Colombia to build new military base on Venezuelan border

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia to build new military base on Venezuelan border
AFP
December 20, 2009, 8:31 am

BOGOTA (AFP) - Colombia has announced it will build a new military base near its border with Venezuela, in a move likely to further strain its tense ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Friday that the base, located on the Guajira peninsula near the city of Nazaret, would have up to 1,000 troops. Two air battalions would also be activated at other border areas.

"It is a strategic point from a defense point of view," Silva said.
The 1.5-million-dollar facility, paid for with Colombian tax funds, would also have a care facility for indigenous Wayuu people who live in the area, he added.

Army Commander General Oscar Gonzalez meanwhile announced Saturday that six air battalions were being activated, including two on the border with Venezuela.
Tensions between Venezuela and Colombia have been spurred by a US deal with Bogota allowing US forces to run anti-drug operations from Colombian bases.

More:
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6607053/colombia-to-build-new-military-base-on-venezuelan-border/

[Downwinder]

1. Going to keep the drugs in Colombia? n/t

[Braulio]

2. nah, it's to make sure they can respond if Venezuela attacks

Colombia and Venezuela are isolated by forbidding mountains, or jungle. But in the North the mountains die near the coast, and the border in the Guajira is just scrub brush. Given Venezuela's aggressive stance (Chavez saying prepare for war blah blah), it's reasonable for Colombia to station troops where they can respond in case the Venezuelans do invade Colombia. Also, the offshore rights are disputed, which means the Colombians may want to respond should Venezuelans enter waters they think are Colombian waters. I would put a sound ground to air missile battery complex there, plus a base where helicopters can fly out of to knock out the Russian tanks Chavez is buying. In a fight between American manufactured helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles, and Russian tanks, the helicopters win.

[Downwinder]

3. Colombia is buying million dollar plus APC's to fight the tanks. n/t

[COLGATE4]

4. You're absolutely right

In addition, the base will provide medical services for the indigenous Wayuu tribe - an important mission in this very isolated region.

[Peace Patriot]

5. You've got to be kidding me. Really. Please tell me you meant this ironically.

The Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads have been murdering, 'disappearing' and displacing the Wayuu since 2004. Almost a hundred Wayuu have been killed. Hundreds have fled across the border to Venezuela for safety.

The Colombian government is CLEANSING the area of indigenous tribesmen and peasant farmers and fishermen, for Colombia/US military and US 4th Fleet naval operations off the Guajira Peninsula, which juts out into the Caribbean potentially controlling entrance to Venezuela's harbors and its oil reserves and facilities on the Caribbean coast. Look at a map!

And the Colombian government has no more interest in the health of Wayuu tribespeople than Joe Lieberman does in yours or mine.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Some links about the attacks on the Wahuu

(Recent--2009 report)
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/2698-un-qconcernedq-about-violence-against-colombias-wayuu.html

See "Colombian armed conflict" (down the page)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Guajira_Department

(discusses the cleansing in nearly by Arauca, as well as in Guajira)
http://www.unhcr.org/40ee707711.html

http://us.oneworld.net/node/88496
http://intercontinentalcry.org/colombia-urgent-action-for-wayuu-people/

[Judi Lynn]

7. Here's one I haven't seen earlier: In Colombia, paramilitary gangs control much of Guajira state

From the Los Angeles Times
In Colombia, paramilitary gangs control much of Guajira state
Many of the former self-protection forces have turned to extortion. The Wayuu tribe's unique position makes it an attractive target.
By Chris Kraul
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 31, 2008

RIOHACHA, COLOMBIA — Omaira Arismendi's assassin didn't get very far. After he shot the grocery store owner, neighboring merchants pummeled the thug to within an inch of his life.

But the seeds of terror were sown in the ramshackle maze of shops called New Market, the largest outdoor bazaar in this city on Colombia's Caribbean coast.

Arismendi, a retired bank branch manager who opened the store OK Groceries to keep busy, was killed this month after refusing to make extortion payments to the Black Eagles, the gang believed to control much of the commerce in Riohacha, prosecutors said.

The killing of Arismendi was a reminder that even after 31,000 fighters laid down their arms in a government-sponsored demobilization, much of Colombia is still infested with paramilitary gangs.

"The only thing that has changed is the name," said one dispirited city official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Before, they were paramilitaries; now, they are Black Eagles. They act and behave the same."

The right-wing militias were formed in the 1980s by farmers and cattlemen as self-protection forces against leftist rebels who have fought the government for decades. They later morphed into criminal organizations that looted government coffers, extorted money from local and multinational businesses and made massive land grabs.

