25/11/2010
It isn’t just anyone who can give you the concession to the most important port in the country. That decision comes from up high.
I’d hope so.
It only makes sense that control of something so vitally important to a nation’s economy would be awarded by high-level functionaries through a well-vetted and excruciatingly detailed process.
Except that’s not Walid Makled meant in his post-arrest interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdv3n18Od24) with the Colombian news channel RCN, because Walid Makled, despite once having legitimate assets such as the Venezuelan Airline Aeropostal and the port I alluded to above (Puerto Cabello), is not a legitimate businessman—he’s a drug dealer; and up until recently, a really successful one.
The Venezuelan of Syrian heritage who for some reason often goes by “The Turk” was said to be moving ten tons of cocaine a month to Europe and the United States.
And the reason he could do this?
I’ll just assume you won’t need a second guess. Those people up high: Governors, Generals, and really anyone with concomitant decision-making power.
“If I’m a drug trafficker,” he told the RCN interviewer, “then they’re all drug traffickers.”
That was back in September. But if you picked up a major Latin American newspaper in the last few days, you most often found the story front and centre again. That’s because Mr. Makled’s extradition has become a diplomatic hot topic.
Hugo Chávez has made it clear that Makled’s extradition from Colombia to Venezuela (as opposed to the United States) is nonnegotiable if again amicable Venezuela-Colombia relations are to remain that way. Luckily for Chávez, at least if you believe Makled has the damning proof he claims he does, President Santos agreed to temporarily turn his back on longtime ally the United States and send Mr. Makled back to Venezuela.
On Sunday, a gleeful Chávez rejoiced: “I believe in President Santos’ word.”
He continued by saying that this decision would prevent Makled from vomiting “up all sorts of accusations against the Bolivarian Republic, against its political and military leadership…”
He offers no explanation of why the accusations of a drug trafficker and accused murderer should matter at all. Nor does he explain, as one Colombian editorialist remarked the other day, why Makled was being protected in Venezuela—why he had no trouble till “he made the mistake of stepping on to Colombian territory…”
The answers to those questions being fairly obvious, the focus has shifted to President Santos. The most hyperbolic column I read compared him to Neville Chamberlain signing the Munich Agreement; I have no doubt that former President Uribe is at least partially responsible for these kinds of editorials. He’s more active on his Twitter account than most celebrities, and is none too subtle in publically second-guessing the dovish policies of his former Defense Minister; he’s also quite clearly peeved his successor’s approval ratings after his first hundred days are higher than those he had at any time throughout his immensely popular presidency.
So, knowing that Santos has some popularity to spare—why Makled? Why now?
Two reasons: first, it’s widely-known and acknowledged by almost everyone except Chávez that there are guerilla camps inside the Venezuelan border. In a gesture intended to show future cooperation in that area, two captured middle ranking ELN and one FARC member were turned over to Colombia. Considering guerilla presence within Venezuela was one of the main reasons relations soured in the first place—it’s a big step.
Second, there’s the issue of outstanding debt to Colombian exporters, said to be close to US$ 800 million. If Chávez is angry, there’s no hope of those exporters seeing any of what they’re owed, and there’s certainly no hope of returning cross-border trade to its pre-dispute levels.
True, that’ll hurt Venezuela, too; it’ll mean increased inflation in an economic environment where everyone but the government ignores the official exchange rate; but for Colombia, where politicians are more likely to be held accountable, it’ll mean additional unemployment in a country where levels are already too high.
At personal level, we tell ourselves we can choose our friends. In the realm of international relations, that’s more than a little misleading. A certain naïveté leads us to believe an active conscience can and should dictate all of leaders’ actions; necessity proves that disingenuous.
Were Makled extradited to the United States, his revelations could—as some have pointed out, turn Chávez into another Noriega.
I doubt it.
I suspect they’d quickly be dismissed as Yanqui propaganda, and that would be that. A more likely scenario would be a slightly more difficult Presidential election for Chávez in 2012—one without the financing he appears to have been receiving from one of Latin America’s more powerful drug traffickers.
President Santos certainly isn’t Neville Chamberlain, but statements of that kind evidence the sympathy Colombians currently have for Venezuelans. They see a country people fear to visit and remember a time not that long ago when their own was perceived to be a place to avoid.
Now major American dailies are encouraging tourists:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111902827.html
If giving away a drug trafficker is the price to pay for stability, it’s easy to understand why most Colombians don’t find the price all that steep.
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