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LATIN AMERICA |
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US
Role Under Spotlight in Venezuela Crisis
with Colombia
By Jeremy Morgan
CARACAS -- A former Venezuelan defense and
foreign minister warned Thursday that his
country could face defeat in a war with
neighboring Colombia, and he claimed the
reason for this was that Washington would
actively back Bogota in an armed clash with
Caracas because of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez's policy of declared hostility
towards the United States.
In a lengthy interview with the conservative
national broadsheet newspaper, El Universal,
Fernando Ochoa Antich said Venezuela would
"lack the military capacity" in an armed
conflict with Colombia. For that reason, he
was reported to have added, Venezuela had to
avoid a confrontation and pursue "prudent
policies" to lessen tension and resolve
disputes by "peaceful means, negotiations
and agreement."
The latest in an ever longer series of spats
between Chavez and Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe was sparked by the Colombian
leader's agreement allowing the United
States to use 7 military bases in his
country. Ochoa Antich cautioned that the
"alliance" between Colombia and the United
States could mean that Washington might take
Bogota's side in a conflict with Caracas.
Chavez has condemned the agreement on the
bases as a threat by the "Empire" -- his
preferred epithet for the United States --
to the region as a whole and Venezuela in
particular. For years, the populist
nationalist leader has insisted that senior
United States officials -- whom he has never
named -- were plotting to asassinate him,
invade Venezuela and seize its oil wealth.
Washington denies any such idea is or ever
was afoot.
Ochoa Antich implicitly endorsed
Washington's repeated denials, but did so on
the grounds that the military bases
agreement with Colombia was aimed at
strengthening the battle against drugs
barons rather than putting a brake on "Chavista
expansionism." As to that last factor, he
went on, "the United States still hasn't
given it the importance that it has in
reality."
According to this thesis, Chavez wasn't
actually the target of the agreement on
United States use of the bases. "The massive
presence of the North American military at
the bases doesn't represent a threat against
Venezuela, unless there's a conflict between
Venezuela and Colombia," Ochoa Antich
argued.
"To suppose that this military presence is
going to put in peril the Bolivarian
Revolution is an exagerration of President
Chavez that has no substance in reality," he
continued. "The Fourth Fleet and bases in
the Caribbean are enough to intervene
against Venezuela if that's the case. The
objective of the bases is the struggle
against drugs trafficking."
Ochoa Antich said that Chavez and Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe had used the media to
offend each other during the last two or
three years, although he felt this was true
"perhaps more of Chavez than Uribe."
In his view, Colombia had come to be seen in
Caracas as an obstacle to consolidating the
"expansionist" foreign policy of a
Venezuelan government that wanted to promote
"revolutionary action" in the neighboring
country.
As a result, he continued, the normal
mechanisms for resolving differences no
longer functioned. There was a "mutual
isolation" between the two leaders and he
doubted that the will to end the crisis
existed.
The former minister warned that the disuse
into which peaceful means of resolving
disputes had fallen carried the risk that
the latest spat could get out of hand. This,
he said, was something that the Venezuelan
High Command had to take into consideration
and "evaluate the problem in an objective
manner."
The two countries' military capabilities
used to be similar to each other and they
counted on the neutrality of the United
States between the two, and in turn this had
made for the avoidance of conflict, Ochoa
Antich argued. But that had now changed
because of "Chavez's wrong foreign policy
and his exagerrated confrontation with the
United States," he added.
Venezuela had always been an ally and oil
supplier of the United States "but at this
moment is considered an enemy of United
States interests," he said. In contrast,
Colombia had strengthened its "political and
military alliance" with the United States.
For Ochoa Antich, the upshot of that was a
confrontation between Venezuela and Colombia
was not only between the two countries but
one in which Venezuela was against Colombia
and the United States.
In the past, economic limitations had
constricted the ability to wage war for any
length of time in the cases of both Colombia
and Venezuela, he argued. But in the event
of war now, he claimed, Colombia would be
able to sustain a war effort "indefinitely"
given that its military capacity would be
"multiplied by North American support."
Amid all his dire tidings about where a war
could lead, Ochoa Antich suggested that
tension between the two South American
nations had eased with the prospect of a
possible mediation by President Inacio Lula
da Silva of Brazil. However, Chavez is
deemed to have subsequently closed the door
on any such option.
Similarly, speculation that he might be
softening his approach as tension mounts
drew a strong rebuff from Chavez.
On Wednesday night, Chavez insisted he
hadn't changed his position. Chavez insisted
that he'd always sought peace with Colombia
and blamed "media intrigue" for the reaction
to his call on the people last Sunday to
prepare for war.
"We, the Venezuelan military, are
pacificists and we prepare ourselves for war
precisely to assure the peace," he declared.
"That's what I said." His words had been
misconstrued as a call to war with Colombia,
and that was not what he had meant.
Chavez, for once, was clearly not going to
be persuaded by Ochoa Antich's
rationalization of the agreement on the
bases. He abruptly dismissed the idea that
these were to be used by the United States
to combat drugs trafficking as "false" and
"a lie." The accord, he claimed, was
intended to "put a spoke in the wheel" of
South American integration.
Another former defense minister, Retired
General Raùl Salazar, evidently hadn't
thought about the possibility of the United
States backing Bogota. He predicted that any
armed exchange between Venezuela and
Colombia would be short-lived, and wouldn't
last five days because the two countries
couldn't afford to finance it for any
longer. |
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