MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unasur remains divided on the US/Colombian military agreement

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will be hosting the Bariloche meeting

The Union of South American Nations, Unasur, will be meeting Friday in Bariloche, Argentina for an extraordinary summit to address an agenda headed by the Colombia/US agreement which triggered a controversy in the region and impeded an official statement at recent the Quito, Ecuador summit, last August 10.

The agreement which would allow the deployment of a limited number of US troops in seven Colombian bases to help gather intelligence to counter drugs operations and terrorism, has been respected as a “sovereign decision” by Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

Argentina and Brazil have seriously questioned the agreement as “non useful” for the region and would like President Obama to further inform its peers of the extent of the terms. To this purpose President Lula da Silva spoke to Obama, who promised to consider the matter with his advisors.

Finally Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are openly opposed to the agreement using such forecasts as “winds of war” for the region or “whoever signs such a document is committing an act of treason to the peoples of South America”.

Colombia which was not present at Ecuador (it has downgraded diplomatic relations because of a border incident) has confirmed its presence in Argentina, but also anticipated it will address “all issues” including military agreements of Unasur members with out of the region parties.

This refers to the close military and arms purchase links of Venezuela and Bolivia with Iran and Russia.

Unasur was born in March 2008 instead of the South American Community of Nations which had been created in Peru in December 2004 with the participation of the twelve countries of South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela.

As a supranational organization based in the European Union model, Unasur goal is to unify the two existing groups, the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) which includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) and Mercosur, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay plus Venezuela in the process of incorporation.

The original goals were stated as “political understanding and economic and social integration of the peoples of South America”, and later added the “reciprocal association of Mercosur and CAN member countries, plus the association of Surinam, Guyana and Chile”, considered essential for the “ultimate goal of the South American union”.

In the CSN 2006 summit hosted by Bolivia the priorities outlined were overcoming country and regional asymmetries; energy integration; transport and telecommunications infrastructure and finally in the first South American Energy summit in April 2007, held in Venezuela it was agreed to rename CSN as the Union of South American Nations.

It was also agreed that the Unasur Secretariat would be located in Quito, Ecuador, while the Constitutive Treaty was later approved in May 2008.

The treaty contemplates a South American parliament to be located in Cochabamba, Bolivia and a development financial institution, Bank of the South in Caracas, Venezuela with regional offices in Buenos Aires and La Paz.

The parliament and the bank so far only exist on paper and the Unasur chairman, a post originally thought for former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner remains vacant given Uruguay’s veto given the current diplomatic rift between the two neighbouring countries.

Ecuador President Rafael Correa holds the rotating presidency of Unasur for one year.