Colombia diplomatic spat deepens/ Colombia seeks criminal charges against Chavez

Colombia seeks criminal charges against Chavez
The Associated PressPublished: March 4, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia: Hundreds of Venezuelan troops moved Tuesday toward the border with Colombia, where commerce was slowing amid heightening tension over Colombia's cross-border strike on a guerrilla base in Ecuador.

The Organization of American States scheduled an emergency afternoon meeting in Washington to try to calm one of the region's worst political showdowns in years, pitting U.S.-backed Colombia against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and his allies. Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, meanwhile, pointed fingers in the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

About 9,000 soldiers — 10 battalions — were being sent to the border region in "a preventative measure," retired Venezuelan Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas, a former top Chavez aide, told The Associated Press.

Troops boarded buses and trucks at the Paramaracay base in central Venezuela Tuesday morning, and battalions also were moving out from the northern state of Lara, pro-Chavez Gov. Luis Reyes said.

The Venezuelan military has been tightlipped about troop movements since Sunday, when Chavez angrily ordered 10 battalions to the border and warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that any strike on Venezuelan soil could provoke a South American war.

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Crucial day could decide fates of Obama and ClintonDiplomatic tensions rise in South AmericaAcclaimed memoir proves a fakeVenezuela's armed forces include about 100,000 troops, Muller Rojas said.

Colombia's U.S.-equipped and trained military has more than twice as many.

Colombia's defense minister said Monday that he would not be provoked into mobilizing troops in response.

Uribe said Tuesday that his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Chavez for "genocide" for allegedly financing Colombia's main rebel group. He cited a reference to a US$300 million Venezuelan payment in documents found in a laptop the Colombians said belonged to the rebel commander killed in the commando raid.

Despite the withering rhetoric of Uribe, Chavez and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, the biggest losers from the killing of rebel spokesman Raul Reyes appeared to be the hostages that rebels have held for years, pending a swap with rebel prisoners.

Ecuador and France said they had been communicating with Reyes, trying to secure a hostage release, when Colombia's air force crossed the border to bomb his rebel camp, killing Reyes and 20 other rebels belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the conversations were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages," Correa said in a nationally televised address. "All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands" of the Colombian government.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani confirmed that France was in contact with Reyes as well, and that "the Colombians were aware of it."

Colombia said documents in Reyes laptop indicate that Correa's internal security minister met recently with a FARC envoy to discuss deepening relations with Ecuador, and even replacing military officers who might oppose that.

Publicly, there had been no indication of even preliminary progress in securing the release of any of the 40 high-value hostages the FARC wants to swap for hundreds of jailed guerrillas.

Those hostages include three U.S. military contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French national who has become a celebrated cause in Europe.

Saturday's raid followed right on the heels of last week's release by the FARC of four hostages to Venezuela's justice minister, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, who said the raid proved the "intent of the fascist Colombian government is to hamper the handover of hostages, because that is the path of peace."

Another victim of the crisis may be border trade worth US$5 billion (euro3.29 billion) a year, most of it Colombian exports sorely needed by Venezuelans already suffering milk and meat shortages. Ecuador also depends on some US$1.8 billion (euro1.18 billion) in trade with Colombia.

Venezuela said it would stop new exports and imports, and at one closed border crossing, in Paraguachon, Venezuela, stopped trucks lined up for about a kilometer (half a mile) Tuesday morning. But traffic was flowing normally at another crossing, in El Amparo, where a handful of Venezuelan troops stood watch as usual, the customs office was open and traffic passed freely.

Colombia's national police chief, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, made a series of shocking allegations based on documents in laptops he said were seized by commandos after the bombing at the jungle comp. Among them, he said, was evidence that Chavez gave the rebels US$300 million (€197 million) for some sort of "armed alliance."

He said other documents suggest Correa's administration was deepening its relations with the rebels, considered a drug-dealing band of terrorists band by the European Union and United States.

And Naranjo even said some documents suggested the rebels were seeking to buy uranium, though he gave no details.

Colombia says guerrillas tried to make 'dirty bomb'

Both Venezuela and Ecuador expelled Colombia's ambassadors and dismissed the allegations as lies.

Venezuela later displayed the laptop of a slain drug trafficker, and said it implicates Naranjo in the cocaine trade.

Correa flew to Peru Tuesday as the first stop in a regional tour to rally other Latin American leaders against Colombia. Other diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis were under way in Washington on Tuesday, where an emergency OAS meeting was scheduled.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the United States supports Colombia's right to defend itself.

___

Associated Press writers Vivian Sequera in Bogota; Howard Yanes at El Amparo, Venezuela; and Fabiola Sanchez and Ian James in Caracas contributed to this report.

Cheers

By huskie on Mar 4, 2008, 10:35 in Politics & the war.

Simon says on Mar 4, 2008, 10:38:

Not funny.

HERE'S SIMON!!!!

0 funny, 0 helpful.

ColombianoGringo says on Mar 4, 2008, 10:40:

Maybe they can give him Slobodan's old cell.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

huskie says on Mar 4, 2008, 11:00:

I hope Colombia declares war on this A-hole, and we shall see who will be running fast. Venezuela, does not have the logistics, capabitily, and much less an Army, what they do have is a buch of people trying to survive, and not starve to death as it seems they are having a shortage of food.
Cheers

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds-"

0 funny, 0 helpful.

joeylove007 says on Mar 4, 2008, 11:04:

Chavez talks the talk.....but can't walk. I have a dog that barks but runs when another comes at him.

Trust no one...except God. Hope to retire in Colombia

0 funny, 0 helpful.

cali373 says on Mar 4, 2008, 19:42:

I KNOW , I KNOW! Saddam gave the weapons of mass destruction to the FARC and said "hold this for me so Bush does not find it!"

Smile if you are a thinker!

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cali373 says on Mar 4, 2008, 19:45:

Oh by the way about the cowboy talk. While Colombian soldiers have been well trained, Colombia does not have the capability to fight a war on two fronts. It will be a sad situation for everyone involved except for U.S., Russian, Israeli, Arms traffickers.

Smile if you are a thinker!

0 funny, 0 helpful.