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

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

Free Press Under Threat in Latin America

Lots of newpapers for sale here, ranging from the dominant
'El Tiempo' to the communist 'La Voz.'

Colombia came out looking pretty good in The Inter-American Press Association's year-end press release - but that's in part because of the very worrying moves against media freedom in neighboring nations.

This year 'only' one journalist was murdered in Colombia in relation with reporting, compared with 11 in Mexico, nine in Honduras and two in Brazil. The association's letter also highlighted Colombia's chuzadas scandal, in which the DAS secret police agency monitored the telephone calls of journalists and many others.

But looking at it from the positive side, the number of journalists murdered in Colombia has dropped dramatically from years past, and the DAS scandal received widespread media coverage and is being investigated by prosecutors.

Of more concern for the press association were moves by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador  and others to repress independent media, either through laws or by creating state-controlled competing media.

All of this is not to say that Colombian media isn't threatened. Ex-President Alvaro Uribe had a habit of accusing reporters of working with terrorist groups. And the country's dominant newspaper, El Tiempo (which also owns CityTV) belongs to the family of Pres. Juan Manuel Santos (and the ex-vice president), although the paper does give solid coverage to government failures and scandals, as well as editorializing against drug prohibition. And, there are also several furiously anti-government communist papers.

Below Pres. Santos' photo, Voz newspaper
announces a 'Desolate Panorama.'

As for TV, I don't watch it, but my impression is that it's dominated by sports, violence and beauty pageants.

All of which suggests that the biggest threat to a vigorous press here may be human nature: people's obsession with sex, violence and scandal.

El Espacio newspaper, on the upper right, contributes its part to the public debate.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours