Hugo Chavez intensifies conflict threat with Colombia
Hugo Chavez has intensified his country’s threat of conflict with Colombia after accusing its South American neighbour of “lies” and “hypocrisy” over hosting US bases.
Venezuela says that Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president and close ally of Washington, is allowing the US government a dangerous foothold in the region by giving its troops access to Colombia’s military bases.
Mr Uribe reacted angrily and urged the United Nations to investigate this week when Mr Chavez told his army to prepare for war with Colombia.
The Colombian leader denied Venezuela’s charge saying that the military agreement with America exists to combat drug traffickers and leftist guerrillas.
Mr Chavez is backed by fellow Left-wing leaders in the region, such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, and the growing dispute is threatening trade and regional stability.
A statement from Venezuela’s foreign ministry yesterday said that Mr Uribe government’s position was “immoral” and “showed the hypocrisy of the Colombian oligarchy”.
Referring to a 2008 Colombian military raid inside Ecuadorean territory, it added: “The Uribe government lies, it is responsible for the sole act of war in the recent history of our continent”.
“US access to Colombian bases threatens the peace and stability of the continent,” the Venezuelan statement added.
On Sunday, Mr Chavez in a live TV broadcast ordered his military to prepare for war, just days after sending thousands more soldiers to the border. “Let’s not lose a day in fulfilling our main mission: to prepare for war,” he said.
Chavez Orders Troops to Colombia’s Border as Crossing Reopens
By Alexander Cuadros and Daniel Cancel
Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered an increase in troops along the Colombia-Venezuela border as three crossings reopened following two days’ closure.
The crossings into Venezuela’s Tachira state reopened today, said Colombian regional customs director Edgar Alvarado in a phone interview from the northeastern border city of Cucuta. The entry points, which Alvarado said were closed on Nov. 2, were the entryway for $4.8 billion of Colombia’s $6.1 billion in exports to Venezuela last year.
Diplomatic relations and trade between the South American neighbors deteriorated this year after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said a leftist guerrilla group had obtained weapons originally sold to Venezuela, and Venezuela criticized Colombia’s plan to let the U.S. military use seven of its military bases. Chavez pledged to end imports from Colombia.
“We’re taking all the necessary measures, the increase of units along the border area,” Chavez said late last night on state television. Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez said yesterday that the border crossings were never closed.
Colombian exports to Venezuela, its second-biggest trading partner, fell 50 percent in September from the same month in 2008, Colombia’s statistics agency said last week.
Tensions also increased after a group of 11 soccer players, including nine Colombians, was found killed in Tachira last month. Colombian officials have called for the public release of results of the investigation. Venezuelan officials say the men may have belonged to right-wing groups operating in the area.
This month, two Venezuelan national guardsmen were shot and killed while patrolling near a border post. Authorities arrested one man and identified three others in the attack.
Public Order
Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez said in a statement today that public order in Venezuela is “critical” for Colombian citizens who cross the border and that accusations of the soccer players’ links to paramilitaries don’t justify the slayings.
Colombia and the U.S. signed an accord Oct. 30 to allow U.S. troops access to bases for anti-drug operations. Chavez says the deal allows the Pentagon to make final decisions and is a threat to Venezuela.
“The Yankees use that as an excuse, they practically took over Colombia, which today isn’t a sovereign nation,” he said. “They converted Colombia, with this deal especially, into a kind of colony.”
Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El-Aissami on Oct. 29 presented documents to the National Assembly that he said were from Colombia’s intelligence agency, known as DAS, which showed that Colombian agents spy in Venezuela. Venezuela arrested three individuals last week they said were DAS agents and has held a Colombian on spying charges since September.
Brazil, US urge talks in Venezuela, Colombia spat
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ (AP) – 3 hours ago
CARACAS, Venezuela — Brazil and the U.S. urged Colombia and Venezuela on Tuesday to talk out their differences after Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez ordered his military to prepare for a possible war with his neighbor.
The push for diplomacy came as many in both Colombia and Venezuela dismissed Chavez’s words as an attempt to distract attention from domestic problems, including the struggling economy and water shortages and power blackouts.
Chavez has warned that troops he ordered to the Colombian border should be ready for a possible conflict if the U.S. attempts to provoke a war between the South American countries. He cited a recent deal between Bogota and Washington giving U.S. troops greater access to Colombian military bases as a threat to regional stability.
Brazil’s defense minister, Nelson Jobim, played down the risk of an armed conflict.
“We believe that everything can be resolved with dialogue,” Jobim said in Brasilia. “I don’t think the tension is going to increase; it’s part of the rhetoric of the continent.”
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said: “We are very much aware of recent tensions along the Venezuelan-Colombia border.”
“I certainly don’t think this is about the United States,” Crowley added. “But we certainly would encourage dialogue between Venezuela and Colombia and a peaceful resolution of the situation along their border.”
The Organization of American States also called on Colombia and Venezuela to settle their problems through dialogue.
Chavez scoffed at Colombia’s plans to file complaints with the OAS and U.N. Security Council in response to the instructions he gave to Venezuelan soldiers over the weekend.
“Now they are accusing me of calling for war,” Chavez said in a televised speech Tuesday, denying his message to the military was meant as a threat. “They really have to be cynical to say that.”
Tensions have escalated and trade has dropped dramatically since the diplomatic crisis erupted in July over the plan to grant U.S. military aircraft and warships expanded access to Colombian bases, including $46 million in construction at the Palanquero air base in Colombia’s central Magdalena valley.
Colombia’s government has sought to assuage Venezuela’s concerns, saying U.S. troops would be operating solely on Colombian soil to help its military combat drug trafficking and leftist rebels. But critics of U.S. policies argue the accord is meant to help Washington expand its influence and interference in the region.
Many in Venezuela oppose the idea of a war with Colombia and view the suggestion of a conflict as pure bluster.
A poll released Tuesday by the Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis found that nearly 80 percent of Venezuelans said they would disagree with Chavez declaring war on Colombia. The poll consulted 1,300 people and was completed last month, before Chavez’s latest remarks. The poll had an error margin of 3 percentage points.
That and other surveys have shown a recent decline in Chavez’s popularity as the country copes with its economic woes and other problems.
“It’s always more interesting to get the people talking about a war with Colombia than to get them talking about issues like inflation, water problems or electricity problems,” pollster Luis Vicente Leon of Datanalisis told The Associated Press.
The biggest effect of the crisis so far has been the fall in trade. The Colombian-Venezuelan chamber of commerce estimates bilateral trade this year could fall 20 percent from 2008, to around $4.5 billion.
