BBC Mundo reports the following statements from Alvaro Uribe in an article titled “Implicit Criticism by Uribe of Chávez in His Latest Speech to Congress”:
“What we will not allow, what we will not remain silent about, is that terrorism can find refuge. The Colombian people, both entrepreneurs and workers, have set a great example for the world: while developed economies appease the enemies of entrepreneurship to save companies, exposing themselves to losing those companies and their dignity, this nation, though poor, has placed dignity and the right to live without terrorists above commerce interests… With dignity, there will be trade with the entire world; without it, no one will believe us.”
President Uribe is correct: the argument that Colombia has allegedly “put dignity and the right to live without terrorists above commerce interests…” is so misleading that Uribe himself concludes with “no one will believe us.” Indeed, any observer of the Colombian-Venezuelan political-economic dynamics over the past eight years can only laugh at Uribe’s hypocrisy, whose audacity reaches the point of making statements that starkly contrast with the deafening silence regarding information about Hugo Chávez and the FARC, which has characterized relations between the two countries for eight years. While Colombia was selling millions of dollars in supplies to Venezuela, Uribe, armed literally with extensive intelligence and evidence of the Chávez-FARC connections, said very little. The policy of silence on the matter has been a state policy until just a few days ago. His Vice President, Francisco Santos Calderon, whom I publicly asked about the Colombian government’s position regarding the regime of Hugo Chávez’s support and connivance with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), also said nothing.
It is a well-known and indisputable fact that Alvaro Uribe kept secret information that undeniably demonstrates the existing relationship between the Chávez regime and the FARC. He did this for eight years while Colombian entrepreneurs profited from business dealings with Venezuela. As I told Santos Calderon, it is unacceptable for the Colombian government to have used that information to benefit from bilateral trade while sending emissaries around the world to sell sympathy with the argument that they were combating drug trafficking and guerrilla warfare on all fronts, with all available resources. Uribe has allowed Chávez to provide refuge to terrorism for eight years. Uribe is complicit in terrorism by omission. And it is impossible, as Uribe himself has rightly said, for anyone to believe the story that his government prioritized dignity over commerce interests.