Washington escalates military buildup in Latin America
By Mauricio Saavedra
23 January 2003
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/la-j23.shtml
Under the pretext of combating terrorism, the Bush Administration is promoting the most intense US military buildup in Latin America since Washington backed a series of military coups that brought right-wing military dictatorships to power in much of the continent in the 1960s and 1970s.
The resurgence of American militarism in what US imperialism has historically regarded as its “own backyard” was evident at the fifth Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas held in Santiago, Chile in late November. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, together with top American military commanders, attended the meeting.
Citing terrorism, drug and arms trafficking, organized crime and other “new transnational threats,” Rumsfeld told the Latin American defence ministers that it was necessary to “strengthen the operational and planning capabilities of partner nations, upgrade national command-and-control systems, and improve regional information-sharing.” He proposed cooperation in naval operations and the creation of an integrated military force that could “participate as a region in peacekeeping and stability operations.”
In the lead-up to the conference, the US floated stories that Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other Islamic fundamentalist groups had developed “sleeper cells” in the tri-border area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, a claim discounted by all three countries. Rumsfeld, however, pressed the issue at the defence conference, alleging that there were “thousands of Al Qaeda spread across the globe and, no doubt, there are some in the hemisphere besides the US and Canada.”
Much of the discussion at the defence ministers’ meeting concerned the ongoing military intervention in Colombia. Plan Colombia funding approved in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks already marked a dramatic escalation of US operations in the country. Washington has shifted the axis of its intervention from a “drug war” to the “global war on terrorism.” Legislation approved last year by the US Congress specifically sanctioned the Colombian government’s use of US military aid for counterinsurgency operations against the country’s guerrilla movements.
While the bulk of the media coverage of Washington’s multi-billion-dollar military operations in Colombia has focused on anti-narcotics efforts and guerrilla activity, the Pentagon’s intervention there—like the impending war against Iraq—is driven by US determination to assert control over the country’s extensive strategic oil reserves.
Besides the giant Cano-Limon oil field in Arauca province operated by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, British Petroleum operates the Cusiana and Cupiagua fields in the foothills of the eastern Andes. Canadian and US firms have secured rights from the Colombian government to explore potential reserves of 2.5 billion barrels in the Putumayo Basin. It is estimated that only about 20 percent of the country’s potential oil fields have been explored. Neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador are already major petroleum exporters.
On December 3, US Secretary of State Colin Powell travelled to Colombia to announce that the Bush administration had requested $537 million from Congress in 2003 for Plan Colombia. The total spent on aid to Colombia comes to over $2.3 billion since 2000, making the Latin American country the third largest recipient of US military assistance in the world. More than $130 million is to be used to send dozens of Special Operations forces to train two Colombian army brigades protecting the Cano-Limon pipeline.
In a clear sign that the US forces are being prepared for direct military involvement, Powell pressed the Colombian government to formally exempt all American forces serving in Colombia from future war crimes prosecution at the International Criminal Court.
Having allocated $180 million to the Andean Ridge nations of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama, the Pentagon is paving the way to intervene militarily in these countries on the same pretext used in Plan Colombia. The Pentagon has already made inroads into Ecuador, where US forces are training the military. It has also established a joint Peruvian and Colombian training centre in Iquitos and set up a military presence in Bolivia’s Chapare coca-growing region.
Rumsfeld also used the conference to elaborate a security structure that the Pentagon’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)—responsible for US military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean—has worked to develop since the fall of the Soviet Union. The purpose of this structure is to utilize US military strength to tighten Washington’s political and economic stranglehold over the hemisphere.
“Given the increased importance and geographic proximity of the region, our theatre security cooperation focuses on ... affording our forces greater access, if needed, during crisis response,” SOUTHCOM’s acting commander-in-chief, Major General Gary D. Speer, told Congress earlier this year. “Southern Command security cooperation seeks to expand United States influence and to reassure our friends, while dissuading and deterring potential adversaries,” he added.
In many ways, the Pentagon’s plans mark a return at a higher level to the so-called National Security system that prevailed from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the military ruled much of Latin America. The central thesis of this military doctrine was that the security of the Latin America regimes was threatened not by outside military powers, but by their own people. Its realization during that period entailed the murder, torture and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of workers, students, intellectuals and others seen as opponents of US-backed regimes.
While the pretext for the repression then was “communist subversion,” the justification given for the proposed new joint security system is “terrorism.”
Following the closure of its base of operations in Panama in 1999, SOUTHCOM moved its component headquarters to Puerto Rico, and has since established three additional air bases in Ecuador, the Netherlands Antilles and El Salvador. With these bases, the US military is able to project air power over the Eastern Pacific, the Western Caribbean, all of Central America, and South America’s Andean ridge.
Purportedly used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions to monitor and perform interdiction operations in the so-called drug “source and transit zones,” the bases also provide a launching pad for military interventions.
