Up in Arms Over Colombia

One base is closed, a replacement is sought and suddenly South America is up in arms. Presidents of Brazil and Chile, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Michelle Bachelet, are troubled by the idea. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warns about potential war. And South America leaders call an extraordinary summit to demand explanations.

The fuss is over increased U.S. military presence in Colombia. Last month, Ecuador ended a 10-year agreement that had allowed the United States to launch counterdrug missions from Manta Air Base, on Ecuador's Pacific coast. So the U.S. needed a way for its E-3 AWACs and other surveillance aircraft to continue counterdrug operations along a stretch of territory often used to traffic cocaine through Central America and Mexico into the U.S. Months ago, U.S. officials began negotiations with their Colombian counterparts to allow U.S. military personnel and contractors to use up to five Colombian air bases and two ports.

In response to the public outcry that followed, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe recently embarked on a three-day, seven-nation tour of South America to calm widespread fears about the deal. President Obama has assured critics that the bases will not be U.S. installations, and U.S. Marine General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has argued for the process to be "as transparent as possible."

The negative reactions in the region are nothing new: Ten years ago, the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia created a similar controversy. Most regional leaders expressed unease, many demanded explanations and Chavez, just beginning his presidency, warned that the plan could lead to a "medium-intensity conflict" in South America.

But the latest objections are disheartening, in part because 10 years of U.S. presence in Colombia have demonstrated, above all, the effectiveness of cooperation. U.S. assistance has not only bolstered Colombia's fight against illegal drugs and violent insurgencies but also helped professionalize the country's armed forces and improve its human rights record.

Fears of a conflict -- medium-intensity or otherwise -- have so far proven baseless. The renewed fearmongering looks particularly ridiculous considering that the U.S. will simply be running the same missions as it did for 10 years out of Ecuador.

Even more disheartening, these objections reveal just how many people in the region are still in denial about the transnational implications of drug trafficking and organized crime. Back in 2000, then Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso referred to drug production and trafficking in Colombia as "a domestic problem" that should not require outside interference. And after Uribe's recent visit to Brasilia, Brazilian officials seemed similarly unconcerned with the international impact of illegal drugs and offered no cooperation.

Fortunately, such thinking is not universal.
Soon after declaring war against Mexican drug cartels, Mexican President Felipe Calderon reached out to Colombia to strengthen cooperation, and during his Aug. 13 visit to Bogota, he stressed that the fight against organized crime should be a "shared responsibility" throughout the hemisphere.

Peru has similarly increased anti-drug cooperation with Colombia. The two countries now have military officers living on each other's bases along the border, and Peruvian President Alan Garcia was the most emphatically supportive of all the leaders Uribe met during his whirlwind tour of South America. This growing cooperation among Peru, Mexico and Colombia should inspire confidence and quell suspicions that have flared up too easily in other countries in recent days.

Colombia's ambassador to the U.S., Carolina Barco, was eager to highlight south-south cooperation against organized crime and drug trafficking. "Our hemisphere is evolving in that direction," she said in a recent interview, adding that the spirit of partnership promoted by President Obama in the region should "give more impetus to such work."

Obama has expressed frustration at the apparent "hypocrisy" of leaders in the region who continue to point fingers at the United States. Responding recently to criticism that Washington has not acted forcefully enough against coup leaders in Honduras, Obama lamented that "the same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America. You can't have it both ways."

If regional leaders want to continue keeping Washington at a distance, they had better begin doing more for themselves.