MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

South America launches council on defence cooperation

Defence ministers from the twelve countries which make up the United Nations of South America, Unasur begin this Monday in Santiago de Chile a round of talks including the launching of the South American Defence Council geared to increase cooperation and dialogue among its members.

“The fact that the Council becomes effective is a historical milestone”, said Chilean Defence minister José Goñi, host of the meeting.

“The first great success is the creation of a platform for meeting and exchanging experiences which should enable us to talk, coordinate and work on those issues of external security at another level”, added Goñi.

The two days meeting includes Defence ministers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The meeting will see the crystallization of the South American Defence Council, an initiative born during the first Unasur summit held in Brasilia, May 2008.

Brazilian president Lula da Silva was one of the main promoters of the initiative following the diplomatic rift generated by the Colombian forces March 2008 incursion into Ecuadorian territory which ended with the lives of several Colombian guerrillas from FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces from Colombia) including the number two of the organization, Raul Reyes.

According to the statute which was agreed the Council promotes the exchange of information and analysis of the regional and international situation to identify all possible risk factors and threats that could impact on regional and global peace.

The agenda for the first meeting includes the analysis of a standard system to help measure defence expenditure of the twelve country members, as well as planning combined exercises for situations of catastrophe or natural disasters.