Two, Three, Many Colombias

Two, Three, Many Colombias - Publicado originalmente en Foreign Policy In Focus

This past September, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drew criticism for comparing the current situation in Mexico to “Colombia 20 years ago.” Most of that criticism questioned whether the analogy was appropriate or whether the statement was an unnecessary affront to a close U.S. ally, the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón. But the more significant part of Clinton’s comments was her enthusiastic praise for Plan Colombia—the massive U.S. military aid package started by her husband in 1999—and her insistence on the need “to figure out what are the equivalents” for other regions, particularly Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. 

The idea that Plan Colombia should be emulated anywhere is appalling to those acquainted with Colombia’s human rights record, which has been the worst in Latin America for the past 20 years. Ché Guevara once famously called for “two, three, many Vietnams” in order to overthrow capitalist imperialism in the Third World. Clinton’s call for the replication of the Colombia model elsewhere is no less bold, for she too called for international transformation. That prescription appears less surprising when grounded in the broader context of recent U.S. policy toward Latin America.

For Whom Did the Colombia Model “Work”?

In her September 8 remarks, Hillary Clinton commented that “there were problems and there were mistakes” with Plan Colombia, “but it worked.” As with any policy, it is critical to understand how, and for whom, it “worked.” If implementation of the Colombia model—my shorthand for U.S. policy toward Colombia over the past two decades—reflects the Obama administration’s vision for the rest of Latin America, the logic and consequences of the model must be addressed.

In 1999, Bill Clinton initiated Plan Colombia, billed as an anti-narcotics program. Since then, the primary stated justification for appropriating more than billion in U.S. military and police aid to Colombia has been the “war on drugs.” But the program has not been motivated by a sincere concern for public health. First of all, more substantial threats to public health have elicited little concern in Washington. Cancer, heart disease, and diabetes each kill more people than cocaine or heroine. And their links to tobacco use, industrial food production, and corporate pollution, as well as the U.S. government’s encouragement of these practices through subsidies, foreign trade agreements, and lax regulations, are well documented. Tobacco alone kills more people than illegal drugs, alcohol, car accidents, murders, and suicides combined. A recent study by the medical journalLancet found that alcohol harms far more people than crack and heroin. Yet few politicians are willing to propose a “war on tobacco” or a “war on alcohol,” complete with mandatory prison sentences for producers, users, and distributors.

The second problem is that Plan Colombia has had little effect on the flow of narcotics into the United States. In 2007, Colombian economist Héctor Mondragón noted that “[n]ever before have drug traffickers had so much power in Colombia.” Colombian coca production has fluctuated—for example, rising by 27 percent in 2007 and declining by 18 percent the next year. At the broader regional level, periods of decline in Colombian production have coincided with increases elsewhere, and vice versa. Most recently, many producers and traffickers have relocated from Colombia to Peru, and to a lesser extent Bolivia, increasing coca production in those countries. Even so, Colombia remains the world’s leading cocaine producer.  

Former Colombian President César Gaviria, who co-chairs the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, summarized the commission’s extensive 2009 report by saying that “[w]e consider the war on drugs a failure because the objectives have never been achieved…Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization have not yielded the expected results. We are today farther than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs.” Similar conclusions apply to Mexico, which in the 1990s replaced Florida and the Caribbean as the primary narcotics transport hub due to anti-drug campaigns elsewhere. As analyst Laura Carlsen noted recently, since the Mexican government began a U.S.-funded, -billion anti-drug program in 2008, “Drug-related violence has exploded…with nearly 30,000 dead since the launch of the drug war in late 2006. Human rights violations charged against the army had gone up sixfold by [2009], and just in the past months [of mid-2010] Army forces have shot and killed several civilians.”

The Colombian state is also closely linked to the people and activities that Plan Colombia alleges to be targeting, a reality understood by the U.S. government long before Plan Colombia started. The United States is deeply implicated in enabling this relationship, for example through USAID’s “alternative development” programs in non-traditional agricultural products, such as African palm oil. Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro notes that “Plan Colombia is fighting against drugs militarily at the same time it gives money to support palm, which is used by paramilitary mafias to launder money,” so in effect the U.S. government is “subsidizing drug traffickers.” Right-wing paramilitaries continue to enjoy a close, if technically illegal, working relationship with the Colombian military, whose officials have helped them steal tens of thousands of acres of land from small farmers in recent years. Evidence suggests that a similar intimacy exists between officials and drug lords in Peru and Mexico, though the details for the latter are a bit murkier.

