US plans to divide Latin America frustrated by Federico Fuentes, Caracas

Reeling from the blow that it received in the aftermath of the Colombian military’s illegal incursion on March 1 into Ecuador — which resulted in the brutal massacre of a number of civilians and members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), including its chief negotiator Raul Reyes — US imperialism has once again raised the ante in its struggle to undermine the growing process of Latin American integration.

Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, led by President Hugo Chavez whose government is spearheading the push to unite Latin American nations to counter US domination, is being specifically targeted. “The region is facing an increasingly stark choice: to quietly accept the vision of the terrorists and the demagogues, or to actively support democratic leaders”, US President George Bush stated on March 12.

Bush said his government was studying whether or not Venezuela should be added to its list of countries that “sponsor terrorism”. In Washington’s Orwellian world view — where war is peace and elected leaders are dictators — his comments were aimed at Venezuela’s democratically-elected government that is offering its services to assist with a negotiated peaceful solution to Colombia’s more than four decade-long civil war. Venezuela’s representative in the Organization of American States (OAS), Jorge Valero, hit back that same day, calling the US government “the terrorist government par excellence”.

Valero argued it was “an absolutely stupid thing to say from the government of Mr Bush … that practices state terrorism, that has invaded Iraq and Afghanistan without respect for international law, that commits genocidal practices in various parts of the world, that has invaded Latin American and Caribbean countries …”

Having viewed Latin America as its own backyard for decades, Washington is becoming increasingly concerned about developments south of its border. Its biggest headache is Venezuela, whose government has been making important headway in bring together governments of Latin America, as well as undermining capitalism inside Venezuela.

Washington has waged a constant public campaign (similar to its campaign against Iraq before the invasion) attempting to link Venezuela with narcotrafficking, terrorism, promoting an arms race, money laundering and threats to regional security. US-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger argued on the Venezuelan TV show La Hojilla that this campaign is aimed at containing Chavez’s influence and undermining Latin American integration — a process aided by the election of a number of governments that, to varying degrees, have proven willing to exercise independence from Washington and pursue closer regional collaboration.

For Dario Azzellini, author of several books about US military intervention into the region, Colombia’s illegal cross-border attack (publicly supported by the US government, which funds and arms the Colombian military) was the first step in carrying out more serious military infractions across its border in order to provoke a response from Venezuela and lay the blame for the subsequent conflict at their feet.

“Their aim is to create massive destabilisation in a region where Colombia would play a similar role to that of Israel in the Middle East”, Azzellini told Green Left Weekly. “The Colombian government said that they had the coordinates of Reyes whereabouts for month, during which we can suppose that he moved between Colombian, Venezuelan and Ecuadorian territory as part of the current negotiations by the FARC in releasing prisoners.

So the question is why did they choose to carry it out in Ecuador? “It was a test, they wanted to do it in Ecuadorian territory and not in Venezuela to see what the international reaction would be.” Luis Bilbao, director of Latin American magazine America XXI, told GLW US imperialism had two aims in mind with Colombia’s attack (which was clearly coordinated with the US) — put a halt to the hopes for humanitarian accord with the FARC, who only days before had released four prisoners unilaterally, and sabotage the growing South American convergence.

Finding a political solution to Colombia’s current conflict is a danger to Washington, which has used it as justification to build up their military presence in Colombia. This is why the issue of peace in Colombia is so closely intertwined with the process of Latin American integration. Colombia's attack came just days before global protests in favour of a peaceful solution to Colombia's civil war and against state and paramilitary violence, which targets political activists, with more trade unionists killed in Colombia every year than any other country.

On March 6, hundreds of thousands marched across Colombia, defying threats of reprisals from paramilitaries. Associated Press reported on March 14 that six organisers of the march had been murdered, and two dozen more received death threats from the Black Eagles death squad. Moreover, Bilbao pointed out that in the immediate aftermath of this event, it seemed unthinkable that the meeting of the South American Community of Nations (Unasur, formed in April 2002 with the aim of creating a European Union-style body across South America) that had been scheduled to take place in Colombia at the end of the month could have gone ahead.

