Farewell to Alvaro Uribe

For those who got to know Alvaro Uribe during his eight years as Colombia’s President it was evident that he would, in his words, “work, work, work” until the last minute of his last day in office. Slowing down and walking quietly into the sunset wouldn’t have been his thing.

So it was no surprise that just two weeks before leaving office he instructed his representative to the Organization of American States in Washington, Ambassador Luis Alfonso Hoyos, to launch one more major project and call for a special session of the OAS Permanent Council to consider evidence that Venezuela might be harboring Colombian narco-terrorists.

In a two-hour presentation of video, photos and satellite imagery of alleged rebel camps in Venezuelan territory, Hoyos warned that the situation could “gravely affect Colombia’s significant achievements in recent years.”

Such a development would be a huge blow to Uribe’s legacy. Colombia’s 39th president came into office in 2002 pledging to persecute Colombia's insurgents until they got serious about peace. With unbending dedication and determination, he brought his country back from the brink and made it a paragon of success in the fight against insurgents and organized crime.

Hoyos concluded his OAS presentation by calling for the deployment of an international verification commission to Venezuela. He then challenged Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to negate the evidence by welcoming the commission.

Chavez did not exactly jump at the opportunity. Instead, he cut off diplomatic relations with Colombia, moved troops to the border and announced that a U.S. invasion from Colombian territory was imminent.

This wasn’t the first spat between Chavez and Uribe. Bilateral relations have chilled several times in recent years and last year Chavez practically put an end to bilateral trade.
This wasn’t the first time either that Uribe launched a salvo against a neighbor who appeared to show more regard for the wellbeing of Colombian rebels than the plight of the Colombian people.

Late in 2004, Uribe ordered the capture of Rodrigo Granda, an international spokesman of Colombia's largest insurgency group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who had been living a comfortable life in Venezuela. Venezuelan authorities seized him in Caracas and handed him over to Colombia only to have Chavez later decry that Venezuelan officials had been “bribed” to kidnap Granda.

Two years ago Uribe also authorized the bombing of a FARC camp inside Ecuador that killed Raul Reyes, the FARC’s second in command. Colombian officials apologized for the incursion but claimed they had grown tired of seeing no action from Ecuador despite their sharing of information about the camp.

The OAS presentation, in this regard, was a step forward. Rather than taking steps in violation of international law and national sovereignty, Uribe chose the diplomatic, multilateral route in making his case at the OAS and requesting the international community to take action.

But Uribe is no miracle worker. No country but the United States expressed support for the international investigation. After eight years of unilateral actions, Uribe had simply burnt too many bridges.

Even in Washington, where he once enjoyed a near superhero status – President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed on a civilian -- Uribe had lost some of his luster. The best indication of that, of course, is that Uribe will leave office without having secured congressional ratification of a bilateral free trade agreement signed nearly four years ago.

Throughout his two terms, Uribe worked hard and fought harder. Often too he turned defensive and confrontational. Convinced that he chose expediency over due process, opponents charged that Uribe was as fanatical about his agenda as Chavez. (Of course, it is Uribe that will be leaving office on August 7 while Chavez says he plans to stay until 2021.)

There is no question that Uribe’s successor, his former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, benefited from Uribe’s continued popularity inside Colombia. Unlike Uribe, however, Santos seems to act more out of pure pragmatism and convenience than deep conviction.

After his election, Santos invited Chavez to attend his inauguration and tapped Maria Angela Holguin, a former ambassador to Caracas well respected by Chavez officials, to be his foreign minister. Both were a welcome gesture of renewal for the two nations, but also a tacit acknowledgment from Santos that his “democratic prosperity” agenda and the job creation it requires would need trade relations with Venezuela back to normal.

Those gestures were eclipsed, of course, and now with diplomatic relations severed, some may argue that Santos inherits a far more difficult challenge. But after hitting rock bottom, the fact is that relations with Venezuela have no other way to go but up… perhaps another reason for Santos and Colombia to bid a grateful farewell to Uribe.