MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visits Chile

US Defence Minister Gates on tour for Latam

As part of his five-nation tour through Latin America, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met Thursday with his Chilean counterpart José Goñi Carrasco to discuss “defense issues of common interest” and to sign a bilateral agreement.

Gates' visit to Chile comes as part of an effort to promote bilateral defense relations in the region. Gates, who succeeded Donald Rumsfeld in December, had been first scheduled to visit Latin America in July. Chile is the third stop on his tour, after visits to El Salvador and Colombia. He will also visit Peru and Surinam before returning to Washington. Gates and Goñi, together with U.S. and Chilean military officials, met for one hour behind closed doors. They then signed a bilateral pact which guarantees free medical care for both Chilean military officials in the United States and for U.S. military officials in Chile. Such care will be provided at each nations' military facilities. Goñi said they discussed, "topics of mutual interest for our countries such as regional and global security, United Nations peacekeeping missions such as the one in Haiti (?) the need to make advances in bilateral defense cooperation." Chile's role in international peacekeeping missions received particular attention. "Together we are working to increase inter-operability, to share our knowledge of military modernization, and to encourage Chile's growing peacekeeping ability," explained Gates. "Chile's participation in peacekeeping operations is a significant contribution to both regional and global stability and to the growth of democracy." Presently, over 500 Chilean troops are on a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti. In late August, the UN requested that Chile send 200 troops to join the 26,000 peacekeepers already deployed to the war-torn nation of Sudan, where ethnic conflict has left 200,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced. Chile's government declined the request two weeks later citing budget constraints (ST, Sept. 10). "We are proud of our presence in peacekeeping missions. At the same time, we realize that we have to take care of ourselves (?) we are willing to continue our services in other countries. But we do not want to make additional commitments to other initiatives where we might not be able to fulfill the job," Goñi said. Gates also answered a question about the possible closure of the U.S. military detention camp at Guantanamo, Cuba. "What we are looking into is how to do that in a way that provides for rights for those are being detained, but, at the same time, protects Americans and others in the world from those terrorists (?) the question is how do you change things in a way which protects all of us, but also allows us to close the facility. We are examining those legal questions." By: Matt Malinowski The Santiago Times