Such a turn of events would suit Washington, as the development of Unasur threatens the ability of the US to exert its control over the region on behalf of US corporate interests. Bilbao argued that the action was nonetheless a big mistake on the part of Colombia. Bilbao argued that “they didn’t attack Venezuela”, as Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolas Maduro had stated Venezuela expected, “because of the firm stance that Venezuela has taken and instead attacked Ecuador expecting a timid response … setting a precedent for further repeat actions in Ecuador and to extend this to Venezuela”.

However the firm stance by both Ecuador and Venezuela — both of whose governments broke diplomatic ties and moved troops to their Colombian borders — put Colombia on the back foot. In fact, rather than reverse the trend towards integration, the response to Colombia’s attack could mark an important regional realignment — assisting the process of regional integration. The most significant event was the summit of the Group of Rio held on March 6 and 7.

Televised live across the whole continent, representatives of all Latin American governments debated the issue without the presence of the US government. After a fiery debate, the meeting came to a unanimous decision to reject the actions of the Colombian government and any further violation of the sovereignty of another country. Crucially, the vote was a rejection of the doctrine of “preventive war” that the US has pushed since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Ecuador and Colombia are pushing for the March 17 meeting of the OAS (of which the US is a member) to ratify the Group of Rio’s motion. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has stated bluntly that if the OAS meeting did not condemn the aggression, that it should be thrown “in the dustbin of history”. Arguing that it would be “difficult for the US government to oppose such a resolution”, Valero asserted that “I don’t believe the United States has sufficient strength to crush the will of the Rio Group countries”.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #744 19 March 2008.

Colombia retreats as Correa and Chavez stand firm by

Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced the Colombian state as a “terrorist state”, and said it had become “the Israel of Latin America”, following the Colombian military’s bombing of Ecuadorian territory on March 1 that killed up to 21 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Chavez argued the US government was behind Colombia’s actions.

The illegal assault, which violated Ecuador’s sovereignty and was described by Chavez as a “cowardly murder”, came just days after Venezuela led a mission that received the unilateral handover of four prisoners held by the FARC. Venezuela and Ecuador both expelled their respective Colombian ambassadors and moved troops to the Colombian border as defensive measures. Chavez declared that if Colombia launched such an assault within Venezuela, it would be considered an act of war. Colombia responded by claiming to have found documents on a laptop that survived the bombing of the FARC camp that prove that both the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan governments are supporting the FARC (to the tune of US$300 million in the case of Chavez).

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe even threatened to take Chavez to the International Criminal Court at the Hague for “sponsoring genocide”, according to a March 6 Reuters report. A March 6 Venezuelanalysis.com article reported that left-wing Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa “strengthened his political alliance” with the Chavez government during his trip to Caracas the previous day.

Correa strongly condemned the Colombian government, declaring: “Ecuador has been bombarded by an aggressive, warmongering government [whose] lies pull them down …” Correa and Chavez signed documents to have Venezuela import food from Ecuador that it previously imported from Colombia, with which Venezuela cut commercial ties.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also announced the cutting of diplomatic ties with Colombia, according to Venezuelanlaysis.com, “in solidarity with the Ecuadorian people”.

Venezuelanalysis.com reported on March 5 that an emergency gathering of the Organization of American States had passed a motion opposing Colombia’s violation of international law and Ecuadorian sovereignty. US President George Bush, however, publicly backed Colombia’s actions and accused Chavez of “provocative maneuvers”, according a March 4 Reuters report.

The US military would neitherconfirm or deny allegations it was involved in the attack. Increasingly isolated over its assault, Colombia has been forced to beat a retreat. Reuters reported on March 8 that by the end of the OAS summit, a formal ending of the dispute appeared to have been negotiated, with Uribe shaking hands for the camera with Correa and Chavez — two men only days before he had accused of active collaboration with the FARC and, in the case of Chavez, threatened to charge with war crimes.