By Mauricio Saavedra
23 January 2003
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/la-j23.shtml
Under the pretext of combating terrorism, the Bush Administration is promoting the most intense US military buildup in Latin America since Washington backed a series of military coups that brought right-wing military dictatorships to power in much of the continent in the 1960s and 1970s.
The resurgence of American militarism in what US imperialism has historically regarded as its “own backyard” was evident at the fifth Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas held in Santiago, Chile in late November. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, together with top American military commanders, attended the meeting.
Citing terrorism, drug and arms trafficking, organized crime and other “new transnational threats,” Rumsfeld told the Latin American defence ministers that it was necessary to “strengthen the operational and planning capabilities of partner nations, upgrade national command-and-control systems, and improve regional information-sharing.” He proposed cooperation in naval operations and the creation of an integrated military force that could “participate as a region in peacekeeping and stability operations.”
In the lead-up to the conference, the US floated stories that Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other Islamic fundamentalist groups had developed “sleeper cells” in the tri-border area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, a claim discounted by all three countries. Rumsfeld, however, pressed the issue at the defence conference, alleging that there were “thousands of Al Qaeda spread across the globe and, no doubt, there are some in the hemisphere besides the US and Canada.”
Much of the discussion at the defence ministers’ meeting concerned the ongoing military intervention in Colombia. Plan Colombia funding approved in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks already marked a dramatic escalation of US operations in the country. Washington has shifted the axis of its intervention from a “drug war” to the “global war on terrorism.” Legislation approved last year by the US Congress specifically sanctioned the Colombian government’s use of US military aid for counterinsurgency operations against the country’s guerrilla movements.
While the bulk of the media coverage of Washington’s multi-billion-dollar military operations in Colombia has focused on anti-narcotics efforts and guerrilla activity, the Pentagon’s intervention there—like the impending war against Iraq—is driven by US determination to assert control over the country’s extensive strategic oil reserves.
Besides the giant Cano-Limon oil field in Arauca province operated by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, British Petroleum operates the Cusiana and Cupiagua fields in the foothills of the eastern Andes. Canadian and US firms have secured rights from the Colombian government to explore potential reserves of 2.5 billion barrels in the Putumayo Basin. It is estimated that only about 20 percent of the country’s potential oil fields have been explored. Neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador are already major petroleum exporters.
On December 3, US Secretary of State Colin Powell travelled to Colombia to announce that the Bush administration had requested $537 million from Congress in 2003 for Plan Colombia. The total spent on aid to Colombia comes to over $2.3 billion since 2000, making the Latin American country the third largest recipient of US military assistance in the world. More than $130 million is to be used to send dozens of Special Operations forces to train two Colombian army brigades protecting the Cano-Limon pipeline.
In a clear sign that the US forces are being prepared for direct military involvement, Powell pressed the Colombian government to formally exempt all American forces serving in Colombia from future war crimes prosecution at the International Criminal Court.
Having allocated $180 million to the Andean Ridge nations of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama, the Pentagon is paving the way to intervene militarily in these countries on the same pretext used in Plan Colombia. The Pentagon has already made inroads into Ecuador, where US forces are training the military. It has also established a joint Peruvian and Colombian training centre in Iquitos and set up a military presence in Bolivia’s Chapare coca-growing region.
Rumsfeld also used the conference to elaborate a security structure that the Pentagon’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)—responsible for US military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean—has worked to develop since the fall of the Soviet Union. The purpose of this structure is to utilize US military strength to tighten Washington’s political and economic stranglehold over the hemisphere.
“Given the increased importance and geographic proximity of the region, our theatre security cooperation focuses on ... affording our forces greater access, if needed, during crisis response,” SOUTHCOM’s acting commander-in-chief, Major General Gary D. Speer, told Congress earlier this year. “Southern Command security cooperation seeks to expand United States influence and to reassure our friends, while dissuading and deterring potential adversaries,” he added.
In many ways, the Pentagon’s plans mark a return at a higher level to the so-called National Security system that prevailed from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the military ruled much of Latin America. The central thesis of this military doctrine was that the security of the Latin America regimes was threatened not by outside military powers, but by their own people. Its realization during that period entailed the murder, torture and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of workers, students, intellectuals and others seen as opponents of US-backed regimes.
While the pretext for the repression then was “communist subversion,” the justification given for the proposed new joint security system is “terrorism.”
Following the closure of its base of operations in Panama in 1999, SOUTHCOM moved its component headquarters to Puerto Rico, and has since established three additional air bases in Ecuador, the Netherlands Antilles and El Salvador. With these bases, the US military is able to project air power over the Eastern Pacific, the Western Caribbean, all of Central America, and South America’s Andean ridge.
Purportedly used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions to monitor and perform interdiction operations in the so-called drug “source and transit zones,” the bases also provide a launching pad for military interventions.