Clinton concerned about Venezuelan arms purchases
Yesterday, we wrote that State Department spokesman Ian Kelly had expressed concern about Venezuela's desire to build up its arsenal. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a very similar statement yesterday during her press conference with Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez. In response to a question about weapons sales and the possibility of an arms race in the region, Secretary Clinton chose to focus her answer entirely on Venezuela, even though the reporter also used Brazil's recent military agreement with France as an example. According to Secretary Clinton, "[Venezuela] outpace[s] all other countries in South America and certainly raise[s] the question as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region." As Ian Kelly did in the press briefing, Secretary Clinton emphasized the importance of putting procedures and practices in place "to ensure that the weapons ... are not diverted to insurgent groups or illegal organizations." Uruguayan President Vásquez also responded to the question, focusing his answer more on how investment in arms can divert attention and investment away from development and fighting poverty and inequality in the region. "The governments of South America [should] decide to devote more money to promote health, to promote education and education to prevent diseases; to spend that money, instead of spending it in weapons." Below is an excerpt from the joint press conference, citing in full both Secretary Clinton's and President Vasquez's answers to the question on arms transfers in the region.
QUESTION: I was wondering if you could give us your thoughts on what seems to be a growing transfer of arms and possibly even an arms race in the region. We've seen a lot of transfers of technology from Iran to Venezuela. The Brazilians just bought a very big package from the French. And I'm wondering if this is alarming to you. SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we have expressed concern about the number of Venezuelan arms purchases. They outpace all other countries in South America and certainly raise the question as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region. So we urge Venezuela to be transparent in its purchases, clear about its purposes. They should be putting in place procedures and practices to ensure that the weapons that they buy are not diverted to insurgent groups or illegal organizations, like drug trafficking gangs and other criminal cartel PRESIDENT VAZQUEZ: (Via interpreter) With respect to the arms race, not only is our country worried, but we have already expressed time and again our position against an arms race. We believe that it is quite inconvenient to the region to devote such significant economic resources toward purchasing arms. And - but it's a fact, and we can't deny it, that the countries are buying weapons. And to make things worse, our region is the region that has the worst distribution of wealth. So with - under those conditions, it is still worse to be devoting those resources to weapons. South America has millions of people living in poverty, and there are thousands of children that die across Latin America and South America because of child diarrhea or diseases that could be prevented. So because of all these reasons, all that should lead the governments of South America to decide to devote more money to promote health, to promote education and education to prevent diseases; to spend that money, instead of spending it in weapons, spending it in housing, good housing for our people, and to further deepen investment, especially in the field of education. So we should devote our energies and resources to fight against the real scourges of our societies, that are drug - such as drug trafficking and terrorism. That would be certainly a much better use of our resources.