Bush brings preemptive war to South America

The incursion by Colombian armed forces into Ecuadoran territory is part of a planned strategy by the United States to shift the military balance in the region, with the hope of reversing its decline. Its sights are set on Venezuela and Ecuador’s oil, but also to check Brazil’s rise as a regional power.

By RAÚL ZIBECHI

IT WAS a long planned and well thought out attack. This was not an excess or an outburst, nor was it a question of taking advantage of locating Raul Reyes on Ecuadoran soil. Nor was it done simply to derail the humanitarian exchange of hostages held by the FARC [the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] for guerrillas held prisoner by Álvaro Uribe’s government, a deal that had given as much prominence to the guerrillas as to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. What happened was certainly part of the “preemptive strike” strategy that the superpower generalized after the terrorist attacks on September 11 and its previous experience in the Middle East. But much more lies behind the violation of Ecuadoran sovereignty.

Everything indicates that the FARC commander was in negotiations with the French and Ecuadoran governments to continue the freeing of hostages. The attack on the FARC encampment came just four days after the release of four ex-members of Congress who had been in its custody for six years. According to sources in the Argentine Foreign Ministry cited by the daily Página 12 (March 10, 2008), at least three French envoys from President Nicolas Sarkozy had been negotiating since last October with Reyes for the release of the Franco-Colombian ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, with the full knowledge of Uribe. According to that version, the three envoys were on their way to the FARC encampment, where Reyes was, when peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, who is part of Uribe’s government, called them and warned them not to approach the encampment.

That would explain the French government’s displeasure with the Colombian action. Uribe’s government could only count on the unconditional support of George W. Bush, since the great majority of South American countries explicitly rejected the military incursion. The breaking off of relations by [President] Rafael Correa’s government with Colombia seemed to be the only path for Ecuador in the face of a serious violation of its sovereignty and the lies Uribe used to try to justify the aggression. In effect, in his first statements, the Colombian president claimed that his troops had limited themselves to repelling an attack launched from Ecuadoran territory.

The Colombian military action plainly modifies the regional chessboard. It is not only a potent show of militarism, it also shows Washington’s teeth at the same time as Hugo Chávez’s government is facing serious internal problems and not finding support for its strategy of responding to tension with more tension. One of the central targets of the military incursion is the Bolivarian process [as the revolutionary process in Venezuela is commonly called], although the FARC was used as the excuse. It is likely that this is the first phase of a vast Colombian-American offensive to destabilize Chávez.

New balance of forces

In 2004, the Brazilian magazine Military Power Review ranked South American armed forces according to many variables, from the number of soldiers and the quality of their equipment to their defense plans and their strategic influence. The analysis assigned a score to each nation according to its military power. Brazil came in first with 653 points, in second rank came Peru with 423, Argentina with 419, and Chile with 387. Then came another group, including Colombia with 314, Venezuela with 282, and Ecuador with 254 points. At that time, hardly four years ago, the difference in favor of Brazil’s armed forces was considerable, while two relatively similar groups followed.

In 2007, the same magazine released information about the number of troops in each country, using totals from the year before. The data on the armies showed that Colombia had positioned itself (178,000 soldiers) in second place on the continent, very close to Brazil (190,000 soldiers). In just a few years, the military power of that country has escalated dramatically. That same year, the French army had 137,000 soldiers and Israel had 125,000. Now in 2008, there are already 210,000 soldiers on Colombian soil, surpassing Brazil, which has four times the population and seven times the surface area. Colombian military spending is the highest on the continent: 6.5 percent of its GDP, well above that of the United States (4 percent), of the NATO countries (2 percent), and of the rest of South America (between 1.5 and 2 percent).

If one looks at the evolution of the Colombian armed forces, its growth is astonishing. In 1948, when the assassination of the populist presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán initiated the period known as “the violence,” there were 10,000 soldiers. In 1974, there were 50,675, rising to 85,900 in 1984, during the period that began the peace negotiations for demobilization of various armed organization. In 1994, there were 120,000 soldiers, climbing to 160,000 in the first phases of Plan Colombia. Today, the three branches of the armed forces have 270,000 in uniform, to which we must add 142,000 police. All in all, there are more than 400,000 troops in seven divisions, with a Rapid Deployment Force and an Anti-Terrorist Special Forces Group.

In 2007 alone, the army created fifty-two new units. It received Black Hawk helicopters from the United States, and it bought thirteen fighter jets from Israel and twenty-five Supertucano combat jets from Brazil in 2006. The Colombian armed forces are far superior to those of their neighbors: the ratio of forces is six to one compared to Venezuela and eleven to one compared to Ecuador. But the biggest difference is that the Colombian troops are trained in jungle combat and they can count on logistical support from Washington.

In just a few years, a spectacular change has been produced in terms of military power. Using the excuse of fighting the FARC and drug trafficking, Colombia has received $5.2 billion in military aid since August of 2000 when the U.S. Congress approved Plan Colombia. To this, we must add the imposition of special taxes by the Uribe government on the highest income sectors to equip the armed forces. The most important acquisitions are: transport and attack helicopters, light arms, infrared visors, oil pipeline protection, speedboats, turboprop attack planes, intelligence and control aircraft, and radar to follow illegal flights.

Oil and hegemony

The Colombian armed forces have the FARC and the ELN [National Liberation Army] on the ropes. In 2002, these organizations totaled 20,600 armed fighters; in 2007, there were only 12,500. They were driven out of the cities and pushed back from their main communication routes into the deepest part of the jungle or to the edges of the borders. The guerrillas have lost all military initiative and have been deeply discredited, while Uribe counts on the support of 70 percent of the population and is in the process of trying to reform the constitution so that he can seek reelection. Since he escalated the conflict with Venezuela, a patriotic sentiment has arisen in Colombia that contributes to cementing the military effort and the militarization of politics, at home as well as abroad.

In 2003, sociologist James Petras pointed out that the real worry for the United States Southern Command, which really shapes regional policy, was that “the countries neighboring Colombia (Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Brazil), which were suffering the same adverse effects of neoliberal policies, might mobilize politically against the military domination and economic interests of the United States.”¹ Because of this, the strategy contemplated by Plan Colombia wasn’t so much about winning the internal war—something that is happening—as it was about spilling it over into the bordering countries in order to neutralize their growing autonomy from Washington. Militarizing interstate relations is always good business for one who maintains hegemony by means of military superiority. In this sense, the existence of the FARC plays a role in Washington’s bellicose plans.

Rafael Correa reported that the cost of controlling the border with Colombia, where he had some 10,000 soldiers stationed before the incursion on March 1, was more than $100 million annually. Brazil decided to seal off its border during former president Fernando Henrique Cardosa’s tenure. In response to the attempt by the Clinton administration to involve him in the objectives of Plan Colombia, in 2000 Cardosa put in place Plan Cobra (combining the first two syllables of Colombia and Brazil) to make sure that the war in Colombia didn’t spill over into the Brazilian Amazon, and Plan Calha Norte in order to prevent guerrillas and drug traffickers from crossing the border.²

Control of the Andean region is considered key for United States hegemony on the continent, as much for political reasons as for its mineral riches. Such control would allow American multinationals to regain the ground they lost in the 1990s when they were partially displaced by the Europeans, assure by other means what they tried to accomplish via the FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas], and prevent other emerging powers (Brazil, but also China and India) from positioning themselves in the region. But there is also the question of oil. In 1973, the United States imported 36 percent of the petroleum products it needed. Today, it imports 56 percent of the crude oil it consumes. Venezuela is its fourth biggest provider, covering 15 percent of its needs, and Colombia is its fifth. Assuring the flow of energy resources requires territorial control secured by a military presence on the ground.

Regional strategies

In March, the OAS (Organization of American States) described the Colombian military action as a violation of Ecuadoran sovereignty—a negotiated agreement between both parties involved—but without condemning the aggressor. Washington continues to carry weight among the Central American countries and prevented a declaration more to the liking of the South Americans. In any case, good sense prevailed and passions were calmed, as Brazil and Argentina wanted.

Clovis Brigagao, director of the Center for American Studies at Candido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro, told the IPS press agency that now is a “unique opportunity” to establish a collective mediation process, similar to the Contadora Group, that promoted the process of demilitarization in Central America in the 1980s.³ The Brazilian diplomat considers that promoting peace is the best way to stop Colombian-American warmongering and expansionism. Rafael Correa played a role in moderating the damage. Nothing could be worse for the process of change that is taking place in Ecuador and Bolivia than the polarization a military conflict would bring.

Finally, the Venezuelan attitude must be understood. Chávez’s rhetoric places most of the presidents who don’t align themselves with Washington in an uncomfortable situation. The difference in Chávez and Correa’s style as well as Evo Morales’s low profile are things that must be taken into account for the immediate future. But Venezuela is suffering a sharp destabilization, with military aid from Colombia. Information that is coming to light allows us to conclude that many of Chávez’s denunciations about a conspiracy against his government are not the fruit of his imagination. The issue is how to contain the tendencies to war and to call a halt to the polarization. In this sense, Brazilian diplomacy continues to show common sense and savoir faire. It didn’t stop taking the side of the victim of aggression, but it set a goal of constructing a stable peace in the region, based on regional integration.

This article was first published in edition 1,163 of the weekly Brecha (www.brecha.com.uy), March 7, 2008. It is reprinted with permission of the author. Todd Chretien translated it from the original Spanish.