U.S. Military Base Near Venezuelan Border?

[Joanne98]

May 23rd 2008, by Nikolas Kozloff - CounterPunch
Despite his record unpopularity, it would appear that President Bush wants to go out of office with a bang. Having failed to overthrow Hugo Chávez through an attempted coup, the White House now hopes to escalate pressure on Venezuela’s President by other means.

On Saturday, a U.S. navy plane strayed into Venezuelan airspace. Venezuelan Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel said that the aircraft "practically flew over" the island of La Orchila - where Venezuela has a military base and President Hugo Chávez has a residence - and another island before turning back. U.S. officials claimed the plane had “navigational problems.”

"This is just the latest step in a series of provocations," Rangel said.


From Orchila to the Fourth Fleet

Indeed, tensions have been mounting in recent days. The Navy is now reactivating its fourth fleet in the Caribbean. The fleet, which will include a nuclear aircraft carrier, will be based in Mayport, Florida.

The fleet hasn’t seen any action in Caribbean waters since World War II. In February 1942, the Germans sank a number of oil tankers full of Venezuelan crude. The attack caused a nationalist outcry in Venezuela and Caracas began to side more openly with the allies. In response to the attacks the U.S. patrolled the area, hunting down Nazi submarines which were wreaking havoc on allied shipping. After the war, with no more German U-boats prowling Caribbean waters, the Fourth Fleet was dissolved.

So, why resuscitate the fleet now?

The navy claims the move is necessary to protect maritime security. The real reason however may have more to do with Washington’s desire to wage a kind of psychological war against the Chávez government and to foment a climate of political tension.


From Laptops to Border Incursions

In its quest to get rid of Chávez, the White House has also sought to spark tensions between Colombia and Venezuela. There’s a good chance that the U.S. Southern Command passed crucial military intelligence to the Bogotá government when the latter attacked an encampment of FARC guerrillas inside Ecuadoran territory. After the March 1 assault, which resulted in the deaths of guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes as well as 20 other insurgents, and which arguably constituted an act of international terrorism, the Colombian authorities claimed that Chávez and Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s pro-Venezuelan President, were doing their utmost to support the FARC.

As evidence they produced documents allegedly found on FARC laptop computers which remarkably survived the attack intact. The documents, Colombia says, prove that Chávez has provided weapons, munitions, and $300 million in aid to the FARC. After conducting its own investigation, Interpol declared that Colombia did not modify, delete or create any files, although the Andean nation did not always follow internationally accepted methods when handling the computers. The agency stated that the documents came from a FARC camp, but investigators could not conclusively prove that the information contained within the documents was totally accurate.

In Washington, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack pounced on Interpol’s report, remarking that the laptop files indicating Venezuelan support for the FARC were “highly disturbing.” Chávez has rejected the accusations, calling the Interpol report a "clown show" that "doesn't deserve serious comment." The Venezuelan leader said all relations with Colombia as well as his country’s cooperation with Interpol would undergo “deep review.” Seeking to rhetorically destroy his adversaries, Chávez referred to Interpol chief Ronald Noble as a "mafioso” and “an aggressive Yankee cop." In yet another memorable outburst from the Venezuelan leader, Chávez added that Noble’s true name was "Mr. Ignoble.”

As if relations between Colombia and Venezuela could slip no further, on Saturday, the same day that the U.S. navy plane passed into Venezuelan airspace, Chávez accused Bogotá of sending its troops across the border in an illegal incursion. The two South American nations share a 1,370-mile border that winds through mountains and thick patches of jungle. In a written statement, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said that 60 Colombian troops had been intercepted in Venezuela's western Apure state, about 875 yards from the nations' shared border.

Controversy Over Guajira

Amidst ominous signs that the U.S. might be seeking to destabilize the Venezuelan government, a new controversy is swirling. William Brownfield, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, recently remarked that the U.S. would consider relocating its military air base at Manta, Ecuador to Colombia. According to the New York Times, an area mentioned in later reports was the Guajira region near the Venezuelan border. Colombia’s foreign minister, Fernando Araújo, quickly denied that Colombia had any plans to allow the United States to establish a base in Guajira.