According to a March 8 BBC News report, Correa declared: “With the commitment of never attacking a brother country again and by asking forgiveness, we can consider this very serious incident resolved.” Part of the problem for Colombia, and its US backers, is the blatantly dodgy nature of the evidence supposedly found on the laptop supposedly rescued from the bombed FARC camp inside Ecuador.

Colombia claimed to have retrieved documents that reveal close links with the FARC by the Correa and Chavez governments. Colombia even claimed to have found a document providing evidence that the FARC had purchased 50kg of uranium with which to make a “dirty bomb”. BoRev.net, which is dedicated to covering the anti-Venezuela bias in the Western media, responded by labelling the computer alleged to have been found the “Miracle Laptop”.

The laptop not only somehow survived the cluster bombing, it also happened to contain ready made documents allegedly proving previously unfounded allegations against Venezuela by Colombian and US officials — both miraculous events. The FARC leadership appear to have spoken of extremely damaging highly sensitive information without recourse to code.

It is also impossible — short of divine intervention — to make a dirty bomb unless the uranium is enriched, and Colombia has stopped short of alleging the FARC have a nuclear reactor hidden in the jungle. Even the US government baulked at the dirty bomb claim, suggesting instead that perhaps the FARC aimed to simply sell the uranium for a profit. Most ludicrous of all was the attempt by Uribe, who leads a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records and has personal ties to death squads, to use these questionable documents as the basis for his threat to take Chavez to the Hague.

The threat was widely-reported without question by the corporate media, which appears to operate on the principle of guilty until declared innocent by the US State Department. Colombia may be in retreat internationally, however it appears determined to continue escalating its war internally. US imperialism can also be guaranteed to continue finding ways to seek to destablise Latin America.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #743 12 March 2008.

The Raid on Ecuador, Underestimating Rafael Correa By FIDEL CASTRO

Rafael Correa

I remember when Rafael Correa visited us, months before the electoral campaign when he was thinking of running as a candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador. He had been the Minister of the Economy in the government of Alfredo Palacio, a surgeon with professional prestige who had also visited us as Vice President, before becoming the President in an unexpected situation that took place in Ecuador. He had been receptive to a program of ophthalmologic operations that we offered him as a form of cooperation. There were good relations between our two governments.

A while earlier Correa had resigned from the Ministry of the Economy. He was unhappy with what he called administrative corruption instigated by Oxy, a foreign company that explored and invested important sums of money, but was holding on to four out of every five barrels of oil that it extracted. He didn't talk about nationalization, but about taxing them heavily; these taxes would be assigned in advance to specific social investments. He had already approved the measures and a judge had declared them to be valid.

Since the word "nationalize" had not been mentioned, I thought he felt apprehensive about the concept. It didn't surprise me because he had graduated as an economist with much acclaim from a well-known U.S. university. I didn't bother getting into much depth; I bombarded him with questions from the arsenal accumulated in the struggle against the Latin American foreign debt in 1985 and of Cuba's own experience.

There are high-risk investments that use sophisticated technology and that no small nation like Cuba or Ecuador could take on.

Since this was already in 2006 and we were determined to promote the energy revolution, --ours was the first country on the planet to proclaim this as a vital issue for humankind-- I had dealt with the subject particularly emphatically. But I halted, as I understood one of his reasons.

I related to him the conversation I had had a while ago with the president of REPSOL, a Spanish company. This company, associated with other international companies, would undertake an expensive operation to drill the ocean floor, more than 2000 meters down, using sophisticated technology, in Cuba's jurisdictional waters. I asked the head of the Spanish company: How much is an exploratory well worth? I ask you this because we would like to participate, even if it is for one percent of the total cost and we would like to know what you want to do with our oil.
Correa, for his part, had told me that for every one hundred dollars taken out by the companies, only twenty remained in the country; it didn't even get into the budget, he said; it was left in a separate fund for just about anything other than improving the living conditions of the people.

I abolished the fund, he told me, and directed 40 percent towards education and health, technological and highway development, and the rest towards buying back the debt if the price was favorable, and if not, investing it in something more useful. Before, every year we had to buy a portion of that debt which was becoming more expensive.

