THE WASHINGTON POST
By letting trade pact languish, the U.S. aids Colombia's misery
President Obama should lead a delegation of American union and human rights leaders to this Caribbean resort, not to marvel at the stunning colonial fortresses but to wander into the barrios of dirt-floor houses and with inventive names such as one called Boston.
What they would find are several hundred thousand displaced people from Colombia's long-running guerrilla war. There are also many thousands more from the past three months, as extraordinary flooding and landslides washed away houses, roads, farms and even entire villages in a slow-motion catastrophe that meteorologists say may continue until May.
About 2.2 million Colombians have had their lives damaged, according to the popular new government of President Juan Manuel Santos, which has had to tear up its ambitious development plans to focus on the recovery that he now expects will take up to four years.
Then Obama and his entourage of well-meaning Americans should hang their heads in shame. They aid the misery.
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