaries than does Brazil -maybe those other two countries should be included first in the UNSC... Moreover, the last time the Brazilian military fought in an international conflict was in WWII. Even the Colombian Army, which fought in the Korean War, has more recent experience on the international stage. The same could be said about an African representative. South Africa, the most appealing candidate for UNSC permanent membership, has an army with 55,000 active personnel. It is ranked 67(!) in the list of world armies by number of troops -both Ecuador and Nepal, to give a couple of examples, have more men serving in their militaries. It is not like the size of militaries is all that matters for UNSC permanent membership, but important questions arise about the impact that whatever South Africa does or says would have on security affairs, given its manpower.

Second, a nuclear India, who's also the world's largest democracy, could claim that it well deserves a permanent seat in the UNSC. After all, both it's economy and it's military power are massive and growing. But then, there is Pakistan, its politically unstable (and also nuclear) rival. If India receives a permanent seat and veto power in the council, it could effectively block all resolutions calling for an end of hostilities or sanctions, should a conflict arise with Pakistan. Permanent UNSC members, even without a veto, would see their power grow enormously at the United Nations -and the Pakistanis would not want to see India in that position, something that would bring more tension to the Kashmir dispute.

Third, there is Germany and Japan. These countries have the second and third world's largest economies, respectively. Arguably, Germany and Japan have more economic relevance than the other UNSC permanent members (even China) bar the United States. But does this make them fit to be permanently included in the council? Well, here the answer is a bit tricky -and some would say just lame: the United Nations was created in the aftermath of World War II, with the aim to avoid a third confrontation between the great powers. The five main victors of the war went on to become the permanent members of the UNSC, while the defeated powers lived a very different story: Germany was divided in East and West and Japan's constitution was drafted entirely by the Americans. As the defeated powers during World War II, Germany and Japan do not fit as permanent members of the Security Council -it is true, nowadays both are liberal states that have embraced democracy and respect for human rights, yet history is too strong to be forgotten. China, who still ressents the Japanese invasion of its territory in WWII, will always vote against the permanent inclusion of Japan in the UNSC. In addition, if Germany joins the council, the European Union would have an overwhelming advantage over the rest: three great European powers would then have permanent membership and, perhaps, veto power over UNSC resolutions. That is probably more than what the Americans or the Russians are willing to stomach.

Now, let us consider other important points in this matter. The right to veto is perhaps one of the most loathed elements of the UN Security Council. In effect, the veto power does not only ensure that the Council's decisions are always the result of consensus by the big five, but more worryingly, it renders the Council absolutely useless when crises and confrontations between great powers arise. Whenever there is a problem involving one of the big five, the Council becomes paralized or is simply ignored (the Cuban Missile Crisis, the War in Iraq, Russia's invasion of Georgia, etc.). If more countries are given the right to veto (a highly unlikely scenario, for those who already have it don't want to share it) the probability of having deadlock at the UNSC would increase heavily.

I also want to dispel another notion: that somehow, if we bring big regional players into the Council (Brazil for Latin America, Egypt for the Arabs, South Africa for the Africans, etc.), the UNSC would be more representative and more connected with all the regions of the globe. Well, no. If Egypt, for instance, gets a permanent seat in the UNSC, supposedly in representation of the Arab League, the other Arab countries would be foolish if they believe that, all of a sudden, the government of Mubarak would bring all their concerns and opinions to the Council. If Egypt gets a UNSC seat, it would defend its interests first and foremost -not those of the heterogenous and complex Arab world. The same happens with Brazil, for instance: the other countries in Latin America know very well that they would gain little by having Brazilian permanent representation in the UNSC, while, in contrast, such a move would dramatically increase Brazil's leverage and power in the region. This is why the Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Pakistan, South Korea and other countries have come together (calling themselves 'Uniting for Consensus') in order to oppose UNSC reforms that would give permanent seats to "regional representatives". Plus, it is standard procedure in the UN that whenever the direct interests of a country are directly affected, and it does not have a seat in the Council, it is summoned to the debate in order to express its point of view. In short, it is hard how having the South Africans or the Brazilians in would be good for the Angolans, or the Costa Ricans.

