UNASUR plan summit on Colombia’s US bases
Today in Quito, Ecuador, at the third UNASUR Summit, the Presidents of the Union of South American Nations, agreed to hold an extraordinary summit to analyze the danger of the plans to increase the deployment of US military bases in Colombia.
The meeting will take place as soon as possible in Argentina, as Colombia intends to sign this month an extension of its military agreement with the US that would include the use of 7 military bases in this South American country by US soldiers.
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez alerted the Conference to the danger that US military expansion represents for the region “We would respond militarily and decisively if the pro-war forces in Colombia, egged on by the United States, dare to launch aggression against Venezuela.”The winds of war are beginning to blow… I am not going to allow them to do to Venezuela what they did to Ecuador,” referring to a 2008 Colombian raid on a guerrilla camp in Ecuador. Chavez said that a similar cross-border attack into Venezuela would be greeted with “a blunt military response.”
Raphael Correa who was sworn in as UNASUR’s president, said that letting the US use those bases does represent a threat - not only to Venezuela and Ecuador, but all the Unasur members.”
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez also expressed alarm at the announcement and said this means a direct threat of war to the countries of South America.
Fernandez proposed Buenos Aires city as venue for the extraordinary meeting, in which Colombian President Alvaro Uribe must be present, since he wasn’t at UNASUR Summit in Quito.
Colombia’s vice foreign minister Clemencia Forero responded by saying that the US bases will not affect outside nations, “The bases will continue to be completely under Colombian jurisdiction and sovereignty.”
Bolivian President Evo Morales, when recalling the threat US military presence in Latin America represents, affirmed that military of the South Command participated in the coup perpetrated on June 28 in Honduras.
Evo Morales recently warned “We reject the presence of US soldiers in the region because the empire always has its objectives; to allow the presence of military bases is an attack on democracy.”
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva also said UNASUR must convene an urgent meeting over the relations with US. “As president of Brazil, this climate of unease disturbs me,” Silva said “I think we should directly discuss our discontent with the American government — directly with them,”
Silva also said he was concerned with “information we receive about (U.S.) ambassadors that still intervene in internal electoral processes in their countries” and the reactivation of the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet.
The US Fourth Fleet, which was disbanded after World War II, was recently resurrected in April 2008. Based in Mayport, Florida, as part of the U.S. Southern Command, it deploys Navy ships, aircraft andsubmarines on humanitarian and counter-drug operations in the Caribbean and Central and South America.