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Colombia’s Uribe warns on Venezuela’s future: 'Tyranny has established itself' | FT Interview

Name: Colombia’s Uribe warns on Venezuela’s future: 'Tyranny has established itself' | FT Interview
Uploaded: 2020-12-04T05:59:47.733Z
Duration: 5 min 56 s
Channel: Financial Times
Description: Ex-president says Maduro regime has put the country at risk of becoming another Cuba

Alvaro Uribe, who as Colombia's two-term president was the US’s closest ally in Latin America, talks to the FT's Gideon Long and Michael Stott about Venezuela and the region's turbulent year

December 4, 2020

Transcript

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For two decades Alvaro Uribe has been at the very heart of Colombian politics, firstly as the country's president for eight years until 2010 and then as a senator and as the standard bearer for the Colombian right. He led the campaign against the 2016 peace agreement with the Farc, saying it was too generous to the Marxist guerrillas. In 2018 he was instrumental in propelling Colombia's current leader Ivan Duque into the presidency. Even now, Mr Uribe is arguably the most influential politician in the country, loved and hated alike.

His supporters regard him as the man who took the fight to the Farc. His detractors want him behind bars accusing him of links with right wing paramilitaries. The FT's Latin American editor, Michael Stott, and I spoke to Mr Uribe from his wife's family ranch near Medellin. We asked him about the state of Colombia and its fractious relationship with neighbouring Venezuela.