Colombia Passport

President Álvaro Uribe made a strong statement against the arms race in the region. In his intervention before the 64^th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the President of Colombia said that it is worrying that instead to increase the cooperation for security and peace for the peoples, some leaders accelerate the arms race and even confess their war mood.

The statements answer to the current diplomatic crisis between Colombia and Venezuela, when President Hugo Chávez opposed strongly the presence of American military personnel in Colombia. Chávez argued that such military agreement between Bogotá and Washington is a treatment to the sovereignty of his country. The campaign of Chávez has raised also a hot debate within Unasur, the recent founded association for the South American nations.

Other countries like Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador, question the military agreement, while Colombia defends that it is related to domestic affairs to fight terrorism and drug trafficking. At the same time, Venezuela, Brazil and others are buying new arms declaring that it is a modernization of their military equipment. Especially Venezuela has bought heavy weapons from Russia, while condemning Colombia for its military agreement with US. President Chávez has declared his intention of war if US attacks his country from Colombia.

President Uribe stated also that terrorism cannot be ignored under the pretense of ‘good international relations.’ He said that the nations should cooperate to overcome such drama and other realities like the arms traffic, drugs, money laundry and shelters for terrorists.

He recognized also the support of the United States in the fight against terrorism from the drug mafias and asked more international cooperation against such evil.

Uribe is no agreeing with the proposal of a global legalization of drugs. ‘Instead to legalize drugs, it is necessary to reflect on the need to make the drug consume illegal.’ The position of the South American President corresponds to a traditional Colombian perspective that the fight against the power of drug mafias should be done in the reduction of drug consumption. As consumption is higher in United States and Europe, it is the duty of those countries to reduce the market in their soils.

The President dedicated a part of his speech to the global warming and the compromise of Colombia with the ecological preservation. A country with an exuberant ecology like the Andean nation, has the 51 percent of its territory in the Amazon basin (578 thousand kilometers squares of the Amazon belong to Colombia, said the President.)

The objective of his government is increasing the international community’s confidence in his country through the strengthening of security and democracy, promoting socially responsible entrepreneurship and investment and ensuring social cohesion, said the President. He mentioned as achievements the dismantling of paramilitaries and the end of intimidation or assassination of judges.

Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras

By the other site, President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, denounced that the embassy of Brazil in Honduras had had its electricity and water cut off for having given shelter to the constitutional President that was deposed by militaries of that country. President Fernández called on international multilateral strategy to return democracy to Honduras. As multilateral strategies, she meant a set of common and general rules to concrete actions.

The President of the Argentineans mentioned also the issue of the Malvinas which still could not achieve sovereignty, a principle that had been proclaimed by the General Assembly on many occasions.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia condemned the presence of US military bases in the region as threaten to social peace, democracy and integration. He suggested that the military US base in Honduras was the reason of the current coup d’état in that country.

‘We know what uniformed personnel of the United States can do in a country.  When there are United States military bases in Latin America, social peace and democracy cannot be guaranteed,’ he said.