Jimmy Carter did NOT endorse Colombia 'free' trade deal! It's a LIE!

[Peace Patriot]

I found Bacchus39's post of a mostly untranslated South American article, claiming that Jimmy Carter supports the Colombia 'free' trade deal, and had promised to tout it to the Democrats in Congress, suspicious and untrustworthy, because it doesn't quote Carter, and also because Carter--who has devoted his life to human rights advocacy--would not likely ignore Colombia's dreadful human rights violations. Also, he doesn't work that way (advocating specific bills to Congress). I was willing to give Carter the benefit of the doubt, because he sometimes dives into intractable situations, and tries to get something started that will improve human rights in the long run, and he has been brilliant and courageous in doing so. I foolishly accepted this article as truthful. But I was wondering what Carter really said...

So I did a little research and immediately found this--a Huffington Post article that quotes the Carter Center--basically, this was all Uribe disinformaton promulgated by the Corpo media. The article couldn't quote Carter because Carter didn't say anything!

----

"Colombian President Uribe Misleads Press About Carter's Intentions - Jimmy Carter NOT In Favor of FTA"

Posted August 27, 2008

"Though it has received scant press here, the Colombian media recently and enthusiastically reported that Jimmy Carter, after allegedly "resolving his anxieties" about the labor situation in Colombia, would champion Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's bid for the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (FTA) - an agreement which Democrats have forcefully opposed and which Barack Obama himself is against. This news followed Carter's recent sit-down visit with President Uribe in Georgia and was based on President Uribe's representations thereafter that Carter would assist him in urging Congressional Democrats to pass the FTA.

"Surprised by this information, I contacted the Carter Center and received the following reply by e-mail:

"'PC (President Carter) has not yet adopted a public position. Uribe met with him during his recent visit to Atlanta. The media made its own interpretation. The Carter Center information office issued a clarification but it has not (had) the same impact.'

"Indeed, it was not the fault of the media for getting this information wrong. Rather, it was the fault of President Uribe who misled the press on this issue, just as his administration attempted to mislead the U.S. Congress in the spring of 2007 in another failed attempt to obtain passage of the FTA. At that time, a delegation of the Colombian government falsely claimed to Congress that the former director of the DAS (the Colombia's FBI) was innocent of the charge of passing a list of unionists to the paramilitaries to kill. In fact, as Gerardo Reyes of the Miami Herald later reported, Colombia's own office of the Fiscalia (Prosecutor) had concluded months prior to this false claim that the DAS director had in fact passed this hit list to the paramilitaries.

"It would be quite surprising indeed if President Carter, who is known as the "human rights president" and who has certainly committed his post-presidential years to the promotion of human rights, would in fact align himself with such unworthy causes as President Uribe and the Colombia FTA. In fact, this would mark a dramatic reversal from the Carter Center's position on this issue up till now.

"As one spokesman for the Americas Program of the Carter Center, Associate Director Marcelo Varela-Erasheva, explained at a panel discussion which he and I jointly chaired at Emory Law School this past February, the FTA will only aggravate the horrendous humanitarian crisis in that country."

(MORE)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/colombian-president-uribe_b_121871.html

--------------

Here is Bacchus39's post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x7153

I think DUers should be aware of the posting of disinformation from an unreliable source, and the posting of self-serving statements and lies from a rightwing politician, without any effort to analyze or vet the source, or verify the information.

Is this Bushville or what? Is DU going to permit such lying headlines to be run on this site?

I am normally tolerant of a wide spectrum of opinion and information, but I am not tolerant of LIES, and I do my best to analyze the big ones and the subtler ones, in Corpo 'news' posts on subjects that I know something about. And I think it should be a topic of discussion here, what to do about a DU poster posting something like this, as if it were the truth--without research into what the truth is, without even a caveat (for instance, pointing out that Carter was not quoted in the article), and leaving most of it in Spanish, so many readers would have trouble grasping the context and the reliability of its other assertions. This lying article serves the Bushite/Uribe agenda, which we have seen Bacchus39 advocate in other posts and comments. Is there any way to protect DU from becoming a Bushite propaganda site, without curtailing the generally beneficial, wide-open discussion that occurs here?

