UNASUR meets at Bariloche

Regardless of the outcome, the UNASUR meeting in the Argentine city of Bariloche is ground-breaking. It is the first time the leaders of the region meet to openly discuss the implications of U.S. military bases in the region.
The meeting also sat on the table leaders that are hardly on speaking terms, like Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe.
By agreeing to this meeting, Uribe is trying to ease tensions, especially with Venezuela, about an agreement with Washington that will set up several military bases in Colombia. With the exception of Uribe, every other leader has expressed different degrees of concern about these bases that Colombia insists are exclusively for drug surveillance.
But Uribe is pretty much alone in his position and even though he can argue that the agreement with the U.S. is a sovereign decision, other countries can use the same argument to protest the military presence in the region.
Alan Garcia, the Peruvian president, and most likely Uribe's closest ally in UNASUR, proposed the creation of a commission to verify the scope of the U.S. bases in Colombia.
This proposal probably caught Uribe off-guard. Now he is in the difficult position of accepting the commission and look weakened in his own country, or he will implicitly recognize that concerns for these bases are genuine by denying the presence of an independent commission.

A road to friendship?
The UNASUR meeting attempted to ease tensions between Ecuador and Colombia as well. Both countries broke diplomatic ties in March 2008, after a Colombian military raid in Ecuadorean territory killed a high rank FARC guerrilla member.

Ecuador sees the problem as the violation of its territory and Colombia argues that it was a necessary step in its war against FARC, the largest guerrilla in that country. Tensions have grown after Colombia has repeatedly said that Correa received money from FARC to finance his first presidential campaign.

Ecuador has denied any involvement but in the latter weeks, Correa severed ties with some former cabinet members, linked to a Human Rights organization that had a long history of involvement with the FARC.

It is unclear if both countries will agree to ease the tensions and open a road to reestablish diplomatic ties. We'll see.