Experts have long acknowledged these aspects of Plan Colombia-type anti-drug programs—their ineffectiveness from a public health standpoint, the massive human rights abuses they bring, and their fundamental corruption. Former President Gaviria’s statement about Plan Colombia is accurate, except that the “expected results” were not drug eradication. Independent experts had predicted the program’s “failure” well prior to its implementation, warning that militarization at the site of production is a highly ineffective way of combating illicit drug flows and usage compared to drug treatment programs and poverty reduction. The “war on drugs” within U.S. borders, which involves incarcerating over half a million people each year for drug offenses, is likewise a patently ineffective (as well as profoundly inhumane and hypocritical) way of reducing drug use. The enormous and longstanding discrepancy between experts’ knowledge and drug policy raises significant questions about the real motives of the “war.”

So what has Plan Colombia achieved? Despite some decline in overall violence levels and improved security for middle-class urban residents, since 1999 Colombia has become even more infamous than it already was for extrajudicial executions, massive internal displacement, land theft, and the close ties between paramilitary death squads and the country’s right-wing government. Most violence targets workers and the poor, particularly those seeking to restrain the power of landlords and business elites. Since 2005, paramilitaries have murdered 45 peasant farmers because they had sought to reclaim land that had been stolen. Colombia accounted for almost half of all murders of trade unionists in the world in 2009, and it has long been known as the most dangerous country in the world for labor activists. This trend continues under the new president, Juan Manuel Santos. New revelations of horrendous human rights violations and politicians’ connections to paramilitaries surface regularly. In late 2009, a mass grave of more than 2,000 corpses was discovered near Bogotá. Although the left-wing guerrilla forces in Colombia have themselves committed significant human rights violations, the majority of abuses are attributable to the government and right-wing paramilitaries, who enjoy an atmosphere of “generalized impunity” according to a March 2010 UN human rights report.  

Colombia’s ascendance to the rank of the continent’s worst human rights violator has coincided with the increase in U.S. military aid to the country. Since 1990, Colombia has received more U.S. military and police aid than all other countries in the hemisphere. A January 2010 report by the Center for Global Development examined the link between political violence and U.S. military assistance and found that “collusion between the military and illegal armed groups…means that foreign assistance directly enables illegal groups to perpetuate political violence and undermine democratic institutions, such as electoral participation.” Furthermore, the authors noted “a distinct, asymmetric pattern: when U.S. military aid increases, attacks by paramilitaries, who are known to work with the military, increase more in municipalities with [Colombian military] bases.” A recent study by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the U.S. Office on Colombia also tracked the impact of military aid on human rights. Their research revealed that over the past nine years, “areas where Colombian army units received the largest increases in U.S. assistance reported increased extrajudicial killings on average,” even though U.S. law prohibits the disbursement of military aid to any regime guilty of sustained human rights abuses.

As early as 1994, the CIA and U.S. diplomats were aware that Colombia’s U.S.-funded security forces used “death squad tactics” and worked closely with drug-trafficking paramilitaries. Yet that knowledge has not discouraged U.S. military ties to Colombia. During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama mildly criticized the human rights situation in Colombia. But once in office, he consolidated a strong alliance with the Colombian regime with a 2009 deal that, if it overcomes the current legal obstacles within Colombia, will give the United States access to seven military bases in the country. The deal is intended “to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations” according to “senior Colombian military and civilian officials familiar with negotiations,” the Associated Press reported at the time. The actual text of the deal pledges U.S.-Colombian cooperation “to address common threats to peace, stability, freedom, and democracy,” language which is at once vague and bone-chilling for those familiar with the history of U.S. policy in the region.

Within Colombia itself, the big winners have been the overlapping sectors of narcotraffickers, government officials, right-wing paramilitaries, landlords, and business elites. Most other Colombians have not fared so well, however. According to UN figures, “Colombia is one of only three Latin American countries where economic inequality increased between 2002 and 2008” (the others were Guatemala and the Dominican Republic). Foreign investment has tripled in recent years, contributing to significant economic growth, but poverty (43 percent) and extreme poverty (23 percent) have changed little. In the countryside, 0.4 percent of landowners hold 61 percent of the land.