Probably there is not. But I am raising the question, because this headline has been sitting here for more than a week, unchallenged--until I took a look at it, and bothered to find out the truth. It has received 50 views! 50 people have been disinformed--and some may know it, and some may not, and some may be simply confused. I guess the only remedy is vigilance. But I am concerned about the many visitors who come here looking for the facts that they are not getting from the Corpo media, and finding crap like this.

[Judi Lynn]

1. No shock this information was insinuated here in exactly this manner.

It WOULD have been shocking if Jimmy Carter had seriously supported this filth. Wow.

So glad the Huffington report journalist saw this crap and did the work needed in uncovering this crude Uribe whopper, and exposing it.

Clearly Uribe felt he needed that blessing from Jimmy Carter when he made a trip to Georgia espressly to extract it from Jimmy Carter. Jimmy'd better watch his back, hire additional body guards, too, since he apparently sent Uribe home with his butt in a sling.

You remember Uribe was able to move an already compromised Bill Clinton to support him, since it would have been impossible for him to refrain since he was the one who initiated the first people-eating FTA which drove over a million Mexican people into destitution.

He seemed to believe if there was a living US President who holds out, it ruins his chances. Live long and prosper, Jimmy Carter.

The very idea there is anyone who would post here who thinks he can pull a fast one and convince Democrats that a human rights advocate would support Uribe is abhorrent.

From that excellent article you located:

~snip~
For example, the FTA would flood the Colombian market with cheap, government-subsidized food stuffs from the U.S., thereby displacing thousands of small farmers (who make up 23% of the Colombian population) who will be unable to compete with these products and who will therefore lose their livelihoods. This is exactly what happened to 1.3 million Mexican campesinos who were displaced by NAFTA's analogous agricultural provisions. The displaced Colombian farmers would join the ranks of the 3.8 million Colombians already displaced by the civil conflict in that country - the second largest internally-displaced community in the world -- thereby further exasperating an already abysmal humanitarian crisis.

Further, passage of the FTA would serve to ratify the horrendous human rights record of Colombia under the Uribe Administration. As the L.A. Times reported last week, the Colombian military has been credibly accused of engaging in the extra-judicial killing of 329 civilians in 2007 - a 48% increase from the 223 reported in 2006. This brings to 997 the total of civilians murdered by the Colombian military since President Uribe took office in the spring of 2002 -- a 65% increase over the five-year period preceding Uribe's inauguration. No other country in the Hemisphere even comes close to this atrocious record of state-sponsored violence against its own people.

In addition, Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists, with 2597 trade unionists killed since 1986 - a number unprecedented in the world. Since Uribe took office in 2002, 471 unionists have been killed, and the share of those killed by the official Colombian armed forces has increased under President Uribe's watch. As of my writing this article, 38 union leaders have been killed in Colombia so far this year. This is a rate of over one union leader killed a week. Should this pace continue until the end of the year, the rate of union killings in 2008 will far exceed the 39 union killings which took place during the entire year of 2007.

If this were not bad enough, President Uribe's government continues to sink under the weight of the growing para-political scandal in which a number of Uribe's close political associates (around 60 in all), including a number of pro-Uribe congresspeople, have been jailed for aiding the violent right-wing paramilitaries - paramilitaries which were designated as a "terrorist" group by the United States in 2001. Indeed, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal court in the The Hague, Luis Moreno Ocampo, is in Colombia now to investigate whether he can prosecute such pro-paramilitary officials under international law.

This is one thread to save as a reminder of how deceitful the players are in this treacherous fascist game.

While Uribe was visiting Jimmy Carter, he really should have asked him if he would be good enough to help monitor the next Presidential election in Colombia, don't you think? I'm sure Jimmy Carter would love to discuss all the many, many, many reports and testimonies regarding the paramilitaries who intimidate voters, even haunting the voting places, have even stepped into the voting booths with voters. The international election observers would love to be allowed to visit Colombia to help with their elections, if it didn't mean they'd end up in a mass grave!

