Settling of Crisis Makes Winners of Andes Nations, While Rebels Lose Ground

By SIMON ROMERO

After leaders in the Andes tiptoed from the edge of war to bear hugs and oaths of brotherhood, Latin America was trying to sort out the winners and losers in the region’s worst diplomatic dispute in years.

A day after the crisis was resolved at a summit meeting in the Dominican Republic on Friday, it was already clear that nearly all of the players lost something. The leaders of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela traded charges that muddied each of them. Colombia and its ally, the United States, found themselves isolated in the region.

And Latin America’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, lost two senior commanders in a week, the latest in a string of tactical and strategic defeats.

But the biggest winner appears to have been the region itself, which resolved its own dispute without outside help and without violence.

The crisis began when Colombian security forces hunted down and killed Raúl Reyes, the FARC’s second-in-command, and 23 others in a raid last weekend on the guerrillas’ camp in Ecuador. Venezuela and Ecuador assailed Colombia as having violated Ecuador’s sovereignty, cut diplomatic ties and sent troops to the Colombian border in a show of force, effectively defending the FARC’s nebulous operations in their countries.

Colombia insists it has the right to attack its enemies, but the military response by its neighbors — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela vowed war if Colombia pursued its fight with the FARC into Venezuela — could allow the FARC to operate with more freedom outside Colombia.

Still, that victory may be small consolation for the FARC, whose very presence in neighboring countries is a reflection of its loss of strength within Colombia, as a brutally successful counterinsurgency has driven it out of territory it once controlled.

Reports emerged on Friday of yet another senior commander of the FARC who had been killed. No cross-border raid was involved. A deserter simply brought the guerrilla’s severed right hand as proof that he had killed his own commander.

The killing of the guerrilla, Manuel Jesus Muñoz, who went by the nom de guerre Ivan Ríos, was extraordinarily macabre even in the annals of Colombia’s four-decade war. Mr. Muñoz, a member of the FARC’s guiding secretariat, was the fifth senior member of group killed in the past year.

Colombia’s government contends that the FARC, which finances itself through cocaine trafficking and abductions for ransom, has seen its ranks fall from 16,000 members at the start of the decade, when the guerrillas had advanced close to the capital, Bogotá, to between 6,000 and 8,000 now.

For Colombia, too, the results were mixed. It found itself diplomatically isolated in the region, its tactics rebuked and President Álvaro Uribe under siege as a too-willing ally of the United States.

The raid was one of the most controversial chapters of Plan Colombia, the American program that has disbursed more than $5 billion in aid to Colombia since the late 1990s. And in carrying out the operation without getting Ecuador’s permission beforehand, Mr. Uribe took a page from the Bush administration’s playbook.

The predawn operation bears remarkable similarities to one carried out in late January by the United States in Pakistan. In that case, the Central Intelligence Agency used a Predator drone aircraft to drop missiles, killing Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior commander of Al Qaeda who had hidden from American officials for years.

Both operations used local informants to track the men down. Both operations were carried out in foreign countries without getting permission beforehand. Both were tactical victories, killing enemies classified as terrorists.

But in killing Mr. Reyes in Ecuador, Mr. Uribe may have misjudged the reaction that would follow. A firestorm of criticism was directed at Colombia, a nation increasingly viewed as a redoubt of loyalty to the United States in a region chafing at Washington’s waning influence.

“The Bush doctrine openly rejects nonintervention in other nations’ affairs, something that runs counter to the ideal of sovereignty that is so precious in Latin America,” said Greg Grandin, a professor of Latin American history at New York University.

The methods employed by Mr. Uribe, whose father was believed to have been killed by guerrillas in the early 1980s, may be hard to swallow in a region that has largely seen its other cold war-era insurgencies vanquished. On Thursday, Nicaragua joined the fray on the side of Venezuela and Ecuador. But the wrath of Colombia’s neighbors is a price Mr. Uribe seems content to pay.

Despite Colombia’s insistence that it acted alone, speculation persists as to whether the technological prowess of the United States was involved in the hunt for Mr. Reyes.