In a region where powerful social movements and left-leaning governments have challenged the traditional power of the U.S. government and multinational corporations, Colombia remains a staunch supporter of U.S.-style “free trade,” or neoliberalism, characterized by the privatization of services, the liberalization of markets, and a government policy that collaborates with capitalists to suppress the rights of workers, peasants, and minorities, and ignores the environment. The World Bank and International Finance Corporation recently lauded Colombia’s strides toward maintaining a “business friendly environment,” designating it, along with Mexico and Peru, as the top three Latin American countries for “ease of doing business.”Incidentally, these countries are also the three closest U.S. allies in the region.

The Logic of Militarized Neoliberalism

If concerns about public health and safety cannot explain the U.S. militarization of Latin America, other explanations can be found in documents from the past few years. In 2008, a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force argued that “Latin America has never mattered more for the United States.” Among a handful of reasons why, the first mentioned was that “[t]he region is the largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States.” The promotion of “free trade”—understood as policies that redirect public resources into the hands of private corporations, while sacrificing human welfare and environmental sustainability in the process—remains central to the U.S. strategy.

But policies that benefit U.S. corporations must overcome the usual obstacles, namely the resistance of local populations. The election of left-leaning governments across the region is but one manifestation of that resistance. A 2008 report by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) noted the threat posed by “a small group of radical populist governments” that “emphasize economic nationalism at the expense of market-based approaches,” thus “directly clash[ing] with U.S. initiatives.” Unfortunately, the report said, this “competing vision” is quite popular in the region, where “high levels of poverty and striking income inequalities will continue to create a potentially receptive audience for radical populism’s message.” The 2010 DNI report by the Obama appointee repeats these basic concerns: governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador are “opposing U.S. policies and interests in the region” by advancing “statist” alternatives to “market capitalism.”

Hillary Clinton and other high-level officials have been quite candid about U.S. objectives in Latin America. Clinton has blasted the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez, demanding that Venezuela “restore private property and return to a free market economy.” The promotion of “moderate” political “counterweights” to the current governments in Venezuela and Bolivia has been a consistent focus of U.S. policy in recent years, confirmed most recently by a number of documents released by Wikileaks detailing U.S. efforts to undermine and overthrow Hugo Chávez. Taken together, these statements and documents provide a fairly coherent picture of U.S. priorities in Latin America: promote U.S.-friendly political regimes while steering Latin American economies along an essentially neoliberal economic path.

But why has the U.S. government, including Obama, placed such emphasis on re-militarizing Latin America in the past decade? Outside Colombia, there is no direct military threat to U.S.-friendly regimes. Couldn’t U.S. goals be achieved primarily through economic and political imperialism alone, or at least with less emphasis on militarization, as some establishment intellectuals seem to favor? There is no single, simple explanation for militarization, but I want to suggest five contributing factors. The first two factors are closely linked to the U.S. priorities mentioned above, while the others reflect the nature of the U.S. economy, the reality of declining U.S. global influence, and Washington political culture.

Repressing dissent. Although the formal targets of U.S. military and police aid are drug traffickers, in many countries that aid enables the repression of these social movements. In recent years, “security” forces funded and often directly trained by the United States have killed or otherwise repressed protesters throughout Latin America: Colombian unionists, Indians, and peasants; communities protesting extractive industry in the Peruvian Amazon; Honduran activists and journalists following the June 2009 coup; and broad coalitions of Mexican civil society. The basic logic is simple: the suppression of human rights tends to create a climate favorable for business; in underdeveloped countries where cheap labor and raw materials are the primary attractions for foreign capital, governments that guarantee strong political, social, and economic rights for all their people simply will not be very attractive to foreign investors. As neoliberal policies have become increasingly unpopular among Latin Americans, and have in turn helped trigger the resurgence of powerful Latin American social movements, those movements have been targeted by state repression.

Maintaining a strong U.S. presence in the region. Latin America has always held enormous geopolitical importance, which largely derives from economic interest but is not exactly the same. Maintaining control over “our little region over here”—in former Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s words—is in some sense a goal in and of itself. In the present context, the United States maintains or supports a strong military presence as a counterweight to left-leaning governments, particularly Venezuela. U.S. bases in countries like Colombia,Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama, as well as vast amounts of military aid to Colombia and Mexico, are intended to reassert U.S. dominance. The original 2009 Pentagon budget request to Congress spoke of the need for “full spectrum operations throughout South America,” in part to counter the presence of “anti-U.S. governments” and “expand expeditionary warfare capability.” Although removed from the final document, that language probably reflects the thinking of many in Washington.

