After US Agreement Colombia Wants Military Rapprochement to Brazil

After US Agreement Colombia Wants Military Rapprochement to Brazil
Written by Newsroom
Saturday, 15 August 2009

Brazil and other South American countries are being welcomed by Colombia to increase military ties with that country. That's what Colombians President Alvaro Uribe made clear on Friday, August 14, after the Foreign Affairs ministry announced it had completed talks with Washington on allowing US troops to use seven Colombian military bases.

We would like the accord with the United States to be projected throughout the continent," Uribe told a business conference in the city of Medellin.

"We would like to have it with Brazil," he said. "I do not see this pact with the United States as incompatible with having pacts with other countries as well."

Under the deal, the US military will be able to operate on Colombian soil to tackle drug-trafficking and terrorism. Colombia's foreign ministry said that Bogotá had agreed the text of the deal with Washington: "this agreement reaffirms the commitment of both parties in the fight against drug-trafficking and terrorism".

More:
http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/11096/

COLOMBIA: Spying on Human Rights Defenders
By Constanza Vieira

BOGOTÁ, Aug 15 (IPS) - "Coming to Colombia is to enter a world that is always intense, captivating and heart-wrenching at the same time," Susana Villarán, a former member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), wrote in April 2008.

At the time, the former Peruvian minister was unaware that on a 2005 trip to Colombia, as IACHR Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women, she was declared a "target" of intelligence operations by the Special Strategic Intelligence Group known as the G3.

The G3 was set up by the Administrative Security Department (DAS), Colombia's main intelligence agency, which answers to the president's office; according to Colombian authorities it has since been dissolved.

In an Aug. 13 press release, the IACHR says the G3 "was created to monitor activities tied to the litigation of cases at the international level" - cases of serious human rights violations involving the Colombian state that are being considered by the Inter-American human rights system.

In February 2009, local magazine Semana revealed that the DAS had for years carried out illegal wiretap activities against opposition politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and even Supreme Court judges. It also carried out "offensive intelligence operations" – in other words, sabotage - against them.

The magazine also revealed that the DAS carried out wholesale destruction of intelligence files in January, reportedly under government orders.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48100

Obama's Choice: New Documents Show United States Seeks Colombian Bases for Training and Operations
John Lindsay-Poland | August 13, 2009
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org

President Obama was forced to address the growing clamor in South America in opposition to plans for U.S. military use of at least seven bases in Colombia. The base agreement proposes to carry out regional operations with a wide and ambiguous mandate and has raised concerns among governments throughout the region.

"We have no intent in establishing a U.S. military base in Colombia," Obama said on Friday.

But the South American presidents who met in Quito on Monday weren't buying it. They agreed to meet again later this month to discuss the bases in Colombia. Despite a seven-nation tour by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe the previous week, only Peru openly supports the proposal. President Lula da Silva of Brazil—the continent's superpower—called for President Obama to attend the meeting, and several Latin American presidents and Colombian leaders echoed the call. Obama needs to "explain in depth U.S. policy for the region," Lula said.

His declaration came following an explosive exposé of base negotiations between the Pentagon and the State Department, and the Colombian government in the Colombian weekly Cambio. The report generated broad discontent in Colombia and the region. The article noted that the plan would include "filling the gaps left by the eventual cutting of aid in Plan Colombia," according to sources cited in Washington and Bogotá.

Whether the bases are "U.S." in name matters little in practice. The proposal has always been for U.S. military use of national bases in Colombia, which is how the United States works at military bases in Honduras, Ecuador, and many other countries in the world. The Pentagon does not acknowledge having "U.S. bases" in Iraq, for example. In Ecuador, the U.S. government denied it had any military base, though now supporters of the military deal with Colombia claim the U.S. operations in Manta, Ecuador were "truly a gringo presence." Obama's announcement doesn't change the situation that has bothered so many Latin Americans and U.S. citizens who hoped for something better from Obama's government.

The issue is really the missions of U.S. forces at those bases and the message they send to Colombians and others in the region that the United States will respond militarily to every problem, from poverty to bilateral tensions. The State Department says the bases are to address narcotics trafficking and "should be viewed as nothing more than that." But the most recent military budget document and the Colombian government define the purposes much more broadly. The Pentagon seeks sites for "contingency operations, logistics, and training," and plans to deploy C-17 cargo aircraft—not used for counter-narcotics—at Palanquero air base in Colombia.

