In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has ordered to prepare for severing diplomatic relations with Colombia. According to Chavez, the military agreement between Colombia and the US leaves no possibility for maintaining diplomatic relations with the neighboring country. Chavez declared that: “those seven Yankee bases are a declaration of war against the Bolivarian Revolution and that is how we interpret it”.
On a commercial level, Venezuela is already on the way to substituting importation of Colombian products, with new commercial agreements with Brazil and Argentina. The commercial agreement by which Columbia imports Venezuelan fuel at preferential prices has not been renewed.
Venezuela and Colombia will participate this Friday in the UNASUR meeting to take place in Argentina. The meeting is expected to be tense. Colombian authorities will present a formal complaint for the “interventionist tendencies” by Chavez in Colombia. On his behalf, Venezuela will request UNASUR to initiate a “process of reversal” of the military agreement. Colombia has already announced that they will not debate their decision.
The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, proposed to his South American colleagues *”to save Colombia from military intervention by the United States”*. He recalled the disastrous experience of his country with the base at El Chapare, from where the Bolivian police were encouraged to assassinate unioni leaders, becoming a center of instigation to social violence.
*(Translator: Ramiro Pozzo)*
