Above the Law and Good Taste

Colombia’s former president, Álvaro Uribe Velez, has always acted as though he considers himself above the rules—constitutionally (changing the 1991 Constitution to allow a second term, then trying to allow for unlimited re-election), intellectually (in his treatment of university professors and students) and most recently in terms of appropriate conduct for former heads of state.

Moreover, he’s happy to point out others’ transgressions, but then pointedly ignores his own. A small sampling:

• During his terms, Uribe repeatedly referred to professors and students as the “intellectual bloc” of the FARC. When members of the academic community at Georgetown protested the invitation for him to give seminars as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership, he and President Santos decried them as “pseudo-intellectuals” who weren’t upholding their scholarly commitment to academic debate and the free exchange of ideas.
• Uribe condemned Hugo Chávez for trying to change the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 (a document that Chávez himself pushed and supported) to allow for unlimited re-election. Later, just before his second term ended and he found himself facing imminent unemployment, Uribe pushed for a similar referendum.

Now, we have the ongoing novela of the “chuzadas,” the ex-president’s personal Watergate. And the similarities are striking: A sitting president using reserved funds for a special intelligence unit to spy on the opposition. (Maybe G. Gordon Libby’s goons weren’t quite to 00 Agent status, but the point stands.) Uribe even said (or tweeted, rather), “Eight years of daily communication with the armed forces, no one can assert that I gave illegal instructions in public or private.”

Admittedly, it’s a much more eloquent way of saying, “I am not a crook,” but one that, similarly, does not pass the sniff test.

The ex-Director of DAS (the Colombian secret police/intelligence service that carried out the wiretapping and surveillance in question), María del Pilar Hurtado, requested asylum in Panama to flee the charges against her. Panamanian authorities deemed her to not be politically persecuted, and as such have granted “common” asylum, on the grounds that she cannot get a fair trial in Colombia. Worse, Panama didn’t even advise Colombia of the asylum petition or its acceptance, despite the fact that Hurtado’s arrest warrant was common knowledge.

Okay, that’s definitely an unpleasant hiccup in diplomatic relations between the two countries, which have for the most part been quite amicable.

…And then Uribe opened his mouth.

Despite numerous declarations during his time in office on the strength of Colombia’s institutions, and righteous indignation at any implication that Colombian justice might not be all that swift and/or impartial, he made the comment that Panama did the right thing, since “there are no judicial guarantees” for due process or the safety of the accused.

How does that figure, then? Is he referring to the legal system he oversaw for eight years? What, precisely, happened in the four short months he’s been out of the Casa de Nariño?

Simply put, what happened is that he left. Now he’s free to criticize Colombia—the Colombia he claims to have saved—to his heart’s content, especially when it comes to covering himself in a domestic espionage case.

I am—surprisingly—in agreement with the Attorney General, Alejandro Ordoñez, in saying that what Uribe has alleged doesn’t conform to reality and that this kind of cynicism and smack-talking is by no means appropriate for a former president. In this, as well, what seems clear is that Uribe considers himself above the law and the bounds of decorum and good taste.