Today, the bands lord over much of Guajira state, whose desolate flatlands and hidden bays are ideal for drug trafficking. But Guajira is attractive to the militias for another reason: It is dominated by the Wayuu, Colombia's largest native tribe.

Many Wayuu reservations straddle the Colombia-Venezuela border, and tribal members are eligible for dual citizenship. As a result, Colombia and Venezuela levy only token customs duty on goods that Wayuu move from one side of the border to the other.

The Black Eagles and other gangs now control much of the cross-border trade that was once the exclusive province of the Wayuu, including incoming Venezuelan gasoline, groceries and dry goods and outgoing Colombian sugar and dairy products.

An attorney with the national public defender's office here says paramilitary gangs' ambitions encompass not just illegal trafficking of drugs and arms but legitimate commerce throughout Guajira state, including farming, construction and transport.

"Everyone pays them the 'tax' so they can work in peace," said the attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Nearly everyone, that is. Arismendi, 54, a single Wayuu mother who put her son through medical school, was the third New Market store owner killed in two years. The others were also members of the tribe.

Extorting monthly payments from store owners such as Arismendi, whose inventory included Venezuelan dry goods, is a way for the gangs to "tax" the flow of goods.

"It has nothing to do with the Wayuu," the city official said, trying to explain the gangs' grip on the state, which has a 200-mile coastline and a shared border with Venezuela. "It has to do with geography."

Earlier this decade, the Wayuu's special trade status became an irresistible target for Rodrigo Tovar, alias Jorge 40, the brutal leader of the Northern Block militia. The plum: the deal the tribe signed with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that gave the Wayuu the right to import 3 million gallons of gas a month, for which they paid as little as 20 cents a gallon. These days, that gas is resold for 10 times that amount.

That meant multimillion-dollar profits for the taking. By 2004, Tovar had seized control of the Awatayacoop, a cooperative formed in the border city of Maicao to manage the Wayuu's sale of imported Venezuelan gasoline, prosecutors say.

When the cooperative's board of directors resisted Jorge 40's control, one Wayuu board member was killed. Four others promptly resigned.

Tovar surrendered in the 2006 demobilization, but sources close to the cooperative say gangs are still in control of gasoline imports.

"The Wayuu never see any of the profits. They are paid salaries, and that's it," one cooperative member said.

Nearly as attractive to the paramilitaries were the enormous profits the Wayuu reaped by bringing in discounted Venezuelan grocery items intended for Chavez's cut-rate Mercal retail chain. The Wayuu repackaged much of the items as Colombian goods, and sold them at huge markups. The militias get their piece of the pie by extorting money from store owners.

In testimony shortly before he was extradited to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges, Tovar admitted ordering the April 2004 massacre of 15 Wayuu at Bahia Portete; 600 were forced to abandon their homes, prosecutors say.

Tovar testified that the Wayuu were killed because they were leftist sympathizers. But prosecutors said they believed the massacre and others like it were ordered to clear the area of witnesses to drug-trafficking activities.

More:
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/itsonlyfair/latimes0468.html



Rodrigo Tovar, AUC, renamed as Black Eagles ("Águilas Negras")

[Zorro]

8. Good

Colombia should do something to counter Chavez' provocative saber rattling.

[Downwinder]

9. Using U.S. logic, Chavez would be justified in launching a

preemptive punitive strike if he feel threatened.

[Zorro]

12. I would encourage him to do so

[Downwinder]

13. Send him your address, does not have to be where the threat

originates from and is irrespective of national borders, or even if there is a legitimate threat.

[Zorro]

14. I'm a perceived threat to Hugo?

You flatter me.

[Downwinder]

15. I qualified it, "by U.S. logic" legitimate is not necessary.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Why? nt

[Downwinder]

11. The Preemptive Logic used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia. n/t

[Braulio]

16. My analysis shows

Chavez is trying to inflate a foreign threat because the Venezuelan economy is in dire straits.

The US focus is evidently the FARC, not attacking Venezuela. To stop tankers from going in and out of Venezuela, all the US has to do is put a fleet offshore Venezuela, and tell the shippers not to dare send their ships in. That would stop tanker traffic cold because insurance companies woulnd't insure the cargoes.

[Peace Patriot]

17. The Venezuelan economy is doing quite well, especially compared to the U.S.

I don't know why you keep saying this--that Venezuela's economy is "in dire straits." It's simply not true.