[News] Intervention in Venezuela: a tour of U.S. military bases in Curaçao and Aruba

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://mronline.org/2019/04/23/intervention-in-venezuela-a-tour-of-u-s-military-bases-in-curacao-and-aruba/ 



  Intervention in Venezuela: a tour of U.S. military bases in Curaçao
  and Aruba

April 23, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aruba and Curaçao are two Caribbean territories under the dominance (in 
terms of security and foreign policy) of the Netherlands. Since 1999, 
the United States has agreed to establish “counter-narcotics” operations 
centres on both islands.

A publication on the Tni.org <http://www.tni.org/es/node/7359> website 
indicates that since that year there were suspicions raised. They cite 
The Washington Post, which reported that as of March 1999, the Clinton 
administration began sharing with the Colombian Armed Forces real-time 
intelligence on guerrilla activities from the outposts installed on 
these islands.

The United States, therefore, delegated a clearly functional use to 
these bases in their confrontation with the insurgent and leftist 
forces. At that time, the United States was designing its roadmap for 
the emergence of the Bolivarian revolution that was already in power in 
Venezuela.

U.S. bases on these islands are classified as “Forward Operating 
Locations (FOLs)” and initially supported the advance of U.S. 
intervention in Colombia’s internal conflict, without the Netherlands 
being able to influence decisions on the matter. For the purposes of 
Washington’s actions in the Caribbean, both islands are used at full 
discretion for U.S. operations.

This was pointed out in a 1999 article by academic Tom Blickman. Under 
the title: “U.S. Advanced Bases in Aruba and Curaçao. A contribution to 
the military intervention in Colombia”, Blickman explained that although 
it was initially proposed that the Netherlands would not allow the use 
of these bases for purposes of intervention in the region and that they 
would only have the goal of combating drug trafficking, there has been 
an indisputable loss of sovereignty of the Netherlands over its islands 
by the U.S. government.

Since then, U.S. operations have functioned as a “black box,” without 
any form of accountability for their activities to local or regional 
political authorities.

In recent years, Venezuela has denounced the incursion of aircraft that 
have launched and that would have carried out electronic operations of 
various kinds.

In 2015, a DACH-8 military aircraft violated the airspace of the 
Venezuelan territorial sea at a time when the Bolivarian National Armed 
Force (FANB) detected an “unusual” additional overflight of other U.S. 
“intelligence apparatuses” based in Curacao, according to the Ministry 
of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López.

In March 2018, a U.S. Air Force Boeing C17 aircraft was detected 
<http://mundo.sputniknews.com/america-latina/201803201077163095-padrino-lopez-defensa-avion-pentagono/> 
taking off from the Hato base in Curacao. On that occasion, Padrino 
López denounced that the aircraft carried out prospecting and 
reconnaissance of the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and explained that 
this time the plane was detected by the Los Monjes archipelago in the 
Gulf of Venezuela, in the northwest of the country.

The evolution of the use of these U.S. military bases has led to the 
formation of a “strategic arc 
<http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/190430>,” which would consist of 
assault troops, stationed in control and monitoring settlements in 
several Central American and Caribbean countries, with the aim of 
carrying out electronic warfare tasks, espionage and the concentration 
of logistical devices.

The suspicions about the operational transformation of these “FOLs” were 
not long in coming, as the intentions revealed by the White House in 
recent months to carry out a military intervention in Venezuela to 
depose President Nicolás Maduro are evident.

In February of this year, the Government of Cuba assured in a communiqué 
<http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article226257695.html> 
that between the 6th and 10th of that month, flights of military 
transport planes from the United States to bases in Puerto Rico, the 
Dominican Republic and other Caribbean islands were detected, “surely 
without the knowledge of the governments of those nations”.

These movements “originated in U.S. military installations from which 
units of Special Operations Forces and the Marine Infantry operate, 
which are used for covert operations, including against leaders of other 
countries,” the Cuban government warned.

Effectively, the military movement would be camouflaged as a alleged 
“humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela and would involve a tactical 
deployment to directly attack Venezuela’s institutional high command and 
thus unleash a war scenario of greater proportions.

Havana stressed that it is “evident that the United States is preparing 
the ground to establish a humanitarian corridor by force” and pointed 
out that several of its high officials have said “with arrogance and 
audacity that, in relation to Venezuela, ‘all options are on the table, 
including the military’”.

U.S. efforts in these strongholds have included the placement and 
deployment of equipment, which would be considered disproportionate to 
the fight against drug trafficking.


    Frigates and aircraft carriers

It is presumed that in the occasions in which these placements occurred, 
the displacement capacity of the naval air force with projection to 
Venezuelan territory would be calibrated, weighing the particularities 
of the Caribbean operationally.

Recently, the think tank Center for International and Strategic Studies 
(CSIS), based in Washington, sponsored a private meeting entitled 
“Evaluating the use of military force in Venezuela”. The Grayzone 
research project and journalist Max Blumenthal released the list of 
attendees.

Among the approximately 40 figures invited to the off-the-record event 
to discuss potential military action against Caracas were some of 
President Donald Trump’s policy advisors on Venezuela.

The list included former and current officials from the State 
Department, the National Intelligence Council and the National Security 
Council, along with Admiral Kurt Tidd, who until recently was head of 
the Southern Command.

In addition to high-level officials from the embassies of Colombia and 
Brazil, as well as the main representatives of the parallel government 
of the coup leader in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, who also participated in 
the meeting.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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