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Colombia: U.S. Base Sparks Suspicions
The United States and Colombia have finalized a deal that will allow U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for the next ten years. Both parties have insisted that the agreement reinforces an existing partnership fighting regional narco-trafficking; however, very few of the terms have been released, garnering policy-makers’ suspicions and regional accusations. At stake may be U.S. aid standards founded on humanitarian and legal bases, as well as U.S. legitimacy in a pocket of the world growing increasingly resentful of historical U.S. hemispheric hegemony. After the announcement of the deal’s conclusion, Latin American leaders and policy-makers officially condemned the move; and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dramatically declared at a meeting of the Union of South American nations that “winds of warfare” were blowing across the continent.