Uribe, Perpetual Kingmaker

Ivan Duque, president elect
and Uribe creation.

If last Sunday's presidential vote proved one thing, it's that Alvaro Uribe continues ruling Colombian politics. No matter that his own presidency was marred by severe human rights violations including paramilitary massacres with evident government collusion and the horrific False Positives murders, or that his brother is in prison and Uribe himself is the object of multiple investigations for paramilitary links.

No, none of that seems to matter in Colombian politics. Eight years ago, Uribe selected his minister of defense, Juan Manuel Santos, to succeed him. Santos won the presidency, altho he proceeded to defy Uribe by negotiating peace with the FARC guerrillas. Uribe was the leading opponent of the peace talks.

Four years ago, Uribe chose Oscar Ivan Zuliaga, who came close but failed in his attempt to unseat Santos.

But now, with Ivan Duque, a fresh face in Colombian politics, Uribe has shown again his ability to be

Uribe, right, and Zuluaga, his previous political product.

kingmaker. Duque, a senator who is only 41 years old and has been just a few years in politics, was little known until Uribe annoited him as his succesor. On Sunday, he handily defeated Bogotá's leftist ex-mayor Gustavo Petro for the presidency.

While Pres. Santos surprised many by breaking with Uribe, it looks much less likely that Duque will do so. Duque is young and has little political experience. He lacks Santos' long family political heritage. And Uribe will be the most powerful man in Congress, making his collaboration fundamental to the president.

Another winner Sunday were the evangelical churches, most of which threw their support behind Duque. Colombia historically was a strongly Catholic nation. The 1991 Constitution converted it into a secular nation, but Catholicism continued holding great cultural and political influence. In recent decades, however, evangelicals have made great inroads among poor people, while the Catholic Church lost battles on issues including abortion and gay rights and euthenasia. The Conservative Party, which often represented the Catholic church and was one of only two parties which mattered, has lost relevance, while MIRA and other purely evangelical political parties have surged.

The MIRA evangelical party endorsed Duque.

Duque will be indebted to the evangelicals. And, while he has said that he will respect LGBT rights, and "not rip apart" the FARC peace accord, which the evangelicals also opposed, political reality may dictate other plans.

Colombia's environment will be another great loser from this election, although it was already in full retreat. Deforestation has accelerated at a terrifying pace in recent years, and Duque's plans to pursue an economy based on resource extraction will only worsen that trend.

Many suspect that Duque, an academic and diplomat, who is only 41 and has only a few years of political experience, will be controlled by Uribe. Uribe, after all, put Duque where he is and also heads the largest power bloc in Congress.

Duque, however, will have trouble sabotaging the peace deal, which both he and Uribe opposed, because it is a ... law and because many of his likely political coalition partners supported it.

But Duque will pursue prohibitionist drug policies and an aggressive coca leaf erradication effort, even tho both have been shown to be failures. Duque will also deepen Colombia's fossil fuel-dependent economy.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Vote for Petro is a Vote for...Duque?

That's the thesis of Daniel Coronell, veteran columnist of Semana magazine, executive of Univision and perpetual critic of ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, who happens to be the political patron of right-wing presidential candidate Ivan Duque.

Daniel Coronell and Gustavo Petro (inset).

As Coronell sees things, many politically moderate and conservative Colombians are terrified that if leftist Gustavo Petro is elected president he'll turn Colombia into another Venezuela. Their fears might not be completely unfounded. Altho Petro was a respected congressman and as Bogotá mayor he did nothing more radical than causing a crisis by foolishly handing over the city's garbage service to the water company, during the 1980s he was a leader of the M-19 guerrilla group. His guerrilla past might be excused as youthful idealism if not for the fact that Petro has repeatedly refused to criticize the government of Venezuela, which has run that nation's economy into the ground, trampled civil liberties, become increasingly authoritarian and generally transformed what should be the region's wealthiest nation into a disaster area.

More than a million Venezuelan refugees have fled into Colombia, so Petro can hardly plead ignorance about the scale of the humanitarian disaster there. Petro's silence about Venezuela probably isn't due to political interests, since Colombians' rejection of the Venezuelan government seems to be overwhelming. So that makes one wonder whether Petro, if he's elected, hopes to make deals with the Venezuelan regime - and that is a scary thought.

All of which might make more and more centrist Colombians support Duque just to stop Petro. (On the other hand, of course, a vote for Duque could also be called a vote for Petro.)

Coronell's comments didn't sit well with either the left or the right. Uribe warned him to watch out, as president Duque would review media licenses. Uribe's comments were immediately condemned as a threat to freedom of the media, which Uribe denied.

Duque also scares many people, who see him as the political puppet of Uribe, who selected him to be the Centro Democratico party's standard bearer. As president from 2002 to 2010, Uribe beat back the FARC guerrillas, but at a tremendous cost in human rights. And Uribe displayed a paranoia about the media, human rights defenders and his political opponents, whom he often saw as guerrilla sympathizers.

If recent polls are any guide, Duque has a lock on making into the second round of presidential

Ivan Duque, Colombia's next president?

voting, where he'll be the overwhelming favorite to defeat petro or any other candidate who runs against him. The best prospect to stop Duque might be for the centrist presidential candidates to ally themselves and attract some voters from both extremes - but that looks like a longshot.

But, even in the case of a Duque victory, Colombia's many Uribe haters can hold on to hope. After all, years before Uribe selected Duque to carry on his policies, he selected his defense minister Juan Manuel Santos to do the same thing. Santos was elected president, and still holds the office. But in addition to fighting the FARC guerrillas, Santos entered into peace negotiations with them, infuriating Uribe, who became Santos' political enemy. A similar things happened in Ecuador.

The same might yet happen with Duque. God bless term limits!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Power Corrupts, and....

Lord Acton.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." - Lord Acton; April 1887.

