The usual suspects: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, and Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin issued a statement on Democrat trade policy rejecting a free trade agreement with our closest ally in Latin America, Colombia. According to them, it cannot be approved until “concrete evidence of sustained results on the ground in Colombia” regarding issues such as violence and corruption have been shown. This action was taken in July, and is now beginning to bear fruit.

Two candidates in Sunday’s regional elections in Colombia have been killed, bringing the total of candidates killed during the campaign to at least 21.

“There are still investigations underway, but we believe this is the Farc,”

Government officials say 21 candidates have been killed, although other sources put the toll higher at 29.

President Alvaro Uribe announced last week a $25,000 reward for any information leading to the arrests of those responsible for the murders of candidates.

Colombians will vote on Sunday to fill some 15,000 regional posts, including governors, mayors, regional assembly members and municipal officials. source

If Colombia’s hard left was upset before with Mr. Uribe, this has really stirred up the nest. Their only hope is help from Washington so they are returning to what worked before, this time recyling tired old charges that the president has links to paramilitary groups and insisting that the government has been protecting assassins who target union leaders.

Democrats seem only too happy to help. They can’t invoke the Leahy Law against civilians but blocking the FTA in the name of “human rights” is just as good. It satisfies the “sandalistas,” who still dream of a Cuban revolution for all of Latin America, and it makes the most important Democratic Party constituent, the AFL-CIO, happy by knocking off any threat of new international competition.

This may be good for shoring up the Democrat’s base but it is harmful to U.S. geopolitical interests in the Western Hemisphere and to an important U.S. ally and it will dash the hopes for a better life of millions of impoverished Colombians. Either the Democrats have very poor foreign policy judgment or they have sympathy for the devil.

The Democrats’ interventionism also damages the U.S. image in Colombia because it trivializes the will of the Colombian people. Mr. Uribe is immensely popular and the FTA, which he has made his own project, has worked its way through the democratic process. Who are the Democrats to say that the country is not worthy of the partnership? And as for support for the FARC, which Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) once claimed had “legitimate complaints,” Democrats might like to take note of the events surrounding the murder of the lawmakers and the public’s reaction. source