Finally, it could also be argued that the conformation of the UNSC ressembles more the 2008 world order than the 1945 world order. After all, back in 1945 the Republic of China was a weak, chaotic country going through a horrendous civil war -only four years later its Nationalist government had to run to Taiwan when the Communists took over. Unlike today, China was no great power back then. Similar things could be said about war-torn France, which had been invaded by the Nazis, and Great Britain, which had to lose its massive empire in order to survive the war. Back in 1945, the USA, by far the most powerful country on the planet, shared same voting rights with these three weaker countries, and with the USSR. Today, however, there is a very different story: the Chinese, the French and the British are all big military, nuclear, and economic powers. So, think twice when you use the world order argument in order to support UNSC reform.

The Security Council is not perfect, nor will it ever be. It has many structural problems and it often is slow or unwilling to act amid true crises. Its voting and membership systems are highly biased in favor of the big five, and the other 187 members of the UN can do little about it. Nevertheless, as I have attempted to show, a far-reaching reform of the Security Council could do more harm than good, and would make little sense in reality -since when did Egypt, Brazil or South Africa become more powerful than any of the big five countries? The UNSC reformers will face much criticism to their proposals, and this is just my small contribution. As the saying goes, if it ain't broken...

Same same but different: Israel and South Africa change leadership

The financial crisis is not the only newsworthy process taking place right now. Both Israel and South Africa are going through change in their political scenes: Israeli Prime Minsiter Ehud Olmert and South African President Thabo Mbeki are resigning, making headlines the world over. Mr Olmert, 63, has been PM of Israel since 2006, but a dirty aura of dishonesy always surrounded him. His alleged involvement in some corruption scandals made political pressure mount against him, leading him to hand over his resignation today. On the other hand, Mr Mbeki, 66, has been President of South Africa for nine years now, having taken the leadership from Nelson Mandela. Not the wisest of politicians, Mr Mbeki made a few powerful enemies in the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's ruling party, which he also led until 2007, when Jacob Zuma, his erstwhile ally, reached the highest office in the party. Mr Mbeki is resigning because it seems that he manipulated events in order to charge Mr Zuma of corruption.

Although it seems that both Mr Olmert and Mr Mbeki do not share much with each other, apart from the fact that their political careers are at their lowest, there are a few commonalities that I just want to point out.

First, there is their role as peacemakers. Recently, both men have been involved in political negotiations with the Fatah party in Palestine (Mr Olmert) and with the leadership and the opposition of Zimbabwe (Mr Mbeki). It is true that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is much more rooted and complex, but at least Mr Mbeki seems to have had more success than Mr Olmert in his negotiating role. Mr Mbeki was able to broker a power sharing deal between Zimbabwe's ancient autocrat, Robert Mugabe, and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai, although it is still unclear whether the deal will be viable and succesful. In contrast, Mr Olmert's American-backed talks with Mahmoud Abbas seem to be going nowhere. There have been many meetings already, but it would be a miracle if both men could sign definitive peace accord this year. Also, no one knows how Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza strip would fit in to that accord, if it came to materialize.

The second similarity between Mr Olmert's and Mr Mbeki's story is more about the way politics work in their respective countries. After his announcement of resignation, Mr Olmert's party, the centrist Kadima, went ahead to elect Tzipi Livni as its new leader and potential new Prime Minister. In South Africa, the ruling ANC party is expected to propose no one else but Jacob Zuma as new President. The interesting thing is that in both countries, at least for now, the decision about the identity of the next leaders is almost entirely in the hands of the ruling parties: In Israel, Ms Livni, elected by Kadima with only a few hundred votes of margin, will need to negotiate with both right and left wing parties in order to form a government in the next 40 days; in South Africa, the ANC has concentrated enough power to say who will rule the country now. As I said, it is expected that the charismatic but legally troubled Mr Zuma (he was charged with rape in 2005, but acquitted later) assumes the presidency.

Indeed, it is very interesting to see that both Israel and South Africa are going through leadership change right now. Both countries are seen as strong democratic states (with its flaws, certainly) in regions where there is a high deficit of votes and political and civil rights. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, while South Africa is the nation that fought hard to enfranchise the black majority in politics and end discrimination. Though not perfect (Israel has huge security threats, while a 25% of South Africans are unemployed and 20% are infected with HIV/AIDS), both countries are central players in the geopolitics of their regions. Therefore, the people who become the new leaders of these countries will matter, perhaps not on a global scale, but in the still important and complex world of middle power politics. A new leader in Israel will be able to decide the fate of the conflict with the Palestinians, while the South African president's actions will be decisive in the fight against AIDS and the democratic and economic development of a huge chunk of the the African continent.