The controversy could not have come at a worse time.

Already, tensions have risen as a result of secessionist efforts in the westernmost state of Zulia which spans the Venezuelan Guajira region. Recently, the Chávez opposition in Zulia proposed a feasibility study for potential independence from the federal government. What’s more, Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales, who lost to Chávez in the December 2006 presidential election, announced his support for his state’s autonomy.

Speaking on his weekly TV show Aló, Presidente!, Chávez warned opposition leaders that any move towards Zulia autonomy would lead to confrontation. “I advise those individuals who want to break up Venezuela to think it through very well. We won’t tolerate a political fragmentation of our country,” he declared, adding that any such attempts would be met with force. The Venezuelan leader went on to say that Zulia autonomy constituted an “imperial plan” designed and supported by the United States to take control of strategic oil areas.

An impoverished region, the Guajira is home to Wayúu Indians who come and go across the frontier. The area is full of barren desert and straddles the Colombian-Venezuelan border. Geographically remote, the Guajira has historically been embroiled in diplomatic controversy. In 1928, Colombian authorities were so concerned about secessionist plots in the region that Bogotá's House of Deputies met in secret session to discuss "moves of Yankee agents in the Departments of Santander and Goagira which sought to provoke a separatist movement which, united to Zulia would form the Republic of Zulia."

As a result of the tangled history, any talk of installing a U.S. presence in the area inevitably stirs nationalist passions. Chávez has stated that "We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire,” referring to the U.S. As media reports surfaced, local authorities in the Guajira raised their voices in protest. Eber Chacón, a Chávez supporter and the Mayor of Páez, a local indigenous municipality, called on the Wayúu in Colombia and Venezuela to repudiate attempts by the Venezuelan opposition to divide them with their "autonomist and separatist positions." Chacón added that installing a U.S. base in Guajira would represent a potential threat to hemispheric security.


From Manta to Colombia

How did we get to the point where the U.S. is actually thinking about closing its military base in Manta, Ecuador and opening a new one in Colombia? That is a question I seek to answer in my book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan), just released in April of this year.

In Ecuador it is difficult to ignore the public climate of hostility towards the U.S. military base at Manta, which is used for drug over flights of Colombian air space. The facility, located 160 miles southwest of Quito on the coast, is a large installation which is technically not controlled by the United States but belongs to the Ecuadoran air force.

Many Ecuadorans believe that the United States is trying to draw their nation more deeply into the Colombian conflict, which has spilled over the border. The air base at Manta was leased to the U.S. military for 10 years in 1999, and President Rafael Correa made it clear even before he was elected that he did not plan to extend the lease once it expired in 2009.

During a trip to Quito, I found myself on the campus of the city’s Catholic University. At a table, a woman was registering people to go on a bus trip to the coast to protest the base at Manta. In the hallway, I met Gualdemar Jiménez, a local activist.


U.S. Air Base at Manta: A Social Disaster

“Manta used to be a purely fishing town,” he explained. “Now the fishermen don’t have access to certain parts of the ocean, which are closed off for security reasons.” On the sea, U.S marines had intercepted Ecuadoran boats, even sinking some vessels. “The marines are not the Ecuadoran coast guard,” Jiménez declared indignantly.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3484

[Peace Patriot]

1. I'm not sure what Kozloff's agenda is, but I keep finding items of disinformation

in his articles (and I can't judge whether it's inadvertent or not), like this...

"As evidence they (Colombia) produced documents allegedly found on FARC laptop computers which remarkably survived the attack intact. The documents, Colombia says, prove that Chávez has provided weapons, munitions, and $300 million in aid to the FARC. After conducting its own investigation, Interpol declared that Colombia did not modify, delete or create any files, although the Andean nation did not always follow internationally accepted methods when handling the computers. The agency stated that the documents came from a FARC camp, but investigators could not conclusively prove that the information contained within the documents was totally accurate.

