Hagel: South American unrest poses threat to U.S.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP ) -- U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel said Monday that unrest in several South American nations poses a potential threat to the United States.
"There are some disturbing signs in South America that we need to pay attention to," said Hagel, a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Hagel made the comment during a news conference call following a weekend trip with committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami.
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"There are ... countries in South America that are under great distress," he said. "You've presidents displaced or thrown out for various reasons. Any unrest in the Southern Hemisphere presents potential problems for all of us."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a critic of the presence of U.S. troops in Colombia, has alarmed U.S. officials with his close ties to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, his plans to buy 100,000 Russian assault rifles and his constant criticism of U.S. foreign policy.
The populist leader has warned the United States -- the top buyer of Venezuelan oil -- not to try anything against him, but has said he wants peace.
Chavez said the Russian rifles were "defensive weapons" to replace outdated guns.
Hagel also expressed concern about instability stemming from Colombia's fight against so-called narco-terrorists. The United States has provided more than $2.5 billion in training, plus military hardware such as helicopters
and intelligence equipment, since 2000 under the so-called "Plan Colombia."
Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
Colombia's war has pitted the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, and a smaller leftist rebel group against government forces and right-wing paramilitary forces. An estimated 3,500 people die in the fighting every year.
Add that to the political unrest that led to a caretaker government in Bolivia, and the fear of cooperation between drug syndicates and terrorist networks in Ecuador and other South and Central American nations, and you have a volatile situation, Hagel said.
"We are not paying enough attention to our southern border, and we are undermining our interests ... at our back door," he said. "That means potential terrorists using ... the Southern Hemisphere as a staging ground ... to move up toward the United States."
Hagel and Roberts also toured the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, where hundreds of suspected terrorists are being held.
Hagel said he spoke privately with many of the guards there and came away convinced that prisoners were not being abused.
He said, however, the United States, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell has suggested, should have declared the detainees prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions.
"It would have given each of these detainees a defined legal status" and deflected allegations that some of the detainees have been mistreated.
"You can't just arbitrarily take those rights from those people -- that's not the way to do this," Hagel said.
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