Alvaro Uribe was unquestionably Colombia's most popular and powerful president of recent times. Thanks to his firm and aggressive policies, Colombia's guerrillas were beaten back, laying the groundwork for today's peace negotiations.

However, anybody who lived thru that time remembers how Uribe's aggressiveness could carry over into paranoia, which caused him to accuse principled leftists and even critical journalists of being guerrilla supporters.

Alvaro Uribe: the almost-dictator?

The consequences of that became clear last Friday, when two high officials of Uribe's government were convicted for their roles in the 'chuzadas' or eavesdropping case. In that scandal, the president used the DAS, then Colombia's secret police, to spy on political opponents and critical journalists. (The DAS was dissolved in the wake of the scandal.)

Uribe was so powerful that he succeeded in amending Colombia's Constitution to enable himself to
run for a second consecutive term. If the Supreme Court had not blocked his try for a third term, Uribe might still be Colombia's president today, instead of in the Senate, from where he attacks the Santos administration's peace talks with the FARC.

Ex-DAS director Maria
de Pilar Hurtado.

The chuzadas scandal, which many observers said was worse than Watergate, was only one of many which scarred Uribe's eight-year administration. Under Uribe's watch, the military also allied itself with right-wing paramilitary death squads, which committed horrific massacres while the regular troops stood by. And soldiers also murdered thousands of innocent young men and reported them as guerrillas in order to receive bonuses, in what became known as the False Positives scandal.

Uribe's great power may have caused a moral breakdown. Or, a lack of scruples may have helped Uribe, in Machiavellian fashion, to attain power. But in Uribe power and questionable morality coincided and for a while threatened to carry Colombia down the path of Latin American caudillismo.

Ex-Secretary of the presidency.

It was fortunate - and perhaps surprising - that after almost eight years of Uribismo the courts
retained enough independence to defy the president's try push a third term. Unfortunately, however, the same has not happened in nations such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua, where presidents hold near total control - and the potential for near total corruption.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Alvaro Uribe on the Defensive

Sen. Ivan Cepeda on a television in Paloquemao
fruit market during this week's debate.

Leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda's father was murdered by right-wing paramilitaries.

Right-wing Senator Alvaro Uribe's father was murdered by left-wing guerrillas.

This week, mutual accusations in Congress between these ideological opposites created a drama which gripped much of Colombia.

Cepeda, a leader of the Polo Democratico Alternativo party, has also been a human rights activist and spokesman for the Movement of Victims of Crimes by the State (MOVICE). Cepeda's human rights activism is probably rooted in the story of his father, Manuel Cepeda Vargas, a Communist Party leader who was murdered in Bogotá in 1994 by right-wing paramilitaries linked to the regular military.

Sen. Alvaro Uribe hits back during the debate.

The Colombian public official most frequently accused of human rights violations in recent years is undoubtedly ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe. Uribe remains hugely popular among many Colombians because during his two presidential terms, from 2002-2010, he stabilized the country and drove back leftist guerrilla groups, which threatened to make Colombia a failed state. However, Uribe's accomplishments came at a great cost in human rights. Both before and during his presidency, it was an open secret that the military worked collaborated with outlaw right-wing paramilitary organizations, which committed wholesale massacres of peasants suspected of guerrilla sympathies. Uribe's presidency also saw the notorious Falsos Positivos scandal, in which military units were given bonuses and time off for killing guerrillas. Some military units responded by kidnapping young men who were not guerrillas, killing them and dressing them up as guerrillas in order to earn the bonuses. Thousands of youths were murdered that way.

'Uribe never again.' at an anti-Uribe protest
in the Universidad Nacional.

So, Cepeda had lots of potential ammunition. His accusations against Uribe ranged from alleged working with Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel to helping create the paramilitary groups while governor of Antioquia Province in the 1990s and even a link to the 1986 assassination in Bogotá of legendary newspaper editor Guillermo Cano.

Each of these accusations contains at least a grain of truth.

Uribe's father, Alberto Uribe Sierra, was a prominent rancher, who traveled to his ranch, the Guacharacas, by helicopter to evade the guerrillas who roamed the region. On June 14, 1983 Uribe was at his ranch when three FARC guerrillas arrived. There was a shoot-out, in which the elder Uribe was killed by bullets in the head and chest. (The younger Uribe has, unsurprisingly, spent much of his political career attacking the guerrillas and the left generally.) The guerrillas also shot up the helicopter, disabling it.

The younger Uribe eventually sold the helicopter, and - strangely - it was later found, repaired, on Tranquilandia, Pablo Escobar's cocaine-making complex in southern Colombia. In addition, the elder Uribe was reportedly a friend of the Ochoa brothers, who were part of Escobar's Medellin drug cartel.

But a friendship and a helicopter sale aren't proof of wrongdoing. And, in any case, a son isn't responsible for his father's sins.

Regarding newspaperman Cano's murder, Cepeda said that Uribe had been on the board of directors of a company belonging to a businessman convicted for participation in the assassination. That strikes me as a particularly thin reed to tie a murder charge to. (Escobar is generally believed to have been behind the killing.)

In Congress, Cepeda also charged that Uribe had been - at the very least - permissive with the mushrooming paramilitary forces during his 1995-97 term as governor of Medellin. Cepeda offered videos and recordings of ex-paramilitary leaders implicating Uribe, who denies the accusations.

And Cepeda accused Uribe of having met with paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso on Uribe's Antioquia estate, El Ubérrimo. Mancuso, now in a U.S. prison, says he visited Uribe, who thanked him for helping improve security in the region, and that the paramilitaries supported Uribe's presidential campaign.

Such charges have long harried Uribe, who is fighting dozens of charges in Congress's Committee of Accusations, as well as seven investigations in the Attorney General's office. But, as yet, no charges have stuck. Uribe denies having ever collaborated with paramilitaries.

