New imperialist bases in COLOMBIA

From http://www.ft-ci.org
By Claudia Cinatti
Thursday, August 6, 2009

Álvaro Uribe has just signed a new agreement with Barack Obama for the installation of US soldiers in another seven bases on Colombian territory, that would substitute for the base at Manta, Ecuador, that the United States is vacating because of Rafael Correa's decision not to renew the lease which expired after ten years. In this way, Obama has asserted the military and political alliance with Uribe, one of Bush's main allies in the region.

With the excuse of the "fight against drug trafficking" under Clinton and with Bush's "war against terror," Colombia has become the main military concentration of the United States in Latin America, with thousands of agents, advisers, and intelligence services that have been devoted to training paramilitary militias and death squads, responsible for the assassinations of union leaders, campesinos and members of the FARC. The military incursion into Ecuadorean territory against a FARC camp in March 2008, in which Raúl Reyes was killed, was organized from these bases.

This policy of Uribe has caused tensions with other governments of the region. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced it as a direct threat, and Brazil complained because it does not agree with the increase in the US military presence in the vicinity of the Amazon. Several Latin American governments, like that of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, are welcoming President Uribe, who organized a regional tour to reduce opposition to his military policy in view of the next meeting of UNASUR, which will be held in Quito on August 10.The expansion of the US military presence in Colombia, along with the role the United States is playing in supporting the coup participants in Honduras, shows that Obama's rhetoric and his alleged "good neighbor" policy are not even sufficient to cover the fact that US imperialism is seeking to reassert its regional power in Latin America, which it continues to consider as its backyard.

On August 5, a demonstration was held in Buenos Aires, repudiating Uribe's visit and the installation of new US military facilities, which constitute a concrete threat to all the peoples of the region. It is necessary to strengthen the mobilization throughout Latin America to expel imperialism from our continent.