Álvaro Uribe Vélez is King Canute!

By Henry Robinson, a friend of ReD

 

So Colombia watch out! The Chinese are coming… The Irish are coming… The British are coming, and so are the French, Israelis, Italians, Japanese and many more…

Don’t take my word for it – I just heard it sitting twelve feet from Juan Manuel Santos who just led a delegation to London to talk about economics and the imminent peace in Colombia.

As my regular readers know, I only really write when I see the need…

Well, I see the need.

It’s been a very long drawn-out five years since the beginning of the peace talks. There’s been a lot of anger; a lot of arguments; a lot of water under the bridge

But the truth is, it took more than twice as long to achieve peace in Northern Ireland – so count yourselves lucky there! I believe you’re eight to twelve weeks away from sealing that agreement on peace. A fact I reflected upon as I listened to JMS telling the story about why so few Chinese tourists visit Colombia. The Chinese premier’s reply was telling:

‘They don’t come because your country is marked out as a country in conflict… Once that’s removed there’ll be an influx of eager Chinese tourists – and the same goes for people from the rest of the world.’

At the conference there was talk of hope: of the post-conflict opportunities for all Colombians; of large scale infrastructure investment plans and, most importantly, the beginning of the healing process and how that entails all Colombians to pull together and work together for a better future together.

It wasn’t just me who was moved. I doubt that anyone who heard could fail to be moved.

But apparently, such people do exist. Chief among them the former President Uribe. I’ve written before about my admiration for him – and then my sadness to witness the way he changed – and now particularly his opposition to the peace process.

But even I was not prepared for the headline:

“URIBE CALLS FOR CIVIL RESISTANCE AGAINST PEACE DEAL”

It made me wish I didn’t know as much as I do about civil resistance and, for that matter, armed resistance. Just to make this clear: the key elements of civil resistance are demonstrations, vigils, petitions, strikes, occupations and so on. The tactics that have been used very effectively by the likes of Martin Luther King and Ghandi, who managed to end Britain’s Raj in India.

But I’ve never seen those methods used to oppose the ending of a bloody conflict – nor to oppose a peace agreement. It Luddite-like in its staggering, breath-taking insanity.

I have lost all hope that Uribe will return to Earth before the forthcoming Peace Referendum – in which all Colombians get their final say on ending the lunacy of war.

That said, tonight I will sleep easy knowing that when all Colombians pause with a pencil over the ballot paper options…

MORE WAR

NO MORE WAR

…They’ll break the point of the pencil in their haste to make the right mark!

My dear, beloved Colombians, please start reading about China and all those other countries of the world whose people want to…. Who will… come to see your beautiful country and meet you as a people.

Yours with hope

Henry Robinson