Speaking at a press conference with his Colombian counterpart,
Alvaro Uribe, President George W. Bush announced on Sunday that he
would urge Congress to pass the US-Colombia free trade agreement
and continue financing Plan Colombia.
During a face-to-face meeting, both leaders pledged to keep
fighting drug trafficking, outlined their belief in the peace
process between the government and paramilitaries from the
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, while also discussing the
bilateral trade relationship.
The Plan Colombia which Bush promised to keep supporting is an
anti-drug and counter-guerrilla initiative dating back to 2000,
which has seen Colombia receive US$3.5 billion in US government
support, primarily targeting its military.
Hundreds of protestors protested against Bush's visit outside
Casa Narino, Colombia's seat of government in its capital, Bogota.
Police and military forces cordoned off Bolivar Place, in central
Bogota, relegating the crowds to adjacent streets.
"The complaints are directed against (Colombia's president)
Alvaro Uribe, for accepting the visit of a man who represents the
most reactionary sectors of US society and who is pursing an absurd
and bloody war in Iraq," Jorge Robledo, leader of the protests told
media.
Robledo, hailing from the left-wing Alternative Democratic Pole
party, slammed Bush for spreading poverty by making trade
agreements that were skewed to benefit only the United States.
Arriving from Uruguayan capital Montevideo, for a short trip to
Colombia, Bush was met at the airport by Colombia's Foreign
Minister, Fernando Araujo, as major security measures were put in
place.
Colombia's proximity to Venezuela thrusts the Bush-Chavez
rivalry into the limelight. Chavez is currently on his own tour of
the continent, consistently attacking Bush, and labeling him a
hypocrite and an imperialist.
For his part, Bush avoided referring to Chavez by name during
his visits to Brazil and Uruguay, where his overtures to free
market-oriented leftist leaders aim to halt Chavez's momentum in
fostering a regional socialist revolution.
Bush's message has been a softly-spoken approach of poverty
alleviation and of promoting democracy in a region where its
effects in closing the poverty have so far been
negligible.?
Judging by the street protests, Bush's transformation has so far
convinced few of his detractors. His motorcade passed demonstrators
wielding banners that read "Bush murderer" and "Bush genocide" on
Saturday night in Montevideo.
Bush will leave Bogota later for Guatemala, the penultimate stop
in a Latin American tour that began on March 7 in Brazil, and will
encapsulate Uruguay and Mexico.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily via agencies March 12,
2007)
