Opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba on Tuesday again criticized Colombian President Alvaro Uribe via social networking website Twitter, accusing his government of putting the state “at the service of a criminal enterprise.”
On Tuesday afternoon the popular president Tweeted the message: “If you draw a picture of the past: you would see the Colombian establishment on its knees before the criminals but with its back to the community.”
Within minutes Cordoba responded with a Tweet addressed directly to the president; “@ AlvaroUribeVel If you draw a picture of the present: I see a government which put the state at the service of a criminal enterprise and with its back to the people.”
Cordoba, who appears to compose her own Twitter messages, has 38,000 followers on the social networking site. Uribe, who does not write his own messages but reportedly makes “suggestions” regarding their content, has 37,000.
Uribe’s ghost-written Tweets have so far consisted of vague pronouncements such as “Tools for human progress like the Internet cannot be put at the service of crime or the service of hate.”
An intriguing Tweet posted Monday by the outgoing leader advised the Colombian nation not to “change the hen that cares for the three eggs of security, confidence in investment and social policy, because the change might damage them.”
Other zen-like pronouncements were met with anger by Cordoba. When the president wrote “Security is an art that is not achieved by speaking, but is an art achieved by working,” the Liberal senator responded “Security for who? … What about the security for the thousands of youths, false positives, that the government assassinated in cold blood.”
Uribe has reportedly expressed interest in writing his own Tweets “soon.”