Uribe, for his part, hurled charges in all directions: He accused Cepeda of being a guerrilla ally and accused President Santos of accepting drug money for his campaign. Cepeda and Santos deny the accusations.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Where, Oh Where, Has Andrés Arias Gone?

Where is he now? Andrés Felipe Arias with Alvaro Uribe,
pushing ethanol back in happier days.

Just a few years ago, he looked like the political heir of then-Pres. Alvaro Uribe. But that was before it was revealed that Andrés Felipe Arias, Uribe's minister of agriculture, had overseen an agricultural subsidies program whose beneficiaries included the wealthy and famous.

A month ago, while out of prison and awaiting a judge's ruling, Arias slipped his government-appointed bodyguard and disappeared with his family. He reportedly traveled to the United States, but his own lawyers say they can't contact him. Meanwhile, neighbors have seen vehicles moving furniture out of Arias's apartment.

Yet Arias's lawyers insist that he will return do his prison term, whose length has not yet been set. Journalists seem to doubt that.

Ex-DAS director María del Pilar Hurtado, now in Panama,
doesn't want to come home.

Arias is not the only ex-Uribe official spending time outside the reach of Colombia courts.

María del Pilar Hurtado, who headed the DAS secret police under Uribe is residing in Panama, where she's fighting extradition charges resulting from an Uribe-era spying scandal.

A second Uribe-era DAS director, Jorge Noguera, was sentenced in 2011 to a 25-year prison term for using the secret police agency to assist right-wing paramilitary groups.

At least four other Uribe officials are awaiting court rulings on charges related to various scandals.

And Uribe himself faces multiple investigations involving alleged connections to paramilitary groups.

Ex-DAS director Jorge Noguera, convicted
for collaborating with paramilitaries.

Despite all of this dirt, Uribe remains extremely powerful, and will soon enter the Senate, where he will enjoy a degree of legal immunity. Uribe's hand-picked candidate, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, almost won the presidency in recent elections.

To Uribe's credit - sort of - he has remained unwaveringly loyal to his ex-officials. But when will Uribe's almost magical spell on many Colombians' mentality fall away before these many crimes and scandals?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

President Zuluaga?

Presidential candidate Oscar Iván Zuluaga.
(Photo: El Tiempo)

When the newborn Centro Democratico Party selected Oscar Iván Zuluaga to be its presidential candidate, many observers called it political suicide. After all, the convention of the party, which was founded by ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, had passed over Uribe's vice president, Francisco Santos, who seemed to be their most popular and charismatic potential candidate (and happens to be Pres. Juan Manuel Santos's cousin). Zuluaga, an ex-treasury minister, in contrast, was seen as grey, uncharismatic and little known publicly.

Andres Sepulveda, arrested hacker
linked to Zuluaga campaign.

And in recent weeks, it seems that things should only be getting worse. Police arrested a hacker linked to the Zuluaga campaign, who allegedly spied illegally on the government-FARC guerrilla peace talks and tried to sabotage those talks. Zuluaga admitted having visited the hacker's office, but claimed that a conspiracy behind the episode was attempting to damage his image.

Meanwhile, ex-Pres. Uribe, who remains the boss and dominant figure in the Centro Democratico Party, found himself in an uncomfortable position after prosecutors cited him to back up claims he made that Pres. Santos's 2010 campaign had received a multimillion-dollar donation which might have come from drug traffickers. (At the time, Santos and Uribe were political allies.) Uribe refused to testify to the prosecutors, questioning the system's fairness - a strange position for an ex-president and senator-elect.

Yet, despite these polemics, a recent poll showed Zuluaga winning both the first-round presidential election, to be held May 25th, and also a following run-off election against Santos.

Alvaro Uribe: Help or hindrance for Zululaga?

But Zuluaga should hold off as yet on his redecorating plans for the presidential palace. Most other polls have placed Santos in the lead. And, it seems likely that as the voting nears, most supporters of also-ran candidates will shift to Santos instead of a relative unknown like Zuluaga, or the third leading candidate, one-time Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, a chronic loser in election after election.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia - A Country Without Memory?

Colombia's new Congress; Dominated by rightist parties, some with dubious pasts.

In yesterday's congressional elections conservative parties did extraordinarily well, while left-wing ones might as well not have shown up. That says something about Colombians' priorities - as well as about their memories.

As far as priorities go, the right's victories suggest that Colombians' priorities remain 'order', 'security' and 'economic growth.'

A memorial to the thousands of members of the
Union Patriotica Party murdered by right-wing forces.
The party won no seats in Congress in Sunday's vote. 

As far a memory goes, Sunday's big winner was ex-president Alvaro Uribe. Many Colombians evidently recall positively that during Uribe's eight years leading Colombia the nation's economy grew, the guerrillas retreated and Colombia became more stable and less violent. But perhaps they forget - or don't care - that Uribe's administration (for which Pres. Santos was minister of defense) also produced several of the biggest and deadliest scandals in Colombian history: the military's collusion with right-wing death squads and the Falsos Positivos, during which military units, to earn bonuses for killing guerrillas, kidnapped and murdered thousands of youths.

Both of those scandals are among the worst human rights violations in recent Latin American history. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet also stabilized his country's economy during his two-decade dictatorship, but is widely remembered as a monster because of the 3,000-plus dissidents murdered and tens of thousands tortured by his regime. Between 2002 and 2008, the Falsos Positivos phenomenon produced more than 3,000 victims, according to the International Federation for Human Rights. (To be fair to Uribe, both the extrajudicial killings and military collaboration with far-right paramilitaries began before his presidency.) Uribe is not the only one involved in those scandals. Uribe supporters, including members of the Cambio Radical Party which now supports Pres. Santos, also allegedly collaborated with paramilitaries.

Colombian congressmembers. Lots of palefaces.

In contrast, the far-left Union Patriotica Party, thousands of whose leaders were killed by right-wing forces in the late '80s and early '90s, didn't win a single seat on Sunday.

