Alvaro Uribe is Teaching at Georgetown: Students Protest his Human Rights Abuses and Corruption

Ask any Colombian person about what they think of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, and you will get mostly two answers. Those who live in comfortable neighborhoods of the biggest Colombian cities, who are hardly affected by the internal war of that country, and who even might benefit from the drug trafficking and violence, they will tell you that Uribe is one of the best president their country has ever had.

The other answer would come from those Colombians who have witnessed the atrocities of the violent right-wing paramilitaries of Colombia, or those who have a relative killed or displaced by those groups, or those who are aware that the Colombian media is controlled by those groups, and that democracy is weak and elections are completely manipulated by those interest groups. They will tell you that Uribe is nothing but a drug trafficker, a corrupted war criminal, a paramilitary thug.

Alvaro Uribe is now a professor at Georgetown University and he was received with protests today. Read details in Colombia Reports and the Georgetown Voice.

Alvaro Uribe has been the strongest ally of the devastating U.S. policies in Latin America, during the Bush and Obama administrations. His government was benefited by almost $800 millions of dollars annually as part of the failed Plan Colombia. So far, this Congress-approved plan has allowed the U.S. to give between 5 to 7 billion dollars to right-wing Colombian goverments.

Displacement. There are more than 5 million displaced people in Colombia, most of whom are poor farmers, Mestizos, Indigenous, and Afro descendants. They are escaping violence from mercenaries working for drug trafficking mafias, and as paramilitary security for private corporations with strong ties to the former Uribe government.

Contrary to what the Uribe says in the U.S., the Colombian internal violence hasn't decreased but moved to rural areas, while the paramilitary groups have now became political parties in cases of "demobilization".

These human rights violations in Colombia have been denounced even by the conservative Human Rights Watch when president Obama met with Uribe, last year.

The scandal of the "false positives" exposed the killings of thousands of civilians who were dressed as guerrilla members in front of the manipulated Colombian media.

Uribe also allowed its government's secret agency DAS to spy and blackmail on opposition leaders and human rights activists, who also received death threats from the agency. DAS also created manipulated news without legal consequences.


The new president of Colombia is Uribe's closest ally and former Defense minister Juan Santos, elected in marred and violent elections this year, and he is a co-owner of El Tiempo, the biggest and only nationally circulated newspaper in Colombia and he is member of one of the most powerful Colombian families.

Uribe is now teaching future U.S. diplomats. This is what the authorities of Georgetown are saying about him:

The former president of Colombia – Álvaro Uribe Vélez – has been named a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown University, where he will teach students at the Walsh School of Foreign Service. 

We are looking forward to having President Uribe join our university community,” said Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia. “Having such a distinguished world leader at Georgetown will further the important work of students and faculty engaging important global issues.” [...]

“President Uribe will bring a truly unique perspective to discussions of global affairs at Georgetown,” said Carol Lancaster, dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service. “We are thrilled that he has identified Georgetown as a place where he will share his knowledge and interface with Washington, and I know that our students at the School of Foreign Service will benefit greatly from his presence.”

Jesuits 

Georgetown University is run by the Catholic order of the Jesuits or Society of Jesus. It's one of several U.S. colleges and universities run by that order. The Jesuits entered today's United States in the 17th century, with the rule of the French empire. Jesuits used concentration camps (reductions or missions) to force Christianity in the Indigenous populations, even though they were less oppressive than other Catholic orders.

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