Mr. Chávez emphatically denied reports last week that he had placed a call to Mr. Reyes’s satellite phone; such a call might have allowed intelligence agencies to track the guerrilla down in Sucumbíos, an Amazonian province in Ecuador’s northern frontier.

In their war of words, Mr. Uribe accused his counterparts in Ecuador and Venezuela of having financial ties to the FARC, a group resembling a criminal syndicate that dresses up its actions in leftist rhetoric.

And the presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela reminded Latin America of the ties between many of Mr. Uribe’s top supporters in Colombia and the paramilitary death squads that have evolved into nothing less than criminal syndicates trafficking in cocaine.

Cocaine, guns, private armies and guerrillas remain the ingredients of Colombia’s war even as the last element is being visibly pushed into the porous border regions of the country’s neighbors.

In the end, Latin America eased its own crisis. But the celebratory behavior of its leaders in the Dominican Republic belies the tension that persists around a war without closure. Just because the FARC is weakened does not mean it will wither away.

Latin American Crisis Resolved

Colombia Apologizes At Regional Summit

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 8, 2008; A09

BOGOTA, Colombia, March 7 -- The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela on Friday agreed to end a bitter standoff that had resulted in troop deployments, a downturn in trade and a rupture in diplomatic relations.

The crisis began after Colombia bombed a rebel camp last Saturday just inside Ecuador, killing 24 guerrillas, including Luis Edgar Devia, a top commander. The strike marked the first time the army had killed a member of the directorate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerrilla group that has been fighting here for 44 years.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe had come under criticism from various Latin American governments for the incursion, but at a regional summit in the Dominican Republic on Friday he heartily shook hands with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. All three of those nations had broken relations with Colombia over the incident.

The resolution of the crisis, at a meeting of the 20-nation Rio Group, came in the form of a declaration that noted Uribe had apologized for the raid and that he promised never to violate another nation's border. "With the apology and the promise of never again violating a brother country, we have overcome this very grave crisis," said Correa, in comments that were broadcast live across much of Latin America.

Although the meeting ended on a positive note, the most serious issue raised in the debate -- that Colombian rebels operate with the help of foreign governments -- has not been resolved and is sure to fester.

The news came soon after the Defense Ministry in Bogota reported the death of a second member of the FARC's top command. Manuel Jesús Muñoz, better known by his nom de guerre, Iván Ríos, did not die in battle, but rather was killed by his own men this week in a mountainous, coffee-growing region of north-central Colombia, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters.

The slaying appeared to reflect serious internal divisions in an organization that has in recent months seen several seasoned, mid-level commanders killed in combat and hundreds more desert.

Colombian officials said that Muñoz's men, tired of running from troops, decided to kill him. Santos said they then severed his hand and presented it, along with Muñoz's identification card and computer, to an army column that had been pursuing the guerrillas. The United States had placed a $5 million bounty on Muñoz's head, accusing him of coordinating drug-trafficking operations.

The issue of Colombian guerrillas and whether they are harbored by Venezuela and Ecuador marked the often heated exchanges at Friday's summit, which had been scheduled previously. Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua focused on Colombia's violation of Ecuador's sovereignty, while Colombia said that its people are under threat from rebels hiding outside its borders.

Uribe came out firing, accusing Correa of ties to the FARC. He cited as evidence a letter culled from a computer that commandos recovered in the camp that belonged to Devia. Uribe said the letter showed that the FARC supported Correa during his 2006 presidential campaign.

Correa, a leftist, U.S.-trained economist, angrily rejected the allegations, accused Uribe of lying and explained that his government has battled against FARC units in Ecuador's northern jungles.

"How hard it is to believe something from someone who has lied so many times," Correa said. "My hands are clean, and free of blood."

Other presidents at the summit applauded the Ecuadoran leader, who along with Chávez had vowed to marshal international condemnation for Colombia's incursion.

Chávez, who had been accused this week of assisting the FARC, also denied any ties. "I have never done it and will never do it," he said. "I could have sent a lot of rifles to the FARC. I will never do it because I want peace."

Uribe, though, said his country had been attacked 40 times since 2004 by Colombian rebels who used Ecuador as a launching pad. He also explained why he didn't inform Correa of the strike against Devia, who had been located with the help of a rebel who deserted, military officials said.

