BOGOTA – Colombia has established a number of new air force battalions to beef up national security, one in the southern province of Guaviare, two in regions bordering on Venezuela and another four in two of the bases to be used by U.S. troops as part of the controversial military pact signed with that country.

With the new units, six aerial and a seventh for special operations, the Colombian air force will become “one of the most numerous and best trained in Latin America,” the armed forces said in a communique.

“We have received strategic equipment and aircraft for the defense and security of the nation, with which we are improving our response capability,” the national army commander, Gen. Oscar Gonzalez Peña, said at an official ceremony held at the central base of Tolemaida.

On that base, one of the seven to be used by U.S. troops under the pact, two new aviation battalions have been established and another for special operations, the army said.

Meanwhile at the southern base in Larandia, also included in the pact with the U.S., another new aviation unit has been activated.

The pact that allows the United States to use military bases in Colombia is the origin of the crisis with Venezuela, since Chavez considers it a “threat.”

Chavez has even asked the Venezuelan military and civilians to “prepare for war,” with the argument that the military pact could lead to aggression against his country.

Another two aviation battalions activated Saturday are in the provinces of La Guajira and Arauca, both on the Venezuelan border.

The Colombian government also plans to expand and improve a small military base in La Guajira on the Venezuelan border so that between 800 and 1,000 troops can be stationed there, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.

"It is a strategic point from a defense point of view," Silva said.

The 1.5-million-dollar facility, paid for with Colombian tax funds, would also have a care facility for indigenous Wayuu people who live in the area, he added.

Defense Minister Gabriel Silva on Friday visited the base where the government also plans to build a center of comprehensive aid for border communities, according to a communique released by the ministry on its Web site.

Silva said that the base currently has just 50 soldiers and that there is also an extremely vulnerable police post manned by six officers.

The goal is to expand the base to hold 800 to 1,000 troops, and also use it as a center for providing aid to border communities made up chiefly of Indians.


"In Colombia we have concentrated on the internal threat. But the risk is growing because what has been clearly and directly presented, is an eventual action against Colombia from outside," Silva told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

"Colombia was not used to thinking about this eventuality in its foreign policy and defense strategy. Unfortunately now we have to put this variable on the map. There is a risk of a foreign aggression," he added.

Venezuela suspended diplomatic relations with Colombia on July 28, saying it was in response to the US-Colombian military base deal.

Chavez then moved 15,000 more troops up to the border, accusing Colombia and its ally, the US, of planning an attack.


La Guajira and the other Colombian regions on the Venezuelan border are those suffering most from the effects of the growing tension between the two countries.

A number of violent incidents have occurred on the border in the past few weeks that killed more than 10 people, and the locals are the ones harmed most by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s decision to “freeze” trade with Colombia.

Silva repeated on Friday that the Venezuelan government has imposed an economic “blockade” that has cost 170,000 Colombians their livelihoods.


Venezuela and Colombia have often sparred when Colombia's long conflict spilled across their porous 1,375-mile (2,200-km) frontier, but the current crisis has heightened concerns over a possible flare-up in border violence.

Chavez ordered tanks to the Colombian border in 2008 after Colombia raided a rebel base over the frontier inside Ecuador, killing a senior FARC head. Chavez ally President Rafael Correa condemned the raid as an aggression.

Since Venezuelans were told by Mr Chavez to prepare for war and the Venezuelan army starting blowing up bridges that link the two nations, Colombia has been overhauling its defense strategy.

Until now this strategy has been geared almost exclusively to fighting the country's 45-year Marxist insurgency.