In the case of Ecuador ¬he added¬ oil policies verged on treason against the country. Why do they do it? I asked him. Is it because they are afraid of the Yankees or due to unbearable pressure? He answered: If they have a Minister of the Economy who tells them privatization would improve efficiency, you can just imagine. I didn't do that.

I encourage him to go on and he calmly explains. The foreign company Oxy is one that has broken its contract and according to Ecuadorian law it requires an expiration date. It means that the oil field operated by this company must go over to the State, but because of Yankee pressure the government does not dare to occupy it; a situation is created which is not contemplated by the legislation. The law just states that an expiration date must be set, and nothing more. The judge at the court of first instance at that moment was the president of PETROECUADOR and he made it happen. I was a member of PETROECUADOR and they called an emergency meeting to expel him from his position. I didn't attend and they couldn't fire him. The judge declared the expiration date.

What did the Yankees want? I asked him. They wanted a fine, he quickly replied. Listening to him I realized that I had underestimated him.

I was in a hurry because of a great number of commitments. I invited him to sit in on a meeting with a large group of highly qualified Cuban professionals who were leaving for Bolivia to be part of the Medical Brigade; it had staff for more than 30 hospitals including 19 surgical positions that could do more than 130 thousand ophthalmologic operations per year; all in the manner of free cooperation. Ecuador possesses three similar centers with six ophthalmologic positions.

Dinner with the Ecuadorian economist took place into the morning hours of February 9, 2006. There were scarcely any view points that I didn't cover. I even spoke to him about the very harmful mercury that modern industry scatters throughout the planet's oceans. Consumerism was of course a subject that I emphasized; the high cost of the kilowatt/hour in the thermoelectric plants; the differences between socialist and communist forms of distribution, the role of money, the trillions spent on advertising which people had no choice but to pay for in the prices of goods, and the studies made by university social brigades who discovered, among the 500 thousand families in the capital, the number of elderly folk lived alone. I explained the stage of university courses for all that we were involved in.
We became friends even though he perhaps received the impression that I was self-sufficient. If that happened, it was truly not my intention.

Since that time I have observed his every step: the electoral process, focusing on the concrete problems of Ecuadorians and the people's victory over the oligarchy.
In the history of our peoples there are many things that bring us together. Sucre was always a highly admired figure, along with The Liberator Bolivar; as Marti said, what he hasn't done in America remains to be done, and as Neruda exclaimed, Bolivar awakens every hundred years.

Imperialism has just committed a monstrous crime in Ecuador. Deadly bombs were dropped in the early morning hours on a group of men and women who, almost without exception, were asleep. That has been deduced by all the official reports right from the beginning. Any concrete accusations against that group of human beings do not justify that action. They were Yankee bombs, guided by Yankee satellites.
Absolutely no one has the right to kill in cold blood. If we accept that imperial method of warfare and barbarism, Yankee bombs directed by satellites could fall on any group of Latin American men and women, in the territory of any country, war or no war. The fact that this happened on undisputed Ecuadorian territory is an aggravating circumstance.

We are not an enemy of Colombia. Previous reflections and exchanges demonstrate how much of an effort we have made, both the current President of the Council of State of Cuba and I, to abide by a declared policy of principles and peace, proclaimed years ago in our relations with the rest of the Latin American states.
Today, with everything at risk, we have not been transformed into belligerent people. We are determined supporters of that unity among peoples which Marti named Our America.

If we keep quiet we shall become accomplices. Today they would like to have our friend, the economist and President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, seated in the dock; this is something we couldn't even conceive that morning of February 9, 2006. At that time it seemed that my imagination was capable of embracing all kinds of dreams and risks, but never anything like what has occurred in the early morning of Saturday March 1, 2008.

Correa has in his hands the few survivors and the rest of the bodies. The two which are missing prove that Ecuadorian territory was occupied by troops that crossed the border. Now he can cry out like Emile Zola: J'accuse!

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