Pet peeve - it's ColOmbia, not ColUmbia.

I respect your concern for Colombia's problems, but your consistent mis-spelling of the country name makes me suspect that you don't really know what you're talking about.

The situation in Colombia may or may not be "stable" (in what way, and compared with which other country in the region?), but the conservative technocrat who was re-elected president by a landslide last year will be in power until late 2010. Alvaro Uribe is no American stooge (repeatedly refusing to roll over on trade terms). He's facing a very well organized political opposition, but a new term in office means he isn't afraid to risk short-term unpopularity with his core middle class constituency in the pursuit of long-term sustainability (case in point: last year's new tax code). Violent crime and secuestro is down for another year, and his clear'n'holdTM program seems to be working better than what Uncle Sam is trying in Iraq.

And what do you mean by "Occidental Oil's setup"? Are you referring to their declining operation at Cano Limon (no accents on this keyboard dammit), discovered a quarter of a century ago? The largest owner of Colombian oil production is the State oil company, ECOPETROL, and the largest foreign owner is BP, though Petrobras are snapping at their heels.

Hydrocarbon production and transport facilities in Colombia are protected by the army and police, who just don't involve themselves in politics, and whose years of experience in rural counterinsurgency make them well able to deal with Chavez' meddling.