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NEWS
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Venezuela, Ecuador
threaten Colombia
Posted on Mon, Mar. 03, 2008
By IAN JAMES
Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuela and Ecuador ordered troops to their
borders with Colombia, denouncing the killing of a rebel leader on
Ecuadorean soil. Colombia responded on Monday with charges that
documents found at a bombed rebel camp link President Hugo Chavez to the
guerrillas.
Colombia's police chief, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, said documents recovered
from a slain rebel leader's computer indicate Chavez recently sent $300
million to Colombian guerrillas. He said another document indicates the
rebels sent money to Chavez when he was a jailed coup leader more than a
decade ago.
Naranjo said the files were recovered from a laptop owned by the rebel
known as Raul Reyes, who was killed Saturday in a Colombian commando
raid on a camp just across the border in Ecuador.
"A note recovered from Raul Reyes speaks of how grateful Chavez was for
the 100 million pesos (about $150,000 at the time) that the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, delivered to Chavez
when he was in prison," Naranjo told a news conference in Bogota.
Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez dismissed the charges,
saying: "We are accustomed to the lies of the Colombian government."
"Whatever they say has no importance. They can invent anything now to
try to get out of that violation of Ecuadorean territory that they
committed."
The slaying of Reyes and 16 other rebels in Ecuador on Saturday has
sharply raised tensions between the three Andean neighbors.
Chavez on Sunday promised Venezuela would respond militarily if Colombia
violates its border, where he ordered tanks as well as thousands of
troops. He also ordered closed Venezuela's embassy in Bogota.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said he deployed troops while also
withdrawing his ambassador from Bogota and expelling Colombia's top
diplomat.
"There is no justification," Correa said Sunday night, snubbing an
earlier announcement from Colombia that it would apologize for the
military incursion. Ecuadorean troops headed for the border Monday in
helicopters.
Chavez called the killing of Reyes and the other rebels an attack by a
"terrorist state," saying Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is a
"criminal."
"Mr. Defense Minister, move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia
for me, immediately - tank battalions. Deploy the air force," Chavez
said during his Sunday radio and television program.
Correa said Colombia deliberately carried out the strike beyond its
borders, flying deep into Ecuador to bomb the rebel camp. He said the
rebels were "bombed and massacred as they slept, using precision
technology."
The Colombian military said the camp was located just over a mile from
the border.
Colombian officials have long complained rebels are allowed to take
refuge across its borders in both Ecuador and Venezuela.
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Monday that his
government isn't moving any troops and "we have the situation under
control."
"We prefer to leave President Chavez out of this discussion," Santos
told Caracol radio. "We don't mention that person, we don't make any
comments on what he says, does or suggests."
A U.S. State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said the United States
supports Colombia's right to defend itself against the FARC and called
for dialogue between Colombia and Ecuador.
"From our perspective this is an issue between Colombia and Ecuador," he
said. "I'm not sure what this has to do with Venezuela."
In Chile, President Michelle Bachelet offered to mediate in the
conflict.
"A situation like this requires an explanation from Colombia to
Ecuadoreans, to the Ecuadorean president and to the entire region,"
Bachelet said. "We are very worried."
Mexico to Brazil also offered diplomatic help.
Ecuadorean troops recovered the seminude bodies of 15 rebels in their
jungle camp.
Soldiers covered their faces with bandannas to ward off the stench
Sunday at the camp, where bodies were splayed on the ground in their
underwear. Scattered among the corpses were pieces of clothing, shoes,
guns, grenades and a refrigerator.
Soldiers also found three wounded women at the camp - a Mexican
philosophy student injured by shrapnel and two Colombians - who were
evacuated by helicopter to be treated.
Colombian commandos removed the cadavers of Reyes and one other rebel.
Indignant, Chavez said "they wanted to show off the trophy" and called
it "cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."
"This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said. He
warned Uribe: "If it occurs to you to do this in Venezuela, President
Uribe, I'll send some Sukhois" - Russian warplanes recently bought by
Venezuela.
"This is saber-rattling, trying to make a point," said Adam Isacson, an
analyst for the Washington-based Center for International Policy. By
holding a moment of silence in honor of the slain rebels during his
program, Chavez "has all but said that the FARC will be safe in
Venezuela, and that the Venezuelan armed forces would respond to a
similar Colombian incursion into Venezuelan territory."
However, Isacson said, the countries share robust trade, the militaries
"are not enthusiastic" and the populations of the neighbors "are hardly
consumed by war fever."
The situation pushed tense relations between Venezuela and Colombia to a
new nadir, though cross-border trade has not yet been seriously
affected.
Naranjo also said documents from a computer seized where Reyes was
killed suggested Ecuador's president is deepening relations with the
FARC.
There were no concrete reports on troop movements in Venezuela's state
media Monday morning. Chavez did not specify how many troops he was
dispatching. A Venezuelan battalion traditionally has roughly 600
soldiers.
Chavez has increasingly revealed his sympathies for the leftist FARC,
and in January asked that it be struck from international terror lists.
The group funds itself largely through the cocaine trade and kidnaps for
ransom and political ends.
Colombia said military commandos, tracking Reyes through an informant,
first bombed a camp on the Colombian side of the border. It said the
troops came under fire from across the border in Ecuador and encountered
Reyes' body when they overran that camp.
"It was a massacre," said Correa, who accused Colombia of lying and said
some rebels were shot in the back.
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, writing in the Communist Party daily
Granma, blamed the U.S. for created the tensions: "We can plainly hear
the trumpets of war to the south ... as a consequence of genocidal plans
of the Yankee empire."
Colombia and Venezuela have been locked in a diplomatic crisis since
Uribe sought in November to halt Chavez's efforts to mediate a prisoner
swap. The FARC has since freed six hostages to delegates of Chavez,
including four released last week.
The FARC has demanded creation of a safe zone in Colombia to negotiate a
swap of some 40 high-value captives, including former presidential
candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors, for
hundreds of imprisoned guerrillas.
Associated Press writers Frank Bajak, Toby Muse, and Vivian Sequera in
Bogota; Gabriela Molina and Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito, Ecuador; Diego
Norona in Angostura, Ecuador; and Sandra Sierra in Caracas contributed
to this report.
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