NATO & Colombia

O n May 16, 2006 a small article in Colombia’s largest circulation newspaper, El Tiempo , reported that the United States government was discussing with Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Relations the possibility of Colombia becoming part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Only the United States is capable of conjuring geographical misfits of this magnitude, given its military and economic power. Other members of NATO, such as Israel, Egypt, and Australia, like Colombia, have no North Atlantic coast. The decision in 1997 to make Menem’s Argentina part of NATO was a unilateral proposal of the United States, which the Europeans accepted. 

It is an interesting coincidence that this proposal was made public when Colombia was just a week away from its presidential elections, an election in which for the first time a sitting president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, after producing a change in the constitution to permit re-election, decided to run for a second term. 

If Colombia were to become part of NATO, it could receive U.S. troops and arms without Congress’s prior approval. This would be a dangerous matter for a country with an internal conflict of more than 40 years. It would also be dangerous for the region because it could suggest that an invasion of Venezuela is being prepared. Ecuador recently cancelled a government contract with Occidental Petroleum Company for violation of the contract’s terms and President Morales’s government nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas deposits. Alvaro Uribe Velez would not only convert Colombia into the pawn of the United States in Latin America, but Colombia would thereby be forced to participate in any military, political, or economic aggression that Washington carried out in its backyard. 

A Colombian observer argues that Colombia “would reinforce any peaceful operation” by the United States, as if it were not obvious that what the United States government calls peace signifies war. The decision to include Colombia in NATO would break up Latin American unity, create an arms race, and deliver Colombia even more completely to the political interests of the United States, effectively sacrificing its sovereignty. This error would create enormous anxiety and distress throughout the continent.