• Constanza Vieira interviews Senator CECILIA LÓPEZ (bogotÁ)
• Friday, August 14, 2009
• Inter Press Service

An agreement between Bogotá and Washington for the U.S. to use seven military bases in Colombia points to the lingering effects of the agenda of former President George W. Bush (2001-2009), because the agenda of his successor, Barack Obama, 'hasn't arrived here yet,' says Colombian Senator Cecilia López.

Since the late 1990s, the U.S. military has been moving towards small-scale, lower-cost bases called Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) and Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs).

At least seven of these stations will operate in Colombia, with legal immunity for U.S. military personnel and airstrips big enough to accommodate the C-17, a large military transport aircraft.

C-17s can land on unpaved airstrips and carry 102 fully equipped paratroopers or an M-1 tank.

From Colombia, their flight autonomy will reach into the middle of the American continent, or throughout the entire continent if they stop to fuel up. The only unreachable spot would be Cape Horn at the southern tip of Chile.

At the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) summit held Monday in Quito, no measures were taken against Colombia for granting U.S. access to the bases – a fact that many analysts attributed to last week's lightning tour by President Álvaro Uribe to seven UNASUR member countries.

But the crisis continues. Argentina has called another UNASUR summit for Aug. 27 in that country, to which Obama has also been invited, at Brazil's suggestion.

UNASUR wants Colombia to promise that U.S. use of the bases will not pose a threat to the region, something that 'Colombia can't do; the United States would have to do it,' Colombian Senator Cecilia López of the opposition Liberal Party told IPS in this interview.

López sits on the Senate 'Second Commission' on foreign relations and defence issues, which must authorise movements of foreign troops in Colombian territory.

As a result of public pressure, the government finally agreed to discuss the agreement on the bases with the Second Commission, sending three ministers to meet with the Senate commission members on Jul. 21, and promising to consult with the Council of State, the highest-level legal authority on administrative matters, whose decisions are not binding, however, on the executive branch.

And on Wednesday, the Senate commission was invited to the military base at Palanquero, in the geographic heart of Colombia, considered the main base by the U.S. Department of Defence. But once again, the government failed to provide the lawmakers with any document related to the military agreement.

On Tuesday, the CMI news channel obtained a four-page 'executive summary' of the agreement, which was described as full of generalities, and reportedly failed to clarify any of the concerns raised by the plans to expand the U.S. military presence in this civil war-torn South American country.

López, an economist who has served twice as a cabinet minister and is a former director of the National Planning Department, is competing for her party's presidential candidacy for the 2010 elections.

IPS: What was discussed in the Second Commission on the opening up of Colombian bases to U.S. troops?

CECILIA LÓPEZ: It was a very complicated discussion. At that point they did not talk to us about the seven bases, over which there is a great deal of anger. Nor did they provide us with the document (the military base agreement).

Several things bothered me (in the Jul. 21 meeting). The first was Interior Minister (Fabio Valencia's) insistence that the bases were necessary because they would spell 'the end of the end' of drug trafficking and terrorism in Colombia.

IPS: How many bases were they talking about?

CL: Three. Which is worrisome, because the bases would accommodate these planes (the C-17s), which have caused so much concern in Latin America since they could reach the entire region.

The most shocking thing was the government's aggressive stance, its determined denial that the agreement had to go through Congress or the Council of State.

The interior minister insisted on associating 9/11 (the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington) with the problem of terrorism in Colombia. I insisted that we cannot extrapolate that situation to Colombia, based on a war against terrorism very different from our own.

I said U.S. aid has been positive from a security standpoint, but that I was concerned about the continued insistence on a counter-narcotics approach whose validity and effectiveness is being reconsidered. I told the minister that former Latin American presidents are questioning the U.S. strategy against drugs, and his response was very aggressive.

He told me that position had been 'ruled out' in the United Nations meeting, which I don't believe is true.

IPS: U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield and the armed forces commander-in-chief, General Freddy Padilla, confirmed in April that the use of the bases was being negotiated, while President Uribe gave a press conference in Caracas alongside his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez. The members of the Commission said they were surprised.

CL: The Commission should have known when the negotiations began, or how they were going, but that has not been possible. Closed-door sessions can be held, if something is considered a matter of national security. So far we have not been given the document. We only learned about the actual number of bases – seven – less than two weeks ago, when the president began his tour of seven South American countries.

IPS: What do you think the Colombian government is negotiating with the U.S. Department of Defence?

CL: My personal view is that, in President Uribe's obsession with obtaining the Free Trade Agreement (FTA, which is stalled in the U.S. Congress), he has done this partly to please the United States, with a view to getting the treaty approved. Which is a misguided conception, because the FTA is not blocked by anything other than human rights violations here.

One of the reasons for which (the agreement on the bases) has been concealed from us is because there are probably aspects that, as developments on the ground have demonstrated, would generate problems within and outside the country.

IPS: Like what aspects?

CL: The planes. This limited vision of Uribe's, that the only relations that matter here are relations with the United States, doesn't allow him to see what is known as geopolitics. In geopolitical terms, the United States, especially in the face of (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chávez's socialist project, is interested in having the flexibility - as it wants in the rest of the world - to be able to arrive at a given critical moment.

It's not that they're going to post a large number of troops and contractors here. It's a question of having the possibility to reach those seven bases at any time.

IPS: Colombian analysts are warning about the possibility of a regional war.

CL: Talk about war is absurd and blows things out of proportion. In Latin America there has been an expansion of the 'Chavista' (for Chávez) worldview and a severe weakening of the presence of the United States, which continues to forward the same old agenda of the war on drugs.

There is kind of a struggle to see who will align themselves with whom. And Brazil, the most powerful country in Latin America, is in the middle. It hasn't distanced itself from Chávez's socialist strategy, but nor has it approached the other side too closely.

These two tendencies have to coexist, and in Latin America this debate has not been seriously tackled. The problem is that this has triggered an arms race – the worst thing that could happen to the region.

When the United States saw Chávez's influence and ideas expanding, it should have followed a different strategy, based on support for development in the region. It was the moment to carry out a different kind of trade negotiations, a different approach to handling economic ties.

IPS: So, the agenda hasn't changed under Obama?

CL: It hasn't had a chance to do so. He has been very busy with domestic issues and other international problems. They haven't even approved his appointment of the key adviser who would have a central role to play in Latin America. Obama's agenda hasn't arrived here yet, and we have an ambassador who answers to Bush's agenda.

IPS: Some say this agreement with the United States is aimed at dividing UNASUR.

CL: I wish we knew what the intentions were. This is not just a Colombian problem, but also a U.S. one. We have to understand what it's about: if it involves greater flexibility in allowing the United States to send those planes during a crisis, Colombia would not have any control in such a situation.

Some word is needed from the United States to calm things down in this debate. It's hard to know what will happen. The United States is walking on thin ice. If (Obama) comes to this UNASUR meeting, he'll be in the middle of the problem. And if he doesn't come, he will be too.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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