Following the November 7, 2006 U.S. Congressional elections, all promised Congressional votes for Peru and Colombian free trade agreements were swiftly taken off the November Congressional calendar in a bow to incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi's anti-free trade agenda. However, we also note that Viet Nam- U.S. and Russian-WTO trade efforts proceed this month toward some resolutions. Neither Russia nor Viet Nam held previous trade agreements with the U.S. covering the sweep of the soon to expire ATPDA trade accords.

The ATPDA trade accords gave free trade benefits with little  requirements for any enforceable rule of law as it covered four very poor nations: Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador for over 15 years and brought about strong trade growth (real jobs) for tens and tens of thousands of Andean folks who would never have sustainable jobs otherwise. Both Peru and Colombia have completed their new accords to upgrade from the now expiring ATPDA to the more complicated FTA agreements which contain investment protections and anti-theft patent protections for U.S. exporters. U.S. and European labor unions have incorrectly warned that the new FTA accords will cause "globalization" harm. In this, the growing cottage industries in the Andean region of exporting pirated pharmaceuticals and electronic goods as well as soaring money laundering by the regional banking industry has gone unremarked. The pirates have made common cause with the useful anti-trade protesters and "NGOs"; their wrong-headed politics are celebrated and explained away as a simple shift in political fortunes.

Just one step behind Peru and Colombia, Ecuador has almost finalized its FTA agreements. Only a small portion remains to be completed. Ecuador should complete its FTA agreements immediately and stop wordsmithing its five year protection of exporting pirated goods and its refusal to extend contract law to oil producers. Bolivia's current anti-U.S. rhetoric and behaviors should not impede the rest of the Andean bloc as these nations have made sincere efforts to expand desperately needed jobs and modernized investor protections. And as we have seen, Nancy Pelosi's U.S. House leadership already appears to be willing to cut any deal that benefits its DNC picks, such as Senator Max Baucus's (D-MT) preference for Russia's entry to the WTO ('normalized' relations with Castro-Chavez) and swift U.S. House support for a Viet Nam trade deal.

Although Colombia's Uribe has been a strong law and order friend for the U.S. in his insistence that the terror group, the FARC must de-weaponize and return almost 1/2 of Colombia's sovereign lands to full Colombian control (and stop controlling 1/2 of the nation as a narco zone), Uribe- with Peru's Alan Garcia- just had the rug pulled out from under his feet by the "new" leadership of this Congress. Sensing a gathering of anti-free trade leaders in Washington, all support for Andean trade pacts surrendered....cut and run...under the "new" democrat majority in an effort to appease the anti-law and order groups and enable stubborn aversion to functional rule of law.

As if to symbolically compel U.S. foreign policy to surrender its counternarcotics efforts in the Andes in swap for democrat support for free trade agreements, the U.S. Department of State has visibly turned Alvaro Uribe over to the very civil groups and politicians who abhor his anti-FARC positions. For months, the U.S. has littered Bogota with well paid, coordinated anti-Plan Colombia groups of various names even as State Department's Anne Patterson, INL chief, gathers her pro-drugs alliances, incorrectly assuming that the U.S. actually desires legalized narcotics trafficking.

The decidedly anti-Plan Colombia efforts, corralled under the Inter American Dialogue (funded by a handful of corporate donations with the majority stemming from the OAS and US AID's Adolfo Franco) was just handed the symbolic ( and well funded)  post as mouthpiece for the U.S. Department of State in presenting Alvaro Uribe to the "new" Congress. While there is nothing wrong with any ngo hosting events and receptions inside the U.S. Capitol, this event was "sponsored" by Norm Coleman (R-Minn) as if to inform Washington that the anti-Plan Colombia Dialogue now has Uribe in its cross hairs for the benefit of the pro-FARC actors. Already Uribe has surrendered negotiations with the FARC's little sister, the ELN, to Kofi Annan's UN original "peace plan" group negotiating team....in Havana. Dismissing all common sense, is the UN the only global body who seriously ignores the Castro-Chavez-KGB spy masters at every corner of Havana? No sane diplomat would hold serious talks in such a venue but the Dialogue and every drug enabling group today, including the OAS and numerous ngos propelled by George Soros ( or as Anne Patterson calls them....'my friends'), agreed with the UN that Havana was a solid negotiating zone.

We remind: neither the ELN nor the FARC of Colombia-Venezuela nor Castro's Russian KGB intelligence mavens do rule of law. They do....murder, terrorize and market stolen goods, new heroin....and just about anything else, such as women and children. But the UN, precisely as it has done in Iraq today with its unending support for anti-democracy militias, calls these thugs...."diplomats" and accords them negotiating status....in Cuba....while insisting that these terror groups "need" to retain their death squads and weapons, currently being replenished by Hugo Chavez through a weapons materiel build up with Russia.

Contrary to the present plan of enabling a watered down approach to terrorist groups, the FTA agreements must not be mired in Soros-backed political jockeying for anti-Plan Colombia, pro-heroin trade groups, no matter how strong the lobbying today to legalize uncontrolled illegal acts such as money laundering, piracy of American goods as well as narcotics. Alvaro Uribe is no mere political symbol to be buffeted and tossed about for pro-legalization political gain. The U.S. must cease handing him a deck of cards that is decidedly stacked against him.

Uribe knows that his nation will fall with the FARC once again commandeering [terrorizing] Colombia. The heavy price on Uribe's head is not reduced by enabling the FARC and its businesses- nor its paid "NGO" backers- but rather by common sense application of security and stability for law abiding Colombians. We remind our friends in Washington that it is morally repulsive to sacrifice Alvaro Uribe and rule of law under the guise of U.S. foreign policy, no matter the newly prized political heft of the anti-rule of law welter of well paid "NGOs" and their mouthpieces. Besides....when were we ever furthered by surrendering stabilizing even handed law enforcement and the tenants of democracy to destabilizing political gamesmanship?

by Pedro Camargo