Harvard has invited Uribe to be the key-note speaker of an event in which he will speak about the wonders of his achievements.

Here is Colombia Vive's response upon learning about such one-sidedness and misrepresentation; the thread follows with the ensuing responses.

March 21, 2011

Dear Dean Nohria,

Colombia Vive is an all-volunteer non-profit organization working in Boston to create awareness in the United States of the struggle for fundamental human rights and to support Colombians working non-violently for positive change. We are outraged at the invitation extended by Harvard Business School to Alvaro Uribe Velez, former president of Colombia, to speak as part of the “Future Unlocked” Latin American Conference on March 26, 2011.

Mr. Uribe’s tenure as president of Colombia was characterized by a catastrophic record of human rights violations, collusion with right-wing illegal armed groups, and a sorry record of corruption that included millions in subsidies to wealthy landowners and drug lords that the “Agro Ingreso Seguro”(Agricultural Safety Net) program had reserved for small farmers.

To elaborate on just a few of the reasons we find extending an invitation to Mr. Uribe to describe how he “unlocked” Colombia’s future so objectionable:

Human rights violations

Under Mr. Uribe’s controversial "democratic security" law enacted ostensibly to fight internal insecurity and strengthen the rule of law, Colombian soldiers were promised bonuses and benefits for each guerrilla they could prove they killed in combat. This perverse transposing of cash incentives that work so well in the marketplace onto the military had the exact results that any first-semester MBA student would expect: “motivated” soldiers kidnapped over 3,000 innocent civilians from poor neighborhoods —many of them children and individuals with special needs, i.e., the most marginalized people in the country—killed them, and presented them to their superiors as "guerrillas killed in combat," in return for payment.

Under Mr. Uribe's presidency, the Colombian secret services (known as the DAS) were used to spy on, persecute, threaten, stigmatize and attack human rights defenders, trade unionists, political opponents, journalists, and the Supreme Court of Justice; internal documents of the DAS have even revealed its willingness to monitor and discredit the Human Rights Sub-Commission of the European Parliament, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations fighting for human rights. Among these surveilled organizations or persons, many have been explicitly and unfoundedly designated by former president Uribe as "intellectual showcases "of the FARC, thereby putting them in danger.

Ties to illegal armed groups and drug lords

Mr. Uribe’s ties to paramilitary mercenaries are already well-known and documented. Since Uribe left office, it has been established that during his presidency, the government land reform agency conveyed millions of acres that were meant for landless peasants to paramilitaries ("Colombia: Cloud of Scandal Haunts Uribe's Legacy," Time Magazine, December 20, 2010). In a similar, well-publicized incident, Uribe’s government distributed $117 million in agricultural subsidies to wealthy supporters, friends and patrons, including land owners, beauty queens and drug lords. At least one of these beneficiaries has been extradited to the United States on charges of smuggling large shipments of cocaine and heroin into the country (El Tiempo, October 8, 2009.) Compare the above example of Uribe’s largesse with his government “compensation” to farmers who suffered weather-related crop losses with amounts totaling in some instances of .42 cents. (Semana.com October 29, 2009). More recently, 120 politicians with close ties to the Uribe government have been indicted and dozens sentenced for links to known criminals. Mario Uribe, the former president's cousin and political associate, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for “conspiracy to promote illegal armed groups” (El Espectador, February 21, 2011) and for having used paramilitary organizations to facilitate his own election to the national congress and for illegally expropriating large expanses of fertile land for himself.

Failed economic policies

President Uribe’s repression and his failed economic policies are directly responsible for the forced displacement of millions of Colombians. During his presidency, over 2.4 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes, doubling the number to an all time high of 5.2 million. In fact, Colombia’s internally displaced population is today the largest, surpassing even Sudan’s. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, fully 98% of these displaced persons live below the poverty line and 82.6 % are considered as living in extreme poverty. In addition, there are over one thousand mass graves in Colombia and there is credible evidence that crematory ovens were used to “disappear” bodies of those massacred in Mr. Uribe’s home state (Semana, May10, 2010.)

After privatizing most state-owned industries, selling mining rights and nearly every other state asset to the highest bidder, Mr. Uribe left office. He also left nearly half (49%) of the Colombian population living on about $94 a month (DANE), nearly half (45%) of these impoverished people are children and young adults. Unemployment and underemployment are at 12% and 37%, respectively.

Given this only-partial description of the disastrous impacts of his government on Colombia’s security, economy, political and judicial systems and human rights record, one cannot help but wonder what kind of future the Harvard Business School wants to help “unlock” for Latin America using Uribe’s presidency as a key.

Respectfully,

Ana Zambrano
Director

Colombia Vive
colombiavive.org
Phone: 617-605-2247
References:
http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/judicial/articulo-252376-condenado-m...
www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/paras-tambien-tenian-crematorios-antioqui...
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/6082-beauty-queens-and-pol...
http://www.semana.com/noticias-politica/agroingreso-para-pobres/130595.aspx

Center for International Policy: “Agro Ingreso Seguro, “subsidizing the rich,” http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1137

[Harvard's response]

March 22, 2011

Ms. Zambrano,
I am writing in response to your letter to Dean Nohria at Harvard Business School concerning Mr. Uribe's participation in the upcoming "Future Unlocked" conference. This is a student-led and student-run activity; I say that not as an excuse, but to acknowledge that I don't have a lot of insight into the speaker selection process this year. I have forwarded your letter to the conference co-organizers so they are aware of your displeasure. I'll note, however, as well, that as an academic institution it would be troubling to envision a world where potentially controversial topics or speakers were excluded from opportunities for open discussion and debate.
Best,
Jean Cunningham
Assistant Dean for Administrative and Educational Affairs
Harvard Business School
Boston MA 02163

[CV's response]

March 23, 2011

Dear Jean Cunningham,

Thank you for your response to our letter to Dean Nohria. We had already forwarded the letter to the co-organizers, but we are grateful nonetheless for your consideration in to sending it to them as well. It is better that they have it from two sources as opposed to none.

We understand that the “Future Unlocked” conference is organized by students. We are perplexed, however, that the university does not seem to require some process to ensure that invited speakers for events carrying the Harvard imprimatur reflect the university’s values and ideals. Perhaps a review of a complete biography of Mr. Uribe would have resulted in either his not being invited or the inclusion of another speaker from Latin America with a more humane approach to governing and economic development.

Whereas we find this invitation objectionable, we have not suggested squelching debate. On the contrary, we encourage healthy debate. We would very much welcome a forum where the perspective of the thousands assassinated, threatened and persecuted, the millions displaced and impoverished during your guest’s tenure as President of Colombia would be presented to counter what Mr. Uribe would assert regarding his record. Unfortunately, the conference organizers are presenting Mr. Uribe’s government as a showcase of effective and praise-worthy governance. There doesn’t seem to be a space for opposing views in the forum. Giving Uribe an unchallenged platform and asking him to describe how he "unlocked" the potential of his country, and only allowing conference attendees to pose one or two potentially challenging questions from the floor is not truly providing a venue for open discussion and debate.

We would welcome an opportunity to have true debate where speakers with opposing views to Mr. Uribe's are offered the same amount of time to speak about the impact of his rule on political, economic, social, human rights, and environmental conditions in Colombia. Please feel free to contact us for such an event, or if you have other questions. We would be delighted to participate.

Sincerely,

Ana Zambrano