- Signing of U.S.-Colombian military base pact and border violence prompts a vigilant Chávez to tell his generals and the country’s citizens to “prepare for war.”
- Brazilian mediation machine cranks into action, but as Lula aide encourages dialogue and offers “help to monitor the [border] region,” Chávez proves less than fully receptive.
- “Chávez has gone too far,” asserts a weary El País editorial, while Semana asks, “How crazy is he?”
- Chávez isolates himself further, as water and electricity shortages plague Venezuela, generating public discontent.
Events have since taken a fairly familiar course; regional furor was followed by an apparent climbdown from Chávez, who the following Wednesday insisted that his original comments had in fact been made with solely defensive intentions in mind, and had simply been misconstrued. Nevertheless, his angry rhetoric has continued and the international community has scrambled to attempt to diffuse the situation (largely in the form of diplomacy from Brasilia and Madrid). In spite of their apparently predictable pattern, a number of regional media outlets have speculated that these latest developments hint at a far more dangerous scenario in Venezuelan-Colombian relations than the almost jocose scripts seen before. Is this just our latest dose of Chávez’s bellicose but largely toothless rhetoric, or are we finally set to witness some truly explosive military action? In either case, what does this latest stand-off mean for the rapidly shifting fortunes of one of Latin America’s most extraordinary figures, the Venezuelan president?
Old Sagas, New Developments
As COHA has previously maintained, the rationale behind July’s suspension of bilateral relations by Chávez was twofold. On the one hand were Colombian accusations that weapons discovered in a FARC cache in Ecuador had originally been imported by the Venezuelan state. On the other was an agreement reached between Washington and Bogotá in mid-July, which would see the U.S. increase its military presence in Colombia with access to seven military bases. The U.S.-Colombian agreement was signed on October 30, making it the basis once again for the latest round of threats and recriminations between the two disputatious Andean neighbors.
Chávez’s ire over the pact’s signing has been compounded by a recent increase in the level of violence along the Colombia-Venezuela border. On November 2, two sergeants in the Venezuelan National Guard, Gerardo Zambrano and Senir López, were murdered near San Antonio de Táchira, a Venezuelan border town, and, according to El País, the most utilized crossing between Venezuela and Colombia. The newspaper reported that Chávez’s Vice-President and Minister of Defense, Ramón Carrizález, declared the deaths as marking the beginning of a conspiratorial plan by Bogotá against Venezuela, which was linked to the “installation” of the “seven Yankee bases” in Colombia. Carrizález had offered a similar interpretation after the bodies of 11 amateur footballers – mostly Colombians – were discovered on October 24. On November 1, BBC reported that he had labeled the victims as “part of a ‘paramilitary infiltration’ of Venezuela which was planning to emerge in Caracas and other major cities to destabilize the … government.’”
Despite Carrizález’s assertions, the culprits in both cases are still unknown. Some have suggested that the ELN (a much smaller Colombian guerrilla force than the FARC), were responsible for the October 24 crime, others that the National Guardsmen were killed by paramilitaries operating a cross-border protection and smuggling racket from San Antonio. In addition to these two sets of murders, the Venezuelan government claimed on October 27 to have arrested a number of members of the Colombian secret service (the DAS), who in the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Francisco Arias Cardenas were “captured carrying out actions of espionage.” Despite DAS’s long track record of lawlessness and complicity in atrocities connected to Colombia’s internal struggle, proof has not yet been forthcoming of these particular allegations.
The Economist recently reported the effects of Chávez’s freezing of trade with Colombia in the state of Táchira, saying that the move “has thrown many people out of work … aggravating a climate of lawlessness there.” Indeed, an El País report last week documented the actions of paramilitaries working in the border area whom, since greater restrictions were placed on the border crossing by Chávez around three weeks ago, have stepped up their threats, in particular against the National Guard. “We have taken the irrevocable decision to attack [the Guard and those collaborating with them] with violence,” asserted one group in late October. Seemingly concerned about the supposed Colombian origin of this string of recent violent incidents, on November 5 Chávez made his decision to send 15,000 troops to the border, and three days later made a televised call to arms.
An Imminent Threat to Security?
