Note to the State Dept: This man is not a terrorist

A Colombian journalist, once praised by U.S. State Department officials, is now denied a visa to visit the U.S. Those who've followed events in Colombia will immediately jump to the correct conclusion: the journalist criticized the government.

The peerless Kevin Cullen, columnist for the Boston Globe, tells the story of Hollman Morris, who received a Nieman fellowship to study for a year at Harvard.

The Colombian government has deemed Morris too cozy with terrorists, and the US
government is taking the word of its closest ally in Latin America, ignoring Morris’s colleagues and human rights organizations who consider him a courageous, call-’em-as-he-sees-’em journalist.

Morris produces a TV news show called “Contravia,’’ which translates to “going against the traffic.’’ And when it comes to covering President Álvaro Uribe, Morris has consistently gone the wrong way down what that government considers a one-way street.

Cullen points out that reporting in Colombia is dangerous.

There have been 43 journalists killed there in the last 18 years. There is enormous pressure on journalists to be seen as taking the right side, and in the government’s view the right side is always its side.

It's also dangerous to be a trade unionist in Colombia -- more dangerous than in any other country on the planet. At least 48 unionists were murdered with impunity in Colombia last year, according to US LEAP.

Ruh-roh

President Obama says he'll push for trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama, the New York Times reports.

Rob Scott at the Economic Policy Institute just posted his report that shows a trade deal with South Korea will

... increase the U.S. trade deficit with Korea by about $16.7 billion,
and displace about 159,000 American jobs within the first seven years after it takes effect.

Global Trade Watch points out that Panama

is one of the world's top venues for tax evasion and money laundering

and that the proposed trade deal includes

...no special requirements that take into consideration, much less try to counter, Panama's banking secrecy rules, lax financial service regulations or designation as a venue for money laundering and tax evasion. In fact, if the Panama FTA were adopted, it would make these matters of bipartisan concern worse.

The U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project reminds us that Colombia kills more trade unionists than all other countries in the world combined.

Through April 2010, more than 2,700 trade unionists have been assassinated in the last two decades. Virtually no one is prosecuted or convicted for these murders, with approximately a 96% impunity rate.