LSE at the centre of another storm over invitation to Uribe

The London School of Economics, already embroiled in a mire of bad publicity over its connections with the Gaddafi regime in Libya – which saw it dubbed the “London School of Useful Idiots” – has been courting controversy again.

by Victor Figueroa-Clark
Friday, May 20th, 2011

It has been revealed that the LSE has now invited former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez to give a talk entitled “The three pillars of Colombia’s recent progress”. It appears the LSE had no doubts about Uribe’s suitability to discuss “recent progress” in his country despite his much publicised repression of political opposition, trade unions and those involved in the defence of human rights.

Human rights abuses committed under Uribe between 2002 and 2010 were on a horrifying scale. Uribe’s presidency was also characterised by the criminalisation and stigmatisation of political opposition, increased militarisation of the internal conflict and the corruption of state institutions.

His government also offered amnesties to thousands of right-wing paramilitaries under the cynically named Justice and Peace law, the only result of which so far has been paramilitary confessions that have highlighted the vast number of killings they carried out: 1,652 massacres and more than 35,000 people “disappeared”.

Under Uribe, the Colombian armed forces established a bonus system that resulted in the killing of thousands of civilians in the “false positives” scandal, where civilians were murdered in cold blood before being dressed in guerrilla uniforms and listed as “killed in combat”. Among the thousands killed while Uribe was in power were more than 500 trade unionists, whom Uribe stigmatised as “apologists of terrorism”.

The stigmatisation of the opposition was accompanied by the efforts of the DAS intelligence service – which answers to the president – to spy on and smear Uribe’s political opponents and critics in politics, the media, civil society and the judiciary.

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  • alvaro mejia

    Uribe is the best president any country could have had so far.  Only socialist activists in Europe that have been supportive of terrorists like FARC have this kind of perspectives in a romantic-naive vision of the activities of these pseudo-social guerrillas.  As a Colombian who has experienced the transformation I have no doubts Alvaro Uribe is a man of justice and truth, an man who never rest to work for his country and his people.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Juli-Rios/100002314280228 Juli Rios

     Uribe is a good man and has done a wonderful job in restoring law and order in Colombia. The country has progressed since he came to power and those who criticize him do so because they simpathize with the far left and guerrilla terrorists. Uribe is the best president any country could have.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Juli-Rios/100002314280228 Juli Rios

    You are right Alvaro. Uribe has been a wonderful president. Liked by they majority of Colombians and people of other countries.

  • alvaro mejia

     It is disgusting what in this chat Mr “oufwl”  is promoting against this lecture on Monday. Me as many Colombians who work hard and are not so much into politics, I have no time to go and speak out in the street like all these violent people against Uribe does. It is a shame these manifestations are quite noticeable by the media. They reflect just a reduced militant opinion different from a whole country’s opinion who is busy honestly working, happy of having jobs and security.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Amanda-Latimer/673305089 Amanda Latimer

    @alvaro mejia and @juli rios: do you have to be socialist to think it’s not right to murder and displace millions of the poor in Colombia?  Do YOU support Uribe as the man of the paramilitaries?  Are you seriously saying that some peoples lives (2.65 million under Uribe, to be precise) are worth so little that it’s okay they can be sacrificed to make the country “safe” for investors and corporations from Europe and the US?

  • alvaro mejia

    Accusations to Uribe are a large propaganda job from the terrorist drug dealer guerrillas still permeating and corrupting NGOs, major bodies and institutions in Colombia and the World protecting their business. (not even their ideas). Those deplorable killings were clearly out of hand from the president due to a plain wrong performance measuring system in the army.  Your figure of 2.65 million blamed in Uribe obviously shows the level of speculation and lying propaganda on this issue. Corruption has been a plague difficult to control here and Cafarnaum. Just check the currently suspended Bogota mayor.

    Is ironic the silence of all you all these years while the Farc, M19, ELN and EPL were kidnapping, displacing, torturing and killing us, funded and supported by Europe’s communists, socialists and recently including our new friend Hugo Chavez.

    I thank you all for the interest for justice and peace in our country but please get the picture right and double check who is telling you about Colombia. They might be using your good faith for their evil interests.

    Being an “anti-imperialist” while benefiting from the welfare of a western powerful nation is quite contradictory if not hypocrite. Should see life in China or Cuba, stop drinking Coca-cola and lager and find a way not to use Microsoft, the Internet, antibiotics and mobiles.  Seeing Che Guevara’s followers using drugs and listening rock and roll is something that shows their level of their childish hypocrisy and ignorance. May be is cool and sexy but keep it at pub level.

    It is obviously not acceptable to kill or exploit communities and their natural resources unfairly and this is a common to the right, centre and leftist humans. Those socialist who think they are great just because they shout the obvious in a plain simplistic and polarized way can not be more egocentrics. Not even right wing conservatives are that radical in their views.

    We all are hope for social and economic justice, nature’s preservation and freedom in Colombia.  But without basic security in the fields, roads and streets was not possible even to look out of our windows.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Amanda-Latimer/673305089 Amanda Latimer

    I am not defending guerrillas who attack campesinos, indigneous and Afro-Brazilian communities, and cannot remember saying that I did.  But you seem to have already answered my questions in the affirmative. 
     
    Just for the record then:
    “Do YOU support Uribe as the man of the paramilitaries?  Are you seriously saying that some peoples lives (2.65 million under Uribe, to be precise) are worth so little that it’s okay they can be sacrificed to make the country “safe” for investors and corporations from Europe and the US?”

  • alvaro mejia

    I DO support Uribe as most of Colombians do.  And Uribe is not the man of the paramilitaries.

    You missed part of the story or they did not tell you the whole thing. That’s why you see it in a simplistic white and black, bi-polar way but that is your mental issue and I suppose you live from it, selling it.  I do not need to take the effort to convince anyone. The more you attack Uribe the greater he is. Good luck and I hope you find a better way to make your living.

    Best wishes, good bye.

  • Alvaro Francisco Huertas Roser

    Uribe has nothing to do in an academic institution like the LSE.  Not only because of the valid objections put to his visit in an institution with a damaged reputation for tolerating the support from tyrants, but because Mr. Uribe has a very deficient knowledge of economy and very little will to improve it: he despises academia and knowledge in general.   He led a government more interested in prayer and doctrine than the advise of experts, who were repeatedly attacked.   The head of the statistics national institute DANE was even sacked for presenting figures that were perceived as inconvenient.

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