Today we we’re joined at the end of the meeting by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter who phoned in from Pakistan where he’s taking part in a CODEL (a trip abroad by a group of members from the House & or Senate) of the Middle East. The conversation was brief but the congressmen seemed to be learning a great deal about the language used in regard to out fight for freedom and how the global war on terrorism terminology plays on the streets of Pakistan. We hope to learn more about this topic and will bring you an update as soon as its available.
The bulk of the meeting was taken up by Under Secretary for International Trade Chris Padilla , Chris reiterated the need for the U.S. to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Using the “Brown Bag” example shown below Chris pointed to the inequity of or current trade situation with Columbia and the fact that this Congress lead by what could only be classified as economic Isolationists.
Democrat speaker Pelosi and Senate leader Reid have for the first time in the history of such agreements not fast tracked this for an up or down vote. In fact, it’s been 588 days since the signing of this bill and there has been exactly zero hearing on the matter! The Democrat controlled congress is out of line and the leadership is derelict it’s its duty to the American people and the agreed upon framework of such trade agreements and needs to be called to account!
Subsequently Senator McCain has released an add offering his support for such agreements and is visiting Columbia and Mexico.
The AFL-CIO response was the typical misleading rhetoric that has no basis in fact:
“Working people have seen bad trade deals send their jobs overseas and decimate their communities, yet McCain enthusiastically supports the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and celebrates the effects of NAFTA,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in the statement.
“McCain has said he would negotiate a ‘free trade’ agreement with ‘almost any country willing to negotiate fairly with us’ – without any consideration of the negative job impact on American workers or the egregious abuse of workers’ rights abroad,” he added.
Democrat leaders oppose this agreement based on manufactured, miss-stated or just plain old data points.
Cato has a great piece on this entitled A U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: Strengthening Democracy and Progress in Latin America and detail Why Congressional Democrats Oppose a Colombia Trade Agreement:
In a June 29, 2007, statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders announced their opposition to the Colombia FTA. “There is widespread concern in Congress about the level of violence in Colombia, the impunity, the lack of investigations and prosecutions, and the role of the paramilitary,” they explained. “We believe there must first be concrete evidence of sustained results on the ground in Colombia, and Members of Congress will continue working with all interested parties to help achieve this end before consideration of any FTA. Consequently, we cannot support the Colombia FTA at this time.”2
Violence is a real issue for union members in Colombia. Since 1991, more than 2,200 union members have been assassinated, mostly by right-wing paramilitaries. Colombia is the most dangerous country in which to be a union member, as a recent publication from the AFL-CIO points out.3 And the justice system has failed in most cases: Out of so many murders, there have been only 37 convictions.4 However, Democratic leaders and their union allies fail to credit the Colombian government with the dramatic progress it has made against what only a few years ago seemed to be hopeless odds.
The real story in Colombia is not the current level of violence but its dramatic fall in a relatively short period, and the credit due the Colombian government for the progress. The number of assassinations of union members in Colombia has dropped sharply since 2001, a year before Colombian president Álvaro Uribe was sworn into office. From about 200 assassinations a year in 2001 and 2002, the number fell by half in 2003 and has continued to fall since then. (See Figure 1.) The AFL-CIO claims 38 unionists were assassinated in 2007, while the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection counts 25. Even if the higher AFL-CIO figure is accepted, that would mark a plunge of more than 80 percent in assassinations of trade unionists during President Uribe’s time in office; the decrease would be nearly 90 percent if the Ministry of Social Protection figure is accepted. Either number represents remarkable and welcome progress under President Uribe.
Trade unionist killings must also be seen in the context of a society that for decades has been one of the most violence-plagued in the world. Since independence from Spain in 1819, the country has been engulfed in violent civil conflicts that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. In the 1960s two Marxist armed groups, the FARC and ELN, started a guerrilla war against the Colombian government. Later in the 1980s, powerful drug cartels battled the authorities and each other in the streets of important cities such as Medellin and Cali. Medellin was, until a few years ago, the deadliest city in the world. In the early 1990s, right-wing paramilitary groups were formed by landowners to battle the left-wing guerrillas. These groups soon became criminal forces of their own.
In the mid 1990s, once the drug cartels were dismantled, both guerillas and paramilitary groups moved into the narcotics business. Colombia’s rugged geography makes it an ideal place for growing illegal crops such as marijuana and coca. It is estimated that 90 percent of powdered cocaine consumed in the U.S. comes from Colombia.5 This represents a multimillion dollar business that illegal armed forces have exploited for over a decade.
Against this daunting backdrop, the Uribe administration has taken decisive action. The government has established a protection program for vulnerable groups of society. Currently 1,504 union members have enrolled in the program, more than any other group of civil society. Working with the International Labor Organization, Colombia has created a special unit under its Attorney General to investigate priority cases of violence against trade unionists.6 Union members still get assassinated, but they account for less than one in ten civilian assassinations by illegal armed groups.7 Other groups targeted for violence include teachers, journalists, business leaders, and politicians, most of whom are members of President Uribe’s own party.
The AFL-CIO repeatedly cites the figure of 2,245 labor union members killed in Colombia since 1991 as a central argument for not approving the trade agreement. But that figure is heavily front-loaded, with more than four out of five of those killings taking place prior to President Uribe’s administration. Instead of giving Uribe due credit for the dramatic decline in killings, the AFL-CIO insists on punishing the current president and the people who elected him for the failures of past administrations.
Unfortunately, left-leaning groups in Colombia have colluded with labor interests in the United States to convince the Democratic leadership in Congress that this FTA should be defeated on humanitarian grounds. There is more ideology behind the opposition to the agreement than real concern for union members in Colombia. For example, Gustavo Triana, an official at the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, Colombia’s largest labor federation, says that “Free trade is killing us as much as bullets are.”8 Equating peaceful, voluntary trade with murdering bullets is a gross comparison that shows the ideological agenda behind much of the opposition to an FTA.
We need to demand that congress start hearings immediately and call for an up or down vote playing these economic isolationist games while the rest of the world passes us by is uncalled for and completely unacceptable!
For more please see:
Colombia Free Trade Agreement: Congressional Democrats Need To Step-Up
U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Gains Allies
Obama Trading in Contradictions
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