[Peace-discuss] Venezuela-Colombia Crisis: Where was Washington?

[Phil Stinard]

The author of this article is perhaps a little too eager and premature in 
trumpeting the failure of US foreign policy in Latin America (in the 
negative sense of the term "US foreign policy"), but it's a good analysis of 
the Granda Affair.  The original article is at: www.coha.org

--Phil

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Gabriel Espinosa-Gonzalez on: Venezuela-Colombia Crisis: Where was 
Washington?

Bush Administration Should be Embarrassed as Brazil, Peru and Cuba Help 
Broker Compromise while U.S. Policymakers, led by Noriega, try to whip 
Colombia into a Frenzy

• Washington’s Latin America policy continues to be afflicted by a severe 
case of short-sighted tunnel vision that makes it unlikely that the many 
ruptures with hemispheric nations that developed in Bush’s first term will 
be mended during his second term.

• U.S. policymakers’ failed attempts at isolating Venezuelan President Hugo 
Chávez from the rest of Latin America as a result of a diplomatic crisis 
between Venezuela and Colombia—which was resolved on February 15—sullies 
Washington’s already tarnished image and constitutes a serious misappraisal 
of the prevailing diplomatic atmosphere throughout the region.

• The total dearth of effective and positive U.S. diplomacy during the 
crisis allowed regional players Brazil, Peru and Cuba to showcase their 
commitment toward greater unity and stability within Latin America.

• Havana’s role in helping to mediate the crisis further embarrasses a Bush 
administration that rarely misses an opportunity to portray the Castro 
regime as an obstructionist to regional peace, but the facts prove 
differently.

• The severity of the now mended crisis between Venezuela and Colombia can 
be attributed to the fact that it concerned two issues of utmost importance 
for each country’s respective president: Chávez’s mobilization around the 
issue of national sovereignty on the one hand, and the integrity of 
President Alvaro Uribe’s war of attrition against guerrilla forces operating 
in his country on the other.

• Ultimately, diplomatic assistance provided by other Latin American 
governments, in conjunction with bilateral economic pressures, encouraged 
both sides to arrive at a resolution yesterday in which Caracas agreed to 
resume bilateral trade and economic projects and both governments committed 
themselves to cooperate on border security issues in such a way as to 
guarantee that “sovereignty is not affected.”


The Bush administration’s counterproductive and unfortunately predictable 
response to the severe diplomatic crisis that erupted in January between 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro 
Uribe, reaffirms that Latin America’s leadership cannot count upon 
Washington to serve as a stabilizing, mature and positive force in the 
region. The Bush administration’s decision to unequivocally and 
enthusiastically side with Bogotá, even before the details of the dispute 
could fully be examined, and its call for other Latin America leaders to 
join it in isolating Chávez—many of whom see Washington, not Caracas, as 
their main regional nemesis—was transparently Machiavellian in its intent. 
The administration’s demarche also was grossly unsuccessful since it 
subsequently went unheeded. Instead, Brazil, Peru and Cuba demonstrated 
their ability to serve as productive mediators, helping resolve the crisis 
and enhancing their image as peacemakers at the expense of Washington’s 
reputation. As a result, Latin America was made all the more aware that its 
neighbor to the north cannot be viewed as anything but a unilateralist 
intent on maximizing every opportunity to advance its own self-interests 
rather than the good of the region. The destructive manner in which 
Washington played its hand once again showed how unprepared State Department 
Assistant Secretary Roger Noriega is to contribute to a constructive and 
non-ideological projection of U.S. policy in Latin America and provide 
effective leadership to the Bureau of Inter-American affairs.

Granda Affair
The abduction in Caracas and later delivery to Colombia of Rodrigo Granda of 
the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) on December 13, which 
precipitated the diplomatic row between Venezuela and Colombia, led 
officials from both neighboring countries to swap charges with the other 
regarding violation of national sovereignty on the one hand, and neglect of 
and even collusion with guerrilla activities on the other. Despite Colombian 
Minister of Defense Jorge Alberto Uribe’s insistence that Granada’s 
apprehension was “accomplished exclusively by our operatives and in 
Colombian territory,” it soon became clear that the facts did not conform to 
that rendition of the story.

When it finally was established that Granda’s capture in Caracas was a 
result of collaboration between Colombian security officials and a number of 
renegade Venezuelan national guardsmen and policemen serving as bounty 
hunters without the instruction of their superiors, Chávez responded 
forcefully. Speaking on his weekly radio address on January 9, he 
characterized the apprehension as a clear violation of Venezuelan 
sovereignty and later demanded an apology from President Uribe and a 
thorough investigation of the matter. Bogotá, after reluctantly admitting on 
January 12 that it indeed had paid for Granda’s capture, responded in kind 
by rehashing allegations of complicity between Caracas and the leftist FARC, 
while justifying the abduction on the basis of its fight against 
international terrorism. A vicious cycle of recriminating exchanges ensued, 
reaching a boiling point on January 14 when, after already calling back his 
ambassador to Bogotá, Chávez raised the stakes by suspending all commercial 
ties with its neighbor to the west. The Venezuelan president claimed that 
regardless of intent, it was completely unjustifiable for high-ranking 
Colombian officials to attempt to “instigate Venezuelan officials to commit 
a crime…that they attempt to buy Venezuelan soldiers so that they sell out 
their nation.” At this point, there was good reason to fear that the two 
neighbors had reached an impasse and things could only get worse.

