No Place for Washington in Colombia-Venezuela Row

The intentions were already clear on March 11,
when General Douglas Fraser, the head of the US Southern Command was
testifying to the US Senate. In response to a question from Senator John
McCain about Venezuela's alleged support for terrorism, Fraser said:

"We
have continued to watch very closely ... We have not seen any connections
specifically that I can verify that there has been a direct
government-to-terrorist connection."

The next day he recanted his testimony after meeting with the US state department's top official for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela.

This
made it clear that the "terrorist" message was going to be a very
important part of Washington's campaign. Even the Bush administration
had never forced its military officers to retract their statements when
they contradicted the state department's political agenda in Latin
America, which they sometimes did.

Unfortunately, the campaign continues. Last Thursday, Colombia's
ambassador to the Organisation of the American States (OAS) accused
Venezuela at an extraordinary meeting of the OAS of harbouring 1,500
guerillas, and asked for the OAS to take action. The timing was
noteworthy to many observers. President Lula da Silva of Brazil noted
that it "seemed strange that this occurs a few days before [President]
Uribe [of Colombia] leaves office. The new president has given signals
that he wants to build peace [with Venezuela]. Everything was going well
until Uribe made this denunciation."

Venezuela responded by
breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia. It had previously cut off
much of its trade with Colombia over the past two years, in response to
Colombia's agreement with Washington to expand its military presence at
seven US military bases in Colombia. Since Venezuela had been Colombia's
largest trading partner in the region, it is possible that the new
president, Juan Manuel Santos, was looking to improve relations for
business reasons if nothing else. He had invited Chavez to his
inauguration.

Of course, Uribe does not necessarily take orders
from Washington, but it would be naive to assume that someone who has
received more than $6bn from the US would not check with his benefactors
before doing something like this. The fact that the US state department
immediately took Colombia's side
in the dispute is further indication that they approved. Even
Washington's (rightwing) allies in the region did not take sides, with
the government of Chile, for example, issuing a neutral statement; this
would have been the normal diplomatic protocol for Washington too, if
this were not part of a political and public relations campaign against
Venezuela.

Other governments clearly saw Colombia's action as a
political move, and were upset with what looked like the OAS being
manipulated for these purposes. President Lula was cited in the
Brazilian press saying that the venue of the dispute should be moved to
Unasur, because the US would tilt the negotiations toward Colombia and
against Venezuela. Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, strongly criticised
the head of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza, for not having consultation
before granting Colombia's request for a meeting of the OAS permanent
council. Patino said that Insulza had shown his "absolute incapacity" to
direct the organisation and to "look for peace in the region".
Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, had even harsher rhetoric for Uribe,
calling him "a loyal representative of the US government, with its
military bases in Colombia designed to provoke a war between Venezuela,
Ecuador and Nicaragua."

This dispute highlights the importance of
the institutional changes that the left-of-centre governments in Latin
America are trying to make. The increasing importance of Unasur,
displacing the OAS, has become vital to Latin American progress and
stability. For example, because of the influence of the US (as usual,
with a handful of rightwing allies) in the OAS, it failed to take stronger action to restore the democratically elected government of President Zelaya of Honduras last year.

When
Bolivia was having problems with attempts by the separatist,
extra-parliamentary opposition - including violence and de-stabilisation
efforts - it was Unasur that met in Santiago in September 2008 and
threw its weight behind the democratic government of Evo Morales. When
the US decided last fall to expand its presence at the military bases in
Colombia, Unasur reached an agreement - which included Colombia - that prohibited these bases from being used for any actions outside of the country.

As
to the substance of Colombia's latest claims, guerillas and
paramilitaries have been crossing the 2,000km border with Venezuela -
much of it dense jungle, mountains and all kinds of difficult terrain -
for decades. There is no evidence that anything has changed recently,
and nothing to indicate that the Venezuelan government, which has
extradited guerillas to Colombia, supports any armed groups - as General
Fraser testified before he was apparently forced to take it back.

On
Tuesday Insulza - perhaps feeling like he had gone too far to please
Washington - told CNN en Espanol that "the guerrillas come and go, and
it is quite difficult to ask just one country to control the border ...
Uribe says he doesn't know why Venezuela doesn't detain the guerillas,
but the truth is that Colombia can't control them either." He might have
added that the US, with all its vastly greater resources and superior
technology, doesn't have an easy time controlling the flow of drugs,
guns, and people across its own much more manageable border with Mexico.

On
Thursday there will be an emergency meeting of Unasur, and hopefully a
process of diplomacy will begin to resolve the dispute. Certainly there
will be a better chance of success to the extent that Washington - and
its political campaigns against governments that it doesn't like - can
be kept at a distance.