Frank Connolly, McDowell and Alvaro Uribe

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Tuesday December 13, 2005 00:35 by Gearóid O Loingsigh

Two sides of the one coin

There are many similarities between Uribe and McDowell as evidenced by the Frank Connolly issue.

Uribe and McDowell

Michael McDowell and Alvaro Uribe the Colombian president have a lot in common. Both of them are right wing politicians whose careers have been marked by a hostile intolerance towards those who do not think like them.

Uribe’s current regime in Colombia is marked by fascistic tendencies that seek to incorporate into the state and the armed conflict citizens who have expressed no wish to do so. Thus in Colombia, Uribe has militarised society and not even a school event is safe from his attempts to involve the civilian population in the conflict. He has stated on repeated occasions that there can be no neutrality in the conflict and in terminology similiar to that of George Bush he has told Colombian society that those who are not with the state are automatically with the guerrillas and one presumes are “legitimate targets”.

McDowell has a similiar position he has stated in recent days in relation to the controversy surrounding his statement that Frank Connolly has allegedly travelled to Colombia on a false passport that no citizen can be neutral or as he put it that the state had a claim on the loyalty of its citizens.

The state has no such claim on the loyalty of its citizens as the state itself is not neutral in conflicts within society, loyalty to the state is a particular political position. Who wants to be loyal to Social Partnership, participation in the war on Iraq, deportations of Irish born children and immigrants and refugees? These are important matters of state policy and loyalty to them is an expression of a particular political position. McDowell, like Uribe does not tolerate dissent.

The Frank Connolly issue also demonstrates another similarity between the two men. Uribe has used and abused his position to link human rights groups and particular indviduals to guerrilla groups. Not only has he done this without a shred of evidence he has endangered the lives of thousands of people in doing so. His criminalisation of the peace community of San Jose de Apartado and other communities in Uraba is not removed from the recent killing of Orlando Valencia in the region. One hand points the finger the other does the killing.

McDowell has recognised that he does not have enough proof to take a case to the courts against Frank Connolly, but nevertheless feels he can say what he wants on the issue and make any allegation he feels is necessary or “justified” on “security grounds”.

It is no accident that the two men have so much in common. Both are neo liberal fundamentalists who espouse and promote globalisation. In Colombia, the dead are the victims of this very policy. Orlando Valencia was killed because he stood in the way of a state that wants to hand over the resources of his region to multinational capital. The people who are killed in Colombia are killed because they oppose multinationals’ interests. On occasions the paramilitaries have been very forthright about this. When Kimy Perná the indigenous leader was killed Carlos Castaño the then head of the paramilitaries stated that he was killed because “ he was oppose to the dam”. The dam being built was being built by the Canadian government and Canadian companies.

The Frank Connolly controversy is just one example of the similarities between the two men. A barrister like McDowell, knows that one is innocent until proven guilty and that a lack of proof is no excuse for felon setting. A right wing thug like McDowell, however, also knows that proof shouldn’t be let get in the way of implementing one’s policies and criminalising those who would criticise your powerful friends. McDowell and Uribre have oh so much in common it makes one wonder to what lenghts would McDowell go in emulating Uribe’s murderous regime if he felt it was necessary.