In fact, the facilities under negotiation appear to be aimed at replacing the former School of the Americas and other U.S. military training sites for Latin American armies. In a July 28 written response to Colombian senators, Interior Minister Fabio Valencia said that the agreement seeks to "deepen cooperation in areas such as: interoperability, joint procedures, logistics and equipment, training and instruction, strengthening monitoring and reconnaissance capacity, combined exercises, and especially exchange of intelligence information."

More:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6351

This. Is. NOT. Benign.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4016907

It has quite a tangled and important history, and we very much need to understand it, because "dividing and conquering" Brazil is a vital step toward Oil War II-South America. Brazil's Lula da Silva has been a staunch defender of Venezuela and Ecuador, and other leftist governments, and has worked hard to pull South America together in a "common market." He was the one who proposed a "common defense." But I believe that Lula is termed out--has just a short time left as president of Brazil. Thus, this Uribe effort to get Brazil on board the filthily corrupt and ill-intentioned US military war profiteer train is likely aimed at the rightwingers in Brazil gearing up for the next election, with millions of US taxpayer dollars behind them. He is saying Brazil should join Colombia in its vast corruption and fascist murderousness, paid for by you and me, and thereby remove itself from the US target list.

There's a very powerful right-wing in Brazil, despite the horror the right-wing inflicted upon the people of Brazil during their own vicious military dictatorship, and reign of terror against leftists.

Clearly that's what he's after: going right past Lula to the right-wing block in government and their power base.

It doesn't make sense without this realization, because Lula has NEVER supported Uribe's sociopathic view of people, being a former union worker, a leftist, and defender of minority groups.

in Brazil, and also probably in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and, ahem, Honduras--and other places. Join us in draining US taxpayers of their hard-earned cash, to get the weapons you need for enforcing "free trade." Then Calderon chimes in: Hey, we're here, too, larded with US military aid, and "free trading" like crazy; fuck UNASUR and defending little countries and US oil targets; we'll make you a great bilateral trade deal!

This is Clinton policy. It fits with everything else we know about both Bill and Hillary Clinton policy in Latin America. We don't know if it's Obama policy, though--or if he's just abandoned the field (not running his own foreign policy in L/A). This may be one of the deals he made to not get Diebolded in 2008. A free hand to the Bushwhacks and the Clintons to try to destroy the South American "common market" and the leftist democracy movement throughout the region. Would explain why Clinton has left so many bad Bushwhacks in ambassador positions in Latin America. Would explain Honduras. Would explain the seven new US military bases in Colombia. Jeez. Paid for by what spare multi-billions that the people of the US have just lying around?! What phony shit and double-talk it is that we can't afford health care for half our people? We have $6 BILLION for military aid to Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth! PLUS billions more for seven new US military bases. Plus god knows how many billions MORE for arming Mexico's fascists. Plus god knows how many billions MORE for arming Peru's fascists and hanging onto to that 25%-approval-rating "free trade" government.

Plenty of money for bad purposes--indebting our children's children unto the 7th generation--for larding fascists with military aid, and prepping another oil war for Bush Junta II. Lots and lots of money for that, and our schools can go fuck themselves, and our people can go bankrupt with medical bills, and die for lack of medical care, and our workers and small businesses can go jump off a cliff, while global free trade does its final looting of everybody and of the planet.

Anyway, that's more and more my conclusion--Obama ain't in charge in this venue. On Latin American policy, we seem to have elected Clinton and re-elected Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

than the powerful elites in their countries. Surely they will see that the US can't possibly bankroll an armed seizure of the entire continent, no matter how many genocidal elitists there are at the top of their social piles. Surely this will only harden their resolve (the majority) to present a unified defense against the return of the past.

Uribe has become the Pentagon's frontman in Latin America, their little pimp trying to get them to sell their sisters and brothers to the U.S. after he sold his own.

It truly looks as if there's a continual "new twist" in this torturous wrestling contest to gain control of Latin America's right to non-interference, to their own sovereignty. Our military/industrial people don't believe they deserve the respect they demand for themselves. No one does. The whole world must be at their service, to respond favorably to their slightest desire. Or get killed for resisting.

I hope to be around to see it backfire on them, in time.