This weekend finds our Congressman, Peter Roskam, on a junket to Colombia. There he has been meeting with the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, in an effort to smooth the way for a free-trade agreement with Columbia by downplaying the persisent violence against trade unionists, human rights activists and journalists by rightwing para-military groups with connections to both the Uribe administration and the Colombian military. 40 union leaders were killed in the past year alone. And there has been violence directed also at poor people who pose inconveniences to projects by large multunational corporations, a trend that may increase if Roskam and his allies are able to push a free-trade agreement through.
Like his predecessor, Henry Hyde, Roskam has little problem with this kind of terrorism if it supports the rightwing government’s hold on power and thus U.S. corporate interests.
Roskam’s comment from Columbia on the situation there:
“This is a market of 44 million people,” he said. “There are great export opportunities. This is a country that buys a tremendous amount of agricultural equipment.” The best argument for approving the agreement, he said, is geo-political: “We have a lot at stake to see this place flourish and do well.”
So much for human rights.
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