Actualidad Colombiana IN ENGLISH

Bulletin No. 399 Index

January 26-February 9, 2005
Year XXVI

Politics
The Grand 'Affair'

Politics
The Re-election of Uribe in the Constitutional Court

Human Rights
Human Rights Are 'Clogged' Between London and Cartagena

Economics
The FTAA Round Back in Colombia

Full Bulletin in Spanish (.html) and in English (.doc).

The Grand 'Affair'

The kidnapping of Colombian Rodrigo Granda in Caracas is the regionalizing of preventive security and the first stumble of the South American Community of Nations.

JAIRO LIBREROS
Political analyst and Professor of Politics of Security and National Defense,
Universidad Externado de Colombia.

On December 13, 2004, an El Tiempo editorial announced with skepticism the birth of the South American Community of Nations (SACN). It noted that two factors could turn the dream of regional integration into ‘flag waving’: Brazil’s actions and the extraordinary list of infrastructure projects. The prediction turned out to be valid, but for a different reason.

The Re-election of Uribe in the Constitutional Court

“Until now the Constitutional Court has defended the Social and Democratic State of Right contained in the Political Charter of 1991. Let us hope that on this occasion it rules wisely for the good of Colombia”.

Ricardo de Lima
Essayist

Immediate re-election, that is to say, the constitutional right of the President of the Republic of Colombia to maintain power for a new term at the end of his first mandate was approved last December in the Congress of the Republic. The debate was intense, and so were the anomalies. A senator of the First Commission of the Senate of the Republic, Darío Martinez, pointed out that he had entered 17 faults in the eight debates that are required in Colombia for constitutional reform to be passed.

Human Rights Are 'Clogged' Between London and Cartagena

“The Cartagena meeting, more than a board meeting of donors, will be a place for political debate between international cooperation and the Colombian government. Given the rough draft of the declaration that has been circulated, the so-called 'political debate' will be a gesture of flag waving”.

Diego Pérez Guzmán

The meeting of the Board of International Coordination and Cooperation for Colombia is meeting in Cartagena February 3-4. The Board, which is better known as the Board of Donors, plans to continue with the process initiated in London on July 10, 2003. More than 24 governments will be represented, with delegates from the European Union, the European Commission, the United Nations System, the Andean Corporation of Promotion, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Colombian government.

The FTAA Round Back in Colombia

Carlos Rodríguez Díaz
President of the Central Union of Workers

The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), in our opinion, is more than just a single trade agreement, since it incorporates a range of mechanisms that, as a whole, take away rights from governments and give them to foreign companies in the areas of investments, non-discrimination, intellectual property rights, market access, public biddings, and flexibility of services.

In this sense, the FTAA guarantees the transformation of privileges into rights for the transnational companies, which would be guaranteed on the part of legislative instruments. This turns the FTAA into the law of the Republic, giving it a greater legal hierarchy than all secondary legislation of the Andean countries.