AMY GOODMAN: Greg, the significance of the former defense minister of Uribe, now president of Colombia, Santos, saying he wanted to improve relations with, well, Venezuela, also Ecuador?
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah, well, I think that he’s caught between a rock and a hard place between pressures from within Colombia that have mitigated against establishing good relations with Venezuela. I mean, if we step back and we look at the beginning of this conflict back in 2007, 2008, Chávez actually had good relationships with Uribe. He had offered to mediate, and he was mediating the release of hostages held by the FARC. There was incredible pressure placed on Uribe within Colombia by the military, by the oligarchy, and by the United States, not to allow that to go forward, not to kind of showcase Venezuela’s role as a mediator. And he broke relationships with Venezuela, and Venezuela was kind of left hanging out there. And that’s where all the accusations came from, over exaggerated intelligence reports or falsified intelligence reports about Venezuela’s relationship with the FARC, and relations deteriorated. And these are both pragmatic men, Santos and Chávez, in their own way, and I think that they have a lot invested in trying to reestablish good relations. We’ll see how long it lasts.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/10/latin_american_historian_greg_grandin_on
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah, well, I think that he’s caught between a rock and a hard place between pressures from within Colombia that have mitigated against establishing good relations with Venezuela. I mean, if we step back and we look at the beginning of this conflict back in 2007, 2008, Chávez actually had good relationships with Uribe. He had offered to mediate, and he was mediating the release of hostages held by the FARC. There was incredible pressure placed on Uribe within Colombia by the military, by the oligarchy, and by the United States, not to allow that to go forward, not to kind of showcase Venezuela’s role as a mediator. And he broke relationships with Venezuela, and Venezuela was kind of left hanging out there. And that’s where all the accusations came from, over exaggerated intelligence reports or falsified intelligence reports about Venezuela’s relationship with the FARC, and relations deteriorated. And these are both pragmatic men, Santos and Chávez, in their own way, and I think that they have a lot invested in trying to reestablish good relations. We’ll see how long it lasts.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/10/latin_american_historian_greg_grandin_on