Tensions in the Western Hemisphere
A year ago tomorrow, George Bush addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to lay out his administration’s vision for hemispheric policy. The Americas, Bush suggested, were “becoming a community linked by common values and shared interests in the close bonds of family and friendship.” The rising tensions in South America this week seem to reveal the kind of family feud that some of us are more accustomed to. Floundering attempts by both Venezuela and the U.S. to advance regional integration under their own leadership have led instead to the hardening of lines of demarcation. Contrary to earlier rhetoric of hemispheric unity, mounting hostilities are hardly surprising as both camps seek unity through positing the threat of the other.
After losing the constitutional referendum last December, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez has spent much of this year aiming verbal attacks at the U.S. At the 6th Summit of the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA) Chávez proposed that the planned positive social and economic agenda be supported by a collective security agreement and integration of armed forces. The pretext was an ‘anti-imperialist’ alliance against their common enemy: “the empire of the United States.” The Chávez government has, of late, been even more vocal in his warnings about planned U.S. aggression. The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicolás Maduro, recently said that the Bush administration “has not given up nor will give up trying to destabilize our country and return us to the position of oil dependent colony.” For those doubting any direct action from “the U.S. empire”, Chávez argued that it “is creating the conditions to generate an armed conflict between Colombia and Venezuela.” Chávez has branded Colombia a ‘terrorist state’ and its President Álvaro Uribe a ‘criminal’, but there is no doubt in his mind that Colombia, as the ‘Israel of Latin America’, is clearly an American proxy. Whether from the U.S. or Colombia, he declared that the ‘anti-imperialist’ alliance would unite and resist any aggression.
So when the Fuerzas Militares de Colombia launched a strike within the territory of Ecuador that killed a number of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) rebels, including the prominent leader Raúl Reyes, the rallying calls of the alliance have been sounded. The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, was quick to denounce the attack and after rejecting the Colombian justification, he expelled the Colombian Ambassador from Quito and deployed troops to the border. The principle of non-intervention has long roots in the Western Hemisphere and the denuciation of the Colombian violation was echoed by Correa’s allies, but this has also offered Chávez an opportunity to reinforce the solidarity of the ‘left-alliance’. Sharing Fidel Castro’s blaming of the incursion on the “genocidal plans of the Yankee empire,” Chávez promptly closed the Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá, severed diplomatic relations with Colombia and moved troops to the border. The construction of the ideal Bolivarian regional identity has proven to be difficult of late, particularly as most of these American Republics in the alliance rely so heavily on maintaining economic ties with the ‘criminal’ Colombia and ‘imperial’ U.S., but Chávez has smartly argued that it has only been undermined by Colombian and U.S. aggression. Chávez draws the chains of equivalence between the allies through their common opposition to this hostile threat.
The Bush administration has remained quiet on the recent tensions and it is left to speculation about how much it was involved in or had knowledge of the latest operation against FARC, but it has certainly not been a positive force for regional unity. After its disastrous failure to pass the Free Trade Area of the Americas and in the face of an alternative vision for the region, the Bush administration has quietly abandoned any strategy to encourage hemispheric solidarity under its leadership. The projection of a united hemisphere with common aims has become increasingly harder to maintain and the Bush administration has instead focused on building its own regional alliance system. Despite the rhetoric of commonanity, Bush’s address last year preceded a tour to five regional allies, including Colombia, that would serve as a foundation for developing ‘special-relationships.’ In the ensuing year, the administration has focused its hemispheric resources on a development programme based on bilateral free trade agreements with these key allies. The Bush administration continues to adopt a hemispheric discourse, but it, like Chávez, has begun breaking it down with positive reinforcements of the democratic and progressive nature of allies like Colombia that is contrary to that of the ‘troublesome’ neighbours.
A year ago tomorrow, George Bush addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to lay out his administration’s vision for hemispheric policy. The Americas, Bush suggested, were “becoming a community linked by common values and shared interests in the close bonds of family and friendship.” The rising tensions in South America this week seem to reveal the kind of family feud that some of us are more accustomed to. Floundering attempts by both Venezuela and the U.S. to advance regional integration under their own leadership have led instead to the hardening of lines of demarcation. Contrary to earlier rhetoric of hemispheric unity, mounting hostilities are hardly surprising as both camps seek unity through positing the threat of the other.
