Colombia's New Border Brigade and the Venezuelan Referendum
one day the (corporate) media says one thing, another day, they say something else.
one day they said they need the tanks to prevent insurgent.
now it is because of drug trafficking.
what will it be tomorrow?
the following is an excellent article...
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A few months ago, the commander of the Venezuelan Army, Raul Baduel, described something that worried him (1). Colombia had just purchased 46 AMX-30 battle tanks from Spain. The media claimed the tanks were to fight drug trafficking, but that hardly seemed plausible. Baduel suspected that the tanks were going to end up on the Venezuelan border.
This deployment was blandly reported in El Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, yesterday (2). The 46 tanks will be part of a new Brigade, especially created, to 'patrol the border'. Four battalions and a Special Forces group form this new Brigade. The tanks are supposed to arrive in (and watch the timing carefully, for we will revisit it) August.
The El Tiempo article refers to the need for the tanks in order to "defend Colombia" from an "eventual incursion from Venezuela". The Brigade is also charged with the defense of the Wayuu indigenous people, who have been victims of massacres by "illegal armed groups". Thus, the indigenous can rest secure under the protection of the very army that is killing them directly or working with the paramilitaries ("illegal armed groups" who happen to work with the army) who are killing them.
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It is not coincidental that the tanks for the Venezuelan border are arriving in August. The Venezuelan recall referendum, when Venezuelans will vote on whether or not to recall President Hugo Chavez, will take place on August 15. It will take place, that is, if the Venezuelan opposition thinks they can win. Since the Venezuelan opposition could not likely win a fair vote, it is more likely that the whole referendum exercise, like the coup attempt in April 2002 and the 'National Strike' (3) later that year and into 2003, is just another part of the destabilization campaign against the Chavez government. In March 2003, just after the 'National Strike' collapsed, Colombia's army raided across the Venezuelan border (4). Just in May of 2004, another plot involving Colombian paramilitaries was foiled by Venezuela, though the details have not fully emerged. According to an AFP report Venezuelan police are still finding caches of weapons and individuals linked to the plot. (5)
The Colombian military and paramilitary have always been an essential part of the destabilization campaign against Venezuela. The timing of the posting of the armoured Brigade to the Venezuelan border, coinciding with the Venezuelan referendum and coming just months after an attempted paramilitary infiltration, is not coincidental.
In the countryside, the Colombian army often fights as follows: paramilitaries infiltrate a community and attempt to draw a response from the guerrillas. In the rare cases where guerrillas respond, the paramilitaries back off and the army replaces them, attacking the guerrillas with heavy weapons.
This is also the ideal formula to create a border war: A paramilitary infiltration, which the Venezuelan Army would try to repel, whose defenses the Colombian Army's new heavy tanks, conveniently posted on 'border patrol', would be able to smash through once the initial 'incident' was set. This would then be presented as 'Venezuelan aggression', and no doubt the US papers would set to work writing about how Chavez started a war to prevent the referendum. The war could then quickly change from one between Colombia and Venezuela to one between the US and Venezuela. Perhaps a repeat of the 3,000 or so civilians killed in Panama's poorest neighbourhoods in 1989, along with a media campaign about 'saving' them, while showing happy rich Venezuelans applauding on television, could follow? (This is an imperfect analogy: Noriega actually was a dictator. Chavez is not.)
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one day they said they need the tanks to prevent insurgent.
now it is because of drug trafficking.
what will it be tomorrow?
the following is an excellent article...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few months ago, the commander of the Venezuelan Army, Raul Baduel, described something that worried him (1). Colombia had just purchased 46 AMX-30 battle tanks from Spain. The media claimed the tanks were to fight drug trafficking, but that hardly seemed plausible. Baduel suspected that the tanks were going to end up on the Venezuelan border.
This deployment was blandly reported in El Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, yesterday (2). The 46 tanks will be part of a new Brigade, especially created, to 'patrol the border'. Four battalions and a Special Forces group form this new Brigade. The tanks are supposed to arrive in (and watch the timing carefully, for we will revisit it) August.
The El Tiempo article refers to the need for the tanks in order to "defend Colombia" from an "eventual incursion from Venezuela". The Brigade is also charged with the defense of the Wayuu indigenous people, who have been victims of massacres by "illegal armed groups". Thus, the indigenous can rest secure under the protection of the very army that is killing them directly or working with the paramilitaries ("illegal armed groups" who happen to work with the army) who are killing them.
---
It is not coincidental that the tanks for the Venezuelan border are arriving in August. The Venezuelan recall referendum, when Venezuelans will vote on whether or not to recall President Hugo Chavez, will take place on August 15. It will take place, that is, if the Venezuelan opposition thinks they can win. Since the Venezuelan opposition could not likely win a fair vote, it is more likely that the whole referendum exercise, like the coup attempt in April 2002 and the 'National Strike' (3) later that year and into 2003, is just another part of the destabilization campaign against the Chavez government. In March 2003, just after the 'National Strike' collapsed, Colombia's army raided across the Venezuelan border (4). Just in May of 2004, another plot involving Colombian paramilitaries was foiled by Venezuela, though the details have not fully emerged. According to an AFP report Venezuelan police are still finding caches of weapons and individuals linked to the plot. (5)
The Colombian military and paramilitary have always been an essential part of the destabilization campaign against Venezuela. The timing of the posting of the armoured Brigade to the Venezuelan border, coinciding with the Venezuelan referendum and coming just months after an attempted paramilitary infiltration, is not coincidental.
In the countryside, the Colombian army often fights as follows: paramilitaries infiltrate a community and attempt to draw a response from the guerrillas. In the rare cases where guerrillas respond, the paramilitaries back off and the army replaces them, attacking the guerrillas with heavy weapons.
This is also the ideal formula to create a border war: A paramilitary infiltration, which the Venezuelan Army would try to repel, whose defenses the Colombian Army's new heavy tanks, conveniently posted on 'border patrol', would be able to smash through once the initial 'incident' was set. This would then be presented as 'Venezuelan aggression', and no doubt the US papers would set to work writing about how Chavez started a war to prevent the referendum. The war could then quickly change from one between Colombia and Venezuela to one between the US and Venezuela. Perhaps a repeat of the 3,000 or so civilians killed in Panama's poorest neighbourhoods in 1989, along with a media campaign about 'saving' them, while showing happy rich Venezuelans applauding on television, could follow? (This is an imperfect analogy: Noriega actually was a dictator. Chavez is not.)
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