Who is Peace Prize Winner Santos?

Many things can be said about Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia and former minister of defense who was rewarded with (not awarded, rewarded) the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday. But I’ll stick to what I personally know. In 2014, Santos’s military invited two acquaintances of mine, members of the Venezuelan non-violent resistance Operación Libertad, to visit a military base where the below photo was taken. Later Santos extradited these two to the dictatorship in Venezuela where they were thrown in the most infamous torture site, known as “The Tomb”. They are still there.

Gabriel Valles y Lorent Saleh en un base militar en Colombia en 2014.
Gabriel Valles and Lorent Saleh in a military base in Colombia in 2014. 

The last time I spoke to Lorent Saleh he told me about being invited to a Colombian military base.  Apparently this invitation was the cause for their extradition. But who is the commander in chief of the military? President Santos, of course. So he was ultimately responsible for their visit, and then he extradited them supposedly because of that visit(!).

Now as regards “peace”, for peace to be made there has to be war first. But Colombia is not in a civil war. Colombia is plagued by a terrorist group that is armed and supported by Castro on Cuba. Castro also supports and controls Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, and Venezuela cooperates intimately with FARC. So when Santos engaged in “peace negotiations” with FARC, with facilitation by Cuba, Venezuela, and Norway, it was really a negotiation to rewards a foreign-backed terrorist group. Santos is a quisling!

Norway was used as a pawn to give legitimacy to this charade. There is no reason to suspect that the Norwegians acted with malicious intent, because they are acting against their own national interest. You see, the bad guys in this deal are intimately allied with Putin’s Russia, so what Norway did—in the negotiations and in rewarding the quisling with a Nobel Peace Prize—indirectly helps Russia, Norway’s enemy.

Castro lurade byxorna av Ola Nordman

Norges deltagande i de så kallade fredsförhandlingarna mellan Colombias regeringsparti och terroristerna i FARC (utan deltagande av oppositionen, vilka fördömt hela företaget) är en skamfläck för broderlandet. Projektet har utmålats som ett fredsprojekt, men det är allt annat än ett fredsprojekt. Tack och lov att folket röstade ner det i folkomröstningen den 2 oktober.

Detta så kallade fredsavtal skulle ha gett terroristgerillan FARC en position som de aldrig skulle ha kunnat uppnå i val. Det skulle ha kullkastat hela rättsstaten. Det skulle ha grundlagsskyddat politisk förföljelse av de som motsatte sig traktatet inklusive militärer och oppositionspolitiker.

Nej till straffrihet för Castros terrorister i Colombia
Nej till straffrihet för Castros terrorister i Colombia

Det bakomliggande syftet med avtalet var att förvandla Colombia till en kubansk vasallstat, likt Venezuela under Chávez och Maduro. De främmande makter som deltog i förhandlingarna var Kuba, Venezuela och Norge. FARC är en irreguljär styrka kontrollerad av Kuba. FARCs ledare har bostäder i Venezuelas centrala militärbas Fuerte Tiuna. Det enda land i förhandlingarna som representerade det internationella samfundet var Norge.

En skamfläck på Norges flagga

Hur kunde Norge sitta vid samma bord som dessa blodsugare och förhandla bort grundläggande fri- och rättigheter för 50 miljoner colombianer utan att slå larm? Att Norge nu dessutom gett Nobels fredspris till Colombias president Juan Manuel Santos sätter en skamfläck på broderlandets flagga som kommer att ta lång tid att tvätta bort.

Nordmän, ni verkar ha glömt att “Frihet är det största ting, som sökas kan all världen kring.” Mänskliga rättigheter kan inte förhandlas bort. Att lagstifta om en “fred” som slår undan benen för rättsstaten leder inte till fred – det leder till krig! Det som Santos nu får fredspriset för var ett förräderi mot allt vad fredspriset står för: en draksådd. En draksådd som Norge deltog i och lånade sitt goda rykte för, säkert av ren och skär blåögdhet; Castro lurade byxorna av Ola Nordman.

What Russia wants in Syria

Russia wants a navy base. Period. It’s not a mystery. If you understand that Putin is supporting Assad for the purpose of having a navy base with a harbor that doesn’t freeze in the winter, and that is not cut off from the rest of the world by straights guarded by NATO, then Russia’s behavior becomes totally predictable and understandable.

How do I know this? Easy. Putin said as much. In 2008 if my memory does not fail me, he announced plans for a new oceanic fleet by 2020, with navy bases in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Venezuela. Then came the Arab Spring and wiped away Kadaffi in Libya, and created civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

Russia already had a small base in Syria that seemed about to be lost, just like Sevastopol in Crimea would be lost when the treaty with Ukraine expired. Which is why Putin installed his man as president, but he was ousted in an uprising in 2014. So Putin invaded Crimea in order to hold on to Sevastopol. After that victory he turned to Syria and decided to hold on to that base as well, which is why he has backed Assad for a year now. Another stop gap measure has been a cooperation with Iran, using one of their bases in the Indian Ocean.

Libya and Yemen are out of reach now, but Venezuela is un unknown case. The area where the base presumably would be built has been closed off for civilians, and there are a lot of work going on under foreign direction. Not Russian though, but Asian. Tensions have gone high recently when foreign work leaders have pushed local crews beyond what they deem acceptable.

The Quagmire in the Levant

Russia is bombarding Aleppo because Putin wants a navy base in the Mediterranean, and his ticket to that is to keep Assad in power in Damascus no matter the cost. There are moderate rebels striving for a modern state, there are islamic extremist rebels, and there are some ethnic Turks and Kurds. This comes on top of the previous conflict in Iraq with Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds fighting each other, each with their links to kinfolks in other countries in the region.

The most problematic of these circumstances is the Kurdish case. It is the largest ethnic group in the world that does not have a country, a nation state. Their land is split between four countries, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Turkey is helping the moderate rebels in Syria against Assad but their main foe is the Kurds. Apparently the situation is as follows:

Russia's enemies: 1) moderate rebels, Kurds; 2) ISIS. Friends: Assad.

Turkey's enemies: 1) Kurds; 2) Assad; 3) ISIS. Friends: Moderate rebels.

USA's enemies: 1) ISIS; 2) Assad. Friends: Moderate rebels, Kurds.

There is one factor and one factor only that prevents the West from showing a united front, and it is the Kurdish problem. The fact that Turkey is insisting on subjugating a large tract of Kurdish land.

Turkey would have a lot to win on reconsidering its stance on Kurdistan. They would get more stability, and stability leads to economical development. It could also open the doors for EU membership. Furthermore, it would give them a friendly eastern neighbor that can act as a buffer to Iran, a very useful buffer since there are Kurds on the other side of the border as well, inside Iran. A Kurdistan created with pieces from present Iraq and Turkey would put Teheran on the defensive. By removing this problem from the table, all efforts could be focused on defeating the bad guys in the Levant (a people wanting sovereignty is not a bad guy!). It seems that it’s in Ankara’s interest to reconsider the Kurdish question.