Messieurs Olmert and Mbeki are gone -but history keeps unfolding. Stay tuned.

Infarto judicial: los abogados del Estado, en paro

Y los paros no paran. Ya van quince días del llamado Paro Judicial y miles de procesos se encuentran paralizados en las cortes. En Bogotá, van alrededor de 14.000. Los 40.000 miembros del sindicato Asociación Nacional de Empleados de la Rama Judicial (Asonal Judicial) decidieron un buen día dejar de trabajar para mostrar su inconformismo con la diferencia salarial entre secretarios, jueces, magistrados y otros funcionarios. Según Asonal, es imposible que un magistrado gane $12'000.000, mientras que un secretario, graduado de derecho, gane $1'500.000.


El resultado ha sido la parálisis judicial en un país donde, ya de hecho, la justicia se arrastra más de lo que cojea. Miles de audiencias han sido canceladas, puestas en una enorme lista de pendientes, y los ciudadanos que necesitan una solución expedita a sus cuestiones judiciales no hallan qué hacer. En Cundinamarca, por ejemplo, no se están recibiendo nuevos casos. El gobierno decidió nombrar jueces temporales para evacuar la cantidad represada de procesos, aunque la lentitud sigue imperando.


Con el fin de darle fin al paro, el Gobierno Uribe ofreció 50.000 millones de pesos (unos 25 millones de dólares) para disminuir la brecha salarial. Pero ese dinero no satisfizo a los líderes del paro -la Asonal está pidiendo un mínimo de 500.000 millones de pesos (¡250 millones de dólares! -casi me atoro...) para equilibrar los salarios. Los 303.000 millones en créditos que se llevaron los sindicalistas de la ACC con el paro camionero ahora parecen una cifra casi deleznable. El gobierno, entonces, decidió subirle 10.000 millones a su oferta inicial, poniendo un total de 60.000 millones sobre la mesa para que la Asonal regrese a sus labores. Claro está, los funcionarios en paro también se negaron en esta oportunidad.


En el fondo, el paro hace patente la grave crisis de financiamiento para la justicia colombiana. Aunque el Gobierno Uribe ha aumentado el presupuesto de la rama judicial en un 90% desde 2002 (pasó de 831.000 millones de pesos a 1,531 billones en 2009), el monto sigue siendo casi patético. El presupuesto total del gobierno para el 2009 es de 134,5 billones. Es decir, la rama judicial se lleva poco más del 1% del presupuesto gubernamental -y nos preguntábamos porqué la justicia colombiana es tan deficiente.


Sin embargo, esto no quiere decir que el paro de Asonal esté justificado. Es realmente alarmante que un paro así pueda afectar a tal grado el buen funcionamiento de la sociedad colombiana. El crimen, la impunidad y la injusticia han sido los únicos vencedores en estos 15 días. Al decidir entrar en paro, los funcionarios de la justicia colombiana han mostrado un grave desinterés por el bienestar del país, dejando claro que su título como "servidores públicos" está en segundo plano para ellos. Las entidades administrativas del Estado y las veedurías que protegen a los ciudadanos, deberían pedir fuertes castigos contra aquellos que atentan contra los derechos constitucionales de los colombianos. La justicia, como necesidad esencial de las sociedades democráticas, no se puede parar. Punto.


Si los miembros de la Asonal no están satisfechos con sus salarios, deberían renunciar y buscar otro trabajo. Tal vez tengan mejor suerte en otro lado, sean más felices y ganen más dinero. Además, imagino que en el momento en que firmaron su contrato de trabajo estaban bien informados del monto que recibirían por su labor. La decisión de trabajar la tomaron ellos, a consciencia y con tiempo para meditarlo. Si fue una decisión voluntaria, no es claro de dónde vienen las quejas ahora. Suena duro, pero el bien de la sociedad colombiana debe primar sobre el bien de los 40.000 Asonalistas. Además, estoy seguro de que abogados sin trabajo no faltarían para querer reemplazarlos en sus puestos.

Out of Business: The Agony of a Wall Street Titan

Giants fall too. And so did Lehman Brothers, a huge US investment bank, which just filed for bankruptcy. The demise of this Wall Street colossus is already sending waves of shock and pain around the world: stock markets globally and the US dollar had a rough day today. Prominent economists are worried about the impact that this event might have in the "real economy" (ie, your job and the stuff you buy at the supermarket). My intuition tells me that Lehman's implosion is not a sign of the ending of the current subprime-morgage-created financial crisis, but an omen that many more bad news are still to come... It seems like central bankers everywhere are going to have a busy time trying to figure out how to minimize damage, although the Fed has made it clear that it will not use taxpayers money to bail out Lehman Brothers.  