Voters should not feel obligated to vote for a political party just because it was the victim of human rights violations. However, one would hope that involvement in such violations would make Colombians think twice before casting their ballot.

On a related note, I was also struck by how white the Congress is, despite Colombia having
many indigenous, Afro-Colombian and mestizo citizens.

El Tiempo reports that the Opcion Ciudadana Party, which won five seats in Congress, has many members with ties to paramilitary scandals.

For the record, for anybody unfamiliar with Colombian politics, there is a huge difference between Pinochet and Uribe: Pinochet seized power via a military coup, while Uribe was elected democratically and left office, albeit grudgingly, when his two terms ended.

Albinism? These two guys were elected to the congressional seats supposed to represent AfroColombians.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

And The Winner Is...Alvaro Uribe

A campaign poster for a candidate for the Camara, along Calle 26 in Bogotá.

The return of ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe to political power (he never left politics) in today's congressional elections probably won't sink the peace negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, but it could complicate things. Uribe's newborn Centro Democratico party finished second in the Senate with 14.4% percent of the vote - just one percent behind Uribe's old party La U.

A mural in Bogotá memorializes the Union Patriotica party,
thousands of whose leaders were assassinated during
the 1980s and '90s. The party was recently refouned. 

Uribe has been a furious opponent of the talks, which he claims amount to giving impunity to the guerrillas, who have committed innumerable severe human rights violations. As a senator and leader of one of Congress's largest political forces, Uribe will have a much more powerful voice. Two of the issues yet to be resolved in the Havana peace talks are how to end the guerrillas' participation in narcotrafficking and whether the guerrillas will receive political representation. As president, Uribe waged war on the guerrillas and aggressively eradicated drug crops. As a senator, he will surely oppose negotiated settlements on either of those issues.

Semana magazine doubts that Uribe's forces will be able to block the peace process. But that doesn't take into account the dynamic of popular opinion, which might turn against the negotiations. The new parliament will make the peace process more complex.

'Firm hand, big heart.' A billboard in Bogotá for
Alvaro Uribe's Centro Democratico Party. 

Today's vote also showed that Colombia remains a very conservative nation. In the Senate, the three largest vote winners and four of the five biggest parties are conservative. And the fourth place finisher, el Partido Liberal, isn't very liberal anymore. In the Camara, or House of Representatives, La U party came in first as well, the Liberals finished second and the Partido Conservador finished third. Uribe's Centro Democratico won only 5.5% of votes among Camara candidates, a respectable showing for a new party.

As for the far-left parties, the Polo Democratico received 1-7% of votes in the Camara and even less in the Senado. The reborn Union Patriotica got even less.

And MIRA, the evangelical Christian party which has been mired in scandal and legal problems, received fewer than 5% of the votes, meaning that it loses its representation in the Senate.

As for the presidential election coming up in May, today's vote doesn't change much - if only because Uribe's Centro Democratico Party's candidate has no charisma.

The Green Alliance, with its confused ideology, elected ex-Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa as its presidential candidate, setting him up for yet another doomed campaign.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Don't Mess With Uribe!

A cartoon from El Tiempo portrays the
alleged plot against Uribe as a bomb
threatening to destroy the peace talks. 

Pres. Santos's recent revelation of an alleged FARC plot to assassinate ex-Pres. Uribe generated a lot of headlines - and statements that such a killing would sink the peace negotiations going on in Havana, Cuba.

Alvaro Uribe:
Untouchable?

.But why would assassinating Uribe - or even threatening to - really cross a line? After all, the FARC routinely kidnap and kill civilians, soldiers and police officers, drive peasants off of their lands, and attack infrastructure, cutting off electricity and water for humble Colombians. The guerrillas also recruit children, plant land mines, traffic drugs, and on and on.

As brutal a crime as assassinating an ex-president would be, what makes it any worse than the crimes
the FARC commit against humble Colombians, routinely and with little attention?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Prison for Presidents?

President Santos made a pointed observation the other day: No high official of his administration has been sent to prison, or even accused of serious crimes, he said, "in contrast to previous administrations, in which half the ministers ended up in prison."

Nobody doubted that Santos was referring to his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, many of whose allies went to prison in the parapolitica scandal for taking money from illegal, far-right paramilitary death squads.

Significantly, Santos himself was Uribe's defense minister. And during Uribe's government the military became notorious for collaborating with and turning a bliind eye to paramiltary crimes. And, in the falsos positivos scandal, military units killed thousands of civilians and reported them as guerrillas in order to earn bonuses or time off. Santos himself was not connected to either scandal.

Uribe was connected, however. And he's now being investigated by courts in both Bogotá and Medellin for allegedly supporting the paramilitaries.

So, when the never-subtle Uribe said that Santos should be in prison "for deceiving 90% of 9 million voters," he looked more than a bit hypocritical. Rather than Colombian law, Uribe was referring to the law of loyalty to Uribe. Uribe chose Santos as his succesor, But Santos has softened Uribe's hard-line military policy and is negotiating with the guerrillas.

The spat comes at a sensitive time for both men. Santos' reelection hopes may ride on the outcome of the negotiations with the FARC guerrillas going on in Havana, Cuba. But those talks seem to have bogged down. For his part, Uribe has established his own party, the Centro Democratico, with whichi he is running for Congress. But the Centro Democratico's recent convention passed over Francisco Santos, widely seen as its strongest presidential candidate (and Pres. Santos's cousin) and chose instead an Uribe favorite, ex-minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who seems to lack the necessary charisma to win.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Uribe's Unlikely Comeback

Alvaro Uribe: Once and future king?

Ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe is being investigated for paramilitarism by courts in both Bogotá and Medellin. So is his brother Santiago.

Both security chiefs who served during Uribe's presidency are in prison, for drug trafficking and paramilitarism.

A paramilitary leader imprisoned in the U.S. testified recently that his group gave "total support and collaboration" to Uribe's presidential campaign.

