What police service in the world with any sense of integrity or professionalism would invite the Vice president of a country whose armed forces are up to their necks in allegations of drug trafficking, human rights violations and other criminal activity, to address a conference In Belfast on narcotics.
The Vice President of Colombia, the war torn anarchic country in South America, Francisco Santos Calderon, was in Belfast last week to speak at an anti drugs conference organised by Chief Police Officers from all over the UK. He was ostensibly invite
d to educate cocaine users that their addictive habit was damaging the environment. Never mind that such an addiction might just damage their health and well being as well. But coming from a country where life is cheap and death is constant, concern for the ecology would not challenge anyone to kick the habit.
One suspects of course that his invitation by the PSNI was not just out of concern for the impact of drugs on the world environment. Belfast is hardly the drug capitol of the world despite the best efforts of unionist paramilitaries and the blind eye approach over the years by the PSNI.
No doubt drug dealers in Colombia also get police escorts to boats as they exit the country with their ill gotten gains.
The Vice President had other reasons for visiting the 6 Counties and he certainly lived up to his former calling as a journalist, giving interviews to all who would listen, on a topic that had little to do with being a member of the Government of a country that produces 700 tons of cocaine annually.
The PSNI and their former comrades, the RUC have a close relationship with the Colombian Government headed up by Alvora Uribe, the former Mayor of Medillin.
Uribe came to power promising to promise to' beef up the Army and go on the offensive'. Given the extent of the cocaine problem world wide, his offensive against the drug cartels hasn't worked. The Vice president during the election campaign, said the rebels, and by that he meant the FARC, need to 'feel the heat'.
Although both men deny any links to the death squad activities of the AUC the right wing paramilitary group who supported their election campaign, there have been persistent allegations since they came to power, that the Army under their control continue to use excessive violence and intimidation against the indigenous population.
A march of the indigenous people, some forty thousand people mobilised from all corners of Colombia is due to arrive in Bogata this weekend.
The marchers have been under constant attack by the police and right wing paramilitaries during their 186 mile walk, with over a hundred injured and four killed. In response to the murders and injuries, the President Uribe at first denied the soldiers had fired into the crowds. He later retracted his statement when videos showing contrary evidence were released into the public domain.
The poorest people, the indigenous population have had their Bloody Sundays and Burntollets, a situation that would not have been lost on the audience listening to a man talking about ecological concerns around drugs.
The Colombian military and police have a lot in common with their counterparts in this neck of the woods.
It was revealed in 2006 under the freedom of information act that Commanders of the Colombian Army had been meeting in secret with the RUC and the British military over a long number of years leading to the suspicion that Colombian security forces were being trained by the British in the North.
It has been established that high ranking members of the Colombian Armed Forces and other officials have also met the PSNI in recent years, meetings that the PSNI at first denied.
The meetings are believed to be part of a British Government policy of providing Colombian authorities with practical military help in the campaign against left wing rebels in Colombia. Both the British and the Colombian Governments have been accused of colluding with state sponsored paramilitaries in the murder of civilians. Like does attract like.
Colombia is one of the most war ravaged and poorest countries in the world despite claims by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund of addressing poverty.
The distinguished author and journalists Hugh O Shaughnessy, describes visiting a small town in the Mountains and meeting teenage miners hacking dangerous coal seams with no more light than a candle. Their weekly pay came in the form of crack cocaine for drugs tainting all sides in this conflict.
The AUC a right wing paramilitary group, set up because they believed the Colombian Government was not doing enough to take on the left wing groups such as FARC. Their move into the drugs trade in the nineties substantially increased their membership making them the most formidable in terms of human right violations.
The AUC have been responsible for many of the worst massacres in Colombian history and its links to the Colombian Army has been rewarded by the Bush administration in increased US aid to the Colombian Government, something the Vice President didn't tell the Belfast conference.
Indeed the Vice Presidents concern for the environment did not extend to condemning the use, under Plan Colombia of glyphosate fumigation of the land which is poisoning both people and animals but doing nothing to interrupt the lucrative production of cocaine.
The PSNI last week confiscated cocaine in Belfast and Ballymena with a street value of some £300,000, hardly a sufficient reason for the presence of a man from a country awash with the stuff. But then as he claimed he was there to educate cocaine users about the ecological cost of their habit. Is he serious?
Did no one from the PSNI tell him of the environmentally friendly culture that abounds in the Loyalist areas of Belfast, where the drug pushers are 'the untouchables' enjoying the privileges of meetings with British Vice Consuls, and Unionist politicians and now demanding payment to 'kick the habit'?
The Colombian Government are fixated with defeating the left wing guerrillas in Colombia and for this to succeed they are not really concerned with the thousands who have been murdered, tortured, imprisoned, poisoned, driven of the land.
Their war has extended to the alcoholics, prostitutes, the homeless and orphaned children. It's called cleansing Colombian society. In the midst of this their Vice President is concerned about the environment.
