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<h2><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=5 color="#008080"><b>New Military
Base in Colombia Would Spread Pentagon Reach Throughout Latin
America</b></font></h2><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>John
Lindsay-Poland | May 28, 2009<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=1>Americas Program, Center for
International Policy (CIP)</font><font size=3> <br>
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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2><b>The Pentagon budget submitted to
Congress on May 7 includes $46 million for development of a new U.S.
military base in Palanquero, Colombia.<br><br>
</b>The official justification states that the Defense Department seeks
"an array of access arrangements for contingency operations,
logistics, and training in Central/South America."<br><br>
The military facility in Colombia will give the United States military
increased capacity for intervention throughout most of Latin America. The
plan is being advanced amid tense relations between Washington and
Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and despite both a long history and
recent revelations about the Colombian military's atrocious human rights
record.<br><br>
President Obama told hemispheric leaders last month that "if our
only interaction with many of these countries is drug interdictionif our
only interaction is militarythen we may not be developing the
connections that can over time increase our influence and have a
beneficial effect."<a name="_ftnref1"></a>1<br><br>
In this Obama is on point. This base would feed a failed drug policy,
support an abusive army, and reinforce a tragic history of U.S. military
intervention in the region. It's wrong and wasteful, and Congress should
scrap it.<br><br>
The new facility in Palanquero, Colombia would not be limited to
counter-narcotics operations, nor even to operations in the Andean
region, according to an Air Mobility Command (AMC) planning document. The
U.S. Southern Command (SouthCom) aims to establish a base with "air
mobility reach on the South American continent" in addition to a
capacity for counter-narcotics operations, through the year
2025.<a name="_ftnref2"></a>2<br><br>
With help from the Transportation Command and AMC, the SouthCom noted
that "nearly half of the continent can be covered by a C-17 without
refueling" from Palanquero. If fuel is available at its destination,
"a C-17 could cover the entire continent, with the exception of the
Cape Horn region," the AMC planners
wrote.<a name="_ftnref3"></a>3<br><br>
A U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Bogota said that negotiations are not yet
concluded for the base.<br><br>
The SouthCom is also pursuing access to a site in French Guiana that
would permit military aircraft to reach sites in Africa, via the
Ascension Islands, according to AMC.<a name="_ftnref4"></a>4 SouthCom
apparently sought use of facilities in Recife, Brazil for the same
purpose, but "the political relationship with Brazil is not
conducive to the necessary agreements," AMC wrote.<br><br>
The lease for the U.S. "Forward Operating Location" in Manta,
Ecuador expires in November 2009, and Ecuador notified Washington last
year that it would not renew the lease. The facility in Manta was
authorized to conduct only counter-drug operations. Yet, according to
military spokesmen, drug traffic in the Pacificwhere aircraft from Manta
patrolledhas increased in recent years.<a name="_ftnref5"></a>5 U.S.
forces in Manta also carried out operations to arrest undocumented
Ecuadorans on boats in Ecuadoran waters. But public documentation of U.S.
operations conducted from Manta does not indicate use of C-17 cargo
aircraft, so their use in Palanquero apparently would represent an
expanded U.S. military capacity in the region.<br><br>
The "mission creep" in the proposal for continent-wide
operations from Colombia is also evident in President Obama's foreign aid
request for Colombia. While the budget request for $508 million tacitly
recognizes the failure of Plan Colombia drug policy by cutting funds for
fumigation of coca crops, the White House is asking for an increase in
counterinsurgency equipment and training to the Colombian
Army.<a name="_ftnref6"></a>6<br><br>
Colombian and U.S. human rights and political leaders have objected to
continued funding of the Colombian army,<a name="_ftnref7"></a>7
especially after revelations that the army reportedly murdered more than
1,000 civilians and alleged they were guerrillas killed in combat, in
order to increase their body count.<a name="_ftnref8"></a>8 The
Palanquero base itself, which houses a Colombian Air Force unit, was
banned from receiving U.S. aid for five years because of its role in a
1998 attack that killed 17 civilians, including six children, from the
effects of U.S.-made cluster bombs.<a name="_ftnref9"></a>9 The United
States resumed aid to the unit last year.<br><br>
Colombian Defense Ministry sources said that Colombia was attempting to
obtain increases in U.S. military aid as part of the base
negotiations.<a name="_ftnref10"></a>10 Palanquero offers the U.S.
