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US Navy Deploys Around Latin America
By Lamia Oualalou
Le Figaro
Monday 28 April 2008
Choosing to confront the rise in power of left-leaning governments
in its backyard, the United States is recreating the Fourth Fleet.
It's now official: The Pentagon is going to resuscitate its Fourth Fleet, with
the mission of patrolling Latin American and Caribbean waters. Created during
the Second World War to protect traffic in the South Atlantic, the structure
was dissolved in 1950. "By reestablishing the Fourth Fleet, we acknowledge
the immense importance of maritime security in this region," declared Adm.
Gary Roughead, head of the Pentagon's naval operations.
Based in Mayport, Florida, the fleet will operate under the double orders of
the American Navy and the Army's Southern Command, responsible for Latin America
and the Caribbean. Vice Adm. Joseph Kernan will command the fleet, which should
include a nuclear aircraft carrier.
According to Alejandro Sanchez, an analyst at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs,
a research center on Latin America based in Washington, "the reestablishment
of the Fourth Fleet is more of a political than a military gesture, designed
to confront the rise in power of left-leaning governments in the region."
The Pentagon does not trouble to camouflage its intentions: "the message
is clear: whether local governments like it or not, the United States is back
after the war in Iraq," Sanchez explains.
"New Threats"
De facto,, Washington's military influence in the region
has diminished considerably since September 11, 2001, and the launch of the
"war against terrorism." Concentrated on the Middle Eastern arc of
crisis, the Pentagon did not pay much attention to the political upsets in its
own backyard. Leftist governments, now broadly in the majority in Latin America,
reproach the United States with the support it gave the dictatorships that reigned
over several decades and to the ultra-neo-liberal policies those dictatorships
applied.
While Washington assures that its sole interest in the region is combating
"new threats" (terrorism, drug trafficking and the Maras gangs of
Central America), Latin American people often see it as the pursuit of "imperialist"
interests dictated by energy needs. The tensions between Washington and the
radical presidents of the sub-continent's main oil and gas producers (Venezuela,
Equator and Bolivia) accentuate that perception.
As a sign of defiance, almost all Latin American countries have refused to
sign the American Serviceman Protection Act, a treaty that prevents legal pursuit
of American soldiers for crimes committed abroad.
The plan to install a military base in Paraguay, close to Bolivian gas fields,
was denounced by Brazil and Argentina. Ecuador has made it known that the American
military base installed in Manta until 2009 will not be allowed to renew its
mandate. Worse still, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has relaunched
the idea of a South American Defense Council, explicitly excluding all United
States intervention.
Washington's sidelining comes at a time when new sources of conflict are arising
in the region, as, for example, the one that pits Colombia on one side and Ecuador
and Venezuela on the other, or that between Bolivia and Chile over sea access.
An arms race is underway in the region, where governments have taken advantage
of the economic revival to reequip their armies, neglected since the 1970s.
American arms manufacturers are no longer alone in this market: some European
countries, but especially China, Russia and Iran, are trying to get a footing
in a region that also attracts them for its natural resource and energy potential.
Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.
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