Colombia (still) is NATO’s only “global partner” in Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombia is the only Latin American country with NATO “global partner” status. Bogota has contributed to anti-piracy patrols in the Horn of Africa, and Colombian experts have provided mine clearance training to allies and partner countries.

The rapprochement between Colombia and NATO took place during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, who, on May 31, 2018, two months before leaving the presidency, made official in Brussels, together with Stoltenberg, the cooperation agreement that made the country a “global partner” of the Atlantic Alliance.

Being a NATO partner not only implies a defense and security issue, but it also means assuming certain ideological principles that necessarily align the South American country with the West and especially with the United States, and that is an objective to be destroyed by the Bolivarian left that is about to take power.

Colombia’s agreement with NATO, which began to be forged in 2013, was harshly questioned at the time by the Bolivarian governments; as in the case of neighboring Venezuela, they branded as “alarming” that rapprochement considering that it would open “the door to the warlike and interventionist policy” of the U.S. in the region.

On February 14, a few days before the Russian military operation in Ukraine began, Colombian President Ivan Duque visited Brussels and met with the head of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg.

RUSSIA, CHINA, AND THE VENEZUELAN REGIME

On that occasion, Stoltenberg noted, “We exchanged views on deepening cooperation between Russia and China, including their support for the repressive regime in Venezuela. We agreed that all parties should play a constructive role for regional peace and stability.”

Such an agreement and close collaboration between Colombia and NATO have their days numbered with the election of leftist and former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who is aligned with the Bolivarian axis led by the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro.

Petro will assume the presidency of Colombia next August 7, and Duque – who has already received him at the Casa de Nariño, the seat of the Executive in Bogota – has pointed out that being a strategic partner of the Atlantic Alliance “is already a state policy” for Colombia.

“Although we are not a full member, our responsibility is to accompany the decision-making of an organization that proposes the best practices in security and defense,” explained Duque in an interview with EFE.

NATO MAY LOSE ITS PARTNER

However, Petro has on several occasions expressed his critical opinion of this link with the Atlantic Alliance. “NATO means North Atlantic Alliance. We are from the Caribbean and the Pacific and very Latin American,” wrote the former guerrilla on the social network Twitter in June 2013.

Throughout the recent election campaign, Petro has not explicitly referred to NATO when talking about the war in Ukraine, nor has he stated that he would pull Colombia out of cooperation with the Atlantic Alliance.

With information from El Debate