[Peace Patriot]

2. Yup, election monitors with body armor, peacekeeper helmts, and maybe

baseball bats, pepper spray, kneepads and protective shields, who moved only in large groups, could monitor elections in Colombia. But it would be hard to assess the many voters who simply don't show up, for fear of rightwing paramilitary violence and retaliation. There are so many things that go into a fair and transparent election--starting with safety and freedom of speech for the candidates and their aides and supporters, good and consistent election rules (such as regulation of political ads and money), etc. Groups like the Carter Center start years before, to help design fair and transparent systems that can be monitored, and they won't do it unless certain standards are met. I remember that Carter said that the Carter Center could not monitor the U.S. election in FLA 2000, because the election system didn't meet the minimum international standards for a monitor-able election.

I'm surprised he hasn't said more about our "TRADE SECRET' vote counting, run by Bushwhacks, with virtually no audit/recount controls. But he probably values his life--and also I know that he greatly values the work he has done helping to democratize third world countries. The Carter Center has been a key factor in the leftist (majorityist) revolution in South America. It would be dreadful if his work were curtailed, if he could not travel safely, if he had diplomatic/embassy problems, or got hounded by Corpo newswhacks everywhere he went (character assassination). They were brutal to him recently, went he dared to talk to Hezbollah. He took the chance on that one. But I think he tries to be careful not to rattle our junta too much. Can't blame him for that.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thoughtful ending to the Huffington Post article you linked:

For Jimmy Carter to support Uribe and his lobbying effort for the Colombian FTA would be shocking indeed. As the Carter Center's own Americas Program recognizes, the passage of the FTA would bring further misery to the Colombian people and would represent a reward to Colombia - the country with the worst human and labor rights record in this Hemisphere. I urge President Carter to maintain the Center's continued opposition to the FTA - an opposition which has only become more justified by current events.

So glad to see this, will keep my eyes out for more on it.

[Bacchus39]

4. you post nonsense all the time

the international training exercise is meant to take over Zulia, Colombia will invade Venezuela, the US will invade Venezuela through Colombia, Rumsfeld is going to invade Venezuela, etcetera ad nauseum.

[Peace Patriot]

7. So, what does Rumsfeld mean when he calls for "swift action" by the U.S. in support

of (Bushite) "friends and allies" in South America?

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

None of the possible Bushite war scenarios that I've discussed is "nonsense." All are grounded in on-going events and facts--for instance, the president of Ecuador stating that the Bushites have a three-country civil war strategy (to split off the oil rich provinces)--as well as the Bushites' murderous greed for oil and their seething hatred for Chavez and for the sturdy, smart, far-thinking South American left. Of course they want that oil! Of course they have aggressive intentions! And we need to try to anticipate their moves, rather than be surprised by the next horrors they are planning to inflict on us and on the world. This is the most secretive government in U.S. history. We are forced to read entrails, to be sure. But we would be nitwits NOT to anticipate their next actions, on the basis of what they have already done, and plain facts, such as their unnecessary reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet off the coast of Venezuela.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Thanks, again, for the assistance we needed getting to the truth, from the Huffington Report. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

6. Here's the original whopper as it was unwittingly published earlier:

Carter supports free trade pact with Colombia
August 18th, 2008

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter supports a free trade agreement between Colombia and the U.S. and promised Colombian president Álvaro Uribe to help him convince U.S. congress to vote in favor of the pact.

Carter met with Uribe several hours this weekend to discuss the free trade pact and Colombia’s strain relations with Ecuador. The former U.S. president promised to help Colombia with both issues.

Both the Colombian and the U.S. government already have signed the trade agreement, but the Democratic majority in U.S. congress refuses to vote on the bill, demanding Colombia improves its human rights records first.

After meeting with the former U.S. president and prominent member of the Democratic party, Uribe told the press he is confident Carter’s support will help Colombia succeed in convincing members of the Democratic Party to vote for the pact.

Uribe is currently in the U.S. to promote the free trade agreement

http://colombiareports.com/2008/08/18/carter-supports-free-trade-pact-with-colombia/

Sad, isn't it?