After losing the constitutional referendum last December, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez has spent much of this year aiming verbal attacks at the U.S. At the 6th Summit of the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA) Chávez proposed that the planned positive social and economic agenda be supported by a collective security agreement and integration of armed forces. The pretext was an ‘anti-imperialist’ alliance against their common enemy: “the empire of the United States.” The Chávez government has, of late, been even more vocal in his warnings about planned U.S. aggression. The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicolás Maduro, recently said that the Bush administration “has not given up nor will give up trying to destabilize our country and return us to the position of oil dependent colony.” For those doubting any direct action from “the U.S. empire”, Chávez argued that it “is creating the conditions to generate an armed conflict between Colombia and Venezuela.” Chávez has branded Colombia a ‘terrorist state’ and its President Álvaro Uribe a ‘criminal’, but there is no doubt in his mind that Colombia, as the ‘Israel of Latin America’, is clearly an American proxy. Whether from the U.S. or Colombia, he declared that the ‘anti-imperialist’ alliance would unite and resist any aggression.
So when the Fuerzas Militares de Colombia launched a strike within the territory of Ecuador that killed a number of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) rebels, including the prominent leader Raúl Reyes, the rallying calls of the alliance have been sounded. The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, was quick to denounce the attack and after rejecting the Colombian justification, he expelled the Colombian Ambassador from Quito and deployed troops to the border. The principle of non-intervention has long roots in the Western Hemisphere and the denuciation of the Colombian violation was echoed by Correa’s allies, but this has also offered Chávez an opportunity to reinforce the solidarity of the ‘left-alliance’. Sharing Fidel Castro’s blaming of the incursion on the “genocidal plans of the Yankee empire,” Chávez promptly closed the Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá, severed diplomatic relations with Colombia and moved troops to the border. The construction of the ideal Bolivarian regional identity has proven to be difficult of late, particularly as most of these American Republics in the alliance rely so heavily on maintaining economic ties with the ‘criminal’ Colombia and ‘imperial’ U.S., but Chávez has smartly argued that it has only been undermined by Colombian and U.S. aggression. Chávez draws the chains of equivalence between the allies through their common opposition to this hostile threat.
The Bush administration has remained quiet on the recent tensions and it is left to speculation about how much it was involved in or had knowledge of the latest operation against FARC, but it has certainly not been a positive force for regional unity. After its disastrous failure to pass the Free Trade Area of the Americas and in the face of an alternative vision for the region, the Bush administration has quietly abandoned any strategy to encourage hemispheric solidarity under its leadership. The projection of a united hemisphere with common aims has become increasingly harder to maintain and the Bush administration has instead focused on building its own regional alliance system. Despite the rhetoric of commonanity, Bush’s address last year preceded a tour to five regional allies, including Colombia, that would serve as a foundation for developing ‘special-relationships.’ In the ensuing year, the administration has focused its hemispheric resources on a development programme based on bilateral free trade agreements with these key allies. The Bush administration continues to adopt a hemispheric discourse, but it, like Chávez, has begun breaking it down with positive reinforcements of the democratic and progressive nature of allies like Colombia that is contrary to that of the ‘troublesome’ neighbours.
The Bush administration has worked through its public diplomacy to avoid making too many of the negative associations to the opposing coalition in Latin America. But it is becoming gradually more difficult to maintain their self-portrayal as benign collaborator. If the regional divide widens, the U.S. has already made it clear which side it stands on and will have to find suitable justification. Exactly 60 years ago the U.S. faced similar regional conflict; the Secretary of State George C. Marshall hoped to maintain a hemispheric unity and stability that would allow him to concentrate U.S. resources on the Cold War priority area of Europe. The Central American dictators, Anastosio Somoza of Nicaragua and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, hoped that they would gain U.S. support in their clash with progressive American Republics, who were hostile to their repressive regimes, by trying to establish links between their foes and Communism. Whilst the rising tide of revolution in Latin America led later U.S. administrations to accept similar explanations of the barrier to hemispheric unity, Marshall rejected the specter of international Communism. Today, the Uribe government is presenting Chávez and Correa’s links to ‘terrorism’. Do not look to the Bush administration for any clarity.
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