Salt Lake City, Utah – A group of students and anti-war activists protested a visit by Alvaro Uribe – Colombia’s former president here May 26. Zions Bank invited Uribe to speak at a Trade and Business Conference. Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch welcomed Uribe as he promoted a free trade agreement with the U.S., claiming human rights in Colombia are improved. The U.S. Congress and President Obama are unable to pass the free trade agreement due to the terrible human rights record of the Colombian government.

With the election of Alvaro Uribe Velez as president, the U.S. media says that Colombia is entering a new phase in “the war against terrorism.” President-elect Velez's platform calls for an end to negotiations with the armed insurgency and for a military solution to the conflict. The big story that's not being told is that more than 50% of registered voters abstained in the election. Community organizations in Colombia suggest that close to 80% of the electorate in the countryside opted out. With right-wing paramilitaries monitoring voting in many areas in the countryside, and Army tanks rumbling through poor neighborhoods in the cities, the election results are anything but a popular mandate to expand Colombia's civil war.