US-Colombia deal overshadows South American summit

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People demonstrate against Colombia's plan to give US troops greater access to its military bases during a protest in San Carlos de Bariloche, southwest of Buenos Aires, Thursday. —AP

BARILOCHE, Argentina, Aug 28 (AP): It might have seemed like nothing more than a contract renewal to US negotiators - a 10-year lease on space at seven Colombian bases that would improve the fight against drug traffickers and leftist rebels.
After all, the US military has already operated in the country for years as part of Plan Colombia, $6 billion in US aid that helped President Alvaro Uribe bring security to the violent nation.
The deal is done - just awaiting signatures, according to Colombia's foreign minister - and Uribe has no intentions of backing down at Friday's UNASUR summit of South American presidents.
But secrecy surrounding the US-Colombia talks enabled Uribe's critics to publicly assume the worst, generating weeks of headlines by warning of a new Yankee menace to the continent.
Diplomats have spent weeks doing damage control since the first reported details of the base agreement. That story quoted senior Colombian military and civilian officials who said the idea was to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations.
A US military document described one of the Colombian bases, Palanquero, as a potential jumping off point for US forces, noting that "nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 (military transport) without refuelling."
US officials have publicly stressed since then that the US military will remain inside Colombia and only cross borders when invited by other countries.
But the explanation hasn't satisfied presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador. Brazil hopes to see Uribe make written guarantees at the summit.
Chavez - who has repeatedly denied accusations that he supports Colombia's leftist rebels - said the deal loosed "winds of war." He warned that US troops could use the bases to launch operations to unseat Latin American leaders like himself.