It is the cocaine deal that threatens to divide a continent. President Uribe of Colombia has brought stability to his country by crushing the Farc guerrilla movement, but much of his drug eradication effort has been a failure.
The Latin American leader has now asked Washington to step in, inviting US forces into Colombian military bases to run operations against the country’s still-thriving narcotics industry.
He is to sign a plan with the United States allowing it to use seven Colombian military bases to counter trafficking and the paramilitary activity it finances. The deal suits Washington, which wants to use Colombia, one of its few remaining allies in Latin America, as a regional operations hub.
The plan has aggravated tensions in a region already riven ideologically, pitting Colombia against leftist governments who accuse the United States of planning military aggression against its enemies and undermining efforts to rebuild ties on the continent.
President Chávez of Venezuela has been particularly rattled, breaking off diplomatic relations with Colombia and warning that the move was a step towards all-out regional war.
With almost all of his Latin American counterparts signalling alarm at the plan, President Uribe embarked on a whirlwind tour of regional capitals this week in an attempt to reassure them that it was not a threat to their sovereignty and was aimed only at combating the drugs trade, which raises millions of dollars for Colombian paramilitary groups.
Colombia says that the accord, expected to be signed within weeks, would allow US troops access to seven bases in the world’s top cocaineproducing nations and increase the number of permanent personnel from the current 300 to about 1,400.
The tour produced limited success, with only the conservative President García of Peru pledging unqualified support for the plan.
President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who had previously voiced serious concern, appeared to have been partially reassured, telling Mr Uribe on Thursday that Bogotá’s plans were a sovereign matter provided that operations were restricted to Colombian territory.
However, the Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, said after a meeting between the two leaders that Brazil had suggested that it be discussed at a regional Unasur defence summit in Ecuador on Monday, where some countries have vowed to campaign against the move.
Brazil had sought unspecified guarantees from Colombia and wanted more talks with the United States, Mr Amorim said.
Chile and Paraguay adopted similar positions while Uruguay and Bolivia — whose left-wing leader, Evo Morales, is one of the most vocal foes of the US in the region — remained strongly opposed. An Argentine government source said that President Fernández had told Mr Uribe that the plan was “worrying”.
President Morales, who has already thrown the US Drug Enforcement Agency out of Bolivia, said that he would urge his counterparts at the Ecuadorian summit to reject the bases plan, calling them “an attack not only on the governments but also democracy in Latin America”.
Mr Uribe did not visit Ecuador or Venezuela, both of which have a tense relationship with Washington and Bogotá.
Ecuador has yet to restore diplomatic relations with its neighbour after a Colombian cross-border raid last year that almost plunged the region into conflict, while Venezuela recently withdrew its envoys from Colombia and cut off trade over what it claims are aggressions against its socialist Government.
President Chávez, a fiery leftist leader, said on Thursday that Venezuela planned to buy “at least three battalions” of Russian tanks to defend his oil-exporting country. “Sadly we have to arm ourselves ... ready for war to defend the homeland against aggression from the North American empire,” he said, claiming that the “Yankee” imperialists planned to provoke conflict between Venezuela and Colombia.
Mr Chávez has also frozen trade deals and denied Colombian energy companies access to Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco region, citing the US plan and a recent accusation from Bogotá that Venezuela had supplied rocket launchers to the Farc. He says that the launchers, discovered in a guerrilla camp, were stolen from a Venezuelan military post 14 years ago, charging Colombia with trumping up the accusation to distract from the US military plan and justify aggression.
The only way to defuse the situation was for Colombia to discard the military plan, Mr Chávez said. Fidel Castro, the former Cuban leader, a close ally, backed his position, claiming that the plan amounted to “seven daggers in the heart of Latin America”.
Source:The times
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