Build-up of troops on Colombia’s borders sparks fears
Daniel Howden Venezuela and Ecuador have moved troops to their respective borders with Colombia in a serious escalation of the
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Colombia’s President Uribe Goes Dangerously Ballistic
- • Colombian President in effect has terminated the hostage release program by resorting to bombs not diplomacy in resolving his dispute with FARC guerillas.
• Speculation over the possible U.S. role in the affair and whether U.S. trainers, helicopters, satellite imaging, intelligence and smart bombs were supplied.
On Saturday, the Colombian air force attacked a FARC camp site in Ecuador, a mile from the Colombian border resulting in the death of Raul Reyes (Luis Edgar Devia Silva), the second in command of the FARC, and seventeen other members of his unit. Both Ecuador and Venezuela reacted with outrage, with Ecuador immediately recalling its ambassador (Venezuela previously had done so) and ordering their troops to their respective borders with Colombia in response to the air strike and subsequent incursion by Colombian helicopters ordered by President Alvaro Uribe into Ecuador.
What is particularly worrisome about this entire scenario is the strong possibility of U.S. involvement in the incident and what role, if any, Southcom had in planning, supplying and carrying out the operation. There are good grounds to speculate that the entire game plan seems to have been carried out at too sophisticated a level by a Colombian military which normally is dismissed as incompetent, corrupt, drug sodden and ill-deposed to risk dangers.
While there is no evidence to buttress such surmises, the U.S. role could have involved the supply of intelligence based on satellites and heat sensors, a supply of smart bombs and the seconding of some of the scores of U.S. trainers in the country to cooperate in carrying out the initiative. In addition, there could have been possible authorization of the use of Black Hawk helicopters provided under the auspices of Plan Colombia, the multi billion dollar U.S. military aid program which transformed Colombia into being the third largest recipient of such U.S. assistance in the world.
Caracas and Quito have called the attack “cowardly and cold” and have argued that Ecuadorian air and ground space were clearly violated and there was no justification for such foreign military action on Ecuadorian soil. Chávez also said that if such an attack had been duplicated on Venezuelan soil, Caracas would consider declaring war on Colombia.
Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador to Colombia, expelled the Colombian ambassador in Quito, while Venezuela has ordered 10 battalions to the border for possible military action.
There is no question that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has dangerously escalated the tension now mounting in the northern arc of South America. Uribe’s decision to take such violent action just at the time that the tempo of FARC’s release of some of the estimated 750 hostages it was holding was being stepped up, has to be seen as a very strange development when one considers that the Colombian President had previously sacked Chávez last November for his successful record in arranging the release of several hostages thus, there may be other matters on Uribe’s agenda rather than just hostage release. Uribe is also risking the $6 billion a year in bilateral trade between Venezuela and Colombia and he may be hoping that Chávez’s decision to send 10 battalions of troops to the Colombia-Venezuela border may be put to good use in convincing Congressional Democrats to give up their opposition to approving the bilateral free trade agreement that the Bush administration has signed with Bogota, due to Colombia’s stalwart fight against “terrorism.” The Democrats now oppose such passage because the Colombian security forces have a repellant reputation for gunning down the country’s labor leaders.
The question is how prudent was Uribe’s dangerously precipitous action. Without question, Colombia’s Darth Vader has ordered operations before that have violated the territorial boundaries of his neighbors, such as using Colombian intelligence forces to collaborate with Venezuelan mercenaries to penetrate that country’s territory to abduct the FARC`s Rodrigo Granda, who later was released after France’s Nicolas Sarkozy persuaded Uribe to let him go after Colombia’s tensions with Caracas continued to escalate.
The Audacity of Vagueness: Barack Obama and Latin America by COHA Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff
As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, has not been very eager to comprehensively address Latin America as an issue. In recent years, the region has undergone a major tectonic shift towards the left, surely prompting many to wonder how the young Illinois Senator might deal with progressive change throughout the hemisphere were he elected to the White House.
