NATO-Colombia Agreement presented before Congress for ratification

[Judi Lynn]

NATO-Colombia Agreement presented before Congress for ratification
posted by Charlie de Rivaz
Sep 12, 2013

A bill has been presented before Colombia’s Congress to ratifiy the agreeement signed in June between NATO and Colombia.

The Defense Minister, Juan Carlos Pinzon, presented the bill to Congress on Wednesday as the first step towards ratifying the agreement made in Brussels on June 25th, in which Colombia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – an intergovernmental military alliance – agreed to exchange intelligence information.

The agreement was signed despite fears from other countries in the area like Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have claimed that Colombia wants to become a NATO member state.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said in June that Colombia’s agreement with NATO represented a “knife to the heart of the citizens of our Latin America.”

More:
http://colombiareports.co/nato-colombia-agreement-presented-congress-ratification/

[Socialistlemur]

1. I'm sure the citizens of Latin America are really worried about Colombia signing with NATO

The article was going along quite well until they slipped in the Daniel Ortega quote. He's a light weight and doesn't exactly represent Latin America. If they had got a quote from Brazil's defense minister then it would have been a juicy article.

[Judi Lynn]

2. DU'ers have read enough material already to realize this NATO treaty is NOT popular

with the other countries in South America.

Trouble Brewing in South America: NATO Sets Its Sights on Colombia

~snip~
The NATO doctrine in South America

The governments of the ALBA bloc are by no means immune from legitimate criticism, but much of the member states' demonstrable success in reducing social inequality is due to their resistance, in one form or another, to the onslaught of transnational capital and neoliberalism. Bogotá has gone against the grain in this respect, and Colombian society has suffered the consequences accordingly. Stronger ties with NATO do not bode well, if only because it would provide even more support to the Colombian Armed Forces. Both the Colombian military and NATO are notorious for their atrocious human rights records, yet Santos's administration is attempting to convince the FARC to turn in their weapons while effectively ignoring their central demand for more access to land, handing it over instead to transnational corporations. Moving beyond domestic issues, a NATO foothold in South America can only lead to destabilization of the entire region.

At this point, we can only speculate as to what exactly this stabilization will look like. Wikileaks cables have demonstrated the lengths that Washington went to in an attempt to undermine the Chávez administration through the funding of propaganda campaigns and opposition groups, and the previously discussed raid on a FARC camp in Ecuadoran territory in 2008 set a dangerous precedent for the use of Colombia as a base to carry out military incursions in the region. In view of the new Strategic Concept adopted by NATO at its 2010 Lisbon Summit, as well as the organization's belligerent actions in North Africa and the Middle East, we can only hope that the ghost of Monroe does not come back to haunt the region in the form of the NATO doctrine: open up to transnational capital and interests, or we will bomb you to smithereens.

More:
http://www.alborada.net/feldman-nato-colombia-0613

or:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/02/nato-sets-its-sights-on-colombia/

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NATO Signs Cooperation Agreement with Colombia
June 26, 2013
by AQ Online

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, deputy secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno, Colombia’s defense minister, signed an Agreement on the Security of Information in Brussels on Tuesday. While the tailored cooperation treaty does not recognize Colombia as a NATO partner, it marks the first agreement of its kind between the Alliance and a Latin American country.

The Colombian government has faced considerable pushback from several Latin American countries including Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The countries have expressed concern that Colombia would become a member of NATO and pose a threat to the region. Despite the allegations, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Minister Pinzón Bueno and NATO itself have all insisted that membership is not the goal of the agreement. “There are no plans to establish a formal association,” a NATO spokesman said. In fact, the Alliance has explained that Colombia does not meet the geographic criteria for membership since it’s not located in the North Atlantic.

Instead of membership, the agreement focuses primarily on consultation and cooperation, specifically when it comes to security. "What we seek is to learn from NATO and to share our experience in the fight against drug trafficking, terrorist groups and other crimes committed by transnational crime organizations," Pinzón Bueno said. Prior to agreement, only two Latin American nations had formally partnered with NATO. Both Argentina and Chile participated in the Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Argentina was also involved in the Kosovo Force peacekeeping mission.

http://www.americasquarterly.org/nato-signs-cooperation-agreement-with-colombia

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Older artlcle:

NATO & Colombia
By Cecilia Zarate-laun
July 2006

On May 16, 2006 a small article in Colombia’s largest circulation newspaper, El Tiempo , reported that the United States government was discussing with Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Relations the possibility of Colombia becoming part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Only the United States is capable of conjuring geographical misfits of this magnitude, given its military and economic power. Other members of NATO, such as Israel, Egypt, and Australia, like Colombia, have no North Atlantic coast. The decision in 1997 to make Menem’s Argentina part of NATO was a unilateral proposal of the United States, which the Europeans accepted.

It is an interesting coincidence that this proposal was made public when Colombia was just a week away from its presidential elections, an election in which for the first time a sitting president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, after producing a change in the constitution to permit re-election, decided to run for a second term.

If Colombia were to become part of NATO, it could receive U.S. troops and arms without Congress’s prior approval. This would be a dangerous matter for a country with an internal conflict of more than 40 years. It would also be dangerous for the region because it could suggest that an invasion of Venezuela is being prepared. Ecuador recently cancelled a government contract with Occidental Petroleum Company for violation of the contract’s terms and President Morales’s government nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas deposits. Alvaro Uribe Velez would not only convert Colombia into the pawn of the United States in Latin America, but Colombia would thereby be forced to participate in any military, political, or economic aggression that Washington carried out in its backyard.

A Colombian observer argues that Colombia “would reinforce any peaceful operation” by the United States, as if it were not obvious that what the United States government calls peace signifies war. The decision to include Colombia in NATO would break up Latin American unity, create an arms race, and deliver Colombia even more completely to the political interests of the United States, effectively sacrificing its sovereignty. This error would create enormous anxiety and distress throughout the continent.

http://www.zcommunications.org/nato-and-amp-colombia-by-cecilia-zarate-laun.html

[Bacchus4.0]

3. better than an alliance with Syria, Iran, and N. Korea

Colombia does a good job of maintaining broad alliances, and isn't so interested in regional isolation that some other countries favor.