[NYTr] Colombia: Tough Guy Uribe Digs Hole, Threatens to Jump Into It

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

VHeadline - Nov 23, 2007
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=77040

Uribe, playing the tough guy, 
digging a hole, threatening to jump into it!

by Arthur Shaw

Alvaro Uribe, the president of the terrorist, dope-dealing and
death-squad regime in Bogota, is bluffing when he demands the release
of 50 or so prisoners held by FARC and the completion of an agreement
for a humanitarian exchange of these 50 or so FARC prisoners for 500 or
so US/Colombian-held hostages both by the preposterous date of December
31.

The aim of both of these eccentric demands from Uribe is to sow discord
between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the FARC
commander-in-chief Manuel Marulanda.

Uribe is understandably concerned about any meeting between Chavez and
Marulanda because the encounter will impart a degree of diplomatic
legitimacy and prestige to FARC as a representative force of the
Colombian people, struggling for liberty and justice against the
repressive Bogota regime over which Uribe presides through rigged
elections and intimidation by death squads.

All that Chavez and Marulanda have to do is to postpone their meeting
and sit tight until the foolish December 31 deadline passes. 

Uribe will be seen as the party who deliberately sabotaged the talks
and the possibility of a humanitarian exchange by opportunistically
playing the politics of fermenting strife among the other parties to
the talks.

This will have consequences for Uribe with the Bush regime in
Washington which wants its three spies and mercenaries back, with the
US Congress that will vote on the imperialist 'free' trade deal between
the US and Colombia, and with the Colombia people who have watched
Uribe repeatedly procrastinate and grandstand on a prisoner swap for
years.

[The rapidly growing multi-billion dollar mercenary industry in the USA
-- which will soon have the capability to attack, subdue, occupy, and
set up quisling regimes in most countries with an army of private
killers and savages -- is pressuring the Bush regime to get the three
US mercenaries held in Colombia by FARC back in the USA.] 

These consequences of Uribe's buffoonery favor FARC more than they
favor Uribe, the buffoon. Bush will see that Uribe can't deliver the
three US spies. Many members of the US Congress already despise Uribe
as a closet terrorist and sadist. The Colombian people will see once
again that their contempt for Uribe is justified.

FARC has, to some degree, encouraged -- or, more correctly, inflamed --
Uribe's conceit and arrogance by hinting that it will abandon certain
Colombia hostages held by the US imperialists in order to reach an
agreement for the exchange of the remaining prisoners on both sides.
Once you give an inch to a sadist, dope-dealer, and terrorist like
Uribe, he adamantly demands a foot, a meter, or a half mile.

If Uribe really wants either a deal or a swap around Xmas, then he
knows he has to be reasonable. He is everything but reasonable. So, he
doesn't want a deal or a swap at this time.

If FARC craters on his two eccentric demands of late, Uribe will then
demand that FARC surrender their weapons by the end of January 2008 or
even by mid-January. It is not constructive to inflame the stuff in
Uribe by an excess of accommodation, because it is the wrong stuff in
Uribe, not the right stuff.

[At the moment, Uribe is in one of his manic phases and FARC must wait
until it passes.] 

If FARC releases its 50 or so prisoners before a meeting between Chavez
and Marulanda, FARC abandons all of the Colombian hostages held by the
US and Bogota regimes and, then, there is no point of a meeting between
Chavez and Marulanda, except for a photo-op over which the US
imperialists and their Colombian quislings will have a good laugh.

If FARC and the Bogota regime can sign a just deal by Xmas or
thereabouts, that will be wonderful. But Uribe wants a lopsided deal in
which FARC releases its prisoners to the Bogota regime and the Bogota
regime releases its hostages to death squads that collude with the
Bogota regime.

That is not exactly a swap.

The Colombian hostages held by Bogota regime are safer where they are
now because as long as the hostages are in the custody of the Bogota
regime, they may be only repressed. But once they fall into the custody
of the pro-Uribe death squads, they will be surely murdered.

Now Uribe, playing the tough guy, is digging a hole and threatening
to jump into it. Let the fool jump into it. In time -- a matter of
months -- Uribe will crawl out of his stupid hole.

This "hole" consist of something like this: if Uribe is left alone and
allowed to dig his hole -- the deeper the better -- and to jump into
it, the most likely result of this bizarre exercise is a certain degree
of estrangement between Uribe and his most important allies. If he
doesn't jump into the hole he dug, then Uribe has decided to be
somewhat reasonable and the talks can resume until his manic conceit
and arrogance repossess him. 

Uribe timed the announcement of his two eccentric demands or his latest
buffoonery about the same time of a highly and widely publicized Paris
meeting between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the French
President during which the humanitarian exchange between FARC and the
Bogota/US regimes was to be discussed along with other matters.

Transparently, Uribe wants to undermine the faith, if any, of the
French President in the ability of Chavez to pull off the exchange of
prisoners. Uribe wants to remind the French President that Uribe, not
Chavez, holds the cards that will decide the outcome of the talks.
Uribe feels that he, not Chavez, should be in Paris talking about the
prisoner exchange in Colombia.

But Uribe isn't. He's in Bogota. So, Uribe tries to pull the rug out
from under Chavez as Chavez talks to the French president about
Colombian affairs.

It's not hard to read what this fool in Bogota is planning. He wants to
throw Chavez out of the talks and substitute either Colombian Senator
Piedad Cordoba or someone else who is more submissive to Uribe as
mediator between Uribe and Marulanda.