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Latin America and the U.S. Presidential Campaign:COHA Research Associate Monica Shah on Barack Obama
In a February 2008 campaign rally in Alexandria, VA, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was applauded as he declared “Our Latin American policy can not just be ‘I oppose Castro’ and ‘I oppose Chavez.’” Even more applause was registered when he lamented the United States’ past neglect towards Latin America because, “We have been so obsessed with Iraq and the Middle East.” In his campaign strategy driven by ‘change’, Obama has strived for a different foreign policy towards Latin America in contrast to past presidents, and especially the catastrophic regional policies that were followed under the Bush administration’s Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, both of whom served as assistant secretary of state to Latin America, as well as a distempered John Bolton, a senior officer under Collin Powell.
In a 2007 statement to the Senate, Obama claimed, “As has been the case throughout the world, our standing in the Americas has suffered as a result of the misguided policies and actions of the Bush Administration. It will take significant work to repair the damage wrought by six years of neglect and mismanagement of relations,”—work that Obama has now pledged to engage in, including the matter of political prisoners in Cuba. The Illinois Senator and presidential contender also has a special interest in helping to revive stagnant aspects of the Mexican economy, which is among the primary causes of the influx of illegal immigrants to the United States.
Barack Obama believes that, “we ignore Latin America at our own peril”, and insists that Latin American countries are deserving of “mutual respect and dignity.” In contrast to President Bush and Hilary Clinton, Obama has stated that he would not need any “preconditions” before meeting with U.S.’s most bitter foes like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Cuba’s Raul Castro.
As Fidel Castro announced his resignation from office, Obama stated that it is, “the end of a dark era in Cuba’s history”. But in an effort to replace failed policies with effective ones, Obama has proposed to slowly ease the embargo that has existed for nearly five decades. He previously has voted twice against further funding of the U.S. anti-Castro television network, T.V. Marti, which relays propagandized news to Cuba. Furthermore, it costs tens of millions of dollars a year yet has only been able to reach a miniscule audience. In a 2007 Time Magazine article, Obama stated that, “A democratic opening in Cuba is, and should be, the foremost objective of our policy,” and later declared “I will grant Cuban-Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island.”
In terms of trade, Obama has stated that he doesn’t oppose free trade but wants it to be fair and, “reflect the interests of workers and not just corporate profits.” He stated in the recent Ohio debate that he wants to ensure that NAFTA and any other agreement the U.S. signs has labor, environmental, and safety standards “that are going to protect not just workers, but also consumers.”
While some of his critics argue his foreign policy stands are naïve, Obama has a focused and positive concept of constructive engagement as well as a tough revaluation of the troubled state of U.S. hemispheric ties for the first time in decades.
How Chávez Moves
A growing number of Latin American countries suspect that U.S. foreign policy in the region is still riveted with the callous interventionist goals of the Cold War. The new wave of socialism (or quasi-socialism) being called for throughout the region can largely be attributed to the area’s decision to take a more critical look at Western capitalism. Regional integration groups such as MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market), CAN (Andean Community of Nations) and ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for People of our America) are becoming increasingly popular models of development. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales are spurring examples of how regional leaders are trying to promote their own local networks on order to decrease their dependence on international loan agencies such as the World Bank and IMF. Chávez, the outspoken socialist president of Venezuela, is one of the major proponents of these interdependent initiatives being tested in the region today. The new Latin American attitude encourages nations to work amongst themselves to improve trade, social development, infrastructure, financial cooperation, and now defense. On January 27, 2008, Chávez called upon several of his left-leaning compañeros to join together and form something akin to a defensive alliance against U.S. expansionism. This alliance was suggested to counteract the perceived North American threat to South American unity. But some skeptics are asking whether Chávez’s recent efforts to form a regional alliance against the U.S is a legitimate act of national security or an overzealous blunder?