In the meantime, news cameramen are getting paid for filming annoyed Lehman workers while they take out their office equipment in cardboard boxes. As if not knowing whether you will be paid at all would not be stressing enough. 

To me, this whole affair underscores a special aspect of the nature of capitalism. In a system ruled by freedom, it is possible to generate massive prosperity (as Lehman B did) but it is also likely that people will make the wrong decisions (as Lehman B did). For capitalism to work properly, then, it is imperative that responsibility becomes part of the equation. People need to be held accountable and accept all the consequences for their decisions in order to foster moderation, restraint and transparency. And so, in capitalism, if you buy too much debt from sub prime debtors, well... you go broke... 

Libertad de Rebelión - Hoy, las FARC en una universidad cerca a usted

En un momento en el que muchos colombianos están más preocupados con la derrota de la selección colombiana de fútbol contra Chile, la revista Cambio y la Senadora gobiernista Gina Parody nos han revelado algo que debería preocuparnos mucho más. Hay evidencia irrefutable de que hay agentes de las FARC entre los estudiantes de las universidades colombianas. Los videos que Parody y Cambio revelaron (no que haya sido una labor de investigación exhaustiva... menos de un par de horas en YouTube debieron ser suficientes) muestran cómo jóvenes encapuchados, invariablemente vestidos de negro y portando la bandera colombiana, promulgan discursos que deben ser motivo de alegria para Tirofijo en su tumba. 

"¡Patria, socialismo o muerte!" gritan los encapuchados. Y la pequeña aglomeración de estudiantes aplaude, quizás temerosa, quizás con simpatía. Nunca se sabe. Estos Men in Black criollos se paran en formación perfecta, cuadriculada, inmutable. Gritan. Se quejan por la muerte de Raúl Reyes e Iván Ríos y dicen que hay que luchar "contra el paramilitarismo infiltrado en las universidades". También hablan de la "Patria Grande" y de Bolivarianismo. Cualquier parecido con Chávez es pura realidad. Al final, todos juntos, como una compañía militar, como una secta, repiten al unísono que la espada de Bolívar viaja por América Latina. Es una lástima que Bolívar haya muerto hace mucho tiempo... si no, quizás podría poner una demanda por el excesivo uso de su nombre para actos políticos de dudosa reputación.

La verdad todos ya sabíamos que las universidades públicas de Colombia eran bastiones de la izquierda revolucionaria. Si alguien no se había percatado, los murales con las fotos del Che Guevara le debían haber dado alguna idea. Igualmente, que los grupos armados al margen de la ley estaban infiltrados en las universidades era un secreto a voces. El que no se lo imaginara siquiera simplemente no lee las noticias: hace unos años la policía encontró ciertos rockets rudimentarios escondidos en los altísimos pastizales del campus de la Universidad Nacional. Sí, en los mismos en los que a veces pastan caballos, vacas y ovejas.

Pero bueno. El rector de la Universidad Distrital, Carlos Ossa Escobar, dice que él no ve ningún problema con las "protestas" de estos encapuchados. Él no tiene esa personalidad macartista que "tienen muchos colombianos hoy en día", dice. Es parte de la libertad de expresión, agrega, o sea, como quien escribe en El Tiempo diciendo que no le cae bien el gobierno. Nada especial. Nada de qué preocuparnos. Es normal. 

Pues parece que el Señor Ossa tiene una definición bastante irresponsable, quizás ingenua, de lo que es la libertad de expresión. La libertad de pensar, decir, escribir, protestar, nunca puede convertirse en la apología del delito. O que vaya alguien a Alemania a negar o a justificar el Holocausto a ver qué le pasa.  Pero no. Al Señor Ossa le parece normal y corriente lo que sucede en la Distrital. Hace parte de la vida y tenemos que vivir con ello. Sin embargo, yo me pregunto qué diría Shirley Tilghman, la Presidenta de Princeton University, si al campus llegan un grupo de extraños que ocultan su cara gritando arengas en contra del gobierno y el ejército de los Estados Unidoso y a favor de Al Qaeda, pidiéndole a los estudiantes que se unan a la causa. Lo más probable, dirán algunos, es que se los lleve la policía. 