A prominent member of Uribe's Centro Democratico political party - a stand-in for Uribe in the presidential elections - was arrested in late August, accused of paramilitary ties.

And Uribe is still fighting accusations from the huge wiretapping scandal during his presidency, which some compare to Watergate.

So, it's quite a time for Uribe to choose to make a political comeback.

But that's exactly what the ex-president aims to do with his Centro Democratico political party, with which he is running for Congress.

Jose Obdulio Gaviria, source of constroversy.

Uribe has, characteristically, not retreated an inch in his own defense. He published Twitter messages headlined: 'Why I am a Paramilitary.' The messages responded to seven specific accusations, including that he collaborated in the paramilitaries' birth when he was governor of Antioquia Department and that, also under his governorship, authorities stood aside when paramilitary death squads massacred 15 peasants in the town of El Aro in 1997. Uribe denies having collaborated at all with paramilitaries.

Uribe, however, attracted even more controversy by including his long-time advisor Jose Obdulio Gaviria in his party's list of congressional candidates. Gaviria, inconveniently, happens to be a cousin of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who was shot down in Medellin in 1993. According to some reports, Gaviria helped his murderous, narcotrafficking cousin.

Uribe carries the flag for his
Centro Democratico party.

Despite everything - including his own efforts to sink his campaign - Uribe's comeback may succeed. Paradoxically, Uribe's favorability rating is still above 60% - far higher than that of Pres. Santos, whom Uribe chose as his succesor, but now vehemently opposes on most issues.

Were eight years enough of Uribe? Not quite.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Like Sons Like Father: The Uribe Polemic Continues

During his presidency, Alvaro Uribe generated either hate or adherence: For some, he was Colombia's savior, for others a warmongering ally of right-wing death squads. And, since he left office, Uribe has continued generating polemic as leader of the opposition to his succesor Juan Manuel Santos.

So, perhaps it's not surprising that Uribe's sons Tomás y Jerónimo Uribe Moreno are generating their own controversies.

At first glance, it's hard to understand why. The young men operate some admirable businesses: Artesanias de Colombia, which markets traditional handicrafts, and EcoEficiencia, which recycles and disposes of hazardous wastes, as well as providing other environmental services. They've also been involved in real estate and the family ranch.

Still, suspicions of favoritism have never gone away. During their father's eight years in power, some of those businesses grew tremendously.

But entrepeneurship deserves its rewards. So perhaps it's just the young men's style - or the reputation inherited from their hard-driving father - or political resentment - that's generated conflict.

Still, questions keep coming up. There were the links to a pyramid scheme. And when Bogotá was reorganizing its waste disposal system a few years ago, the traditional recyclers - poor people who pick thru the garbage on the sidewalk for whatever they can use or sell - charged the Uribe brothers with trying to monopolize the city's recycling industry and eliminate the independent recyclers' way of life.

The Uribes backed off of that recycling plan, altho they continue in the industry.

In 2009 the brothers were accused of receiving favors after a property they purchased outside of Bogotá was rezoned as a free trade area. Soon after that, someone created a Facebook group named 'I commit myself to kill Jerónimo Alberto Uribe, son of Alvaro Uribe.' The group's profile page said they wanted to show the Uribes the 'horror of war.' A young arts student turned out to be behind the Facebook group. He was absolved of any crime.

The brothers were back in the news this April after investigative journalists revealed that they had opened a bank account in a the British Virgin Islands, considered a tax paradise. The Uribes responded that a business partner had decided to open the account there in order to sell handicrafts and that the business had failed.

And last week El Tiempo published a long report about allegations that the brothers had engaged in tax fraud. In today's paper, the Uribes reject the charges and claim that their clients lied.

Throughout the young Uribes' business career has run the suspicion that they have benefited from their name and father's influence. In December 2010, ex-Pres. Uribe and journalist Daniel Coronell clashed on Twitter after Coronell reported that Tomás Uribe had met with a Brazilian construction company seeking contracts in Colombia. Coronell said that, however innocent Tomás Uribe might be, such a meeting didn't look good. The ex-president responded furiously and Coronell asked him to "Explain the fortune of your children."

Thru it all, president and now ex-president Uribe has given no ground in defense of his sons' honor. In 2008, he affirmed "my sons aren't corrupt. They aren't influence traffickers before the state...My sons have chosen to be men of work, honest and serious."

The family also argues that the younger Uribes have no contracts with the state.

It's probably inevitable that the ambitous sons of such a powerful, polarizing figure as ex-Pres. Uribe will attract controversy.

But it's also true that the sons of a president should walk very carefully, and, at a minimum, they've failed at that.
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Return of uribe (Who Never Really Left)

Ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe -
a once and future king?

With his creation of a new political coalition, called 'The Pure Democratic Center,' and a social movement called the 'Front Against Terrorism,' as well as the grooming of several possible Uribista presidential candidates, arch-conservative ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe appears to be positioning himself for another grab at power.

Ironically, current Pres. Juan Manuel Santos, who was Uribe's defense minister, was Uribe's hand-picked succesor. But Uribe has made increasingly obvious via his Twitter account his distaste for Santos' policies, which Uribe believes are enabling the country's Marxist guerrillas to strengthen themselves.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos

But Santos appears to be planning to run for a second term, and his popularity - 69% percent in a recent poll - means he'll be tough to beat. That is, of course, if the Constitutional Court allows Santos to run to succeed himself, as Uribe did. The court may decide that Uribe's two terms pushed Colombia's democracy too close to the breaking point to risk repeating the experiment. At the same time, it's also unclear whether the Constitution would permit Uribe himself to run for a third, non-consecutive presidential term.

Uribe's formal reentry into politics leaves his former allies, who supported Santos at Uribe's urging, with a tough choice between remaining loyal to Santos or returning to Uribe's fold.

'The return of the living dead,' says this El Tiempo cartoon about Uribe's return. Except that he's been around all the time.

