24/03/2010 NEW PLAN COLOMBIA: THE HAZARDS
The announcement of the installation of a set of military bases in Colombia, supported, U.S. presence and advice should not be seen as out of context. All the growth is a general framework, which is located in the so-called Project for the New American Century (PNAC) or Project for the New American Century, formulated in 1992, essentially for two (2) very prominent figures in the George W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. It identified the challenges to security and defense of the U.S. in the early twenty-first century, emphasizing the need for greater control over the sources supplying oil to the U.S. economy and industry.
Thus, the PNAC identified the priorities to be developed by foreign policy American in the final years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the XXI. The actions of the PNAC, was the need to strengthen strategic ties with Latin American countries, while fostering economic integration projects. The period between the development of PNAC and its strategic setting in the government of George W. Bush, served to make a much more ambitious, which led to the claim for political hegemony, economic and military around the world context. The events which culminated in the events of September 11, 2001, granted the U.S. an excuse to advance the full implementation of the principles of the PNAC.
Geopolitics insisted U.S. military preponderance and strategic partnerships with so-called "buffer states" or "states of containment", located in strategic and territorial considered key to U.S. interests. In this context, is that there is the proposed implementation of Plan Colombia, originally proposed and developed between 1998-2007, which included - depending on the achievement of the objectives of strengthening military-strategic U.S. in the region, installation, training and equipment of new groups fighting in Colombia's armed forces. Militarily resulted in: 1) installing and operation of five (5) radar in different zones of Colombia (San Andrés Island, Riohacha, Vichada, San José de Guaviare and Leticia), 2) formation of Rapid Response Brigades (BAR) to mobilize a set of troops with great firepower and counterinsurgency and 3) reinforcement of military bases located in Tres Esquinas (Putumayo, bordering Ecuador) and Tolima. Behind every excuse in the fight against drug trafficking are coordinated economic lucrative contracts for American corporations such as DynCorp (military and police training), Lockheed Martin (radar and aircraft maintenance), Bell Helicopter Textron (Sale and maintenance of helicopters Blackhaw), Sikorsky Aircraf (equipment and combat helicopters for sale), which have allowed Colombia to increase its military capability and offensive power of reaction, creating serious strategic imbalance in South America.
All that military support to Colombia has allowed him to obtain a privileged position, from the strategic point of view, consistent with the design of U.S. foreign policy, nothing changed with the inauguration of Barack Obama.
In all this, is the oil issue: the U.S. has intervened two (2) (Afghanistan and Iraq) for the three (3) world oil reserves. It is a discussion designed to reduce the weight that the oil component of the so-called oil diplomacy of the government of Hugo Chávez. In the logic of U.S. strategic device intended to "contain" the danger that the Venezuelan experience generates hegemonic pretensions. Therefore, a policy about this "threat" has as its main military game piece Colombia. In this context, the type of partnership proposed at UNASUR acquires greater weight but also more dangerous for the dual military-economic groups, which interact with U.S. institutional apparatus.
In the present situation, where the U.S. strategy has become more aggressive through the government of Alvaro Uribe, our continent is under more pressure than usual, and that dynamic mechanisms for strengthening democracy and mutual trust make more sense.
Dr. Juan Eduardo Romero
Historian
Juane1208@gmail.com
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