Twenty Years After End Of The Cold War:
Pentagon’s Buildup In Latin America (extracts)
Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, Nov 4 2009
On Oct 30, the US and the Uribe regime in Colombia signed an agreement during a closed-door ceremony in Bogota for the Pentagon to acquire seven new military bases in the country. “One of the bases involved, at Palanquero, 180km west of Bogota, boasts a two-mile runway adapted for large cargo planes, which critics say would allow the US to project itself far beyond Colombia’s borders. The US maintains similar ‘forward operating locations’ in El Salvador and Aruba-Curacao [Netherlands Antilles].” Colombian troops illegally entered neighboring Venezuela last August, and Caracas claims to have apprehended Colombian paramilitaries on its soil at the time of the signing of the US-Colombia bases deal on Oct 30. In August the Colombian regime announced that it would send 84 soldiers to join NATO forces in Afghanistan, in yet another nod to US wishes, joining troops from four other continents. As with all other parts of the world, where the Pentagon goes so do its NATO allies. Until earlier this year, the UK was reported to be the second-largest provider of military aid to Colombia.
In late September, less than two months after elections brought pro-Washington Pres. Martinelli to power, Panama’s La Prensa newspaper announced that the new government will “sign a treaty with the US on the opening of two US naval bases on its territory.” Minister of Government and Justice Jose Raul Mulino was quoted confirming that “The US and Panama will sign before Oct 30 an agreement on the deployment of two naval bases on the Pacific coast of our country. One of the bases will be located in Bahia Pina, 450km east of the capital, Panama City, and another one in Punta Coca about 350km west of the capital.” US bases had been closed and troops brought home in 1999 in accordance with the 1977 treaty signed by the two nations. However, Washington led the 11-day PANAMAX 2009 military exercise in September with forces from Argentina, Brazil, Belize, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and NATO allies Canada, France and the Netherlands. The formal purpose of the maneuvers was to “simulate a terrorist threat in the Panama Canal,” SOUTHCOM Operation Preparation and Mobilization sub-director Ketchum claimed.
A comparable multinational exercise, Commando Force 2007, was held in nearby Honduras two years earlier which included “marine, air and shelling operations” and the participation of troops from the US, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The drills were also described as “anti-terrorist exercises under the aegis of the US under the pretext of an alleged attack by the Al Qaeda network.” What purpose US training of the Honduran armed forces in fact has been put to was demonstrated last Jun 28. The Pentagon maintains its Joint Task Force-Bravo at the Soto Cano Air Base in the nation.
Further south, in 2007 two retired Peruvian military intelligence officers, Jesus Suasnabar and Juan Castro, exposed US plans to construct a base in their country to replace the military base in Manta, Ecuador from which the US has now been evicted. Prensa Latina reported on Dec 27 2007:
The two ex-military officers pointed out that the US base would be the center of domination of Peruvian and Brazilian Amazonia, where multinational rapid-action forces would be deployed. The military base would also prevent the consolidation of an energy bloc made up of Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Peru might get involved in the Colombian conflict, as the military facility would be used to intervene in that country.
Washington has now compensated, and far more than compensated, for the loss of the air base at Manta with the acquisition of seven new bases in Colombia, positioning its military closer to that country’s eastern border with Venezuela. (And perhaps its southwestern border with Ecuador.)
In Venezuela’s eastern neighbor, Guyana, the Pentagon deployed 650 troops (infantry, naval and air force) this July for New Horizons Guyana, “a SOUTHCOM-sponsored annual exercise starting Jul 1 designed to strengthen ties with partner nations in Central and South America.” In recent days a controversy has arisen in Guyana after Britain withdrew assistance for a security project following the Guyanese government’s “refusal to allow training by UK Special Forces on a western border location with live firing.” Guyana’s western border is with Venezuela. A letter to a local newspaper denounced the:
UK’s demands for the training of British Special Forces officers on Guyana’s territory, and worse yet, in close proximity to Guyana’s South American neighbours, namely, Brazil and Venezuela. Such a request from the British must be seen as unreasonable, an affront to Guyana’s territorial sovereignty and could even undermine Guyana’s relationship with her neighbours whom we know from previous experiences could interpret the presence of Western military personnel in close proximity to their borders as an act of hostility or concern and may even spark an arms race in South America.
In Guyana’s eastern neighbor, Suriname, the Pentagon has also been busy. Two years ago US Def. Sec. Gates visited and secured “military premises on its territory. Suriname Pres. Venetiaan said the US wants to build military premises in Surinamese soil to test the capabilities of military vehicles in the forest,” AP reported on Oct 2007. Anticipating US military chief Mullen’s tour this March, “Before his visit to Suriname, Gates met leaders in El Salvador, Colombia, Chile and Peru.”
The eastern-most of the three Guianas, the French, is still an overseas department and used for various military purposes. French military instructors at a camp on the premises of the Guiana Space Center in Kourou “operate one of the most grueling courses in jungle warfare and survival, opening it to Special Forces from around the world. Its main purpose is preparing legionnaires for hardships in places where France still uses them for military intervention, like Chad, Djibouti or Ivory Coast.” Three years ago Paris used the space center, “which each year launches into orbit about half of the world’s commercial satellite payloads,” for another objective. It launched “the military satellite Syracuse 3B from Kourou in French Guiana, thereby creating the conditions for faster and more efficient military exercises abroad. The satellite is to be made available to Germany’s military and to the NATO alliance.” The Syracuse satellites “cover an area extending from the eastern US to eastern China and would multiply the existing transfer capacity of France and the EU by ten.”
This past September, new Paraguayan Pres. Lugo (elected last year) cancelled SOUTHCOM’s scheduled New Horizons military maneuvers, after the announcement that Washington was going to sign the agreement with Colombia for seven new bases. Lugo said of his government’s decision “There would be about 500 US military and other personnel in the country, and that wouldn’t go unnoticed.”
Elections in Central and South America over the past eleven years, Venezuela in 1998 and since, Argentina in 2003, Uruguay in 2004, Bolivia in 2005, Ecuador and Nicaragua in 2006, Paraguay in 2008, El Salvador in 2009 and for a while in Panama after 2004 and Honduras after 2006, have severely limited the scope of the Pentagon’s plans to renew and expand its presence in Latin America. To compensate for these unprecedented losses, long-time military clients in Colombia and Peru are being tapped for greater commitments and concentrated efforts are being exerted to recruit Brazil and Chile into the fold. Three years ago retired Brazilian scholar Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira provided an outline of US armed forces plans for South America:
They occupy an area extending from Guiana into Colombia. Most of them are not uniformed soldiers, but employees of what are known as private sector military companies. The Pentagon has been outsourcing war operations since the 1990s. These private military contractors have been playing an important role in military operations exactly because they are outside restrictions imposed by the US Congress.