As far as I'm concerned, Uribe had his day and contributed a lot in pulling Colombia back from bhe verge of being a failed state. But his years were marred by huge scandals, including wiretapping and the false positives killings. Santos has achieved major successes against the guerrillas, and hopeful the recent attacks are more of a blip than a trend. In any case, Santos, with his experience and accomplishments as defense minister, should be able to make any needed strategy changes. Returning to a very flawed past would be way too risky for Colombia.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Uribe's Relative Troubles

Alvaro Uribe may wish that
his brother had been less prolific.

As president from 2002 to 2010, Alvaro Uribe made the fight against narcotrafficking and the guerrillas who profit from it the center of his policy, and progress combatting both gave him great popularity.

And since leaving office, Uribe has used his Twitter account and public speeches to try to pressure his succesor Santos to take a similar line.

So Uribe must feel particularly dismayed by revelations that close relatives of his stand accused of drug trafficking, and may be extradited to the United States - the same place where Uribe sent so many Colombian narcos. The revelations, by journalist Gonzalo Guillén on the Nuevo Arco Iris website, could undercut Uribe's criticisms of Pres. Santos' policies, including the Framework for Peace law approved by Congress today, which Uribe calls an amnesty for guerrillas. Uribe has also harshly attacked Santos's military strategy, which Uribe charges has enabled leftist guerrillas to return to the offensive.

The Uribe-Santos split is surprising, since Santos was Uribe's defense minister and Uribe's hand-picked succesor. It's gotten so serious, with a constant stream of criticisms on Uribe's Twitter account, that Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer recently wrote that the fued "could cripple Colombia."

Uribe's political plans are unknown, but he certainly won't keep quiet. Some speculate that Uribe wants to find a way to run for president again - for which he'd likely have to get approval from the Supreme Court.

According to the latest revelations, the ex-president's brother Jaime Alberto Uribe, who died in 2001 of throat cancer, had two children outside of marriage with Dolly de Jesús Cifuentes. That's not unusual in Colombia, and wouldn't be material for scandal, but for the fact that U.S. authorities accuse Dolly de Jesús Cifuentes and her daughter of belonging to the Cifuentes Villa drug cartel, which allegedly shipped tons of cocaine to the U.S. The Cifuentes Villa organization is allegedly linked to the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel.

Guillen also reports alleged links between Uribe's brother and the Cifuentes Villa cartel, and that the Uribe administration didn't investigate the organization.

This isn't the first time ex-Pres. Uribe has been linked to outlaw organizations. A 1991 U.S. intelligence report linked Uribe to narcotrafficking. U.S. authorities later said the report was only speculation. Various Uribe relatives have also been linked to right-wing paramilitary death squads, including a cousin who did prison time for collaborating with the organizations. Uribe himself has been harried by suspicions of links to the outlaw organizations, which are classified as terrorists by the U.S. and Colombian governments and have committed some of the most horrific atrocities in Colombia's long armed conflict.

While governor of Antioquia Department from 1995 to '97, Uribe encouraged the organization of Convivir or rural self-defense organizations supposed to protect residents against guerrillas and kidnappers. But the Convivirs were accused of collaborating with the paramilitaries.

Uribe has always denied any links to the paramilitaries, and he said via twitter that he didn't even know about his brother's illegitimate children.

Despite these questions, and scandals such as the false positives killings, Uribe remains highly popular, and would stand a strong chance if able to run for another term as president.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Out of Uribe's Palace and Into Prison - II

Ex-Pres. Uribe: Better to leave
him off of your resume.

The procession of ex-Alvaro Uribe administration officials into legal trouble continues.

Already, ex-Pres. Uribe's Minister of Agriculture Andres Felipe Arias was arrested for alleged corruption in an agricultural subsidies program, which doled out support to the wealthy and influential, including a one-time beauty queen. Uribe's ex-chief of staff Bernardo Moreno was also jailed on charges stemming from the chuzadas scandal, in which Uribe allegedly ordered the DAS, or secret police, to spy on supreme court justices who were investigating him.

Hurtado: A free ticket home from Panama?

Now, Colombia has asked Panama to extradite ex-DAS Director Maria de Pilar Hurtado, who fled there after the chuzadas scandal broke. Top Panama politicians are reported to be divided on whether or not to hand over the one-time secret police chief. But a photo of Pilar Hurtado partying away in Panama while on the lam from charges in her own country didn't help her case.

Restrepo

Prosecutors have also called for the arrest of Uribe's Peace Commissioner, Juan Carlos Restrepo, on charges related to an allegedly staged demobilization of FARC guerrillas in 2006. Allegedly, non-guerrillas were hired to pretend to be guerrillas turning in their weapons to generate positive P.R. for the government.

The ex-Uribe officials' legal travails are a dramatic turnaround for an administration which ended with enormous popularity for its progress against Colombia's leftist guerrillas. But the charges could also indicate Uribe's willingness to ignore legality and civil rights in his determination to beat back the guerrillas and perhaps extend his own power.

Uribe's popularity was such that he succeeded in having the Constitution amended to enable him to run for a second term. And, his popularity would almost surely have carried him to a third consecutive term if the high court had not ruled that unconstitutional.

Uribe himself has encountered legal troubles in the United States, where he's been called to testify in a case involving alleged crimes by paramilitary groups.

But the cases also indicate once again the Colombian court's independence and their willingness to go after even popular figures. To his credit, current Pres. Juan Manuel Santos, who was Uribe's defense minister, has not interfered with the cases.

Related: Out of the Palace and Into Prison

The Greatest Show in Colombia?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Peñalosa Shakes Things Up

Alvaro Uribe campaigns with Enrique Peñalosa. (Photo: Radio Santa Fe)

Mayoral candidate Enrique Peñalosa tried to shake things up this weekend by campaigning with ex-President Alvaro Uribe.

