Obama Hosts Colombian Death Squad President

Obama welcomes Colombian narco-fascist Alvaro Uribe at White House. Meeting comes as Uribe's narco-fascist allies seize control of Honduras from progressive president.

LISA MULLINS: President Obama said today that it would set a terrible president if the coop in Honduras is not reversed. Mister Obama spoke after a meeting this afternoon, with a leader of another troubled Latin American Nation, Columbia. President Alvaro Uribe wants to reinforce his country’s close ties with the US. George W. Bush considered Colombia to be America’s strongest ally in South America. Barack Obama has been less enthusiastic. He’s cited concerns about Colombia’s human rights record. That record, especially the murders of trade unionists is holding up ratification of a free trade agreement. John Otis prepared this report in the Colombian city of Cucuta.

JOHN OTIS: Aristides Hernandez is reading his own death sentence, for his work as President of the local health workers union here. Hernandez received a leaflet from a paramilitary group called Aguilas Negras, or the Black Eagles. It states that Hernandez has been declared a military objective and gives him three options: leave the union, leave town, or face death.

JOHN OTIS: “It’s very intimidating” Hernandez says. He adds that although he hasn’t been physically attacked, he’s received multiple death threats. 10 members of Hernandez’s health workers union have been killed in the past decade, including a pharmacist who was gunned down two weeks ago. Rafael Sepulveda was sitting on his front porch with his wife when an assassin pumped six bullets into him. He became the 21st Colombian union activist to die this year. Often, the suspected culprits are right wing death squads who view labor leaders as allies of the country’s Marxist guerrillas. More