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Venezuela has its own foreign and neighbor relations to consider in making such foreign policy decisions.
For instance, outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe came close to declaring war on Venezuela, just before he left office, by accusing Venezuela of 'harboring' FARC guerrillas and basically calling for an international invasion of Venezuela, without the consent of Venezuela's government, to seek out FARC guerrillas in the border areas. Venezuela responded by cutting off diplomatic relations with Colombia, a preliminary to a state of war, and closing its borders. Some commentators thought war was imminent. Diplomats throughout the region went into action to try to calm things down. Argentina's former president, Nestor Kirchner, now president of UNASUR (the prototype South American "common market" structure) was notably visible in this effort, as was Brazil's president Lula da Silva. Luckily, Uribe was leaving (probably ousted by the CIA), is a notorious blowhard, had no credible evidence, and was likely just making payments on his continued CIA protection from prosecution for his many crimes.
The new Colombian president, former Defense Minister Manuel Santos, wanted to make peace and withdrew the accusations, probably because Venezuela is a major trading partner and the state of hostility that Uribe had created was really hurting business. I won't go into what I think the long term U.S./Colombia plan might be, re Venezuela, but, for the moment, peace prevails.
For Venezuela to abstain from Colombia's nomination to the Security Council would have been a risky affront in these circumstances, whatever Chavez and his government may think of human rights abuses in Colombia. The human rights abuses were the work of the Alvaro Uribe government, and, although Manuel Santos was Uribe's Defense Minister during several of those years, he has thus far not been implicated (whereas Uribe has been). Santos and the U.S. seem to want a "new day" in Colombia. Chavez is taking that at face value. It is his right and duty to judge such situations for himself. That is what a president does. The pros and cons of trade vs hostility. The pros and cons as to political conditions on the other side of the border. Hard-line diplomacy vs a more friendly approach. Presidents make such judgments all the time, and have many factors to weigh in deciding how to proceed with a potentially hostile country with a history of human rights abuses.
Venezuela shares a long border with Colombia--a border over which about a quarter of a million poor Colombians have fled, into Venezuela for refuge, mostly from the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. On the other side of this Venezuela/Colombia border is the U.S. military, using at least half a dozen military bases in Colombia. The Colombian military is building a military base--probably with U.S. money, likely for U.S. military use--overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela, only 20 miles from the Venezuelan border. (And, to the north, the U.S. military is using the Dutch Antilles, right off Venezuela's oil coast, to spy on Venezuela, and has furthermore reconstituted the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean.) The border is a constant headache for the Venezuelan government. It is unstable border, over which the forces fighting Colombia's 70-year civil war--both the Colombian military and its paramilitary death squads, and the FARC guerrillas--sometimes stray, and it is also a drug traffic route, and a route for other contraband as well (for instance, cheap oil stolen in Venezuela and re-sold at a profit in Colombia). The Colombian refugees constitute a humanitarian crisis--tens of thousands of people in need of food, housing, health care, schools for children, jobs. And, finally, the border is a major conveyor of legal trade.
But whatever the problems on this border--which runs the whole length of both countries--it is in neither country's interest to have a closed border. Chavez could not keep it open, with the threat that the Colombia military might invade Venezuela, in a fake or real pursuit of FARC guerrillas (with the U.S. military in its wake?). That is exactly what happened to Ecuador (very probably with U.S. military participation) back in 2008. So the threat was real--based on recent precedent. This near state of war needed to be relieved, for everyone's sakes, including both the Colombian and Venezuelan economies.
Venezuelans and Colombians have a lot of history together. Chavez refers to Colombians as "brothers and sisters," and appealed to this fraternal history, and to common cause against the "yanqis," in trying to deal with Uribe (--a treacherous little Bush Jr. clone--but probably smarter than Bush--who figured that the Bush Cartel would "make" him, which appears to have happened). There is no inherent hostility between Colombians and Venezuelans. Recent hostility is mostly an artifice of the U.S. government in its "divide and conquer" strategy in Latin America. Pulling the other way, toward Latin America unity, Chavez is in complete accord with other leaders in the region, such as Lula da Silva and Nestor Kirchner. They believe that it is in everyone's interest, including Colombia's, to move toward a common market and a European Union-type structure, to create collective strength in dealing with the bully power of the North. Colombia is in that bully power's thrall (its fascist elite is supported by US military aid), so it gets pulled both ways, but is mostly responsive to U.S. dictates. One way for the rest of South America to deal with this is to make it worthwhile to Colombia to partner with Latin American countries. That has been Chavez's strategy for a long while, and it is his strategy now. He tried it with Uribe without success. Santos seems more amenable. Personally, I don't trust Santos. Chavez probably doesn't either--but the stakes are high--the future of Latin America as an independent economic block.
There may be some immediate reason that we can't see, behind Venezuela's accord with Colombia's SC seat--some deal that was made at the Chavez/Santos peace agreement meeting. But the long term reasons are all of the above. Chavez wants to avoid a U.S.-instigated war with Colombia as its proxy. He wants peace. He and many other Latin American leaders have common goals, that Chavez is pursuing with regard to Colombia.
Why Bolivia abstained, and Venezuela didn't, I'm not sure. They are usually in accord. Perhaps it is merely the fact that Bolivia DOESN'T have a border with Colombia, and maintaining peace along that border was the crucial factor in Chavez's decision. Thus, Bolivia felt free to express the disgust of the region with human rights abuses in Colombia and its client status with the U.S. Rather surprisingly, Colombia, under Uribe, supported Evo Morales in an unanimous UNASUR resolution and action regarding the U.S.-backed attempted overthrow back in Sept. 2008, and I think Santos was Colombia's rep to UNASUR at the time (not sure). Colombia, under Santos, was also quick to close its border with Ecuador during the recent coup attempt there, and to express strong support for Rafael Correa. Santos seems to be trying to work in accord with other leaders, at least for now. I simply don't know if there was some immediate cause behind Bolivia's abstention. Perhaps Evo Morales just couldn't stomach the carnage in Colombia, weighted his own factors, and decided to be the voice for human rights. It would surprise me A LOT if Chavez, Morales, Lula, Kirchner and others did not consult on this vote--and perhaps there was an agreement, i.e., Chavez must keep the peace; Morales can speak for human rights.
Does anyone know how Ecuador voted? (--also has a dicey border with Colombia, and is a U.S. target). Presumably they did not abstain--nor anyone else but Morales/Bolivia. I'm thinking that this was an agreed upon strategy having to do with Colombia/Venezuela peace agreement.
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