"I didn't inform him of the operation because we have not received cooperation from his government in the fight against terrorism," Uribe said.

Tensions eased after Dominican President Leonel Fernández, the host of the summit, appealed for calm and said, "What all of us would like is for this meeting to end with a hug, a handshake, between the presidents of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador."

With the hearty handshakes, the countries resumed normal diplomatic and commercial relations. Uribe also said that he would not file a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Chávez of aiding the FARC, as he had vowed earlier.

Colombians back president

A poll shows Uribe's popularity has climbed since the raid in Ecuador. Many slam Hugo Chavez instead.
By Chris Kraul
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 7, 2008

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Even at a rally where the placards, chants and speeches carried a distinctly anti-government flavor, Colombians on Thursday backed President Alvaro Uribe after his soldiers' risky incursion into Ecuador to kill a leftist rebel leader.

The incursion Saturday brought reproval from the Organization of American States and prompted neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela to mass troops at their borders and cut diplomatic ties. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unleashed a torrent of invective, describing Uribe as a mafioso and a U.S. lackey.

"Chavez shouldn't talk in such a vulgar way about our president. That hurts us," said Marina Narvaez, who said she attended the rally because she had survived being forced off her land by paramilitaries in Cordoba state.

Accountant Rafael Escobar said Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa "is not helping things" by touring Latin America to denounce Colombia after the incursion, which killed Raul Reyes, the No. 2 leader in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest rebel group. "Leaders should talk among themselves to resolve things."

On a side street just off the central Plaza Bolivar, Vilma Paniza, a department store customer service representative, hurried back to work from the noon rally. "Chavez has a bad attitude," she said. "He wants to dominate us and everyone else and he's not going to."

Planned long before the region's crisis erupted, the rally was organized to underscore the government's role in decades of violence and misery, to remind Colombians that it was not all the fault of rebel groups like the FARC.

But most marchers couldn't bring themselves to knock Uribe for having brought Colombia to its most serious diplomatic standoff in decades.

Their mood is indicative of a public that has rallied behind Uribe, even as Venezuelan and Ecuadorean troops have gathered at the border, those neighbors -- joined by Nicaragua on Thursday -- have broken diplomatic ties and Chavez has threatened to hurt Colombia by freezing trade and using other tactics.

A poll conducted in four cities this week showed Uribe's popularity has climbed since the raid to an 83% approval rating. Although the poll was commissioned by the government, it still reflects popular sentiment, said Cesar Caballero, head of the independent polling firm Concepts and Figures in Bogota.

"First, there is a tremendous solidarity behind Uribe for the gross language Chavez has used toward him," Caballero said. "Also, there is a growing outrage against the FARC for its brutality, kidnappings and extortions, which the government uses at every opportunity in its favor."

Even opinion makers such as magazine columnist Daniel Coronell, who often take an anti-Uribe stance, have lined up behind the president. "The intrusion of the government of Venezuela is a hugely disturbing factor that blocks the path to a resolution."

Nearly all those interviewed at the rally saw the chance of war as remote, despite Chavez's statements and Venezuela's having sent 9,000 troops to its border, along with tanks and aircraft. Ecuador deployed 3,200 troops, and a government spokeswoman announced Thursday that its army had captured five suspected Colombian guerrillas on its side of the line. Colombia has sent no extra troops as yet.

"It's just talk," said Alejandro Alvarez, a lawyer from the eastern city of Arauca. "There is a conflict, but it's a political and diplomatic conflict that won't reach physical war. Chavez can send all the troops he wants. But it's another thing to fire shots."

In Managua, Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega, with Correa at his side, announced that he was cutting diplomatic relations with Colombia.

It was during Correa's visit the night before in Venezuela that Chavez warned not only of a possible nationalization of Colombian companies, but also that trade between the two countries, which last year totaled $5 billion, would be reduced.

Chavez has sealed off most border crossings with Colombia, allowing cars and pedestrians but keeping out all but perishable cargo.

Analysts said a prolonged reduction in Colombian imports, which represent a significant portion of Venezuela's daily foodstuffs, might compound Chavez's domestic problems.