While an outright U.S. attack on Venezuela or Bolivia seems unlikely in the near future, militarization serves as a buffer against the further spread of “radical populism.”

The political influence of U.S. military contractors and weapons makers.Militarization is a subsidy to U.S. arms producers. U.S. officials have viewed military aid to Latin America as a way to support the military-industrial complex at least since the 1940s, when leaders like General Hoyt Vandenberg argued that such aid “would also give added impetus to the aircraft industry,” as well as to shipbuilding and other sectors. Since then, the weapons industry has become the world’s most profitable industry, with the United States the leading global weapons exporter. In addition to direct Pentagon aid, in 2008 the U.S. weapons industry and U.S. government sold almost billion in arms to Latin America, over 60 percent of which went to Mexico and Colombia. In the case of Plan Colombia, military equipment providers and oil companies lobbied hard for the bill’s passage, and some of the very same companies are currently benefiting from Plan Mexico (the “Mérida Initiative”).

Military power as the one remaining realm of U.S. dominance. As the U.S. economy has declined in relation to those of China, India, and East Asia, the one area of unquestioned U.S. superiority remains its military might. David Harvey, in The New Imperialism, notes the increased tendency of the U.S. government “to flex its military muscle as the only clear absolute power it has left.” Military power has increasingly become a first resort for a diverse range of problems and objectives, even when ultimately counterproductive.

Washington’s machista political culture. The association of physical strength and military prowess with masculinity is widespread, and the metaphor is frequently deployed in elite political discourse in order to justify aggressive policies. In the late 19th and early 20^th centuries, U.S. political cartoons routinely portrayed Latin Americans as effeminate and in need of U.S. protection; today’s corporate press reproduces similar motifs in a more subtle fashion. Machismo and chauvinistic pride (often infused with racism) are not just a rhetorical strategy for justifying aggression. They are deeply embedded within the minds of many U.S. policymakers and help shape policy as well as rhetoric. One of the clearest modern articulations of their importance came from Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton in a 1965 memo regarding U.S. policy toward Indochina. He wrote that by far the most important U.S. goal in Vietnam was “to avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat,” thus justifying the slaughter of several million innocent people.

Spreading the Model

The consequences of militarized neoliberalism are not debatable. While a few drug lords, politicians, and corporate profiteers benefit, the bulk of the population suffers from increased poverty, which in turn accelerates everything from social protest to migration to drug production, street crime, and violence—all of which are then used to justify more militarization. This cycle, with all its winners and losers, is likely to persist in Colombia, Mexico, and everywhere that the same basic model is applied.

The Obama administration has shown a strong preference for the three basic ingredients of that model—neoliberal economic policies, political leaders obedient to the United States, and militarization—and has shown little desire to modify policy in a progressive direction (even along the lines of the exceedingly modest, pragmatic changes recommended by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2008). Since Obama became president, Mexico has displaced Colombia as the hemisphere’s leading recipient of U.S. military and police aid as part of the effort that one U.S. official has called “armoring NAFTA.” The incorporation of Central America into a U.S.-sponsored “security corridor” stretching from the U.S.-Mexico border down to Colombia proceeds apace. If the Obama presidency has brought any “change,” it’s certainly not the sort of change that most ordinary people would find desirable.

Much current debate within progressive circles revolves around the question of whether Obama is personally in favor of continuing his predecessors’ policies or is actually a progressive-at-heart handcuffed by entrenched elite interests. The latter notion seems unlikely in the case of Latin America. If Obama were genuinely interested in a more humane and less imperialistic policy, he could set in motion some modest changes by, for example, ending the cynical U.S. “democracy promotion” programs in countries like Venezuela or restoring the trade preferences for Bolivia that he revoked in 2009.

But Obama’s inner motivations are much less significant than the structural and institutional barriers to substantive change. The basic policy goals and strategies transcend party lines and electoral outcomes. Even if ultimately detrimental to certain long-term U.S. interests, continued militarization delivers many short-term benefits to corporate and government stakeholders. Given the current constellations of power in the United States and Latin America, a substantial demilitarization of policy would simply incur too much elite resistance and deliver few political rewards.

Any major policy change in a progressive direction, if it occurs, will result from pressures emanating from Latin America and/or from non-governmental forces within the United States. Latin American social movements, and a few organizations in the United States, have been doing their part. It’s time the rest of us do ours.

