AMERICA: Armies See New Challenges in a Post-Cold War World

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 8 1995 (IPS) - The Conference of American Armies, created during the Cold War to fight communism, approved Nicaragua’s return to the fold on Wednesday.

However, the military leaders agreed that it is not yet time to invite Cuba to rejoin.

The officers, meeting Nov. 6-11 in the southern Argentine city of Bariloche to analyse “the Challenges to the Nation State”, say poverty, unemployment, the foreign debt, immigration, drug trafficking and terrorism are today’s new threats.

Communism seems to have disappeared from the organisation’s agenda since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although it remains a concern of Chilean army chief General Augusto Pinochet.

The former dictator warned that communism “remains a danger,” and that the Marxist-Leninist ideology “is still alive, but with another face – a democratic face that seeks to attract the public.”

Pinochet is also the only military leader opposed to Cuba’s reincorporation into the forum, which has been meeting every two years since 1960.

The head of the U.S. army, Denis Reimer, had admitted on the eve of the conference that the leaders could evaluate the possibility of Cuba’s membership, but said it is still early to talk about dates.

Participants agreed on the need for democracy and civilian governments as political systems – a stance that contrasts with a past riddled with military coups.

The representatives of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru also expressed their concern over drug trafficking, which to the surprise of participants was absent from Reimer’s speech.

The Conference of American Armies was created in the midst of the Cold War to combine forces in the fight against communism. But once the stand-off of superpowers vanished and regional guerrilla movements lost strength or reached peace accords with governments, the armed forces began to gradually modify the organisation’s agenda.

In the document being studied in Bariloche, the armies said the lack of development in Southern countries and economic inequality are a continental threat.

“The lack of sustainable development must be considered a problem to be faced,” states the document that has been drawn up since the last meeting held in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, and is being finetuned in the Hotel Llao Llao in Bariloche, 1,700 kilometres southwest of Buenos Aires.

The Conference is made up of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Costa Rica, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama.

Participants agree that Nicaragua, which was expelled from the Conference in 1979 when the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front took power, can now be reinvited to join.

The military attache of the Ecuadorian Embassy in Buenos Aires, Osvaldo Jarrin, said the threats have changed and new challenges exist today. The next meeting will be held in Quito, Ecuador in 1997.

AMERICA: Armies See New Challenges in a Post-Cold War World

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 8 1995 (IPS) - The Conference of American Armies, created during the Cold War to fight communism, approved Nicaragua’s return to the fold on Wednesday.
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