What Interpol said was that Colombia "did not modify, delete or create any files" during the period AFTER they had notified Interpol that they were going to let them examine the laptops. BEFORE that--over a two day period--when the laptops were in the custody of the Colombian military, 48,055 files were "accessed, created, modified or deleted"! 48,055 files! Did he read the report all the way to the end? The head of Interpol mis-characterized his own report. Perhaps Kozloff only read the Associated Pukes 'news' stories, and, as he's smart and can read between the lines, sussed out part of what they were trying to black-hole (that Colombia "did not always follow internationally accepted methods when handling the computers"). 48,055 files!

They also said that, because of this, the laptop "evidence" would be useless in a court of law.

What I most want to know is what was in the "deleted" files, because I suspect it was evidence pointing to Colombian military, paramilitary and Uribe cartel death squad activity and drug trafficking. Raul Reyes very likely knew some things about the crimes of his adversaries. Also, what was contained in the eyes only, confidential Interpol report on these laptops that Interpol gave to Uribe & co.?

[Peace Patriot]

2. See my comment (#2) about the fake photos from the "miracle laptops" at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x361684

I've got a link there to Obama's speech this week to the Miami fascists, and discuss my concerns about it. It's giving me the willies, I'll tell you, when I look at map of Zulia, Venezuela (which contains most of Venezuela's oil). The Bush Junta is not only aiding and abetting--and probably funding and arming--a fascist secessionist cabal in Zulia, they are planning to put a U.S. military base on a strip of Colombian land that overtops Zulia (with a long coastal access border to the north), and has a long border with Zulia (Venezuela) and with part of the Gulf of Venezuela. Obama's demagoguery about South America's need for U.S. "leadership" (straight out of the U.S. "Manifest Destiny" playbook of old) is EXTREMELY WORRISOME. He may have done this for understandable reasons--that he was advising the Miami fascists of a somewhat better U.S. policy toward Cuba (and I use that word advisedly--somewhat better in comparison to the Miami fascists' insane and vicious policy, imposed upon the U.S. government for forty years), and he was thus stepping into a minefield. But the rest of his speech was so arrogant toward South America that I worry that the Oil War is about to be brought home to this hemisphere, and Obama's the one who can sell it. (Neither Clinton nor McBush could. He can.)

[Larkspur]

3. Chavez will be out of office in a few years

He lost the referendum to allow him to run for re-election an infinite amount of times.

[Judi Lynn]

4. The corporate media misrepresented that referendum: it contained 69 separate issues,

with removing the term limits being only one.

The original proposal contained 33 individual items on which the public needed to vote, and the National Assembly, over time added enough to fill it up to 70, a number which overwhelmed the public, with so much ground to cover.

Even as it played out, the "win" was by a very slight margin, with the opposition hard charging, circulating rumors such as Chavez would be gaining control of their children, a stunt created by the C.I.A. and sprung on the Cuban people right after the Cuban Revolution, resulting in their putting their children on airplanes, in an airlift out of the country, ALSO provided by the C.I.A., in conjunction with the Catholic Church in the U.S., as they spirited them out in the "Pedro Pan" movement of the children to the U.S., to be raised in foster homes, orphanages, etc., until their parents could catch up with them in the states and resume family life.

It's an old stunt, and apparently it STILL gets the same hysterical reaction from people who are misinformed, and unable to react correctly and seek the answers for themselves.

It really takes paying close attention to any available REAL information one can find to get any sense of these events.

Running for repeated election is not the same as crowning onesself for perpetuity. It requires being ELECTED by the people each time, and in Venezuela, the opportunity to RECALL the President is present for every term, after the first one half served. The people petition, then vote the guy out if he's not getting the job done, just as the opposition did (and lost) with Chavez in the last few years.

Unlimited re-election is practised in many countries currently. The only time it has ever been loudly, wildly, shrilly denounced has been in connection with Hugo Chavez, while many allies of the U.S. have always used this approach.

[MasonJar]

5. If there were unlimited elections, the people could vote him out so what

is the big problem with his wanting to stay longer? If we still had that, Bill Clinton would still be president. If we had fair elections, Al Gore would be ending his second term so I do not want to hear any complaints about Chavez or anyone else. We and our allegedly elected officials have abused the election system in this country, we by not going to the streets in protest day after day and they by cheating us.