Venezuela is already suffering from widespread food shortages and double-digit inflation, largely as a result of socialist policies that have cut domestic production.

The threats came a day after the Organization of American States passed a resolution criticizing Colombia's incursion one mile into Ecuador. Although Colombia apologized and Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador expressed her satisfaction with the vote, Correa on Thursday said it was unacceptable and demanded the OAS issue a more formal condemnation.

Also in Ecuador, authorities said two Mexican citizens may have died along with Reyes. University students from Mexico were visiting Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, at the time, and some were thought to have visited the rebel camp where Reyes was. One female student was injured in the attack, but Mexico's Foreign Relations Ministry said Thursday that no deaths had been confirmed

Ecuadorean Defense Minister Wellington Sandoval, reacting to reports that U.S. intelligence helped locate Reyes, told a radio reporter that Colombia must have received help via "technology that Latin America does not have." He said the bombs that killed Reyes all dropped within a 50-meter radius and seemed to be "smart bombs."

Colombia's Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Reyes was located through a tip from a "demobilized" guerrilla.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Thursday requested a hearing or a classified session with senior Colombian officials to review information obtained from three laptop computers recovered in the jungle camp where Reyes was killed.

Colombian authorities said this week that the information includes documents indicating the FARC received $300 million from Chavez and that the rebels were seeking to acquire uranium, possibly for a weapon.

chris.kraul@latimes.com

Special correspondents Paul Rosero in Quito and Jenny Carolina Gonzalez in Bogota and Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.

Colombian Rebels' Ties to Chávez Come Into Focus

Computer Files Found In Raid Detail Efforts To Gain Arms, Money

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 7, 2008; A11

BOGOTA, Colombia, March 6 -- A trove of correspondence recovered during a raid on a guerrilla camp is providing a rare window into how Colombia's largest rebel group has drawn closer to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in an effort to acquire money, arms and the political recognition the organization craves.

If authentic, the documents would make clear for the first time that Chávez's affinity for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has translated into more than rhetoric on its behalf.

The documents were discovered Saturday on three laptop computers and two hard drives after Colombian forces bombed a rebel camp 2,000 feet inside Ecuador, killing 24 guerrillas, including Luis Edgar Devia, a member of the FARC's ruling secretariat who used the name Raúl Reyes.

The correspondence appears to show that Venezuelan officials are eager to work with rebel commanders to isolate Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, an ally of the Bush administration. The documents also include letters to Chávez from FARC leader Manuel Marulanda.

There are no missives from Chávez, however, and on Wednesday the Venezuelan president called Colombia's characterization of his ties to the FARC a lie.

"I deny it. I have to deny it as absolutely false," he said.

The e-mails and letters that form the brunt of the correspondence recount meetings with Chávez, top Venezuelan intelligence officials and other emissaries sent by the government in Caracas to convene secretly with FARC commanders. Colombia's National Police released 15 documents culled from the computers and hard drives this week. Another 30 documents, provided on two CDs to The Washington Post by senior government officials, paint a fuller picture of the rebels' ties with Chávez.

"What's important is for your government and the FARC to have ample relations as friends and good neighbors for the future of our two people," Marulanda said in a letter dated Sept. 22.

Full of Colombian slang and revolutionary lingo, the documents appear to be briefing papers that analyze the FARC's relationship with Chávez and discuss options available to the guerrilla group. They suggest that commanders see a clear benefit to building a relationship with the Venezuelan leader. Many letters are signed by Devia, who was the group's public face.

The chief of Colombia's National Police, Brig. Gen. Óscar Naranjo, said the government has asked a team from Interpol to examine the laptops and hard drives to confirm that they belonged to FARC commanders. That multinational team is to work in Bogota on Tuesday.

"We have nothing to hide," Naranjo said by phone Thursday afternoon. "We're entirely open to any technical review."

The raid on the camp has triggered a regional crisis, with Ecuador, Venezuela and now Nicaragua -- a close ally of Chávez's government -- breaking off relations with Colombia. The Colombian government has responded with an aggressive diplomatic offensive in Latin America and Europe to highlight what officials often have said privately but are now saying publicly -- that Chávez supports a terrorist group that has killed thousands of Colombians.