Kevin Young is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history at SUNY Stony Brook and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus.

Wikileaks: la rendición de cuentas del gobierno de Uribe ante el embajador gringo con ocasión del escándalo DAS

Iniciamos la divulgación completa de algunos de los mas relevantes cables diplomáticos del gobierno de Estados Unidos, de los que no hablan los medios prepago colombianos, o los minimizan, manipulan, traducen erróneamente, o reproducen solo apartes y fuera de contexto….

Uno de los cables secretos sobre Colombia recoge las conversaciones entre el embajador gringo y el ex vicepresidente Santos en las cuales discuten las interceptaciones del DAS. En este como en todos los demás cables hasta ahora publicados sobre Colombia el denominador común es ese servilismo rastrero del gobierno colombiano para con los diplomáticos y enviados especiales gringos; servilismo que en cierta forma les ahorra a los gringos los esfuerzos de averiguación sobre lo que ocurre al interior de los círculos mas íntimos de su gobierno cliente, pues la mayor parte de la historia la escuchan de primera voz de funcionarios colombianos de primer nivel que cual agentes del estado gringo, mas que del colombiano, acuden a la embajada gringa a rendir cuentas y pedir instrucciones sobre que hacer sobre uno u otro tema que les parezca sensible a los intereses del imperio o ponga en riesgo la “protección” que este le da al estado colombiano. Hay que anotar sin embargo que eso no les impide a los gringos investigar y confirmar lo que oyen de sus súbditos, pues ellos saben que el colombiano por naturaleza, y sobre todo el funcionario publico, tienen la tendencia de responder a acusaciones, cuestionamientos o criticas, no con argumentos sino con mentiras o descalificando y desacreditando a quienes los cuestionan.

Uno de las reuniones mas patéticas en las que lo anterior salta a la vista es la que reproducimos/traducimos a continuación. En esta reunión el servilismo rastrero de Francisco Santos lo lleva a decir estupideces como la de que dentro de las opciones de ayuda internacional que Uribe estaba considerando para que asesoren al gobierno con la investigación y reformas del DAS estaba invitar a los gobiernos de Rusia y Cuba, frente a cuyo planteamiento, el embajador no pudo disimular su sorpresa y apenas frunció los labios al oír semejante estupidez!!

Lean el cable y saquen sus propias conclusiones…..insertaremos entre paréntesis nuestros propios comentarios a algunos de los planteamientos y respuestas sorprendentes de la contraparte colombiana.

Referencia ID: 09BOGOTA2963

Fecha de creación: Septiembre 16, 2009 a las 15:03

Clasificación: Secreta

Tema: Embajador de US y VP Santos discuten los escándalos del DAS

Lugar: Embajada de Estados Unidos

Fecha: Septiembre 15, 2009

El embajador inicia la reunión expresándole al Vicepresidente Santos que  el gobierno de los Estados Unidos esta muy preocupado por los continuos escándalos y filtraciones del DAS, actividades que son consideradas ilícitas y criminales. El gobierno de Colombia, dice el embajador, ha sido incapaz de afrontar públicamente los escándalos. El embajador expresa que el gobierno de Estados Unidos esta muy cerca de romper todas las relaciones con el DAS, y le informa al vicepresidente Santos que el mismo ha pedido a las agencias judiciales y de inteligencia de la embajada que alisten la transferencia del apoyo y cooperación a otras entidades del gobierno colombiano. El embajador hace énfasis en la necesidad de investigar el escándalo totalmente y en forma transparente, y hacer publica la investigación y los planes de restructuración.

Santos responde que el entiende que la situación es gravísima y que quiere saber quien esta detrás de los “ataques” (comentario # 1: Santos de entrada plantea que los escándalos del DAS son un ataque al gobierno).

