In May of 2008 a U.S. warplane flying from Curacao violated Venezuelan airspace, conducting surveillance of the Venezuelan military base on
Orchila Island. President Chavez said of the intrusion: "They're spying, they're even testing our reaction capacity." [16]
Moreover, Venezuela accused the U.S. of coordinating the action with Colombia, whose soldiers had crossed the Venezuelan border the day before.
In 2005 Chavez appeared on the American television news program Nightline and warned that the U.S. and its NATO allies were rehearsing invasion plans for his nation, codenamed Balboa, which involved aircraft carriers and warplanes, and said that American troops had been deployed to Curacao as part of the preparations.
He further admonished: "We are coming up with a counter-Balboa plan. That is to say if the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war. We are prepared." [17]
A former Dutch possession in the Caribbean, Suriname, one country (Guyana) removed from Venezuela, offered the Pentagon bases to test military vehicles for jungle warfare in 2007.
In Guyana, Venezuela's eastern neighbor, the nation's former colonial master Britain canceled a security agreement after the Guyanese government questioned its partner's real intentions.
The nation's Office of the President released a statement which in part said: ??This decision by the UK Government is believed to be linked to the administration's refusal to permit training of British Special Forces in Guyana using live firing in a hinterland community on the western border with Brazil and Venezuela. ? [18]
The Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, stated, "It could be that the UK Government did not fully appreciate how dearly held was our position on the non-violation of the sovereignty of Guyana. Their insistence in installing in their design in April...management features that seriously compromise Guyana's ownership and when our new design re-established ownership that was more consistent with our notions of sovereignty, the plug was pulled...." [19]
With U.S. bases in Colombia to the west and in the Netherlands Antilles to the north, British military presence in the east would tighten the encirclement of Venezuela. A collective siege conducted by NATO allies the U.S., the Netherlands and Britain.
This June the chief of the Pentagon command that covers Central America, South America and the Caribbean - Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) - Admiral James Stavridis, was transferred to Brussels to become top military commander of United States European Command (EUCOM) and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
The transition was seamless, as one of the first initiatives on his new watch was to recruit U.S.-trained Colombian counterinsurgency troops for the war in Afghanistan. When they arrive they will be the first forces from Latin America, and the Western Hemisphere in general except for NATO members the U.S. and Canada, to serve under the Alliance's command in the escalating South Asian war. [20]
Elsewhere in the Caribbean, Panamanian opposition sources report that Washington is in the process of securing four air and naval bases in their country. A news story from late September revealed that a preliminary agreement on the bases "was reached between Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during recent talks in New York." [21]
On November 9 Senator Bill Nelson of Florida spoke out against drilling for oil off his state's coast, saying "many of the activities at Florida military bases, including testing missile and drone systems and training pilots, depend on the vast open stretches of ocean, much of it restricted airspace."
He mentioned that the Gulf of Mexico is "the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world." [22]
A Cuban analysis of three years ago described the overall American military blueprint for Latin America and the Caribbean:
"The United States has a system of bases that has managed to establish two areas of control:
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