"What's true is we're going to use all the political and judicial resources on a situation we consider grave, the support of President Chávez to the Colombian guerrillas," Vice President Francisco Santos said Thursday during a trip to Brussels, according to the Reuters news service. "It's a clear support, a support that's in clear evidence in the documents pulled from Raúl Reyes's computer."

In several letters, FARC commanders discuss funding received from Venezuela, both in cash and through partnerships in which the rebels would sell gasoline in Colombia and launder money in Venezuela. There are also messages about a drug-trafficking deal, though they do not implicate Venezuelan officials, and talk of the acquisition of armaments.

"We're talking arms and money, gasoline and political space," said one intelligence official who is sifting through the material and who spoke on condition of anonymity.

FARC commanders refer to "300" they are to receive from Venezuela -- which intelligence officials here believe signifies $300 million. The commanders do not elaborate on what "300" means, but there are missives in which they discuss ensuring that it makes it into their hands safely.

The man overseeing the operation, according to the documents, is "Angel," who Colombian authorities believe is Chávez.

"A bird in your hand is worth more than 100 in the air, say those who know the business," Devia wrote in late 2007. Jorge Briceño, considered the FARC's top military strategist, asked in a Jan. 14 note to other commanders, "Who, where, when and how will we receive the dollars and store them?"

In another letter, addressed to the rest of the FARC secretariat, Devia reports that a leading Colombian senator has received money for social programs in Colombia. "If that's correct, we can't dismiss getting ourselves 250 million for the Plan," he said, referring to the group's efforts to isolate the Uribe government and strengthen rebel forces.

The Colombian strike against the FARC has outraged Chávez, who has called it "a war crime," while raising the specter of war with Uribe's government.

In recent weeks, Chávez has drawn closer to the FARC and more antagonistic toward Uribe's government and its benefactor, the United States. Colombia's government characterizes the FARC as little more than a murderous band of drug traffickers, though the group retains some support in rural hamlets where the state has almost no presence. The United States and Europe have listed the group as a terrorist organization.

In January, to rousing approval in Venezuela's Congress, Chávez said the FARC was not a terrorist group but an insurgent force that had a "project that is respected here." The FARC's stated goal, well-known to most Colombians and also made clear in several of the recovered documents, is to topple Uribe's government.

Chávez has met in Caracas with Iván Márquez, another member of the FARC's inner circle, and other guerrillas to negotiate the release of six Colombian hostages. He has recently been working to liberate others.

In the documents, the guerrillas see Chávez's involvement as benefiting their cause of being removed from international lists of terrorist groups. "He wins for his geopolitical objectives, and we, without a doubt, will win recognition as a belligerent force," Marulanda told other commanders on Sept. 22.

FARC commanders also see an alliance with Chávez as crucial to the strengthening of their military position and the possibility of "consolidating" along the loosely patrolled, 1,300-mile border between the two countries. "He's permitting us to advance together on the Bolivarian project," Briceño, the military strategist, told the secretariat in a Nov. 22 note, referring to Chávez's self-styled revolution.

Much of the correspondence deals with the so-called humanitarian accord, swapping four dozen high-profile hostages for hundreds of FARC members held in Colombian jails. In the correspondence, FARC commanders discuss Chávez's proposals to win the release of hostages, as well as a plan to move the hostages and 500 jailed guerrillas to Venezuela. The documents show Chávez as eager to meet with guerrillas and win the release of hostages.

"He also asked about Ingrid," Márquez said to the secretariat Dec. 23, referring to Ingrid Betancourt, the best-known hostage. "But we told him that if we did that, we'd be left without any chips."

In the documents, particularly in letters to Chávez, the guerrillas praise the Venezuelan president's rule and frequently appear to address many of the issues he considers important. Foremost is opposing capitalism and U.S. influence in Colombia.

In his Sept. 22 letter to Chávez, Marulanda said the United States has a 3,000-man military contingent in Colombia.

"What do you think of that, Mr. President?" he asked.

Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

Colombia Says Rebels Sought to Make Dirty Bomb

By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — Colombia added a new accusation against the FARC rebel group on Tuesday, saying Colombian forces had found evidence that the rebels had been seeking the ingredients to make a radioactive dirty bomb.

