CHAPTER 9
Rainforest Riches
HILLARY, BILL, AND COLOMBIAN TIMBER AND OIL DEALS
In early June 2010 Bill Clinton met Frank Giustra in Colombia to launch a $20 million fund for small businesses.
The two had visited Colombia together numerous times: for paid speeches, to look in on Giustra's growing investments there, and to launch a Clinton Foundation project in the country. Giustra was invested in natural resources in Colombia. And he was looking to expand his holdings in oil, natural gas, coal, and timber.
The country had been plagued by violence and narcoterrorism for decades and was slowly coming out of it, thanks in part to a large infusion of American foreign aid. (Colombia was the fourth largest recipient of US foreign and military aid in the world.)
It was also desperate to get a free-trade agreement passed in the United States to jump-start its economy. What that meant was that Hillary, as secretary of state, held much of the country's future in her hands. And as some unseen power of timing would have it, Hillary was set to arrive in Colombia the very next day.
In her memoirs, Hillary called the fact that she and her husband were both in the country "a happy coincidence in our hectic schedules." It was the waning weeks of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe's tenure in office.
The thin, bespectacled Uribe had first been elected in 2002 on a platform of fighting terrorism and violence. When he took office, he later wrote, "Vast swathes of Colombia were under total dominion of the narcoterroristas." For Uribe the fight was personal: his father had been killed by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorists in the 1980s.
During his eight years in office, he had achieved an impressive record of success. But term limits prevented him from running again. (He tried holding a popular referendum that would get him another term, but Colombian courts rejected it.)
He would be out of office by August 2010 but still had substantial powers until the next election. Hillary was popping over to Bogotá from nearby Ecuador aboard a US government plane.
Alvaro Uribe
After her aircraft touched down at Colombia's Catam Military Airport, she was greeted by US ambassador William Brownfield and Colombian foreign minister Jaime Bermudez.
Hillary expressed her strong support for the Uribe government and closer ties with Colombia. “The United States will continue to support the Colombian people, the Colombian military and their government in the ongoing struggle against the insurgents, the guerrillas, the narco-traffickers who would wish to turn the clock back," she said.
Alvaro Uribe
These were not meaningless niceties. Only a couple of months earlier, three influential Democratic senators-who were also Hillary's friends-had written to her about cutting aid to Colombia. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont had penned a letter saying it was time to back away. "Given U.S. record budget deficits, we cannot afford to continue assistance that is not achieving sufficient results," they wrote.
They also dinged Uribe on human rights. "In particular," they said, “human rights abuses by Colombian military personnel supported by the U.S. continue, and those responsible are rarely brought to justice."
Alvaro Uribe
Nor were they alone. Foreign aid for Colombia was never a popular subject among Democrats, who were worried about human rights and labor rights conditions in the country. From the airport Hillary headed into Bogotá and met Bill at a restaurant in the northern part of the city. With a few friends (it is unclear if Giustra was also there) they enjoyed cappuccinos and a steak dinner.
The next morning, June 9, Bill headed to Casa de Nariño, the presidential palace, for a quiet meeting with President Uribe. They met for approximately an hour and had what the media called an “animated dialogue." Bill left Casa de Nariño before noon.
The link is here.
Hillary arrived for lunch with the president, after which they signed a series of science and technology agreements. Most importantly for Uribe, Hillary also lent her vocal support to a trade agreement between the United States and Colombia.
Alvaro Uribe
“First, let me underscore President Obama's and my commitment to the Free Trade Agreement," she told RCN Television. "We are going to continue to work to obtain the votes in the Congress to be able to pass it. We think it's strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States. And I return very invigorated ... to begin a very intensive effort to try to obtain the votes to get the Free Trade Agreement finally ratified."
Uribe could not have been more pleased. It is also worth noting that her support for this agreement represented a complete reversal of her position-and Obama's-from the 2008 campaign. Days after Hillary left Bogotá, Prima Colombia Properties, which Frank Giustra has ownership interest in through a shell company called Flagship Industries, announced that it had acquired the right to cut timber in a biologically diverse forest on the pristine Colombian shoreline.
The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) calls this property “one of the world's largest untapped hardwood timber supplies."
Alvaro Uribe
Through its Colombia-domiciled subsidiary REM International CISA, Prima entered into an exclusive agreement with the Colombian government giving it the right to "harvest 1,050,000 cubic meters of hardwood" on the west coast of Colombia. The timber would be cut along picturesque Huaca Beach in Choco and shipped to China.