According to the AP article below, the U.S. and Colombia signed an agreement to expand U.S. military presence in Colombia via a base use agreement. While the bases will technically be Colombian bases, the U.S. treats these ‘leased’ bases as part of the vast international network of bases. Ecuador recently expelled the U.S. military from its Manta base. The imperial nature of this foreign base agreement is revealed by the fact that immediately after Ecuador canceled the U.S. base agreeemnt, the U.S. expanded its presence in the region to the seven Colombian bases reported in this article and two bases in Panama. Furthermore, “U.S. military personnel will continue to enjoy diplomatic immunity from prosecution.” The article also notes that “the boost in aid and cooperation also has coincided with a sharp increase in extrajudicial killings by Colombia’s military.”
>><<
http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/10/30/us-colombia-sign-pact-to-expand-us-use-of-bases/
US, Colombia sign pact to expand US use of bases
Agreement signed to expand US military use of Colombian bases
FRANK BAJAK
AP News
Oct 30, 2009 10:32 EST
In a private, low-key ceremony, the U.S. ambassador and three Colombian ministers on Friday signed a pact to expand Washington’s military’s presence, a deal that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has called a threat to the region’s security.
U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield signed along with Colombia’s foreign, justice and defense ministers at the Foreign Ministry in Bogota, said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Ana Duque.
Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez said that the pact restricts U.S. military operations to Colombian territory — alluding to fears expressed by leftist leaders in the region that the deal would make Colombia a base for asserting U.S. power in South America.
Although details were not immediately released, a government communique said the pact “respects the principles of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other states.”
Officials have said it would increase U.S. access to seven Colombian bases for 10 years without boosting the number of service personnel and contractors beyond the cap of 1,400 specified by U.S. law.
U.S. counter-drug flights that previously operated out of Manta, Ecuador, would be based at the Palanquero base in the central Magdalena valley and Navy port calls would be more frequent.
“We are not bringing U.S. soldiers to Colombia for combat,” Bermudez told reporters. “We’re not going to see an unusual number of U.S. military personnel, nor U.S. planes in excess. What we’re going to see is what we’ve always seen.”
The top U.S. Defense Department official for Latin America, Frank Mora, told The Associated Press in August there would be no “U.S. offensive capacity” such as fighter jets from any of the bases. However, U.S. construction is planned at Palanquero to expand facilities.
President Chavez, who survived a 2002 coup attempt that he claims was U.S.-backed, has said Washington could use the bases agreement to destabilize the region.
However, South America’s main power broker, President Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, dropped initial objections to the bases agreement after senior U.S. officials and Colombia’s conservative president, Alvaro Uribe, made separate visits to explain it.
Uribe also assured regional leaders at an August summit that U.S. military operations would be restricted to Colombian territory, where a half-century-old leftist insurgency persists as well as violence related to drug trafficking.
U.S. law specifies that no more than 800 U.S. military personnel and 600 civilian contractors may be in Colombia at any one time. Currently, there are some 230 U.S. service personnel and 400 contractors in the country, said Bermudez.
Under the pact, U.S. military personnel will continue to enjoy diplomatic immunity from prosecution. Some Colombians had objected to exempting U.S. military personnel from local criminal jurisdiction.
Increased U.S. military aid to Colombia’s armed forces since 2000 has been key to the recent weakening of the country’s main leftist rebel group. The U.S. military has offices at armed forces headquarters and advisers attached to Colombia’s main army divisions.
Although there’s no evidence of any direct correlation, the boost in aid and cooperation also has coincided with a sharp increase in extrajudicial killings by Colombia’s military.
Duque said the agreement’s text would be published in the U.S. Federal Record within about a month.
Source: AP News
Leave a Reply