Colombia's Uribe under fire over U.S. bases pact

[Judi Lynn]

Source: UPI

Colombia's Uribe under fire over U.S. bases pact
Published: Nov. 6, 2009 at 11:22 AM



BOGOTA, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is once again under fire over the contents of a security pact that permits wide-ranging U.S. access to Colombian military bases as part of counter-narcotic and counter-terrorism operations in South America. U.S. counter-narcotic authorities say Colombia is a major conduit for cocaine and heroin smuggled in the United States.

Uribe fought bitter diplomatic battles throughout the summer with critics of the military cooperation in neighboring countries. He recently told neighbors he would scrutinize their international military arrangements if they kept haranguing him over the U.S. pact.

That was before the Colombian opposition got access to the full details of the agreement, signed last Friday. The deal was roundly denounced as a Colombian sell-out and a virtual U.S. occupation of Colombia. The United States has consistently said it is not setting up bases in Colombia but sharing the use of Colombian military bases to fight drug warlords and terrorist suspects.

Exactly how the agreement will work and what it will cover remains mired in controversy. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters the agreement "doesn't provide us with any kind of bases in Colombia. It provides us with an opportunity to cooperate with Colombia in some issues related to counternarcotics and interoperability in that regard." Controversy was revived after reports citing a U.S. defense document that stated the U.S. military will not only have access to Colombian military bases, but also be able to use major international civilian airports. According to the reported provisions, U.S. personnel and defense contractors will also enjoy diplomatic immunity.


Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2009/11/06/Colombia... /

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The Three Graces: Vice President Francisco Santos, Alvaro Uribe, and Francisco's cousin
Defense Secretary Juan Manuel Santos, whose family owns Colombia's largest newspaper.



Moment of consultation with fellow massacre-prone S. American President, "Wide Load" Alan Garcia of Peru.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Good. We have no business pressuring their neighbor, Chavez, to privatize Venezuela's Oil

fields. That's what these bases are ALL about: Venezuela's Nationalized Oil that our corporate rulers can't get their tentacles on. If the country's destabilized, we can replace Chavez with a leader who will PRIVATIZE the Oil and our corporate masters will make huge profits!

[backtomn]

15. Chavez already privatized oil

I think it happened in May 2009.....or most of it. Whether or not it meant bigger profits, I don't know.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Venezuela nationalized its oil and steel in 1973.

Page last updated at 21:26 GMT, Saturday, 22 August 2009 22:26 UK

Timeline: Venezuela
A chronology of key events

~snip~
1973 - Venezuela benefits from oil boom and its currency peaks against the US dollar; oil and steel industries nationalised.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1229348.stm

[Peace Patriot]

17. Chavez did NOT privatize Venezuela's oil, nor did he nationalize it. It was nationalized before

Chavez became president. What Chavez did was to improve the percentage of the profits that go to Venezuela (used for education, health care, grants/loans to small business and other bootstrapping of the poor majority, and for national and regional development), from the 10/90 split at the outset, favoring the multinational corporations, to the current 60/40 split, favoring Venezuela. Exxon Mobil walked out of the negotiations and went into 'first world' courts to try to grab $12 billon in Venezuela's assets, but BP, Chevron, France's Total, Norway's Statoil and others have agreed. They will get decent profits from access to Venezuela's oil, while paying their social responsibility dues, and Exxon Mobil, which lost the first round of that lawsuit, may get ugly, I don't know, and hijack the US military again, to take the oil and all the profit by force.

Anyway, please try to get the facts straight about Venezuela. I know it's difficult with the vast psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez that has been going on in our corpo-fascist press for some time now. Another oil war is looking more likely every day. I don't think it's just bullying and threatening. I think there is a war plan, elements of which are being put in place. It's very worrisome. We need to get informed, stay alert and do what we can to prevent it. With US soldiers getting killed in Colombia's 40+year civil war and in their farce of a "drug war," it will be simple matter to manufacture a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident when the time is ripe. The parallels to Vietnam are truly haunting--including this very quiet escalation of US military bases, personnel and air and naval facilities that has been going on. Looking at the whole picture, the US military has Venezuela's main oil reserves and operations, in the northern states on the Caribbean, surrounded. And there are rightwing politicians in those states who openly talk of secession. (And if we could track CIA money, we would probably find out that they are funding these rightwing causes. We know that USAID-NED money has been poured into those and other rightwing groups in South America.)

[Judi Lynn]

2. Colombia deal sees US military using civilian airports (AFP)

Source: Agence France-Presse

Colombia deal sees US military using civilian airports (AFP)

4 November 2009 BOGOTA - A deal that has angered leftist Latin American leaders sees the US granted access to Colombia’s civilian airports as well as military bases, according to the full text of the accord published Wednesday.

Posted on the website www.minrelext.gov.co, it states that the United States and Colombia “will establish a mechanism to determine the estimated number of flights that will have use of international airports.” The text suggests the US military could use any of several international airports dotted across the country, including in the cities of Barranquilla, San Andres, Cartagena, Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Bucaramanga.

The 10-year deal signed last week despite fierce opposition from countries in the region — notably Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia — grants the US military access to seven military bases strategically located across Colombia.

Some 800 US troops and 600 US civilian contractors will be permitted on Colombian soil and will enjoy diplomatic immunity, which has caused an uproar among the political opposition and non-governmental organizations.

Read more: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=da...

[Mudoria]

3. Excellent deal for the armed forces

[Judi Lynn]

4. New row over Colombia-US accord

Source: BBC News

Page last updated at 02:25 GMT, Thursday, 5 November 2009
New row over Colombia-US accord

Colombian opposition groups have reacted angrily after details of a controversial military deal with the US were made public. Under the 10-year deal, the US military will not only have access to military bases, but also be able to use major international civilian airports. US personnel and defence contractors will also enjoy diplomatic immunity.