A Wasted Opportunity
With the dispute between Venezuela and Colombia escalating to a level far 
beyond that of a simple diplomatic spat, the Bush administration had a 
unique opportunity to begin to make amends for its mostly unilateral, 
arrogant and, at best, neglectful first-term Latin America policy. With 
Chávez and Uribe—respectively the Bush administration’s nemesis and 
staunchest ally in the region—involved in a serious confrontation that 
appeared to require third-party mediation, Washington should have offered to 
help broker an agreement between the two countries rather than pour vinegar 
on an open wound. A conciliatory policy, as previously followed by U.S. 
ambassador to Caracas William Brownfield, could have proved highly 
beneficial for the Bush administration’s stained reputation, as it would 
have exhibited a newfound willingness on its part to serve as a constructive 
force in the region at a time when a new generation of left-of-center 
leaders in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay had come to the fore. 
Moreover they demonstrated themselves to be inherently wary of Washington’s 
meddlesome tactics and more reluctant than their predecessors to cooperate 
blindly on any issue that the hemispheric superpower identifies as being of 
emerging importance.

Furthermore, such a move would have entailed very little political cost 
because regardless of how the dispute was eventually resolved, Washington 
would have been able to interpret its role in the matter as consonant with 
its overall commitment to Colombia’s fight against “terrorism.” Had 
U.S.-mediated talks proved fruitless, the strategy would nevertheless have 
allowed the White House to appease some members of Congress, among them 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), 
Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), who on one occasion or 
another had voiced their concerns about Washington’s deteriorating relations 
with Caracas, one of the U.S.’s largest suppliers of foreign oil. Senator 
Richard Lugar (R-IN), the committee’s chairman, also has expressed his broad 
concern with current U.S. regional policy, indirectly criticizing the Bush 
administration and expressing his hope that newly appointed Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice has “people in the department [State Department 
Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs] who are on top of the situation.” 
This can only be interpreted as a slap in the face of Assistant Noriega, a 
political extremist whose policy initiatives more often than not reflect the 
views of Miami’s hard-right expatriate community, rather than more 
diplomatically oriented moderates in either the U.S. or Latin America.

Attempts Fall Flat
Old habits are always difficult to shed, and all the more so when the 
administration in power does not take kindly to constructive criticism or 
often admit and move to redress past mistakes. Instead of steering a course 
toward mutually beneficial and potentially a more successful diplomacy, the 
Bush administration’s policymakers reverted to their customary hard line, 
viewing Caracas’ dispute with Bogotá as just one more opportunity to further 
their goal of isolating Chávez within Latin America. One can argue, though, 
that considering Venezuela’s increased contact and collaboration with 
regional governments, it is Washington that in fact has ended up being 
isolated in Latin America. That the U.S. had a favorite in the dispute was 
undeniable, but on January 15, U.S. Ambassador to Bogotá William Wood issued 
a posturing statement expressing his government’s “100 percent” support for 
Colombia’s position, even after it had been revealed that Uribe’s government 
paid for Granda’s capture in Venezuela. With this Washington became the 
first and along with El Salvador the only hemispheric government to publicly 
disavow a position of neutrality. In recent years El Salvador’s conservative 
government has proved itself a loyal sycophant of Washington, siding with 
the minority of Latin American governments on two especially noteworthy 
occasions: supporting the Bush administration during the Iraqi invasion and 
earlier in its decision to recognize the short-lived government that 
undemocratically unseated Chávez in 2002.

What transpired next was a concerted effort led by Noriega to attempt to 
line-up the rest of the region on Washington’s side. This grave 
miscalculation presupposed two things: that Washington’s voice commanded 
utmost respect in Latin America and that the region’s governments, 
especially those aspiring to position themselves as influential actors, did 
not have a big stake in wanting to see the dispute between Venezuela and 
Colombia successfully mediated. Both theses turned out to be false, and thus 
the diplomatic communiqué sent by Washington urging Brasilia, Buenos Aires, 
Santiago, Mexico City and others to pressure Chávez to yield to Bogotá’s 
demands was either ignored or repudiated on a de facto basis.

