U.S. ally Colombia deserves trade pact, Rice says

By Doug Palmer

MEDELLIN, Colombia (Reuters) - The United States would break faith with a strong Latin American ally that has rescued itself from failure if the U.S. Congress refuses to approve a free-trade agreement with Colombia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.

"I think it would be ... a very bad signal for the people of Colombia -- not to mention the people of the region -- that you do difficult things, you work hard, you bring your country back from the brink and the United States doesn't deliver," Rice told reporters before arriving in Medellin.

She was traveling a delegation of nine Democratic U.S. legislators whom she hopes to persuade to vote in favor of the trade accord.

At a reception with Colombian business leaders, Rice said her very presence in a city that was once home to an international drug cartel and violent street gangs was a sign of how far Colombia has come.

"I think it's absolutely true that I would not have been in Medellin just a few years ago," she said.

While Colombia still needs to improve its human rights record, Congress should recognize the progress President Alvaro Uribe has made toward ending decades of civil conflict and demobilizing paramilitary forces responsible for most of the past abuses, Rice said.

Rice's trip is one of several senior Bush administration officials are leading over the next two months to build support for the Colombia agreement.

OPPOSITION TO PACT

Despite the administration's push, the AFL-CIO -- the largest U.S. labor group and a key Democratic party supporter, strongly opposes the free-trade deal.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives said last June Colombia needed to make much more progress to reduce violence against trade unionists and punish murderers before Congress would vote on the pact.

Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards all oppose the free-trade agreement because of concerns over violence against labor leaders.

Rice, who also met with Colombian union leaders opposed to the pact, said the agreement would boost the nation's economy and give the government more resources to crack down on kidnapping, homicides and other violence that has already dropped sharply since 2002.

At the same time, "whatever the challenges facing Colombia they are not going to be easier if this FTA does not pass. In fact, they will be harder," Rice said.

The Bush administration believes it can win approval of the agreement if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi schedules a vote and lets Democrats make up their minds without party pressure to oppose it.

The Democrats traveling with Rice include Rep. Eliot Engel, a New Yorker who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, and six others who voted for a less controversial free trade agreement with Peru in November.