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Leaders Hope to Defuse Latin American crisis
SANTO DOMINGO - Latin American leaders hoped Friday to defuse tensions between Colombia and its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela at a regional summit here amid fears their dispute could erupt into war.
The leaders of the three countries may meet face to face at the Rio Group summit in Santo Domingo for the first time since the crisis broke out when Colombia struck a FARC rebel camp inside Ecuador last weekend.The war of words pitting Colombia's conservative president, Alvaro Uribe, against the leftist alliance of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has not waned despite global calls for diplomacy.
"We are walking on the path of peace in Latin America and the Caribbean, but the government of Colombia wants war," Chavez said after arriving here late Thursday.
Correa has urged the Rio Group to "clearly condemn" Colombia and to "force (Uribe's) government to never dare attack any other country under any pretext."
The summit of 20 Latin American democracies had been scheduled before the dispute, but regional leaders fully expect to discuss the crisis and hope the three presidents will meet.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is attending the summit, said the gathering should serve as a "space for dialogue and compromise."
The United States has led calls for a peaceful resolution, but Nicaragua on Thursday joined Ecuador and Venezuela in breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia over the incident, in which a senior FARC leader was killed.
"We are breaking with the terrorist policy being practiced by the government of Alvaro Uribe," said Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
Since Saturday's attack, Ecuador and Venezuela have sent troops to their borders with Colombia and bombarded Bogota with bellicose language.
Venezuela has ordered 10 battalions -- around 6,000 men -- to the border with Colombia, along with tanks and armored vehicles. Ecuador has also deployed troops to its Colombian frontier.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist rebel group fighting the Colombian government for four decades, have been reported to hide in Venezuela and Ecuador.
The Washington-based Organization of American States approved a resultion Wednesday saying Colombia had violated Ecuador's sovereignty, but it resolution stopped short of formally condemning Bogota.
The United States has backed Colombia, its staunchest ally in Latin America, since the crisis began and criticized Venezuela's involvement in the dispute.
Colombia has received billions of dollars in US military aid in its fight against drug trafficking and the Marxist rebels.
For his part, Chavez has been a thorn in Washington's side for years, while his relations with Uribe began to deteriorate late last year.
Colombia has accused Venezuela of giving 300 million dollars to FARC, saying a laptop recovered from Saturday's strike, in which FARC number two Raul Reyes was killed, provided the evidence.
Uribe is pushing ahead with an attempt to have Chavez tried by the International Criminal Court for allegedly helping the FARC, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.
Chavez has denied the allegation and accused Colombia of committing "a war crime" in attacking the FARC camp inside Ecuador.
© 2008 Agence France Presse
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3 Comments so far
Show AllQuestions to ask:
Did the intelligence as to the whereabouts of the rebel camp come from US supplied and based AWACs?
If the US provided the intelligence, was it to facilitate the attack that led to the assasination of the rebel leader who was allegedly negotiating with Venezuela for the release of more FARC hostages; three Americans, and a former Colombian presidential candidate. It would have been another embarrassing incident in the US demonization of Chavezand the other democratically elected leftists.
If so, does the US have the right to control the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Equador as they do Colombia?
When will we demand that our government engage in a foreign policy that respects the major players involved. Our "might makes right" and "it is best because we say it is" doesn't cut it anymore.
http://www.gregpalast.com/300-million-from-chavez-to-farc-a-fake/
Do you believe this?
This past weekend, Colombia invaded Ecuador, killed a guerrilla chief in the jungle, opened his laptop – and what did the Colombians find? A message to Hugo Chavez that he sent the FARC guerrillas $300 million – which they're using to obtain uranium to make a dirty bomb!
That's what George Bush tells us. And he got that from his buddy, the strange right-wing President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.
So: After the fact, Colombia justifies its attempt to provoke a border war as a way to stop the threat of WMDs! Uh, where have we heard that before?
The US press snorted up this line about Chavez' $300 million to "terrorists" quicker than the young Bush inhaling Colombia's powdered export.
What the US press did not do is look at the evidence, the email in the magic laptop. (Presumably, the FARC leader's last words were, "Listen, my password is ….")
I read them. (You can read them here) While you can read it all in español, here is, in translation, the one and only mention of the alleged $300 million from Chavez:
"… With relation to the 300, which from now on we will call "dossier," efforts are now going forward at the instructions of the boss to the cojo [slang term for 'cripple'], which I will explain in a separate note. Let's call the boss Ãngel, and the cripple Ernesto."
Got that? Where is Hugo? Where's 300 million? And 300 what? Indeed, in context, the note is all about the hostage exchange with the FARC that Chavez was working on at the time (December 23, 2007) at the request of the Colombian government.
Indeed, the entire remainder of the email is all about the mechanism of the hostage exchange. Here's the next line:
"To receive the three freed ones, Chavez proposes three options: Plan A. Do it to via of a 'humanitarian caravan'; one that will involve Venezuela, France, the Vatican[?], Switzerland, European Union, democrats [civil society], Argentina, Red Cross, etc."
As to the 300, I must note that the FARC's previous prisoner exchange involved 300 prisoners. Is that what the '300' refers to? ¿Quien sabe? Unlike Uribe, Bush and the US press, I won't guess or make up a phastasmogoric story about Chavez mailing checks to the jungle.
To bolster their case, the Colombians claim, with no evidence whatsoever, that the mysterious "Angel" is the code name for Chavez. But in the memo, Chavez goes by the code name … Chavez.
Any possibility the Ecuadorians ratted them out because they didn't want them in their country and this is a lot of bluster, as stated before Ecuador is an US ally.