Noriega, in essence, implicitly admitted to his diplomatic miscalculation 
when in a February 4 interview on the publicly-funded U.S. overseas’ radio 
network, Voice of America, he lamented the fact that certain Latin American 
governments had decided to adopt an attitude independent of Washington 
(appropriately enough for the Bush administration’s low expectations for its 
diplomacy in the region, the day before this interview it was announced that 
Noriega would remain at his post during Bush’s second term). The Assistant 
Secretary blithely referred to these governments’ unwillingness to be party 
to Washington’s self-righteous confrontation with Chávez in a sanguine way, 
categorizing it as “a sort of fatigue among the countries in the hemisphere” 
that he hoped would soon pass. He promised to continue his Cold War-era 
inspired campaign, adding that Washington might even seek to invoke the 
“Democracy” charter of the Organization of American States, which calls for 
collective sanctions against presidents who seek to become de facto 
dictators, against Chávez. In broad terms, the Bush administration’s Latin 
America policy, as characterized by this particular case, is and will most 
likely continue to be afflicted by a severe case of tunnel vision that will 
work against better inter-American relations as well as the possibility of 
arriving at some sort of consensus on other hemispheric issues identified as 
critical to U.S. interests, such as drug trafficking, security and free 
trade. Simply put, the Noriega era has been a disaster for sound U.S.-Latin 
American ties, which at some point may go beyond repair.

Latin American Initiative
With Washington’s contribution to placating the Venezuela–Colombia dispute 
consisting almost solely of barbs directed at President Chávez, other Latin 
American governments rose to the occasion. As Ambassador Wood and State 
Department spokesman Richard Boucher spoke of the need to pressure Caracas 
and Secretary Rice referred to Chávez as a “negative force” in her Senate 
confirmation hearing, the governments of Peru and Mexico were the first to 
emphasize the need for Venezuela and Colombia to maintain open channels of 
communication. Peru, which currently holds the presidency of the Andean 
Community of Nations (CAN), to which both countries belong, played a 
particularly instrumental role in bringing Chávez and Uribe closer to a 
settlement and to yesterday’s face-to-face meeting, which originally was 
scheduled for February 3. Once the dispute had virtually been resolved, 
Uribe thanked Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and his Foreign Minister, 
Manual Rodríguez, for their “efficient and intelligent mediating role.” 
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also offered his government’s 
assistance and took advantage of a previously scheduled meeting with Uribe 
in the Colombian city of Leticia on January 9 to help relieve some of the 
hostility between Colombia and Venezuela. Lula, whose ideological posture 
originally was very similar to that of Chávez’, nevertheless maintains close 
ties with both countries’ presidents. Moreover, since assuming the Brazilian 
presidency in 2003, he has led a campaign for his nation to become a greater 
regional player, an aspiration that undoubtedly influenced his words and 
actions in this case, and his decision to sell aircraft to Venezuela. The 
deal has not yet been finalized but Caracas will likely purchase up to two 
dozen Super Tucano training and light combat planes from Brasilia. And 
although the agreement has raised fears of a future arms race between 
Venezuela and Colombia, the fact that Chávez is purchasing the equipment 
from a friend and a burgeoning partner of Washington makes it difficult for 
the U.S. to loudly voice its concern over the sale. In fact, the deal in 
effect erects a defensive barrier around Venezuela because Washington is 
hardly looking for a fight with Brasilia, and even Noriega would not try to 
bully Brazil as if it were a Caribbean mini-state.

Perhaps most surprising of all was Cuba’s role in mediating the crisis, as 
first reported by the Colombian daily El Tiempo. According to the article, 
President Uribe himself reached out to Fidel Castro for assistance as the 
situation appeared to be spiraling out of control. Castro responded by 
dispatching his foreign minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, to Caracas on January 
19 to meet with Chávez. After being apprised of the situation and of the 
Venezuelan president’s willingness to reach an agreement – provided that 
Bogotá would agree to a thorough investigation of Granda’s capture – Pérez 
Roque returned to Havana and that same night Castro and Uribe had a long 
conversation in which the basic outlines of a compromise began to be 
discerned. Following a meeting with Cuba’s Assistant Foreign Minister, 
Abelardo Romero, and discussions with key Colombian businessmen who were 
increasingly worried over the financial consequences of Venezuela’s decision 
to suspend trade with Colombia, Uribe personally wrote a letter agreeing to 
some of Chávez’s demands while stipulating that his concerns ultimately lie 
with the Colombian people. The details of the compromise were later worked 
out by the foreign ministers of both countries at the CAN summit held in 
Lima on January 27. The following day, Colombia’s ministry of foreign 
affairs released a statement announcing the “the incident [between the two 
countries] has been overcome” and that Chávez and Uribe would meet in 
Caracas on February 3 to consummate the agreement – although the encounter 
was subsequently postponed to February 15 after Uribe fell ill.

