And the Gringo Was There

If the U.S. is incapable of enforcing its own laws, it is unclear why it claims the right to examine the enforcement of our laws here.

What the hell was the United States ambassador doing there? It was a meeting in Paipa of the highest-ranking people in the Colombian judiciary. And there he was, Ambassador William Brownfield, not just gate-crashing the meeting, but acting as if he were presiding over it, flanked by the president of the Constitutional Court on his right and the president of the Supreme Court on his left.

For once he wasn’t telling jokes, as is customary of him. Nor was his presence merely protocol. No, the ambassador, representative of a foreign superpower, was intervening in the functions of Colombian justice. Not content with the seven military bases as well as free use of landing strips at all international civil airports in Colombia, which our kneeling government just gracefully granted to the soldiers and “contractors” of the U.S., Brownfield now also considers himself capable of dictating justice in Colombia.

That other gringo ambassador, Myles Frechette, who used to meddle in everything here, sardonically said, “Sovereignty isn’t what it used to be.” Ernesto Samper, president at the time, didn’t dare declare him “persona non grata” for fear of getting his U.S. visa revoked.

What moved Brownfield to intrude was the fact that justice seems ready to absolve retired Admiral Gabriel Arango Bacci of complicity in drug trafficking. In fact, the Office of the Judge Advocate General and the appointed public prosecutor of this case that has been going on for two years, have both requested his acquittal to the judges of the Supreme Court. In addition, they also requested the Army commander and his high officers be investigated for having organized “a plot” against an innocent man.

The Minister of Defense immediately jumped to defend the behavior of the Army’s high officers. And Ambassador Brownfield backed him up, incidentally acting as the Defense Minister’s hierarchical superior, warning that the U.S. government will “observe carefully” the conclusion of the Arango Bacci case, because, he asserts, there are issues in the case regarding “elements, evidence and links with drug trafficking in the United States.”

I don’t really know how this works. But if Ambassador Brownfield has “evidence,” as he says he does, I think it is common sense that he should hand it over to the Colombian authorities. That is what “collaboration” is about. It is the same “collaboration as in the war against drugs” that serves as a pretext for the delivery of seven military air and naval bases, and landing rights in civil airports. It is the same collaboration that serves as a pretext for the extradition of paramilitaries accused of atrocious crimes against humanity, but whom North American tribunals will judge only for narcotics crimes. It is also the same collaboration that serves as a pretext for the concession of control of the air space and territorial waters of Colombia.

The fact that the ambassador hasn’t handed over the evidence that he claims to have just proves that this “collaboration” does not really exist. It is a mere excuse to justify all sorts of abusive intrusions in Colombia’s internal affairs; and through it, those of our neighbors. It’s a “collaboration” that is unilateral.

Not only has there never been a case of a North American drug trafficker, or any other criminal, who has been extradited to Colombia to be judged here; but also curiously, there has never been found in the U.S. any American civil servant with “elements, evidence and links with drug trafficking.”

Let’s say that no ambassador or admiral has any such links. Although it is true that the drug comes out of Columbia, it does enter the U.S. How does it enter? Without any accomplices? Not one corrupt policeman, customs officer? No complicity at all by a couple of admirals or an ambassador?

The borders of the United States are not watched by Colombian customs officers, but by American officers; and the North American territorial waters and air spaces are not guarded by the Colombian Army and Air Force, but by American officials. And yet the drugs get through. The DEA doesn’t only work here; it works in the U.S. as well. Courts of justice are not only found here, they are also found there.

Assuming that the enormous business of drug trafficking—of which American financial institutions keep more than 90 percent of the profits—does not imply the complicity of any policeman, banker, judge or diplomat of the United States; there has to be, at least, some kind of ineptitude or incompetence.

If the North American state is incapable of enforcing its own laws; and the fact that its citizens are the world’s most avid consumers of illegal drugs and biggest exporters of marijuana in the world demonstrate that it is, it is unclear why the U.S. arbitrarily claims the right of examining the enforcement of Colombian laws. Ambassador Brownfield should be discreet enough not to give advice; if not because he is an accomplice, at least because he is incompetent.

Although not solicited, I offer him one piece of advice: Don’t be a clown, Mr. Ambassador.