Flamboyant opposition senator and former FARC hostage release negotiator, Piedad Cordoba
‘Jane Fonda of Colombia’s’ assassination by marginalization
By Judi McLeod Monday, June 21, 2010Bogota Free Planet’s not the only one chuckling that one of the offshoots of Sunday’s election of former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos as President of Colombia, is the end of the career of flamboyant opposition senator and former FARC hostage release negotiator, Piedad Cordoba.
The negotiation days of the `Jane Fonda of Colombia` don’t look too promising.
When Piedad wasn’t on official duty with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez negotiating deals for the release of jungle captives held by FARC, she was dancing the night away at top Caracas salsa spots like El Mani es Asi.
Figuratively dancing on Colombia’s grave, the Salsa Senator was most recently in news headlines for sending a letter to outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, asking him to carry out a “humanitarian exchange” of FARC hostages for incarcerated guerillas before the term ends on August 7.
Uribe’s response could be explained in two words, “No dice”, put in even stronger terms by Juan Manuel Santos in a victory speech that warned FARC their “time had run out”.
While Salsa tunes may still be running in Cordoba’s head, according to Santos the chances of negotiating with FARC are now zero to none. There is “not the slightest chance of negotiating with FARC”, he said in Sunday’s victory speech, adding that he will not rest until “every inch” of the country had been secured.
This is bound to leave the bombastic Cordoba holding an empty dance card.
Nor can she count can’t on help any time soon from Chavez, who’s kept busy with his ham handed crackdown on journalists.
While closing down hot night spots in Venezuela, folks back home were aware that they were paying her salary.
Semana, the respected Colombian news magazine rates Senator Piedad Cordoba “the most controversial woman in Colombia”, comparing her guerrilla diplomacy to Jane Fonda’s overtures to Viet Nam in the early 1970s.
According to the New York Times, “Ms. Cordoba dines with guerrillas and dons their berets for photos. She wears turbans evoking her African roots, a rare distinction in a country like Colombia where politicians are often expected to be light-skinned men from the moneyed classes.”
A lawyer, elected as a Liberal Party senator in 2006, Cordoba got her start as an official government mediator in Humanitarian exchange discussions between the government of Colombia and the FARC group, along with Chavez.
By 2008 she had become a security risk when airline officials and customs police had to step in to shield her from the passengers hurling insults and threats her way as she boarded a January flight between Bogota and Caracas.
In typical liberal fashion, it was always someone else’s fault.
“It’s not surprising,” she said of detractors who suggested she should stay in Venezuela rather than return to Colombia. “In Colombia, with my face, my turban, my words, I’m Public Enemy No. 1.”
Interviewed between Salsa dances by the New York Times in February 2008, the then 53-year-old senator said...”Colombia will just have to get used to me because I’m not going away”.
Ever the drama queen, Colombia’s AWOL senator accused an unspecified “top Colombian government official” of orchestrating an assassination attempt toward her on Venezuelan soil. “So far no proof or testimony about the alleged conspiracy is known.” (Wikipedia).
In 1999, Cordoba was kidnapped by members of a right-wing paramilitary death squad. Released within weeks, she fled to the safer ground of Montreal, Quebec.
Cordoba describes the one year and two months she spent with her four children in Montreal as one of the most painful of her life.
Navigating the bureaucracy of Canada’s system for political refugees was daunting, she said, as was starting anew in such a different society. “There was no house with a pool and a car in the garage waiting for us.”
With the victory of Juan Manuel Santos as Colombian president, Cordoba will soon be complaining of `assassination by marginalization’.
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