However, it is hard to believe that Chávez genuinely envisions the United States using its newly reinforced and expanded position in Colombia as a platform from which to launch a military attack. While he might need to worry about future administrations, for Barack Obama such a move would be politically detrimental – if not suicidal – and hardly features high on his list of foreign policy concerns. As for Colombia itself, as far as El País was concerned last week, “although pleading on its knees to Washington, not for all the gold in the world was it going to attack [Venezuela].”
Without a doubt this is an exaggeration, as economic concerns are one of the major disincentives for a war between the two countries, a point which COHA made in its August communiqué. Currently, Colombia is worried about the impact of a conflict on its trade with Venezuela – give Bogotá all the gold in the world, and this barrier to confrontation would evaporate. In addition, the notion that Colombian paramilitaries are operating across the border is not particularly far-fetched, even if their threat to Venezuelan national security is probably being exaggerated by Caracas.
Nevertheless, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has demonstrated a degree of calm in this instance where, regardless of the validity of his concerns, Chávez would have done well to emulate him. While Colombian officials apparently met to discuss their capability of defeating Caracas in the event of a conflict, their primary reaction was to refer Chávez’s remarks to the United Nations last Wednesday. Moreover, when the Colombian navy captured four Venezuelan National Guardsmen in Colombian waters in the Vichada border province on Friday, Uribe sent them home the following day, saying: “They should carry back the message that here, there is brotherly affection for Venezuela and that affection is unbreakable.”
In contrast, on Saturday night at a ceremony to highlight the plight of the Cuban Five – who are imprisoned in the United States having been convicted of espionage after monitoring terrorist groups in Florida hostile to the current Cuban regime – Chávez responded to the Colombian overtures by saying “I have nothing to discuss with Uribe the mafioso.” Earlier in the day, he had rejected Brasilia’s offers of help in mediation and monitoring along the border, claiming that it would violate Venezuela’s sovereignty. Appearing on the latest edition of ‘Alo Presidente’ this Sunday, Chávez reiterated his fear that the U.S. intended to spy on Venezuela, rather than use its agreement with Bogotá for the declared anti-narcotics purposes. According to El Universal, he suggested that Obama and Uribe should “go and jump in a lake.”
Nevertheless, Chávez has always been, if not ‘all mouth and no trousers,’ a politician for whom there has existed something of an ‘implementation gap’ between rhetoric and inevitable inaction. As the Economist put it last week, “Chávez’s belligerent rhetoric trades at a substantial discount.” Indeed, Semana concluded recently that rather than being a sign of madness, he has used this rhetorical tool throughout his political career merely as a means of harnessing support. However, the Washington Post and the Economist last week both cited a poll carried out in mid-September by research firm Datanálisis, that found Venezuelans opposed war with Colombia by a margin of four to one. If a war would be near-impossible for Venezuela to win given the inferiority of its armed forces against a combined Colombian-U.S. defense force, it would be even harder for the effort to succeed without popular support. This is a fact which – along with the unlikelihood of any U.S. intention to attack Caracas – Chávez must privately acknowledge.
Chávez Floundering?
This altercation is perhaps not so much a threat to Latin American security, as it is to the credibility of Chávez’s Bolivarian project and Venezuela’s potential standing in the region. In other words, the Venezuelan President may have cried wolf one too many times. If the reaction of Brazil is to become the yardstick by which such things are measured, then this time Chávez’s international problems could be considerable.
As recently as October 29, international media outlets carried photographs of Chávez and Brazilian President Lula celebrating a breakthrough in regional relations, as Brazil’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Caracas’ long-running attempt to achieve full membership in Mercosur – the common market of the Southern Cone. The matter was due to be put on the Brazilian Senate agenda this past Wednesday, November 11, and was widely expected to pass. However, allies of Lula, and thus Chávez, put off the planned vote as a consequence of the latest “crisis.” Even if recent events fail to hinder the Senate’s decision when the vote is rescheduled, Chávez still has to negotiate Paraguayan approval of Venezuela’s membership, which will not automatically be achieved.
Moreover, as last Thursday’s El País editorial pointed out, Chávez’s rhetoric could now be seen as reinforcing Colombia’s rationale in seeking a heightened U.S. military presence – at the very least, it provides Uribe’s administration with a handy justification and the ability to regularly utilize the refrain of ‘self defense.’ In taking such a brash rhetorical stand, Chávez could be shooting himself in the foot in the long as well as the short term when it comes to criticizing the actions of his enemy and neighbor. If Chávez is genuinely worried about the security policies that Bogotá is pursuing, such as an apparently lax attitude towards the re-emergence of paramilitaries, then he has chosen a poor method of combating them. Even though Uribe is more sinister than prudent at heart, aggressive rhetoric now will ensure Chávez is taken less seriously in the future. For a man so apparently keen on the idea of regional cooperation, Chávez has been far too quick to shun other ways of expressing his concern. There is little doubt that many of his fellow leaders are uncomfortable with the actions of Uribe’s Colombia, and joining them in a chorus of concern through a regional forum would have been a much more constructive way forward.
Finally, not the least of Chávez’s worries are on the domestic front. Not only do an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans disapprove of their leader’s approach towards Bogotá, but increasing numbers are disillusioned with their day-to-day lives under Chávez. Since November 2, water has been rationed in Venezuela; the same day on which the government introduced a plan to save electricity. In Caracas, each of the city’s neighborhoods is without running water for at least two days every week. Chávez has urged the public to take “lightening showers” of just three minutes, and to become accustomed to bathing in the early hours of the morning, armed with a flashlight. Even before these recent austerity measures, in early October, Datanálisis found 66 percent of Venezuelans dissatisfied with the government’s moves to resolve the electricity crisis. Moreover, the same survey found “70 percent critical of Chávez’s policies to create employment” and that 87 percent thought the government had done little to ensure the personal security of its citizens, according to El País.
One Step too Many?
Citing the case of Leopoldo Galtieri and Argentina’s 1982 Falklands war with the British, an editorial in the Washintgon Post last Thursday discussed the chances of conflict on this occasion: “In the annals of the region’s authoritarian populism, stranger things have happened.” While asking “how crazy is [Chávez]?” this past Saturday, Semana seized upon this musing, suggesting “that is what some in Colombia think. And nobody who knows him would dare say that [war] will not happen.” And in evaluating the “crisis in Venezuela,” last Thursday’s El País editorial asserted that this time, “Chávez has gone too far.”
Has Chávez gone too far? The answer to that question depends on how it is interpreted. He has isolated his country from a key trading partner, and may have slowed – if not halted – its progress towards a common market with a host of potential partners at exactly the time Venezuela is struggling to cope with providing basic utilities. In addition, from a domestic point of view, he is faced with a population which is overwhelmingly opposed to the country entering a conflict with its neighbor, and becoming increasingly dissatisfied with its standard of living. Militarily, Venezuela cannot seriously be considered on the brink of war, and is extremely unlikely to be in the near future. In this sense, the president, by virtue of his characteristic inaction, has not gone too far. But ask a resident of Caracas – or, indeed, Táchira – that same question, and the response is likely to differ. One thing Chávez does have on his side is time; he is only halfway through his term. To reverse the situation will require him to stop his attempt at masking domestic problems with noisy foreign policy implications, and to put away his “drums of war” (as El Tiempo put it this Sunday) – even though this rhetoric is seemingly so fundamental to his political project that they are unlikely to be decommissioned in the near future.
Chavez may always find new ways to speak bombastically, but the fact is that were any other leader in his place, he or she would be quite accurate in being highly nervous about the destabilization effect of both the continuous entry into Venezuela of highly organized and armed Colombian illegal forces and of the continual (and typically unproven) public denunciations by the Colombian government or military of alleged criminal activity by Venezuela.
Thus, it would certainly also be good to inquire into why the government of Colombia is continually acting in such a provocative manner to their neighboring Venezuelan government, and whether or not Colombia is taking seriously enough the destabilizing threat to the region is represented by Colombia's massive, massive problem of illegally armed forces which cross the borders between Colombia and their neighbors, the danger of Colombia routinely blaming such problems upon their neighbors (unproven allegations of Venezuelan government support of FARC guerrillas) as well as fairly well founded allegations of working directly or indirectly with paramilitary forces in separatist or counter-governmental activities in Venezuela (allegations at least as well if not better established than the equivalent accusations made of Venezuelan collaboration with FARC forces).
I agree with El Cid, if you had the military might of the United States then you only needed to whisper but Chavez only has the power of shaming the opponent. He is not paranoid, unless we all erased from our recent memory banks the invasion of Panama which still is clear in the memory of Latin Americans. Also, in documents recently released Department of the Air Force
Military Construction Program indicates that the military mission is broader than just counterinsurgency and counter drug traffic. Hillary Clinton has become a mouthpiece of another era of anti Latin American democratic development, a shame.
Chavez is not paranoid and he is not crazy. He is just your normal, egotistical Latin American dictator. From the beginning, to consolidate his authoritarian power, he fabricated the belief that the US was Venezuela's enemy, a predictable ploy practiced by dictators through the ages. Now that almost everyone (even COHA!) is beginning to notice that dictatorial rule is destroying Venezuela, the next step for the good dictator is to distract his people with a war, hoping to invent some renewed, patriotic loyalty – again, another chapter in the Dictator Handbook. Dictatorships never work, and unfortunately some people never learn. Hillary is anti-Latin American democracy? No, Mr. Garcia, Hillary is anti-dictator.
Chavez needs an enemy because that is the only way he can energize his base. The 'escualidos' are just not bad enough and people begin to notice that power outages and water shortages are the government's fault, not anyone else's. The U.S. won't invade Venezuela because they get what they want from Venezuela without a war. The U.S. is practically funding the Bolivarian Revolution with all the oil it buys, and they can get that oil without a fight, so the idea that somehow Obama will order an invasion is ridiculous. However, it is in Chavez's best interests to keep people mad at a foreign power because it distracts them from internal issues.
In all of this, where is the question of Colombia's sovereignty? Surely, the notion of asovereignty suggests that a country is free to make friends with whom it wishes. In that context, what's wrong with Colombia's decision to seek help from the USA? I didn't notice anyone quarelling when Chavez purchased arms from Russia, or when the Russian Navy visited Venezuela. The fact is that Chavez has a way of seeing all events not in favour of his own agenda as having the USA behind them. If he continues along this line, it will not be long before many of us who saw his entry into leadership in Venezuela as offering the first real alternative to the failed policies of the preceding regime, will come to see his public statements as being the mark of a meaglomaniac or worse.
This is an interesting question. I think it would truly be an interesting experience to have Venezuela make an agreement with Russia to have troops based out of 7 Venezuelan military bases, purportedly for 'anti-narcotics' operations. Then we would have an even basis of comparison. I'm sure that exactly the same standards would be applied by commentators to Venezuela as would be to Colombia, right?
Or if Venezuela were to buy 300 tanks from Russia and begin massing them on the borders with Colombia….oh wait
How on Earth you think that's a comparable situation, I don't now. If instead of *buying* tanks from Russia, Venezuela had allowed *Russia* to send tank brigades to begin operating on Venezuelan soil, *then* it would be comparable. C'mon, can't you even *pretend* to be paying attention?
Are you trying out for the Washington Post's contest to choose a new columnist by proving your anti-Chavez credentials? I think it is highly inappopriate for a COHA intern to use the snide and disrespectful language that this article uses to describe the popular and democratically elected president of Venezuela. To twist Chavez's comments to claim that he has threated to fight a war with Colombia is simply disingenous and a repeat of the lies in the coroporate media. Chavez has threatened to defend his nation from an attack and from espionage by the United States. Given the history of the US invations and coup sponsorships in Latin America, he wouldn't deserve to be in office if he did any less. Your faith in Obama is touchingly naive. None of the speakers at the School of the Americas Watch vigil at Ft. Benning this past weekend seemed to share it, with some of them saying that for Latin America, Obama is a bigger threat than Bush. One doesn't even need historical knowledge to see their point — just look at Honduras.
Chavez didn't "threated" to fight a war, he outright said that he's getting ready to counter Colombia. And Chavez is not some glorious leader misrepresented by the "coroporate media", he's a Latin American president full of flaws and seeking to exploit any and all weaknesses by his perceived enemies, namely Colombia and the US. My God, do you even read Venezuelan news media or do you just repeat everything out of an SOA Watch newsletter?