Entonces, quizás, no todos estamos de acuerdo con el señor Ossa. Y no porque tengamos o no personalidades macartistas, sino porque está bastante claro que esos encapuchadillos que se paran a gritar sin el valor de mostrar la cara a) son parte de las FARC, o b) hacen parte de un grupo que los apoya, financia o publicita. Pero eso sí, estudiantes corrientes como cualquier otro no son. Claramente han sido adoctrinados. Claramente buscan reclutar gente para su movimiento. Claramente piensan que las bombas de las FARC en Cali o en Antioquia recientemente fueron justificadas. Además, sólo hay dos tipos de encapuchados: los que están delinquiendo y los que se tapan la cara frente a las cámaras después de delinquir y ser atrapados. Por el contrario, el orador político dice las cosas de frente, incluso a sabiendas de que su discurso no le va a caer a todo el mundo. Sin embargo, está confiado porque no está transgrediendo los límites de lo legal y lo moralmente aceptable. Entre las dos figuras, la que se oculta y la que se muestra, hay un mundo de diferencia. 

Sin embargo, el Sr. Ossa tiene derecho a su opinión -aunque quizás le cueste el puesto. Su posición (sin mencionar la de nuestros jóvenes encapuchados amantes de Jojoy) se hace indefendible en un país donde el 94% de la población está en contra de las FARC. Incluso si Ossa parece tomar esa neutralidad de tolerancia inmutable que tanto le gusta a los liberales, muchos ciudadanos (incluyendo a miles de bogotanos que le pagan el sueldo con sus impuestos) preferirán verlo salir por la puerta de atrás. 

En cuanto a los encapuchadillos, la policía y la comunidad no tardarán en identificarlos -si es que no lo han hecho ya. No tengo duda alguna de que la evidencia existente basta para abrirles un proceso penal por rebelión. Al fin y al cabo, adorar, apoyar y defender a las FARC, sí pueden ser delitos en Colombia. Lo correcto es que los servicios de inteligencia del Estado colombiano infiltren y disuelvan estos y otros grupos estudiantiles que apoyan la insurgencia.

Mientras tanto, estudiantes: cuídense. Como dije antes, si uno anda entre matones, algo se le pega. 

Para ver el reporte de Noticias Caracol sobre los videos, ver: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWnqWvPtj8c

Upside Down Country - Cont'd

And everything just got worse: a judge in a small city in northern Colombia just issued an order to incarcerate President Uribe and one of his Ministers. The judge took this embarrassing and controversial decision because some judges did not get the pay rises they deserved by law. This chapter is another part of the showdown between the judiciary and executive branches of the Colombian state, which I mentioned in my previous entry.

Needless to say, the judge's sentence is preposterous. Of course, in reality, no one is going to put Uribe in jail -few would dare to, and there are other legal resources that the President can still use. However, this shows that many representatives of the Colombian state are more concerned about petty issues and fighting over power, than about governing the country in a decent way. Shame.

Upside Down Country. The debacle of (Un)common sense

It took me ten minutes of listening to a Colombian radio news program to realize that my country has gone upside-down. Showdowns between the executive and the judiciary branches, verbal confrontation and grave accusations between the President and the largest opposition party, and known thugs suspiciously meeting with high officers in the Presidential Palace are only some of the problems. I will try to summarize and explain these events:

An important Colombian magazine published the news that there had been a suspicious meeting between Presidential officers and members of the paramilitary groups. After that, and all the fuzz it created, President Uribe exploded saying that the meetings had not been clandestine, and that they had a perfectly reasonable explanation. Well, we would all love to hear it. However, newspaper reports talk about an agreement between the Government and paramilitary thugs in order to undermine the power of the Supreme Court, which opposes some of the President’s policies and is all-too-eager to investigate the links between Government supporters in Congress and the same paramilitary drug lords. The news are that the thugs, in exchange for leniency about their crimes, were giving secret info to the executive about bad behavior by members of the Supreme Court. I know this sounds confusing. It is. And I am probably not explaining it in the best possible way, but if you read Spanish you could take a look at my other entry about this issue.

