April 4, 2005

The Art of Destabilization

by Garry Leech

“Why would Venezuela’s 32,000-strong Army need 100,000 new rifles?” asked U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, suggesting that such a weapons acquisition by the Chávez government could lead to an arms race in the region. Rumsfeld’s reaction to the recent announcement that Russia had agreed to sell 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles to Venezuela reeked of hypocrisy given the almost $3 billion in U.S. military aid provided to Colombia over the past six years. The hypocrisy did not end there, however. The Bush administration recently declared that it would sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a move many claim will likely destabilize one of the world’s most volatile regions.

The U.S. defense secretary erroneously claimed that the Venezuelan Army consists of 32,000 fighters when it actually has 100,000 regular soldiers and 30,000 reservists. Rumsfeld hinted at the motivation behind his distortion of facts when he stated: “I can’t imagine what’s going to happen to 100,000 AK-47s.” The U.S. defense secretary was clearly suggesting that the Chávez government would supply these weapons to Colombia’s leftist guerrillas. Rumsfeld not only misrepresented the actual size of the Venezuelan military, he also failed to note that Venezuelan troops are currently armed with aging Belgian FAL rifles.

In sharp contrast, the Colombian military is armed with modern Israeli-made Galil and U.S.-manufactured M-16 assault rifles, while also being the recipient of more U.S. military aid than any country besides Israel and Egypt over the past five years. During this time, the Colombian military has received more than 65 Blackhawk and Huey helicopter gunships, established new battalions of elite troops trained and armed by U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers, and has benefited from access to modern and high-tech U.S. intelligence gathering methods.

If there is an arms race brewing in South America, it is clearly rooted in the massive increase in U.S. military aid to Colombia under the war on drugs and the war on terror. The massive U.S.-funded Colombian military build-up is surely disturbing to the Venezuelan government given the fact that Washington and Bogotá were among the first and only governments to recognize the coup regime that briefly overthrew President Chávez in April 2002.

There is nothing surprising about Rumsfeld’s comments about Venezuela’s arms purchases. They are just the most recent in a long line of anti-Chávez rhetoric from the Bush administration intended to destablilize the Venezuelan government. The U.S. State Department’s recently released annual human rights report severely criticized Venezuela for violations of human rights. In sharp contrast, it ludicrously praised Colombia’s human rights performance despite the fact that the country is among the world’s leaders in massacres, kidnappings, and in the killings of labor leaders, teachers and human rights defenders. The Uribe administration also far surpasses the Chávez government with regard to the number of arbitrary detentions and the degree of impunity that exists in the country’s judicial system.

The fact that Colombia is one of the world’s biggest human rights disasters was highlighted by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent announcement that it is investigating war crimes in Colombia, many of which have been committed by the country’s military and right-wing paramilitary death squads. According to Luis Moreno, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, “The information received so far indicates thousands of people have been killed, disappeared, kidnapped and forcibly displaced since 1 November 2002.” There is no evidence of such gross human rights abuses being committed in Venezuela under President Chávez’s rule.

The U.S. State Department’s human rights report, Rumsfeld’s recent comments and the many other instances of Chávez-bashing clearly reflect the Bush administration’s political goals in the region: support for those who participate in the U.S.-pushed neoliberal economic project and the demonization of those critical of the U.S. agenda. There is no clearer example of this than the Bush administration’s contrasting positions and rhetoric towards Venezuela, often critical of U.S. imperialism, and Colombia, the current neoliberal poster child.

Rumsfeld’s suggestion that Venezuela’s arms purchases could possibly lead to a regional arms race seems hypocritical and irresponsible in light of the recent U.S. decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. Such a decision, clearly a reward for Pakistan’s support in the war on terror, can only aggravate tensions between Pakistan and India. Both countries currently possess 744 combat aircraft, but the U.S. sale threatens to disrupt this military balance. Such a move is particularly dangerous given the fact that these nations have already fought several wars against each other and both possess nuclear weapons.

Bush administration officials have hinted that they might offset the new imbalance in combat aircraft by also selling F-16s to India. Such a cynical approach by the Bush administration in South Asia will allow the U.S. military industrial complex to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been spent to alleviate the high levels of poverty in both India and Pakistan. But this is nothing new. After all, the huge majority of the almost $3 billion in U.S. military aid for Colombia over the past six years never left the United States—it went directly to the U.S. companies that built the helicopters and weapons sent to Colombia. In the post-Cold War era, it is still business as usual for the world’s leading weapons exporter. And logically, global instability is an essential requirement for ensuring the continued growth of the arms industry.

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