Continúa Santos diciendo que el también ha llegado a las mismas conclusiones del Embajador y que considera que los comentarios hechos por el vocero del Departamento de Estado fueron fuertes. Dice que el gobierno de Colombia quiere hacer justicia y adelantara investigaciones exhaustivas, y que cualquier escándalo adicional probablemente forzaría a que el gobierno cierre el DAS (cierre del DAS tendría que ser aprobado por el congreso). Santos se refirió a los problemas del DAS como una clara victoria para los criminales porque las operaciones del DAS están suspendidas y los equipos de interceptación bajo llave. Anoto que el DAS ha tenido una serie de problemas de corrupción y escándalos de interceptaciones a lo largo de las décadas pasadas pero aseguro al Embajador que ninguna otra interceptación ilegal, ordenada oficialmente, había ocurrido desde que el anterior director del DAS, Jorge Noguera, había sido despedido en 2007 (Comentario # 2: si Santos se atrevió a mentirle a sus amos, imagínense que podría esperar la opinión nacional. Claro que difícil creer que los gringos que todo lo monitorean le iban a creer tamaña sarta de mentiras).

Santos expreso repetidamente  que el sentía que una fuerza  externa o interna anti uribista, que bien podían ser el presidente de Venezuela Hugo Chávez, las FARC, narcotraficantes, el gobierno de Cuba, empleados corruptos del DAS o los partidos de oposición, los que estaban detrás de los ataques contra el DAS (Comentario # 3: ya la prensa nacional había divulgado ampliamente las criminales actuaciones del DAS asi que es dificil entender que el payaso de Santos pretendiera hacerle creer a su patrón que el DAS y el gobierno eran las victimas). Santos continúo expresando que “esa fuerza muy oscura”  sabe que puede usar al gobierno de los Estados Unidos y su congreso como mecanismo de presión, y que temía que la inteligencia de la policía podía ser el siguiente objetivo de esos ataques. Santos pidió que el gobierno americano ayudara con la identificación de los responsables (comentario # 4: no es especulación imaginar lo que debió pensar el embajador al escuchar tremenda sarta de mentiras y estupideces, conociendo ellos como ningún otro la realidad de los actos criminales que venia cometiendo el DAS)

Sobre el tema de la restructuración el entonces director Felipe Munoz le describió al embajador los planes para reestructurar el DAS, los cuales incluyen la transferencia de las funciones judiciales a otras entidades del gobierno y recortes de personal dentro de los siguientes 60 días (comentario # 5: cosa que por supuesto no ocurrió!! Ni aun ha ocurrido). Santos intervino (lo interrumpió) para darle instrucciones a Munoz de que acelere el proceso e hiciera todo lo que sea posible dentro de la siguiente semana (comentario # 6: típico de funcionario mediocre, arrodillado, arrastrado (como Uribe cuando en los consejos comunales daba ordenes y regañaba a sus sirvientes ministros) haciendo el ridículo ante sus interlocutores pretendiendo demostrar su autoridad con sus subalternos y su capacidad (incapacidad) de compromiso, buscando impresionar mediaticamente al embajador). La fiscalía general debe participar en la transferencia de cerca de 100 casos, aunque algunos debían permanecer en el DAS por razones de legales y de proceso Munoz expreso que trabajara con los fiscales y las agencias del gobierno de Estados Unidos para trasladar inmediatamente el máximo numero de casos posible. Munoz dijo además que los casos pueden ser transferidos al CTI de la fiscalía como medida temporal.

El Embajador expreso que mejor que el gobierno de Colombia tenga un Plan B porque si otro escándalo explota, el plan B de Estados Unidos seria terminar inmediatamente toda vinculación con el DAS. 

Santos, tomando en cuenta los consejos (advertencia) del embajador, respondió que el gobierno de Colombia anunciaría el 21 de Septiembre que pediría que un organismo internacional (por ejemplo, la INTERPOL o la OEA) realice una investigación profunda sobre los escándalos del DAS. Santos veía incluso con entusiasmo que el FBI se involucre en la investigación, pero el embajador le advierto que cualquier participación del gobierno de los Estados Unidos tendría que darse bajo la sombrilla de un organismo internacional y que aun así lo dudarían en participar (comentario # 7: otra salida en falso  del payaso Santos. Pretendiendo agradar y aparecer sumiso y obediente con el embajador, propone cosas que el mismo embajador tiene que hacerle caer en cuenta de las estupideces que esta diciendo). El embajador expresa enfáticamente que la investigación debe ser abierta y transparente.

Santos le responde que el gobierno de Colombia buscara ayuda de varios expertos de inteligencia por fuera del DAS (bien sea de otros países o quizás colombianos pero ya retirados) para que se incorporen dentro el DAS y elaboren un mapa de ruta para la restructuración de la oficina de inteligencia del DAS. Santos se inclinaba inicialmente por la CIA o la Scotland Yard, pero no estaba seguro si esas organizaciones aceptarían hacerlo públicamente (comentario # 8: Santos parece no darse aun en cuenta de las estupideces que sigue diciendo). El embajador se muestra muy escéptico sobre la participación del gobierno americano.

