Latin America’s school for dictators

Posted on Thursday, 05.17.12
ALBA COUNTRIES

Latin America's school for dictators
BY MARTIN C. AROSTEGUI
Arostegui17@hotmail.com

A year ago this month, Bolivian President Evo Morales inaugurated the
College for Defense of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA)
with a speech in which he called for the expulsion of U.S. intelligence
agencies, a new military doctrine based on "asymmetrical war" against
"imperialism" and the "abolition" of the U.N. Security Council. He also
attacked the press, calling CNN a "tool of capitalism",

Morales spoke in the presence of Iran's defense minister, Gen Ahmed
Vahidi, who had to be rushed from the ceremony when it was learned that
Argentine prosecutors were issuing an international arrest warrant over
his alleged role in the 1994 Hezbollah bombing of a Jewish community
center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

ALBA is a Venezuelan-led association of anti-U.S. governments which also
includes Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and some Caribbean island states
dependent on Venezuelan oil subsidies. The fledgling alliance has been
given little importance by U.S. intelligence analysts, who tend to
dismiss it as a purely ideological entity.

Its 5,000-square-meter military facility outside the city of Santa Cruz,
built at the cost of $2 million, remains empty, according to Bolivian
defense spokesmen who say that they are awaiting "input" from other
member states. One Bolivian army officer ventures to say that it is on
"standby," pending the elections in Venezuela.

Despite ALBA's vacant real estate, it is becoming increasingly clear
that member governments are in the process of forming a military and
intelligence network aided and influenced by Iran that could leverage
events in the hemisphere, in the absence of effective U.S. leadership.

Thousands of Cuban security advisors have played a critical role in
consolidating the regime of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and have similarly
assisted leftist governments in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and now,
possibly, Argentina .

A Pentagon report released in 2010 also warned about the growing
presence of Iranian elite Revolutionary Guard Al Qods officers in Latin
America. Small Iranian advisory teams are operating with the security
services of Venezuela and other ALBA nations, according to U.S. State
Department officials speaking off the record.

Bolivia's ex-defense minister, Maria Chacón, has said that the ALBA
school seeks to form leadership cadres for civilian militias. The
strategy of "people in arms" has long been promoted by Fidel Castro and
Chávez for the ostensible purpose of resisting a U.S. invasion.

But a more immediate role for politically directed paramilitary
organizations like Venezuela's growing Bolivarian Militia may be keeping
hard-line factions in power should internal struggles result from an
opposition election victory or Chávez's much anticipated death from cancer.

A Venezuelan official blacklisted by the U.S. government as a member of
Hezbollah, Ghazi Nasr Al Din, directed Circulos Bolivarianos teams that
disrupted opposition rallies, in many cases shooting government
opponents, prior to assuming diplomatic postings in Lebanon and Syria.

The interface between ALBA and its Middle Eastern allies is such that
Cuba has used its Russian-built electronic listening station to jam
satellite broadcasts by U.S.-based Iranian opposition radio stations.

There are also arms deals with Iran, whose Al Qods aeronautic industries
recently opened an assembly plant in Venezuela producing Mojaher-2
drones, which have been offered to Bolivia at discounted prices,
according U.S. diplomatic cables published in Wikilieaks.

Most of Latin American isn't part of ALBA and the prospect of a few
failed states conspiring with a Muslim pariah to take over the world may
seem comical.

But some of the ideas outlined by Morales in last year's speech appear
to have taken root.

Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador have expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency.

Latin American countries have voted unanimously to readmit Cuba to the
Inter-American system, scuttling the OAS democratic charter.

Chile's Defense Minister Andres Allamand reflected regional perceptions
of declining U.S. clout, when he said in front of visiting American
defense secretary Leon Panetta recently: "If any isolated country was
able to guarantee international security in the past, that's no longer
the case."

Martin Arostegui has been covering Latin America for American and
British newspapers over several years. He has also worked as a
correspondent in Afghanistan and has written a book on Special Forces
called Twilight Warriors.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/17/2804507/latin-americas-school-for-dictators.html