By IANS
Washington : US President George W. Bush has said that a failure by the Congress to ratify the free-trade treaty his administration negotiated with Bogota would be an insult to Colombia and leave a destabilizing effect in the region.
“It would be an insult to a friend,” the Spanish news agency EFE quoted Bush as saying at a press conference here Tuesday.
“It would send a contradictory message to a country led by a very strong leader, who is working hard to, you know, deal with some very difficult problems, one of which is armed, you know, gangs of people that are ruthless and brutal,” the president said of Colombia and its leader, Alvaro Uribe, Washington’s staunchest ally in Latin America.
Bush also repeated what has become a mantra for supporters of the pact with Bogota: that lawmakers’ rejection of the accord would destabilize the region.
As part of a ceaseless campaign of persuasion in favour of free trade, Bush and several high-ranking officials asked the Congress to approve the treaty with Colombia as an antidote to the Left-wing populism promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Besides the trade agreement with Colombia, the US Congress must also vote on accords with Peru, Panama and South Korea.
The deal with Peru is expected to win Senate approval Tuesday, having already passed the House of Representatives in November.
In the case of Colombia, however, many Democrats – pressured in turn by US unions – continue dragging their feet, demanding that the Uribe administration show more progress on the ground in the areas of human rights, counteracting impunity and combating violence against union members.
Colombia, which trails only Israel, Egypt and Pakistan in the amount of US assistance it receives, is the world’s most dangerous country for labour activists.
And Uribe has been splattered by revelations of links between dozens of his political allies and the right-wing militias blamed for thousands of deaths in Colombia.