As president of a narco state waging a protracted insurgency war with its citizenry, Uribe has become Israel's Numero Uno weapons and security customer. Independent journalist,
Marsha B. Cohen reports a telling comment made by Colombia's foreign minister, Jaime Bermudez during a trade mission to Israel last April. Then, the minister
related to the Jerusalem Post his belief the two nations had suffered similarly, saying;
"Colombia and Israel have had a very long relationship and a very strong partnership, too. Both countries and our peoples have suffered and have endured, in a way, similar difficulties. At the same time, I would say that we both are resilient and determined, that we share somehow a lot in common. I would say that for us, it’s very important to make a partnership with Israel in several aspects."
Uribe will share the head table with former New Zealand prime minister, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, (what hair-raising skeletons haunt Sir Geoffrey's closet yet to be determined) a lawyer specializing in international and maritime law.
Cohen also reminds; Uribe is a favoured son of sorts for the Israeli lobby in America, being the recent recipient of the American Jewish Committee's 'Light Unto Nations' award. Quoting their website, she relates how he was feted by the AJC and its president,
E. Robert Goodkind, who without irony introduced the South American strongman thus;
"President Uribe is a staunch ally of the United States, a good friend of Israel and the Jewish people, and is a firm believer in human dignity and human development in Colombia and the Americas. [...] Both Colombia and Israel have been forced for decades to face challenges regarding their survival and their citizens have suffered the threat of terror on a daily basis. Nevertheless, Colombians like Israelis continue tirelessly to build democratic and prosperous societies, and remain passionate about achieving peace.”
Of Uribe,
Human Rights Watch advised in an open letter to president Obama last year his administration should take issue with Uribe's human rights record, noting;
"Our organization has closely monitored Colombia's human rights and humanitarian situation for decades. We have serious concerns about the Uribe administration's record on and commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law."
Palmer says the proposed panel, if agreed upon by the two principles Israel and Turkey, is quasi-judicial, meaning it has no standing in law, and is authorized to review reports submitted by the principles, but will not have subpoena powers. As a condition of its tentative participation, Israel demanded, *and was conceded by the UN, the right to shield all Israeli citizens and soldiers from the review panel's questions.
Nine dead in the middle of the night, and a "review panel" without the power to investigate anything but submitted position papers is hardly the justice the world called for on June 1, 2010, but it seems as close as Israel is likely to allow.
The Marmara was one of six vessels en route to Gaza that fateful night, carrying humanitarian aid supplies and nearly 700 international volunteers. The stated goal of the Free Gaza Flotilla, the U.K.-based group behind the flotilla, is to force Israel's hand to lessen its grip on the roughly million and half Palestinians trapped and isolated in Gaza, surrounded by an Israeli military cordon replete with seven metre high walls, topped with razor wire and remotely controlled machine guns.
Israel has tightened already stringent trade restrictions on Gaza since the 2006 popular election of the Hamas party, an entity Israel dismisses as a terrorist organization bent on its destruction. Controlling Gaza's shoreline, airspace, and all land access save tunnels dug into Gaza from Egypt, Israel has forbidden importation of a wide array of food, medicines, building materials, and other products, and does not allow Gazans export what few goods they could for foreign currency.
For Israel's part, its spokespeople say the Marmara and the other five ships in the flotilla posed an existential threat, and were, in the opinion of the military and political leadership, carrying weapons and/or materials that could be weaponized and used against Israeli citizens.
Claims of how events unfolded that dark morning in May vary, but what is certain is: nine of the participants aboard the Marmara were shot dead by an elite Israeli commando unit, dozens more wounded by gunfire. Of the dead, eight were Turkish citizens, while one, a 19 old boy was Turkish/American.
In the days following the incident, as shock, outrage, and disbelief at Israel's actions reverberated around the world,
Ban Ki-Moon announced the U.N. would mount an investigation of events. Israel has never allowed the UN access for any investigation of its many transgressions of the peace, or its repeated attacks against civilian populations, but Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said today his government would consider cooperating this time.
According to Ha'aretz, one of Israel's most prominent newspapers, the government is said to be "amenable" to the UN's probe, and will make its decision sometime within the week whether it will go along or not.
Ha'aretz quoted Netanyahu as saying;
"[It is] in Israel’s national interest to ensure that the factual truth regarding the flotilla incident would be exposed for the world to see."
What the world has seen since the incident took place are video and still pictures smuggled past the Israeli Defence Force,
one video notably recording what appears to be two soldiers kicking and then shooting point blank a person prostrate behind a ship's railing.
*[UPDATE2 Aug. 10, 2010: The UN has since denied it made guarantees to Israel, and that country has threatened to pull out of the proposed process.]
Perhaps UN head, Ban Ki-Moon was following the old English axiom; "Set a thief to catch a thief" when he named outgoing Colombia president Alvaro Uribe to sit as vice-chair at the head of a pending investigation into the events of the night of May 31, 2010 aboard the Turkish cruise ship, Mavi Marmara. 
