MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unasur members open their defence budgets and spending to peers

Defence ministers Carvajal and Puricelli during their meeting in Ecuador

The twelve countries members of the Union of South American nations, Unasur have for the first time opened to their peers defence budgets and how much they spend on the military, helping confidence building, according to reports from the group’s Secretary General Office.

“It’s the first time we manage that all South American countries get together and put on the table what are our investments in defence and how large are our budgets”, said the Ecuadorian Defence minister Miguel Carvajal during a ceremony in Quito next to Argentina’s Arturo Puricelli.

“It is essential that we consolidate transparency conditions and mutual confidence in the region”, added the Ecuadorian minister.

Until January six countries had opened their books but since then the rest have joined, said Alfredo Forti, head of the Unasur Strategic Studies Centre which since last year operates from Buenos Aires and has accumulated all the information.

A report on the military expenditure situation and details is expected to be officially announced on Thursday. The event will bring together Carbajal. Argentina’s Puricelli, the deputy defence ministers from Colombia and Brazil, and from Venezuela is not certain who will be sent.

The final and full report is to be delivered in a meeting in Asuncion, next June according to Unasur Secretariat.

The final report represents three years of work by a group with delegates from Chile, Ecuador and Peru which managed to agree on a common methodology to measure military expenditure. The info refers to the 2006/2010 period and ministers must decide how much is made public.

At a Wednesday ceremony in Quito Puricelli underlined the significance of the report. “We are working for an integrated defence, for cooperation in defence for the whole of our South America”.

Puricelli was in Ecuador for the delivery of a drinking water processing plant for the Ecuadorian forces that will set it up in the border area with Colombia to supply water to nearby villages.

The two ministers also considered a project to build the drinking water processing plants in Ecuador with Argentine licence, an effort that should help deliver water to many small distant villages in the jungle and mountainous terrain.

Ecuador during the ceremony also revealed that China had donated a mobile hospital for military and civilian use particularly during natural catastrophes.