Finalmente, continua Santos, el gobierno de Colombia consideraría que un dignatario independiente extranjero y respetado (como un exjefe de estado) lidere la investigación y los planes de reorganización del DAS. Santos estaba considerando tanto opciones a nivel regional como global, las cuales aun tenia que discutirlas con el presidente Uribe (Comentario # 9: no es especulación asumir que Uribe le encargo a Santos el chicharrón de liderar las investigaciones y proponer medidas para hacer frente al escándalo creado por el mismo; y así mostrar que le estaba dando tratamiento del mas alto nivel; aunque el payaso Santos parecía no tener ni idea de que lo estaban utilizando, hasta el extremo de enviarlo a la embajada gringa a que haga el ridículo planteando las medidas mas absurdas). Santos continúa y expresa que entre los países y personas que se habían considerado en una primera discusión de ideas estaban: Ricardo Lagos de Chile, Vicente Fox de Méjico, Fernando Enrique Cardoso de Brasil, Australia, India, e incluso Rusia o Cuba (comentario # 10: ante tamaña metida de pata frente al embajador y sus asistentes y en su propio territorio, la secretaria de la embajada que estaba tomando notas no pudo evitar dejar registrada la expresión de sorpresa e incredulidad del embajador). Nota de la asistente del embajador: “El embajador apretó fuertemente sus labios al escuchar las menciones de Rusia y Cuba” 

Santos expreso seguidamente que el presidente Uribe no tenia total comprensión de la profundidad de la crisis y  por lo tanto recomendó que fuera el embajador quien le expresara directamente la gravedad de la situación y le sugiriera ideas para salir adelante. El embajador estuvo de acuerdo en programar esa conversación con Uribe a la primera oportunidad (comentario # 11: según Santos, el único que podía hacerle ver la gravedad de la crisis a Uribe era el embajador gringo. Se pregunta uno si eso mismo le habrá pedido al embajador de Sur Africa, o al de China, por mencionar solo dos representaciones diplomáticas en el país)

Con respecto al tema de la interceptación de la conversación entre un magistrado de la corte y un oficial de la embajada, Santos y Munoz manifestaron que la investigación del gobierno mostraba que la grabación fue hecha por alguien de afuera. Los dos aseguraron al embajador que equipos del DAS (tanto fijos como móviles) no podrían haber sido usados, y que un experto en interceptaciones de Rusia había estudiado el asunto y llegado a la misma conclusión. Santos dijo que la grabación pudo haber sido hecha por cualquiera, incluso por un empleado inconforme del DAS. El embajador comento que la investigación de la embajada también había concluido que probablemente equipos del DAS no fueron usados.

La reunión culmino con la discusión sobre el riesgo de futuros escándalos que se preveían saldrían a la luz publica en un medio de comunicación.

La revista Semana había recibido otro documento, aunque todavía no lo había publicado, sobre el apoyo de los servicios de inteligencia de Estados Unidos brindados al DAS y sobre las relaciones de Ecuador con las FARC. Al respecto Santos expreso que el canciller Bermúdez ya había hablado con el canciller ecuatoriano en caso de que la historia saliera a la luz publica. Aunque el gobierno de Colombia le había pedido a Semana no publicar la historia por razones de seguridad, Santos pensaba que esta iba a ser publicada de todas maneras. Munoz anoto que el empleado que filtro la información estaba siendo sometido a la prueba del polígrafo y que probablemente seria judicializado rápidamente. El embajador señaló que lo mas probable es que el personalmente  tendría nuevamente que responder las preguntas difíciles de los medios de comunicación.

Comentario final del embajador a la minuta la reunión (no es anotación hecha durante la reunión sino su conclusión personal en el informe al Departamento de Estado):

El propio Santos expreso que el DAS estaba en su agonía de muerte. El puede estar en lo cierto. El precio de restaurar la credibilidad publica puede ser mas alto que lo que el gobierno colombiano esta dispuesto a pagar. Brownfield

Nota: El servilismo rastrero de los colombianos parce no tener limites.....en la ultima encuesta de Gallup el presidente Obama tiene mas favoritismo entre los colombianos que entre los gringos.