Despite the fact that Peñalosa had a succesful term as mayor, remembered for improving public space, expanding the city's bike lane system and creating the Transmilenio express bus system. Peñalosa should have the red carpet laid out for him. After all, the political left has muddied its image with the scandal surrounding jailed mayor Samuel Moreno, of the far-left Polo Democratico party.

But...as a campaigner, Peñalosa can't seem to convince. And, paradoxically, he's stuck in second place in the polls behind ex-M-19 guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who only recently left the beleagured Polo Democratico party.

By campaigning with the conservative Uribe, who is popular but also polarizing - several of high officials from his administration are now in prison or in exile - Peñalosa is giving up any chance for the vote of young progressives, altho few supported him as it is. Peñalosa also recently took controversial strategist J.J. Rendon, whom I see called 'Latin America's Karl Rove' onto his campaign, causing several of his advisors to resign. But Rendon, like Rove, knows how to win - he advised Pres. Juan Manuel Santos in his tromping of Antanas Mockus last year.

Bogotá's mayoral campaign is reaching its final stretch, and only three candidates: Petro, Peñalosa and Mockus, also an ex-mayor, have a real chance. In the end, it will likely be decided by the suppporters of the eight other candidates who have little chance. Will they stick with their man or woman, who will almost certainly lose, or throw their support behind one of the men with potential?

This scenario, unfortunately, bodes ill for Peñalosa: he's got the highest negative rating of any of the candidates, and the Uribe alliance will only increase that negative block.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Out Of The Palace and Into Prison

Pres. Alvaro Uribe's administration ended last year with tremendous popularity, thanks to improved security and a vigorous economy.

But if Uribe's top officials expected to turn that success into flourishing political careers, some were very mistaken.

Bernardo Moreno faces the music.

This weekend, Uribe's one-time chief of staff Bernardo Moreno was jailed by a judge in relation to the chuzados scandal, in which the Administrative Security Department, or DAS, wiretapped journalists, judges and even other politicians.

Andrés Felipe Arias in trouble.

And, less than a week ago, Uribe's agriculture minister and one-time apparent heir apparent Andrés Felipe Arias was jailed for a scandal in an agricultural subsidy scheme called 'Agro Ingreso Seguro' intended to help struggling peasants. Instead, some of the payments allegedly went to the rich and powerful, including an ex-beauty queen, prominent political families and narcotraffickers.

Both have yet to be tried and deny the accusations.

Last November, Maria de Pilar Hurtado, the head of the DAS under Uribe obtained asylum in Panama after Colombian law enforcement moved against her for the wiretapping scandal.

Uribe has stuck by his ex-officials. He helped Hurtado obtain asylum in Panama, and he visited ex-ag minister Arias in prison. Uribe accused one judge involved of bias and said that Moreno's arrest was "unacceptable" and that Moreno was only defending his honor.

Uribe has had his own legal troubles. He's been ordered to testify in a United States trial about alleged ties between the Drummond coal company's Colombian operations and killings by right-wing paramilitaries. Uribe himself is not accused in the case.

Yet another scandal, the falsos positivos, in which military units kidnapped young men, killed them and reported them as guerrillas, has sent some military officers to prison but has not touched Uribe personally.

Uribe was extremely popular during his presidency, and there's talk of him running for another term or for mayor of Bogotá. And these ongoing scandals involving his administration don't appear to have hurt his support much: he's still got 60% support in polls.

Like many scandals, the responses to these one show that Colombia's judiciary does act.

Related: Our of Uribe's Palace and into Prison: the Sequel.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Uribe's Twitter Campaign

Uribe's Twitter photo

Former Pres. Alvaro Uribe is a conservative from a ranching family. So, it may be surprising that, post-presidency, he's embraced the Internet to express his positions.

In recent months, Uribe's expressed his opinions using a technology which didn't even exist when he was elected president: a Twitter account. And, as is his personality, Uribe hasn't been subtle. Or shy. He's even criticized head-on his succesor, Pres. Juan Manuel Santos, who was Uribe's defense minister.

'Justice?' Uribe asks in a recent tweet. 'The innocent go to prison and the evidence against terrorists is devalued.'  So, take that you bad guys! (Uribe was apparently referring to ex-members of his administration now being charged with crimes, as well as recovered guerrilla computer files.)

'Let's not be confused,' he recently retweeted. 'Iran builds military bases in Venezuela.' So, take that you bad guys!

In some of Uribe's most recent declarations, which have confronted him with Pres. Santos, he's criticized the proposed 'Law of Victims' because it refers to Colombia's armed conflict as, well, an armed conflict.

That terminology gives the leftist guerrillas more legitimacy, Uribe tweeted: 'Those who threaten the live, honor and goods of the civil population aren't in conflict with the state. They are a criminal threat.'

Uribe later explained in an interview with W Radio that he fears that declaring that Colombia has an armed conflict would "open the door" to international recognition of the guerrilla groups.

But it's a stretch to call Colombia's half-century-long conflict against leftist guerrillas nothing more than an anti-crime operation. What sort of an anti-crime operation involves much of a nation's territory, involves both the police and the army and confronts an organization with ideological sympathy from the heads of state of neighboring nations?

'The Colombian narco-terrorist groups aren't parts of the conflict,' Uribe tweeted later. 'They are criminals who perfume their actions with political discourses.'

The FARC and the ELN may have lost all their redeeming qualities and become drug-trafficking organizations. But, with a half-century history behind them, it's clear that they've got something that Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel did not.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos'

President Juan Manuel Santos replied that, without recognizing the existence of an armed conflict, Colombia could not carry out attacks on guerrilla camps without violation human rights laws. The Santos administration also pointed out that Uribe's government had recognized the existence of an armed conflict in its demobilization measures.

In his reply Tweet, Santos took the high road: 'For President Alvaro Uribe I only have sentiments of gratitude, admiration and respect.'

