Gaudin, AndrÃ©s

English

University of New Mexico

University of New Mexico
UNM Digital Repository
NotiSur Latin America Digital Beat (LADB)
8-24-2012
U.S. Slowly Expanding Military Reach in Latin
America
AndrÃ©s Gaudin
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Recommended Citation
Gaudin, AndrÃ©s. "U.S. Slowly Expanding Military Reach in Latin America." (2012). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/notisur/
14082
LADB Article Id:  78720
ISSN:  1060-4189
©2011  The University of New Mexico,
Latin American & Iberian Institute
All rights reserved. Page 1 of 3
U.S. Slowly Expanding Military Reach in Latin America
by Andrés Gaudin
Category/Department:  Region
Published:  2012-08-24
When in early June Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador were able to
persuade the 33 Latin American members of the Organization of American States (OAS) to set a
year-end deadline for analyzing what they called the "refounding" of the OAS, everyone thought
that they were only adding a little spice into the boring OAS General Assembly being held at the
time at the Universidad del Valle de Tiquipaya in the Bolivian department of Cochabamba (NotiSur,
July 13, 2012). 
However, with their request to end much of the institutional structure of the OAS—the Inter-
American Defense Board (IADB), the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR)—and the proposal to declare a ban on allowing
foreign (US) military bases in Latin America, Morales and Correa were, as South Americans say,
"stirring up a hornet's nest." 
The two presidents said that the agencies were suitable for times long since past, a product of the
now nonexistent Cold War, and that the bases go against the pacifist ideals of the peoples of the
Americas.  Certainly, beyond whatever the region's foreign ministers can agree to in December
regarding reforms to the OAS, merely spelling out the criticisms led to information becoming known
that was previously ignored or, in some countries, to decisions being made that either go against or
are in sync with what was said in Cochabamba.
Some progressive governments unexpectedly give US green light
The first surprise came from Uruguay, where the historically progressive governing party, the Frente
Amplio (FA), which has severely criticized the US, opened the doors to the US Navy's Sea, Air, and
Land Teams—the SEALs—to give specialized training to members of the Uruguayan Navy's Cuerpo
de Fusileros Navales (CFN). 
It was soon learned that in Paraguay, following the June 22 coup against constitutional President
Fernando Lugo, a traditional opposition party that today functions within the de facto government
proposed to Congress making available a controversial base in the center of the country where
the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) could operate, "close to all the strategic targets in
Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela."
Then, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner overruled a decision by Gov. Jorge
Capitanich of the northern province of Chaco, forcing him to break a facilities agreement signed
with the Pentagon (May 22, 2009).  Finally, previously unknown aspects of agreements signed by
Panama, Chile, Peru, and Colombia with the US armed forces were made public.  Amid all this, a
debate began at the continental level, which shed light on the new US military strategy in the region.
In mid-June, and only because of complaints from neighbors in the area where the training was
taking place, it became known that a contingent of 15 Navy personnel from the US Fourth Fleet
was giving training in "hostage-rescue operations" at the CFN facilities.  Everything was planned
surreptitiously. 
LADB Article Id:  78720
ISSN:  1060-4189
©2011  The University of New Mexico,
Latin American & Iberian Institute
All rights reserved. Page 2 of 3
The Uruguayan Ministerio de Defensa never announced these courses, the necessary legislative
approval for foreign troops to enter the country was passed as a matter of urgency and without
debate.  Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, a former Tupamaro guerrilla leader who
was jailed for 13 years in various military facilities, refused to make a public statement. 
When an opposition deputy in Congress  asked what justified the entry of the SEALs into the
country, Ivonne Passada, president of the defense committee and another former prisoner during
the 1973-1985 dictatorship, called the question "inappropriate."  Congress approved the agreement
with the Pentagon with only vague and imprecise information and with a never-explained urgency,
said the Uruguayan magazine Brecha.
Beyond these apparent inconsistencies of the Tupamaros and the FA government, criticism arose in
Argentina, Ecuador, and Uruguay that the Uruguayan government had not informed the Consejo
de Defensa Suramericano (CDS), as the foreign ministers had agreed at the 2010 summit in Quito,
Ecuador.  An Argentine diplomat told the magazine Miradas al Sur, "What we have just seen in
Uruguay is a qualitative leap in US interventionism because the SEAL teams—the same group that
in 40 minutes killed Osama bin Laden—operate outside military protocol, which allows them to
carry out operations that go beyond the limits of international law." 
Juan Castillo, a union leader and one of the two FA vice presidents, said that "the entry of the SEALs
