Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion military assistance package, is the most publicized aspect of U.S. military involvement in the region.

But the U.S. rulers are also moving to protect their interests by establishing a number of new bases, including semisecret facilities, and stationing an increasing number of its troops from the southern tip of Argentina to Paraguay and Peru.

In 2002 U.S. Congress approved the Bush administration’s Andean Regional Initiative as an expansion of Plan Colombia, initiated by the Clinton administration. The plan includes funding for Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela, with Colombia still receiving about half of the billion-dollar package.

Under the cover of combating the drug trade and carrying out a "war on terrorism," the U.S. government is carrying out this military buildup in anticipation of sharper resistance by workers and farmers over the coming years in response to the economic catastrophe that is gripping the region.

Under the Andean Initiative, U.S. troops are to train some 4,000 Colombian soldiers over the next couple of years in what Washington describes as counterinsurgency operations, which are directed against the antigovernment guerrilla organizations there. This move is part of an additional $94 million package approved by the Bush administration that will help finance a Colombian army brigade whose job is to guard U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum’s 500-mile pipeline in the northeastern part of the country.

Nearly half the oil imported by Washington now comes from the Americas, with Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador providing more than 2 million barrels per day, about 20 percent of U.S. imports.

An estimated 250-300 U.S. military personnel are officially stationed in Colombia.  
 
U.S. air base in Manta, Ecuador
In Ecuador the U.S. government has set up an air base in the town of Manta, signing a 10-year lease in 1999. Gen. Charles Wilhelm, then head of the U.S. Southern Command, called the base the Pentagon’s "number one priority" in the region--supposedly to combat drug trafficking--because it "enables us to achieve full coverage of Peru, Colombia, and...areas of Bolivia." Washington is upgrading the facility, spending millions on the construction of living quarters for 200 U.S. military and civilian contract personnel. In addition, U.S. Special Forces are operating together with Ecuadoran troops along the border with Colombia.

Manta is part of a larger network of Forward Operating Locations (FOL) designed to take the place of Howard Air Force Base in Panama, a facility that reverted to Panamanian sovereignty in 1999. In addition to the base in Ecuador, Washington was able to obtain military facilities in Aruba, Curacao, and Venezuela. The FOL airports remain officially in the hands of the host countries but in fact are controlled by the Pentagon. While under the terms of the agreements the U.S. forces are only permitted to participate in actions against "illegal narcotics activity," F-16 fighter jets have been reported along with military surveillance planes at the U.S.-used facilities in Aruba and Curacao.

Washington is also stepping up its military presence in the Southern Cone, focusing its propaganda campaign around a "terrorist threat" in the border area shared by Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay.

The Triple Border region is near areas that have simmered with worker and peasant protests in each of the countries--from protests by peasants in eastern Paraguay, to social explosions in northern Argentina, to land occupations by landless peasants in Brazil.

The Pentagon has established an unofficial military facility near the Triple Border city of Concepción, eastern Paraguay, under the pretext of helping peasants build health-care centers and other facilities. U.S. military personnel have joined with Paraguayan troops in carrying out "antiterrorist" exercises. Encouraged by Washington, the Paraguayan regime has targeted the Arab-Paraguayan community.

Not far away, in the northeastern Argentine province of Misiones, U.S. and Argentina military forces carried out jungle maneuvers in late October, stirring protests. One pretext used was that the U.S. marines were there "to combat the mosquito that carries dengue fever."

A group of teachers, workers, and students established a "Misiones Commission against the U.S. Intervention" to organize opposition to the military exercises.

A sticking point between the two governments prior to the maneuvers was Washington’s demand that Buenos Aires extend full immunity to U.S. troops taking part in exercises from facing any war crimes charges before the newly formed International Criminal Court. Carlos Ruckauf, Argentina’s foreign minister, rejected the U.S. demand and said his government would offer the same guarantees as in previous joint military maneuvers.  
 
U.S. facility in Tierra del Fuego
At the same time, plans have been under way to establish a U.S. military facility in the far southern tip of Argentina, Tierra del Fuego. Washington has used Argentina’s $141 billion foreign debt as a club to get the government in Buenos Aires to accede to its demands.

U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in January that Washington would be willing to financially assist the Argentine government in return for authorization to set up the base. In July the governor of Tierra del Fuego, Carlos Manfredotti, signed a decree authorizing use of a military installation by Washington, reportedly a surveillance station for its theater missile defense system. It will also detonate underground atomic bombs--but only for "peaceful ends." The teachers union of Tierra del Fuego has been leading a campaign against the U.S. base.

Washington is also pressing the governments of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile for greater access to bases and more joint military exercises.

In October some 750 U.S. soldiers, including 450 from the Special Forces, carried out the "Tamarugal Cabañas 2002" joint maneuvers with troops from nine South American countries in Pandehue, Chile.

In Bolivia, U.S. troops are helping construct several military bases, while peasant organizations have been campaigning against the presence of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency troops.  
 
‘Antidrug’ base in Peru
In Peru, U.S. military personnel are deployed at three U.S.-built radar stations. In addition, a semisecret U.S. base is operating in Iquitos, Peru.

In a May 7, 2001 article in the Washington Post, William Arkin wrote, "The military facility in Iquitos, Peru is not a U.S. airbase, nor does it appear in any list of U.S. military facilities. The Americans providing real-time tracking information to the Peruvian air force are not government or military personnel.

"So, who are the gaggle of Iquitos ‘contractors’ employed by a company named Aviation Development Corporation, a company which is located on Maxwell Air Force base in Montgomery, Alabama, but is not a part of the U.S. Air Force? Who are the contractors operating a specially outfitted Cessna Citation V surveillance plane that flies the U.S. flag but does not belong to the U.S. government? Who are the contractors operating from a hangar built by a Peruvian company paid by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? They are the fighters in our drug war!"

Titled "The Underground Military," the article points to the ways that Washington has covered up the real extent of its military involvement in South America.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home