But the problems don’t end there. Many want to know why high presidential officers were meeting with the mentioned thugs. Many want to know why the heck they were received in the Presidential Palace, of all places. So the Liberal Party, an opposition party, asked for an explanation. But President Uribe said he won’t be giving explanations to a party whose leader had had links with drug dealers in order to kill Pablo Escobar, a 1980s mafia kingpin and the man who put Colombia in the map as the cocaine capital of the world. Then accusations flew from one side to the other, the Liberals refused to attend debates in the Senate, and the President did not want to stop with his fiery rhetoric, even after the Vice President asked him to. As a response, and defiantly, the leader of the Liberal Party said last night that he would respond to all the accusations thrown at him by the President, adding that Uribe could not treat the opposition as if they were FARC members.

But all that is old news. The hyperactive Colombian media is still in speculation mode about all that, and how this impasse ends remains to be seen. However, it was not only that what made me realize that Colombia has gone upside down. Shockingly, while I was listening to the radio program, I heard that Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian politician who was rescued two months after six years of captivity, said that it was time to give FARC “political space”, in other words, to integrate them into civil society and democracy through negotiation. Later, the Defensor del Pueblo (literally, the people’s defender, Colombia’s ombudsman) , joined his voice to that plea. He said he agreed that FARC should be given political space and recognition, adding that a Constitutional reform should be called for in order to do this. Since I heard all this while I was driving, I was lucky I didn’t crash. What?! Political recognition to FARC? Integrate them into (the very deficient but still remarkably afloat) Colombian democracy? FARC? Democracy? A Constitutional reform to make all this happen? What is more shocking about this is that it comes from Ingrid Betancourt, a woman who was kidnapped and terribly mistreated by FARC rebels for more than six years. That the ombudsman says it doesn’t really surprise me –after all leftists like each other.

Perhaps Ms Betancourt, the Ombudsman (whose name I am too lazy to check online), and all those who think this is a good idea, forgot that the FARC were born a guerrilla who wanted to impose by force a Marxist regime in Colombia and then turned into a disgusting terrorist and cocaine-exporting group. Just this week, one of FARC’s bombs blew up a state building in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, killing four people and injuring many more. Although they are militarily and politically weakened, they continue to kidnap and kill innocent people, recruit children for their war and plant landmines that are then stepped on by poor peasants. Consider me an indolent right-wing jerk, but I think that FARC neither wants nor deserves negotiation, let alone to be integrated into democracy. Such a process would include amnesties and pardons for FARC’s horrendous crimes, and honestly, I do not believe that Colombia’s people would be able to stomach such a travesty. If FARC members want to stop the fighting, they can reintegrate into civilian life and enjoy the already too generous benefits that the Law of Peace and Justice gives them. So, I am sorry Ms Betancourt, but I will have to say “non” to your proposal, and most probably, don’t count with my vote if you run for President in 2010. It is really unfortunate that Ms Betancourt’s comment came after the bombing in Cali. It shows that despite (of perhaps because?) her kidnapping, she is all too willing to give back to FARC much of what Uribe has so successfully taken away from them.

But then, the surprises coming with the radio news broadcast were not over. Suddenly, after hearing the above, I got to know that Colmbia’s Attorney General Mario Iguaran, said that the Attorney Mario Ocampo, from the International Criminal Court (ICC), said that the ICC would intervene if the confrontation between the executive and the judiciary branches did not end (remember the thugs visiting the Presidential palace?). Apparently, the ICC would also intervene if the investigations about the links between government supporters and paramilitaries are not carried out “properly”. My surprise reached its maximum point. What? What does the ICC have to do with all this, and where does their threatening tone come from? Why are they meddling in Colombian affairs? Simply, what the ICC intervention does is undermine Colombian sovereignty. But of course, courts with so-called “international jurisdiction” know no sovereignty but their own. The crimes and alliances we are talking about were done in Colombia, by Colombians and against Colombians. Why does an unelected body, sitting in a far-away nation, get to threaten Colombia’s legitimate political branches with a legal investigation? International courts are needed in places where the State is either incapable or unwilling (perhaps because it is the perpetrator) to stop major crimes. But make no mistake, Colombia is no Sudan! Colombia is no Yugoslavia under Milosevic! Colombia is neither a failed nor a genocidal state! So back off, ICC, and quit the bullying –otherwise we might go like the Americans, who (intelligently) never recognized the court.

So that’s that. Living in Colombia can frustrate you, sometimes, but you will never get bored alright. And after this rather passionate and opinionated entry, I can only hope that things get better, and we, Colombians, finally recover common sense, which we seem to have lost.