I don't think H. Chavez will commit suicide going to war againt Colombia, what he is doing is to divert the atention to the desastrous result s tthat has produced his 21 Century revolution. Only it'is a matter of time when his most fervent bakers realize that with their stomach you should not play and overtrown the Populist Charlatan.
Warped causality. Extremely biased analysis. Terrible article!
It is evidently Colombia which is destabilising South American politics and sabotaging -now completely openly- UNASUR, (on whose orders, we may ask). It is Colombia's 50 year-old internal conflict, its export of violence to the region, which continues to hamper the region's diplomacy and peaceful integration process; not to mention its fostering of a crisis of refugees on an unprecedented scale in Latin America and its absolutely horrendous human rights record, which does not compare to any other country in South America, and bears no resemblence whatsoever with the relatively politically peaceful Venezuela.
Venezuela, the victim of a US -and most definitely Colombia- supported coup in 2002, has good reason to feel threatened. In Latin America, we all do. The pretext of the war on drugs has after all been a very efficient tool brandished by US foreign policy makers for the purpose of replacing old enemies (the red menace) by new enemies (the narco threat). Withough enemies there is no possible justification for hegemony, especially of the military kind.
The sad thing is that Colombia plays the victim and COHA author Guy Hursthouse dances to their tune. A study of Colombian foreign policy and its history of lobbying will show that is exactly their aim.
So thanks for lending a helping hand. It is fine time that the issue of causality, and not warped and vulgar ahistoricism, start permeating the day-to-day thinking of journalists and think tank "analysts" alike. Maybe next time, hey?
It looks like Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution is failing. Like all dictators when you are encountering a lot of domestics problems you need to create distraction. I would not be surprised if Chavez goes on Alo Presidente and blames all of Venezuela's problems on Colombia and The United States. Its going to be interesting on how the MERCOSUR countries are going to react.
It is natural and so understandable for US citizens to be reluctant to concede that their own country and their own leaders are successors to the European fascism of the 1930's. No one understands how painful it is to feel so about one's own nation better than myself. But a scholar owes an unshakable duty to truth and we have to conclude that the USA and its Latin friends like Colombia do not play a positive role in any of this and cannot.
Chavez' Venezuela are determined to gain control of their borders and to secure their oil reserves for the benefit of their own citizens. This is not an acceptable situation in Washington, and thus not in Bogota.
HA HAHAHAHAHA!!!! That's a funny comment. How exactly is the United States the heir to European fascism? The last I heard, the U.S. didn't stress personality cults, demonize the past and glorify their national heroes to the point of making them into demi-gods, all traits of fascism. However, some of these characteristics are alive and well in Venezuela. I find it hilarious that people forget Chavez's close connections to Norberto Ceresole, an Argentinian political philosopher who aided Chavez in his 1998 campaign and is considered by many to be an apologist for Galtieri and his junta. Where do people like Mr. Herz come out of? What fantasy world do they live in?
Obviously this is a sensitive issue and I think that people need to see that bias of some sort will always make its way into articles like this. To try to make something completely "objective" would leave us with a toothless piece that would spend more time trying to demonstrate its objectivity than making a real important point.
What interests me most about this piece is actually a somewhat minor point. As part of my thesis I am working on, I'm studying Democratic Peace Theory in South America. What I see happening is Chavez running into the classic problem of DPT. Chavez is obviously trying to saber rattle in order to shift focus away from domestic politics at the expense of Colombia and the US. However, as is the trend when talking about DPT, the population will not mobilize to support an actual war. I tend to agree that neither the US nor Colombia pose a serious threat at present time. As the author points out, it would be political suicide for Obama to propose any sort of military action and Colombia is more interested in trade than a costly war, or even a major arms race and reshaping of its military from a drug hunting force to one prepared to engage in cross boarder fighting.
As long as Chavez wishes to keep any sort of democratic legitimacy in Venezuela, there will be no war and I suspect that public pressure will rise to return trade relations back to normal. In some ways this echoes the great shift in the US when it elected Bill Clinton over George H W Bush. While a platform based on foreign policy offers a temporary solution, domestic politics will always retake the stage. It's the economy, stupid.
Chavez's day are counted! No doubt!