military a sophisticated infrastructurea 10,000-foot runway, hangars
that hold more than 100 aircraft, housing for more than 2,000 men,
restaurants, casinos, supermarkets, and a radar system installed by the
United States itself in the 1990s.<a name="_ftnref11"></a>11<br><br>
Colombian activists also point out that a new base at Palanquero would
reinforce the existing U.S. military presence at other bases in Colombia,
such as Tres Esquinas and Tolemaida. "The militarization of
Palanquero is an obstacle to effective and visionary peace initiatives
such as those promoted by communities throughout the country, as well as
to the humanitarian exchanges developed by Colombians for Peace,"
says Danilo Rueda of the Intercongregational Commission for Justice and
Peace.<a name="_ftnref12"></a>12<br><br>
"Colombian military bases where there are foreignespecially
U.S.soldiers, provide tangible evidence that in this country there is
neither sovereignty, nor autonomy, nor independence," says the
Medellín Youth Network. The Palanquero base, the Youth Network says,
"is the political lobby, is the payment and the legal lie so that
the armed conflict generated by social inequality may be turned over to
others."<a name="_ftnref13"></a>13<br><br>
U.S. law caps the number of uniformed U.S. soldiers operating in Colombia
at 800, and the number of contractors at 600. Until last year, a
significant number of them were intelligence personnel assigned to the
effort to rescue three U.S. military contractors kidnapped by the leftist
FARC guerrillas. With the rescue last year of the three contractors, many
U.S. intelligence staff left Colombia, leaving space for soldiers to run
operations in the prospective new U.S. base or bases.<br><br>
Former defense minister and presidential candidate Rafael Pardo opposes
the base. "That the Colombian government asks for a U.S. base now
would be a serious error," he
says.<a name="_ftnref14"></a>14<br><br>
Replacing one military base that was set up for the failed drug war with
another base to intervene in South America and to support the abusive
Colombian army would be a serious error for the United States as
well.<br><br>
</font><h3><b>End Notes</b></h3>
<ol>
<li><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2><a name="_ftn1"></a>CNN,
"Obama: Summit of the Americas 'productive'," 19 April, 2009,
at:
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/19/obama.latin.america/">
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/19/obama.latin.america/</a>
<a name="_ftn1"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn2"></a>"White Paper, Air Mobility Command, Global
En Route Strategy," p. 22, preparatory document for Air Force
Symposium 2009AFRICOM, at
<a href="http://www.au.af.mil/awc/africom/documents/GlobalEnRouteStrategy.pdf">
http://www.au.af.mil/awc/africom/documents/GlobalEnRouteStrategy.pdf</a>
<a name="_ftn2"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn3"></a>Ibid.
<li><a name="_ftn4"></a>"Global En Route Strategy,"
p<a name="_ftn4"></a>. 22.
<li><a name="_ftn5"></a>Chris Kraul, "Cocaine Culture Creeps into
Ecuador," <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, October 5, 2007,
<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/05/world/fg-ecuadrugs5">
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/05/world/fg-ecuadrugs5</a>
<a name="_ftn5"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn6"></a>Adam Isacson, "First Peek at the Obama
Administration's 2010 Aid Request," 7 May 2009,
<a href="http://www.cipcol.org/?p=848">http://www.cipcol.org/?p=848</a>;
see also:
<a href="http://www.state.gov/f/releases/iab/fy2010/index.htm">
http://www.state.gov/f/releases/iab/fy2010/index.htm</a><a name="_ftn6">
</a>.
<li><a name="_ftn7"></a>In February 46 national and regional U.S.
organizations urged Obama to terminate military aid to Colombia, while a
letter from more than a hundred Colombian leaders urged a reformulation
of policy, putting promotion of a negotiated end to the armed conflict at
its center. See
<a href="http://www.forcolombia.org/monthlyupdate/march2009#president">
http://www.forcolombia.org/monthlyupdate/march2009#president</a>
<a name="_ftn7"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn8"></a>Nadja Drost, "In Colombia, Suspicious
Deaths," <i>Global Post, </i>11 May 2009, at:
<a href="http://www.globalpost.com/print/1280781">
http://www.globalpost.com/print/1280781</a>. See also "426 militares
han sido detenidos por ejecuciones extrajudiciales," <i>Semana</i>,
11 May 2009, at:
<a href="http://www.semana.com/noticias-justicia/426-militares-capturados-falsos-positivos/123701.aspx">
http://www.semana.com/noticias-justicia/426-militares-capturados-falsos-positivos/123701.aspx</a>
<a name="_ftn8"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn9"></a>Congregación Intercongregacional de Justicia y
Paz, "Masacre en Santo Domingo, 13 de diciembre de 1998," at:
<a href="http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Masacre-en-Santo-Domingo-Arauca">
http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Masacre-en-Santo-Domingo-Arauca</a>
<a name="_ftn9"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn10"></a>"Con traslado de base de Manta," <i>El
Tiempo</i>, 18 April 2009, at:
<a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/justicia/con-traslado-de-base-de-manta-eu-tiene-en-la-mira-varias-pistas-del-suroccidente-del-pais_4877714-1">
http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/justicia/con-traslado-de-base-de-manta-eu-tiene-en-la-mira-varias-pistas-del-suroccidente-del-pais_4877714-1</a>
<a name="_ftn10"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn11"></a>"De Manta a Palanquero?"
<i>Cambio</i>, 2 November 2008, at:
<a href="http://www.cambio.com.co/portadacambio/779/4234729-pag-2_3.html">
http://www.cambio.com.co/portadacambio/779/4234729-pag-2_3.html</a>
<a name="_ftn11"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn12"></a>Statement by Danilo Rueda, May 2009, at:
<a href="http://www.forcolombia.org/rueda">
http://www.forcolombia.org/rueda</a><a name="_ftn12"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn13"></a>Statement by Medellín Youth Network, May 2009,
at:
<a href="http://www.forcolombia.org/PalanqueroRed">
http://www.forcolombia.org/PalanqueroRed</a><a name="_ftn13"></a>.
<li><a name="_ftn14"></a>"De Manta a Palanquero?"
</ol><br>
<i>John Lindsay-Poland co-directs the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task
Force on Latin America and the Caribbean, in Oakland, California. He can
be reached at johnlp(at)igc(dot)org. <br><br>
<br><br>
</i></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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