The 6th Defense Ministerial of the Americas involved military chiefs from every country in the Western Hemisphere except for Cuba. It took place November 17-19 in Quito, Ecuador. The meeting’s main theme was the continued expansion of U.S. military involvement in the region and the potential economic rewards that can follow closer “security cooperation” with U.S. imperialism.

Rumsfeld pressed for greater flexibility for U.S. forces and their allies in operating across borders. “There are ungoverned areas and the borders between countries have been used and they’re being used effectively against civil society,” he said. “No country,” Rumsfeld added, “can deal with these problems alone because these problems are not problems that are located and contained within national boundaries.”

“An obvious example is maritime security and cooperation,” he said, referring to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The White House is spearheading the PSI to give Washington and its allies the power to board any ship on the high seas that they deem is suspect of carrying cargo that can lead to the “proliferation” of so-called weapons of mass destruction

In November the governments of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Panama and 16 other countries participated in a U.S.-led military exercise in the Caribbean aimed at establishing new “rapid consent procedures” under which Washington and its allies carry out these high-seas operations.

In the meeting, U.S. government representatives also pointed to other examples of cooperation with U.S. forces in the region, including in the triple border region of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil; the increased U.S. spying and military operations supposedly aimed at combating “narcoterrorism” in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador; joint spying and patrols of South American airspace by Washington, Colombia, and Brazil; and joint U.S., Chilean, and Panamanian government operations at the Panama Canal allegedly aimed at preventing “terrorist” attacks.

Washington also highlighted the potential economic advantages for regimes in the region that cooperate with U.S. imperialism. The Defense Department worked with the Council of the Americas—a U.S.-based big-business grouping that focuses on expanding the penetration of finance capital into Latin America—to prepare a report for the meeting titled, “Fostering Regional Development by Securing the Hemispheric Investment Climate.”

The report asserted that “the greatest threat to democracy itself is the lack of hope citizens increasingly have that their lives will actually improve.” It postulated that opening Latin America wide to foreign investment by lowering trade barriers, along with an aggressive approach to transforming the region’s military and police forces to work more closely with Washington’s, is the road to economic stability. “Some nations like Chile are much stronger than others because they have stuck to a model of open market democracy,” the report asserted.

“Regional governments must rethink the role of standing militaries in the 21st century,” the report concluded. “The United States is obligated to ensure the full implementation of its own technical transfer regulations and laws. If different militaries are expected to work together to address cross-border threats, they must have access to similar technology and equipment to coordinate their efforts.”

In its coverage of the Quito summit, the Washington Post pointed to Colombia as one of the “examples of effective U.S. and Latin American cooperation on security.”

“In the late 1990s,” the Post said, “some human rights activists resisted U.S. engagement with abusive and corrupt military and police forces in Colombia. Had Washington listened, those forces today would be, at the very least, five years behind in their level of professionalism and effectiveness.”

According to the Post, Rumsfeld’s trip to Nicaragua and El Salvador prior to the Quito conference “sent a clear message to the region: Washington doesn’t forget those who cooperate on matters of security.”

At a national commando school in El Salvador, Rumsfeld awarded the bronze star to six Salvadoran soldiers who defended an ambushed convoy that was carrying officials of the U.S. occupation regime in Iraq in March. San Salvador, with 380 Special Forces soldiers in Iraq, is the only government in the Americas besides Washington with troops in Iraq. Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras all had detachments there earlier but have since pulled out.

Rumsfeld visited Nicaragua to press the government of President Enrique Bolaños to continue carrying out U.S. demands that it destroy a key component of the country’s strategic anti-aircraft defenses. Managua has agreed to demolish 2,000 surface-to-air missiles used to defend the country from airborne assaults by the U.S.-organized contras that attacked Nicaragua after a revolutionary government came to power in 1979.  
 
 
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