After Yugoslavia, will it be Latin America next?

A report in the June 9 edition of the Colombian newspaper El 
Tiempo described a US proposal to create a multinational intervention 
force for Latin America.

The proposal, which was presented at a meeting of the General Assembly of 
the Organisation of American States (OAS), calls for a "group of friendly 
countries", who are closely linked politically or economically, to 
intervene in internal conflicts threatening democracy in Latin American 
countries.

Although Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela 
opposed the US proposal, the US representative to the OAS, Victor Marrero, 
said the proposal was not dead.

"We never hoped that the proposal would be approved at this session, we 
just wanted to put the matter on the table for discussion. But this topic 
is not dead", Marrero said.

Objections to the proposal centered on who would determine if a crisis was 
serious enough to warrant intervention, as well as the form and degree of 
intervention necessary.

In a potentially related report, the June 7 edition of the Colombian 
newspaper El Espectador reported details of what it claimed is a US 
plan to block the spread of Colombian "guerrilla" activity to neighbouring 
countries.

According to the report, which cited US State Department sources, the US is 
planning to support border forces in Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and 
Venezuela with aircraft and intelligence to help contain the Colombian 
rebels.

At the same time, the US State Department would reportedly label the 
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Evercito de 
Liberacion Nacional (ELN) "narco-guerrillas", declaring them responsible 
for participating in the narcotics industry in Colombia.

The alleged plan would also involve extradition requests aimed at linking 
the insurgency more closely with the drug trade.

In more concretely linking FARC and ELN with the narcotics trade, the El 
Tiempo claims that the State Department hopes to both reduce criticism 
from the US Congress and to build regional support for a multinational 
force.

The US State Department has long woven a tortuous argument that, while the 
US is not and will not become involved in battling Colombia's guerrillas, 
it is actively participating in the war on drugs.

In actively touting a plan for multinational intervention against "threats 
to democracy" in Latin America; in planning to actively assist Colombia's 
neighbours in battling incursions by Colombian guerrillas; and in linking 
the FARC and ELN more directly to the drug trade, the US appears to be 
moving beyond its doublespeak.

While still doing so in a roundabout manner, the US appears to be deepening 
its commitment to Colombian counterinsurgency (COIN) operations.

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Acknowledgements: Global Intelligence Updates