Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Honored with Regional Leadership Award at Business Forum in Miami

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe speaking at a security forum in Cali in May 2017. (Photo credit: Centro Democratico)

Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe was given an award for leadership in the region today by the Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes (IEIE) and Cala Enterprises.

Uribe, who is currently a senator and under criminal investigation on allegations of bribing and intimidating witnesses, was awarded the Executive MasterMind Latino 2018 Award in Miami, an event that the organizers said they hosted as a means to bring an “exclusive group of businesspeople together for discussions with leading multinational companies.”

Those companies included American Express, BMW, Asian Broadcast Satellite, Cerealto, Grupo Siro, Ángel Sánchez USA, Qignition LLC, and Santander Music.

“We have wanted to recognize a successful trajectory in supporting private initiative and in creating conditions for economic stability in Colombia and in Latin America as a whole,” said Estrella Flores-Carretero, president of IEIE.

Ismael Cala, strategist and president of Cala Enterprises, added that Executive MasterMind Latino “is unique as it combines the professional and management experiences of the CEOs and upper-level executives who were speakers with an exercise of higher awareness and connection from being and not only from doing.”

He added that the “distinguishing feature” of the event is its “warmth and closeness.”

Uribe remains an incredibly polarizing figure in the nation that he governed from 2002-2010 and has continued to hold great political sway over ever since.

While his ardent supporters, especially those in the department of Antioquia, where he is from and served as governor in the 1990s, continue to praise him for the security improvements seen in the nation during a tenure marked by hardline military attacks against guerrillas, many in Colombia and abroad say he oversaw grave crimes that caused the death of a vast number of Colombians.

Though Uribe has been embroiled in allegations and attempts to tie him to criminal behavior nearly as long as he has been a player on the national stage, the current investigation represents arguably the largest threat to his standing.

READ MORE: Uribe Submits Resignation from Senate Amid Investigation

The senator pledged to step down from his seat in Congress this summer to focus on mounting a defense against these charges, even submitting a resignation letter, but later backed off that strategy.