During his eight-year presidency, Uribe clashed many times with journalists, sometimes even accusing them of supporting Colombian guerrillas.

Evidently, Uribe's sensibilities haven't changed. Last December, he accused Daniel Coronell, a reporter with RCN, of accepting dirty money. Coronell had written a story reporting that Uribe's son Tomás had met in Panama with businessmen competing for Colombian state contracts. That's not illegal, but certainly suggestive of influence trading.

"A Coronel Journalist launders money from the mafia with calumnies," Uribe tweeted.

Coronell tweeted back: "Mister ex-President Uribe isn't going to intimidate me with slander and calumnies. Rather, he should explain the origin of his sons' fortune."

Coronell tweeted again: "(Uribe) could not silence me with eight years of persecution and won't achieve it now. He'll have to use more drastic methods."

I can't help imagining an earlier era in which politicians and others thundered their arguments out in the public square. In a Foreign Policy interview, Uribe said that Twitter lent itself to hot-headed responses. But at least it doesn't bother the neighbors. And the opponents are less liable to grab their guns.

Uribe's activism shows his continued interest in politics and public events, and suggests that he's not done with politics. Some have suggested his name for Mayor of Bogotá, but Uribe hasn't displayed interest. It's not clear whether term limits would block Uribe from running for another presidential term.

Uribe strikes me as somewhat notable, since so few conservative ex-leaders have remained politically and socially active after leaving office. U.S. Republican Ex-Presidents Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes all got into the grandfather business post presidency, whereas Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have built reputations as statesmen and activists, as has ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Besides Twitter, Uribe also has a website and a Facebook page. And his Twitter account has gained at least one impostor, or parody.

Uribe, with 430,000 followers, and his succesor Santos, with 160,000, are reportedly the two most-followed Colombian politicians on Twitter. And Uribe does move his fingers - he's tweeted close to 5,000 times since leaving office. (In contrast, Uribe apparently never used his official presidential Twitter account.) But Uribe's tweeting can't rival that of his ideological enemy, long-winded Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez, whose Twitter account has 1.5 million Twitter followers.

However nimble Uribe may be with his Blackberry (or I-phone or Android phone...) he'll likely never achieve the literary fame of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But, with so many Twitter followers, he may have more readers.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Drips and Dribbles From Wikileaks

Reportedly, more of the messages in Wikileaks' 'Cablegate' cache came from Bogotá than any of the U.S.'s South other American embassies. That's not too surprising, since historically Colombia has received more U.S. aid than any other nation in the hemisphere, and until the Iraq war the U.S.'s Bogotá embassy was its largest in the world.

Whatever one might think about an alleged rapist releasing confidential diplomatic messages, many of the messages are interesting, altho not terribly surprising.

For example, according to one cable, while serving as Pres. Alvaro Uribe's defense minister, current Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos wanted to push harder in investigating the false positives scandal, in which Colombian military units killed innocent youths and then presented them as guerrilla fighters in order to receive bonuses. Good for Santos, who perhaps was unfairly tarred by the scandal.

Cables also portray the U.S. government as concerned about the extrajudicial killings (which have created an obstacle against U.S. aid and a pending free trade agreement.)

Juan Manuel Santos wanted to crack down on these killings.

Other cables could generate tensions between Colombia and the US, which has sent Bogotá billions of dollars in mostly-military aid to battle guerrillas and drug crops. One cable revealed that the U.S. considered setting up a crack military team intended to try to rescue three Americans kidnapped by the FARC guerrillas. Colombia is the U.S.'s closest ally in Latin America, and its military has been closely trained by U.S. advisors. Does the U.S. lack confidence in Colombia's armed forces? Apparently, even Pres. Uribe was prepared to accept a U.S. rescue attempt. In the end, the Colombian military tricked the FARC guerrillas into releasing the three Americans and other prominent hostages.

So confident were Colombian officials in the U.S. that then-Vice President Francisco Santos even asked for the U.S.'s help in investigating internal Colombian government scandals. The U.S. ambassador declined.

Hugging a Hitler?

Another cable reported that Pres. Uribe compared Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez to Adolf Hitler. In this blogger's opinion, Chavez is destructive, but no Hitler. Uribe, in fact, wanted pushed for the deal giving the U.S. use of Colombian military bases to dissuade a possible Venezuelan invasion. Even if Chavez were as evil as Hitler, the Venezuelan leader and his country are too bumbling and disorganized to do too great damage. Uribe's opinion does confirm his image as a hard liner, with maybe even a big dose of paranoia.

Not surprisingly, then, Colombian officials were angry about the U.S.'s silence on Venezuelan issues. But when the U.S. government needs to decide between allies and oil, the outcome's not difficult to predict.

My comment: Uribe's sometimes extremism is a bit scary. So it's perhaps impressive and surprising that he stayed generally within the Constitution's framework and even stepped down when the high court nixed a second reelection. Chavez, in contrast, is turning into a dictator. 

In contrast, during his final months in office, Uribe wanted to pursue a dialogue with the FARC guerrillas. Perhaps Uribe dreamed of changing his legacy from warrior to peacemaker.

None of the cables revealed so far are earth-shaking - or even particularly scandalous. And the U.S. doesn't come out too badly off. Yes, the U.S. government wanted to weaken Hugo Chavez - but no cable published so far has revealed the Americans trying to do so by underhanded or murderous means, as Chavez himself has so often charged. And the U.S. seems generally to have pushed for human rights here.

So far, about 20 Colombia cables have been released and, reportedly, thousands more are on their way.

Adrian Lamo. Colombia's most
famous hacker - who's not
quite Colombian.

There is also a second Colombian connection to the Wikicables.


Adrian Lamo, the noted computer hacker who turned in Bradley Manning, the soldier who allegedly leaked the cables to Wikileaks, has a Colombian father and briefly lived here as a child.

Perhaps Colombian officials should hire him to hack Hugo Chavez.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours.