South American presidents expressed deep concern on Monday over the US’ plan to increase its military presence in Colombia.
The unease reflected the region’s deep-seated suspicion of US motives based on a long history of intervention and meddling. But there was no consensus on issuing a statement rejecting US use of Colombian bases, as proposed by Bolivia and backed by its ally and strong critic of Washington’s influence, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The proposed base treaty has been questioned since it was revealed a few weeks ago, with the strongest attacks coming from some of Colombia’s neighbors, whose leftist governments are in ideological conflict with its conservative administration.
The leaders agreed to meet again in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to discuss the matter after Chavez raised it during a ceremony to inaugurate Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa as temporary president of the Union of South American Nations, or UNASUR. They did not set a date, saying the summit would follow a preliminary meeting of defense ministers on Aug. 27.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo and Correa also expressed unease with the plan.
“I don’t want to sabotage your ceremony, Rafael ... [but] we are very worried,” said Chavez, who added that he believed the bases would destabilize the region.
“This could provoke a war in South America,” Chavez said, repeating a theme of his recent criticism of the base negotiations.
During his weekly television and radio address on Sunday, the Venezuelan president told his military to be “ready for combat” in case of a Colombian provocation.
Brazil’s Silva took a more measured approach, calling on US President Barack Obama to meet with the region’s leaders to explain the plan.
“As president of Brazil, this climate of unease disturbs me,” said Silva, who has expressed opposition to US troops being in Colombia, but who is viewed in Washington as a center-left balance to the more stridently leftist presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
“I think we should directly discuss our discontent with the American government — directly with them,” said Silva, a union leader famed for his negotiating skills before he became a politician.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who did not attend the meeting in Ecuador, visited several South American countries last week to defend his base deal with the US, but Peru was the only nation to openly back the plan.
While in the moderate camp, Silva underlined the region’s suspicions of the US by saying he was concerned over “information we receive about [US] ambassadors that still intervene in internal electoral processes” in their host countries.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions