Amid UNASUR Summit, Brazil Likely to Emerge a Winner, With Colombia a Questionable Beneficiary

On August 28, the presidents of the members of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) – a supranational entity modeled after the European Union encompassing all of South America – convened in the Argentine resort city of Bariloche to discuss a range of regional security issues, though the uproar revolving around the recent Colombian-American basing deal eventually dominated the meeting.

The ten-year deal, which represented what could be a grave miscalculation on the part of the Obama administration, was completed on August 15 and allows the American military to utilize five Colombian airbases as well as two naval installations — one on the country’s Pacific coast and the other on the Caribbean. Under the terms of the accord, American military forces are to operate strictly within Colombian territory under an antinarcotics and antiterrorism mandate.

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