President Alvaro Uribe says the agreement will help rid Colombia of drugs gangs and left-wing rebel groups. But leading opposition senator Gustavo Petro, of the left-wing PDA party, said the deal amounted to a virtual US occupation of Colombia.

The accord was signed last Friday but full details were only made public on Tuesday. They reveal that the US military will have access to seven Colombian army, navy and air force bases and also be able to use civilian airports under conditions that have still not been made clear.

Colombia's military commander, Gen Freddy Padilla, was quoted by national media as saying that the benefits of the agreement will be felt throughout the country as the US conducts anti-drug and anti-terrorist missions.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8343692.stm

[Arctic Dave]

5. Drug gangs and left wing rebels? WTF?

[Judi Lynn]

14. That does sound a little phony, doesn't it, considering his own connections with narcotraffickers

going all the way back to his own father! Jesus.


U.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG
"IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991

Then-Senator "Dedicated to Collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at High Government Levels"

Confidential DIA Report Had Uribe Alongside Pablo Escobar, Narco-Assassins

Uribe "Worked for the Medellín Cartel" and was a "Close Personal Friend of Pablo Escobar"

Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Álvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University.

Uribe's inclusion on the list raises new questions about allegations that surfaced during Colombia's 2002 presidential campaign. Candidate Uribe bristled and abruptly terminated an interview in March 2002 when asked by Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras about his alleged ties to Escobar and his associations with others involved in the drug trade. Uribe accused Contreras of trying to smear his reputation, saying that, "as a politician, I have been honorable and accountable."

The newly-declassified report, dated 23 September 1991, is a numbered list of "the more important Colombian narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection and enforcement of narcotics operations." The document was released by DIA in May 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Archive in August 2000.

The source of the report was removed by DIA censors, but the detailed, investigative nature of the report -- the list corresponds with a numbered set of photographs that were apparently provided with the original -- suggests it was probably obtained from Colombian or U.S. counternarcotics personnel. The document notes that some of the information in the report was verified "via interfaces with other agencies."

President Uribe -- now a key U.S. partner in the drug war -- "was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the United States" and "has worked for the Medellín cartel," the narcotics trafficking organization led by Escobar until he was killed by Colombian government forces in 1993. The report adds that Uribe participated in Escobar's parliamentary campaign and that as senator he had "attacked all forms of the extradition treaty" with the U.S.

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm



The clown waving at him from the crowd is _{George W Bush's} Cuban "exile" Sec. of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez.

[MisterP]

19. is that Uribe as Juan Valdez?! nt

[MisterP]

6. this is a lot like what China was slapped with after the Opium Wars (1860) nt

[Wilms]

7. Colombia “Hands Over Its Sovereignty” to U.S. with Military Accord, Says Chavez

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4914

After the negotiations of the military accord were made public in July, Chavez said the U.S. would use the accord to “dominate all of South America,” especially its natural resources, and that Colombia would become an “operational center that will permit the U.S. to cover all of South America with its planes, spies, spy satellites, intelligence and counterintelligence agencies.”

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have repeatedly denied such allegations and asserted that the accord pertains strictly to the U.S. and Colombia. In a press conference in August, Clinton said, “This is about the bilateral cooperation between the United States and Colombia regarding security matters within Colombia.”

However, the U.S. military’s financial documents contradict Clinton and Obama’s public declarations. The Pentagon budget for the year 2010 says the Department of Defense seeks “an array of access arrangements for contingency operations, logistics, and training in Central/South America,” and cites a $46 million investment in the “development” of Colombia’s Palanquero air base as a key part of this.

According to the 2010 fiscal year budget of the U.S. Air Force Military Construction Program, the purpose of the upgrades to the Palanquero base is to “enhance the U.S. Global Defense Posture Strategy,” and the base “offers an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America.”

The budget refers to the Palanquero base as a “Cooperative Security Location (CSL),” and says it “provides a unique opportunity for full spectrum operations in a critical sub region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies, anti-US governments, endemic poverty and recurring natural disasters.”

“A presence will also increase our capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), improve global reach, support logistics requirements, improve partnerships, improve theater security cooperation, and expand expeditionary warfare capability,” the budget continues.

[excess_3]

8. very sad .nt

[dipsydoodle]

9. defence contractors will also enjoy diplomatic immunity ?

[Lasher]

11. It makes you wonder why US defence contractors think they need immunity from prosecution.

The question sort of answers itself.

[unhappycamper]

10. It's 'nice' to see the CIA has new launching points against all of Latin America.

They can get their drugs, ferment revolution and run hit squads with immunity. Maybe we can even get Ollie North hooked up with all that bad.

[clixtox]

12. How soon before the Imperialist's lackeys are targeted by Colombian patriots?

This isn't likely to be appreciated by the masses in Colombia, where "leftist" armed political factions have been honing their warfare skills for decades.

It isn't going to be pretty when the US forces are used to combat these irregular forces. Not for either side. Surely, though, another no-win long-term conflict enriching the usual suspects. What importance is a few thousand or million deaths when these kinds of profits are ripe and ready for plucking.

Who is siphoning off the profits when a gallon of gasoline costs the military in Afghanistan $400.00 (Four hundred dollars per gallon!!!).

This is the type of intervention that emboldens nuts to attack American assets around the world and now, in the USA.

"They" definitely don't hate us for our "freedoms", what a joke, they hate us for meddling, and worse, in their domestic affairs.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Peace Patriot]

18. Ye gods! This is South Vietnam all over again! nt