was never discussed in the FA nor was it made public in the legislative agenda.  The government has
made a serious mistake in making a deal with the US Navy because it injures the FA's historic Latin
Americanist position." he said. 
"The SEALs case is an example of the low level of political leadership that some defense ministries
and national governments exercise over their armed forces, which continue managing their
international relations, especially with the US, based on an outdated scheme appropriate in the time
of the last dictatorships," an expert in defense matters from the private Universidad Arcis said in
Chile.
Argentina's president says no
On June 22, in Argentina, President Fernández de Kirchner blocked the entry of equipment,
computers, radars, and the operating system that would have allowed a US base to begin activities
in the northern province of Chaco (NotiSur, March 11, 2011).  In so doing, she thwarted the
agreement that Gov. Capitanich had signed with the Pentagon to install a base in the airport at
Resistencia, the provincial capital. 
The public had been given, but did not believe, the official version that it was a program to support
official social programs, and citizens organized large protest marches.  In reality, it was a covert
military base set up in the installations of a modern civilian airport that could accommodate huge
aircraft such as the Hercules C-130, the Globemaster III, and the C-5 Galaxy.
Two days later, in Paraguay, the rightist Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (UNACE), led by
attempted-coup leader Gen. Lino Oviedo (NotiSur, Nov. 9, 2007), proposed offering SOUTHCOM
the use of installations at the Base Mariscal Estigarribia (NotiSur, Dec. 17, 2010), in the west-central
part of the country, a facility that can house 16,000 soldiers and has a 3,800-meter runway which
could also accommodate those huge aircraft. 
LADB Article Id:  78720
ISSN:  1060-4189
©2011  The University of New Mexico,
Latin American & Iberian Institute
All rights reserved. Page 3 of 3
Gen. Oviedo said that Mariscal Estigarribia is "a unique enclave."  It is close to the nerve centers of
South America:  São Paulo, Brazil (600 km), Formosa, Argentina (800 km), La Paz, Bolivia (1,200 km),
Quito, Ecuador (2,700 km), and Caracas, Venezuela (3,300 km).
On Aug. 6, the ANSA news agency reported on the kickoff of the Panamax 2012 maneuvers, whose
objective is the defense of the Panama Canal in case of a terrorist attack.  The story said that,
along with Panama and the US, participants would include the militaries of Belize, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Paraguay, and Peru. 
That day the director of the US-based Fellowship of Reconciliation John Lindsay-Poland released
a statement accusing the US of violating the pacifist spirit of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter treaties and,
through private contractors, continuing to carry out military activities in the area of the canal.  The
Fellowship of Reconciliation says that, since 1999, the Pentagon has signed 715 contracts associated
with Panama, when under the agreements it should have withdrawn all US military presence from
the isthmus.
Shortly before that, the agreements were made public between SOUTHCOM and the
administrations of Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and Chilean President Sebastián Piñera,
giving the US a much-desired access to the Pacific Coast—the route of the drugs from South
America that enter the US through California—through the construction of two military bases.  One
is in Piura in northern Peru; the other in Concón on the central coast of Chile.
The base in Concón supposedly would be used for training forces of peace.  The only thing
known about the Piura facility is that it will be in a strategic area where energy, oil, and mining
multinationals have recently begun to operate. 
In Colombia, opposition Sen. Jorge Enrique Robledo said that, despite the August 2010 decision
by the Corte Constitucional (CC), declaring unconstitutional the agreement on the use of military
bases that former President Álvaro Uribe signed with the Pentagon (NotiSur, Nov. 5, 2010), new
contracts worth some US$103 million have been signed by which various US contractors will expand
the Colombian military bases.
In an article in the Argentine magazine Miradas al Sur, David Vine, assistant professor of
anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, says that there could be dozens of other
secret installations in Latin America because the Pentagon's present tendency is to set up "a new
generation of bases the military calls 'lily pads' (as in a frog jumping across a pond toward its prey).
  These are small, secretive, inaccessible facilities with limited numbers of troops, Spartan amenities,
and propositioned weaponry and supplies." 
Vine says that the days of huge bases, such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany—a real city inhabited
by thousands of soldiers, with supermarkets, all kinds of restaurants, and even a local Pizza Hut—
are now a thing of the past.  "While the collection of Cold War-era giant bases around the world is
shrinking, the global infrastructure of bases overseas has exploded in size and scope."
-- End --


U.S. Slowly Expanding Military Reach in Latin America

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U.S. Slowly Expanding Military Reach in Latin America

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