CARACAS, (Reuters) – South America’s hardline leftist leaders yesterday criticized U.S. plans to deploy extra troops at bases in Colombia, accusing Washington of using the war on drugs as a pretext to boost its regional military presence.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is meeting South American presidents this week to try to drum up support for the U.S. plan to base anti-drug flights in the world’s top cocaine producer after the U.S. military lost access to a base in neighboring Ecuador.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — a persistent critic of Washington — said the Colombian plan could be a step toward war in South America and called on President Barack Obama not to increase the U.S. military presence in Colombia.
“These bases could be the start of a war in South America,” the socialist Chavez told reporters. “We’re talking about the Yankees, the most aggressive nation in human history.”
Chavez has put his troops on alert in previous diplomatic disputes with Colombia but then backed down.
A close Chavez ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former coca farmer who ousted U.S. anti-drug agents last year, said Colombia’s drug-funded FARC rebels had become Washington’s “best tool” to justify military operations in the region.
“We can’t have all these planes and military equipment concentrated in Colombia. This is against the FARC. This isn’t against drug-trafficking, it’s against the region. Our duty is to reject it,” said Morales, who met Uribe on Tuesday.
Uribe’s security drive would give U.S. forces access to seven Colombian bases and increase the number of American troops in the Andean nation above the current total of less than 300 but not more than 800, the maximum permitted under an existing pact.
The uproar over Uribe’s strategy could spoil Obama’s efforts to improve ties with Latin America while carrying on the war on drugs, which critics say has failed.
Obama won praise for condemning a military coup in June that ousted Honduras’ left-wing president, but some have faulted him for not taking a more active role in talks to reinstate the deposed leader, Manuel Zelaya.
Even Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the prominent moderate in the region, has expressed concern over the U.S.-Colombia talks on an expanded American troop presence.
Uribe met yesterday with another moderate, Chile’s centre-left President Michelle Bachelet, whose government was more restrained.
“The decisions that every country takes are sovereign and must be respected,” Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez told reporters.
In Peru, the world’s No. 2 cocaine producer, Uribe received support from President Alan Garcia, a pro-Washington conservative who is one of his few allies in the mainly left-leaning region.
Uribe was also scheduled to visit Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina.
The Colombian president, who is deciding whether to run for a third term, has tense relations with Ecuador and Venezuela and is not visiting their leaders on his tour.
