In Bogota, the exchange of recriminations is in high gear over who’s responsible for blowing Colombia’s valued strategic relationship with the United States. Claudia López of Colombia’s El Tiempo writes in part:
“As President Lula de Silva of Brazil meets face-to-face to discuss global and Latin American politics with President Obama at the White House, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos deplores the ill treatment that, according to him, Colombia has received from a portion of the Congress and civil society in the United States, and proposes an end to Plan Colombia, considering it a source of humiliation.”
“Colombia will lose its status of preferred partner for other obvious reasons: because its role has been overblown and because President Uribe abandoned the bipartisan relationship inherited from [former President] Pastrana, taking sides with the Republicans who lost the election. As a consequence, Uribe was honored by Bush with a medal, while Colombia has been left without solid bipartisan bridges to defend its national interests.”
By Claudia López
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
March 17, 2009
Colombia-El Tiempo – Original Article (Spanish)
As President Lula de Silva of Brazil meets face-to-face to discuss global and Latin American politics with President Obama at the White House, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos deplores the ill treatment that, according to him, Colombia has received from a portion of the Congress and civil society in the United States, and proposes an end to Plan Colombia, considering it a source of humiliation.
This news accentuates the painful contrast between the foreign policies of Brazil and Colombia. Thanks to this, Brazil will become the strategic partner of the United States in the region; while Colombia will cease to be. Brazil will assume this role for obvious reasons: because it’s the world’s tenth largest economy; it is the most stable and progressive democracy on the continent; it is the only one with a foreign ministry and president that garner international respect; and, for all these reasons, it is a player with a global and regional following.
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