Uribe, careful not to embarrass Washington but at the same time trying to 
seve his own country’s authentic national interests, which are far from 
identical to those of the U.S., has kept Castro’s prominent role in the 
negotiations mostly under wraps, although he is known to be grateful for it. 
Chávez, of course, held no such qualms and on January 30, while 
participating in the World Social Forum in Brazil, thanked Cuba, Brazil and 
Peru for their assistance in resolving his country’s dispute with Colombia, 
referring to its leaders as “worried friends.” Castro’s decision to help 
mediate, though, was not based solely on altruistic intentions. In fact, not 
only does the manner in which the dispute was ultimately resolved provide 
the Cuban strongman with an honored place to hang his diplomatic hat, but 
more importantly, it also benefits Castro that Chávez, his closest 
hemispheric ally, has been able to maintain constructive relations with the 
rest of the region and come out of the incident with increased prestige. In 
any event, Havana’s success must be seen as Washington’s failure.

Two Bulls Stand Down
To understand why the recent crisis between Venezuela and Colombia 
mushroomed into the most intense diplomatic dispute between the two 
neighbors in decades, one must first understand that it was primarily a 
confrontation between two men with very strong convictions and the 
wherewithal to defend them. Because the Granda affair dealt with two issues 
that both Chávez and Uribe consider as being of paramount importance to 
their respective nations and their hold on power, the dispute was able to 
escalate far beyond that of the usual diplomatic spat. Both presidents, 
despite subscribing to diametrically opposed ideological positions, share 
many similarities: both lead highly personalistic governments whose popular 
mandate is based on the fact that a majority of their constituents perceive 
them as strong and willful leaders who operate in ways that distinguish them 
from their predecessors.

This feeling is especially evident in Venezuela, where Chávez is hailed by a 
poor majority that virtually had been ignored by a long line of centrist 
leaders who were content to govern according to the interests of the 
country’s elite and at a price of wanton corruption. Chávez’s rhetoric, 
therefore, is laced with heavy nationalistic and populist overtones and 
guarantees to reaffirm Venezuelan sovereignty and equality for all of its 
citizens in the face of “foreign and domestic aggression.” On the other 
hand, Uribe has confronted Colombia’s decades-long conflict with both right- 
and left-wing guerrilla groups with an aggressiveness that places him in 
stark contrast with his somewhat disgraced, if high-minded predecessor, 
Andrés Pastrana. Pastrana, who adopted a more conciliatory—his critics would 
claim weak—stance against the insurgency. Uribe, on the other hand, has 
consistently increased and expanded his country’s military budget and size, 
demonstrating his commitment to challenge the guerrilla forces head on 
regardless of the consequences or level of casualties.

The Granda affair served to highlight abiding and contentious issues on both 
sides of the border, which to an extent precluded them from adopting a more 
conciliatory and proactive approach to resolving the ensuing crisis. Such a 
position could have allowed each leader to be perceived as weak and could 
potentially have risked undermining some of their sources of support. This 
reality exacerbated a situation that normally could have been resolved 
through the type of open face-to-face discussions that, in the months 
preceding Granda’s capture, had led to a noticeable improvement in 
Venezuela–Colombia bilateral relations. Following yesterday’s meeting 
between Chávez and Uribe, the latter acknowledged as much, stating that when 
future disagreements arise the approach should be “prudent” with “more 
direct communication” and less yellow journalism.

In the end, foreign mediation helped to induce both Caracas and Bogotá to 
reach a diplomatic agreement that in reality they were anxious to achieve 
all along, with vital economic factors undoubtedly exerting pressure for a 
timely settlement. Venezuela is Colombia’s second largest trading partner 
($2.5 billion in bilateral trade) and Chávez’s decision to suspend 
commercial ties placed a heavy burden on the latter’s economy. As of January 
29, for example, five large coal producing corporations that operate in the 
Colombian state of Santander estimated their losses resulting from the 
disagreement at $1.7 million. Furthermore, the dispute threatened to derail 
a number of critical commercial agreements vital to bringing about Chávez’s 
economic platform, foremost among them the building of a $120 million, 
92-mile pipeline from Venezuela’s oil rich Maracaibo region to Colombia’s 
Pacific coast, which is mainly designed to satisfy China’s expanding demand 
for oil and to diversify Caracas’ dependence on the US market. The rupture 
over Granda resulted in an economic burden that neither country was willing 
to bear in the long run and served as a strong incentive for both sides to 
reach a compromise as soon as possible. Following the February 15 meeting, 
Caracas and Bogotá have now resumed normalized diplomatic and economic ties. 
Left unanswered is why throughout the ordeal Washington was content to 
remain caviling from the sidelines, offering little hope that an improvement 
in relations with some of its more recalcitrant hemispheric neighbors would 
be forthcoming or even particularly desired.

This analysis was prepared by Gabriel Espinosa-Gonzalez, COHA Research 
Fellow.