Nine years ago Plan Colombia was designed to be the terminal phase of that war.
The Colombia model is now the prototype Washington has openly identified for application in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico among other locations.
Plan Colombia: Reining In Resurgent South America
Plan Colombia, additionally, is now being increasingly revealed as a military strategy for suppressing a rising tide of discontent with the aftereffects of post-Cold War neoliberalism throughout South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
The US and the West as a whole have used the Colombian regime and its formidable military machine to intimidate its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela and the Andean region as a whole. Bordering on Panama, Colombia is also a potential launching pad for attacks on Central American nations like Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
A brief chronology of the past year and a half will demonstrate the heightened role that is intended for Colombia by its sponsors in Washington.
In January of 2008, Venezuelan President Chavez said that the US and its Colombian client "don't want peace in Colombia because it's the perfect excuse to have thousands of soldiers there, the CIA, military bases, spy planes and who knows what other...operations against Venezuela."
He added, "I accuse the government of Colombia of devising a conspiracy, acting as a pawn of the U.S. empire, of devising a military provocation against Venezuela." [32]
On March 1st of 2008 Colombia launched a raid inside Ecuador and killed 24 suspected FARC members, including the group's second in command Raul Reyes.
An article titled "Colombian official says US intelligence helped raid on
rebels" reported that "the Ecuadoran air force found that Colombia used ten 500-pound bombs, similar to those used by US forces in Iraq, which 'cannot be transported by Colombian airplanes.'
"Ecuadoran authorities also noted that a few hours before the Colombian bombing raid, an HC-130 military aircraft had taken off from the US air base at Manta, in southeastern Ecuador." [33]
Fearing that the armed incursion inside Ecuador was part of a broader plan of aggression, Venezuela deployed some 9,000 troops to its border with Colombia. On the day of the attack Venezuelan President Chavez warned his Colombian counterpart, "Don't think about doing that over here because it would very serious, it would be cause for war." [34]
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia after the attack and when it was later discovered that the bombing had killed an Ecuadoran national, warned of further consequences.
On March 6 Venezuela decreed a state of general alert and sent ten battalions, tanks and planes to the Colombian border.
US President Bush told reporters that "America would continue to stand with Colombia." [35]
Three weeks later Ecuador announced that it would "install electronic surveillance equipment and boost its military presence along its border with Colombia" and President Correa warned that his country would --never again" allow a foreign attack on its soil. [36]
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