The accusation, made by Colombia’s vice president, Francisco Santos, at a United Nations disarmament meeting in Geneva, represents a sharp verbal escalation surrounding the three-country dispute involving Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. The quarrel began over the weekend when Colombian forces hunted down and killed a Colombian guerrilla leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Material found on a laptop computer recovered in that raid provided the basis for Mr. Santos’s accusations about a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines highly radioactive material with conventional explosives to disperse deadly dust that people would inhale.

“This shows that these terrorist groups, supported by the economic power provided by drug trafficking, constitute a grave threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean region and Latin America," Mr. Santos said in a statement that was posted in Spanish on the disarmament conference’s web site. The rebels were “negotiating to get radioactive material, the primary base for making dirty weapons of destruction and terrorism,” he said.

It was unclear from Mr. Santos’s statement whom the rebels were negotiating with.

Mr. Santos based his claim on information provided Monday in Bogotá by Colombia’s national police chief about a deal involving the FARC’s negotiations for 110 pounds of uranium.

The tension further escalated when President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia said Tuesday that he would file a complaint with the International Criminal Court against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, accusing him of providing financial assistance to the FARC, which stands for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Colombia’s largest rebel group.

In another reaction to Colombia’s cross-border raid, Elías Jaua, Venezuela’s agriculture minister, said that Venezuela was planning to close its border with Colombia to halt commercial trade.

On Monday, Ecuador broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia, and Venezuela expelled Colombia’s ambassador and other diplomats.

The three countries have been swapping accusations of treachery and deceit in the dispute over the killing of the guerrilla leader, Raúl Reyes, by Colombian forces.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, in ordering the expulsion of the Colombian Embassy’s diplomatic personnel, said it was acting “in defense of the sovereignty of the fatherland and the dignity of the Venezuelan people.”

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who expelled Colombia’s ambassador over the weekend, went a step further on Monday by breaking off diplomatic relations. The move was not unexpected after his claim that Mr. Uribe of Colombia was lying about the nature of the raid.

Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to the Colombian border on Sunday in response to Colombia’s military raid on the rebel encampment in the jungle about a mile inside Ecuador. Colombian forces killed 21 guerrillas in the FARC.

In addition to killing Mr. Reyes, Colombia said it had recovered his laptop computer. Its contents have since been at the center of several allegations.

At a news conference in Bogotá, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, Colombia’s police chief, accused Venezuela of channeling $300 million to the FARC, based on what he said was information obtained from Mr. Reyes’s computer.

General Naranjo also said computer documents showed financial support from the FARC for Mr. Chávez of Venezuela, going back to the time Mr. Chávez spent in prison after an unsuccessful coup attempt in Caracas in 1992.

“This implies more than cozying up, but an armed alliance between the FARC and the Venezuelan government,” General Naranjo said.

Venezuela’s government, which sent tank units to its border with Colombia in a response to the Colombian raid, denied aiding the rebels. “We are used to the Colombian government’s lies,” Vice President Ramón Carrizales said.

General Naranjo displayed photographs and documents he said had been taken from Mr. Reyes’s computer, but the context of the information was unclear.

Ecuador also rejected claims by Colombia of ties with the FARC, and sent 3,200 troops to Sucumbios, an Amazonian province near its border with Colombia where the attack on the FARC’s camp took place.

Mr. Correa, the Ecuadorean president, said the Colombian rebels had been killed in their sleep “in their pajamas,” and not in the heat of pursuit as Colombia’s security forces had said. Ecuadorean emergency officials recovered several wounded members of the FARC, transporting them to hospitals in Quito.

Faced with one of Latin America’s worst diplomatic crises in recent years, the Organization of American States said it would convene a meeting in Washington on Tuesday to try to prevent an escalation of the dispute between Colombia, a staunch Bush administration ally, and the leftist governments of Ecuador and Venezuela.

Even as Colombia’s government offered details on the FARC’s relations with Venezuela and Ecuador, Colombian officials said Monday that they would not send more troops to the borders with the two countries in response to the mobilizations ordered by Mr. Chávez and Mr. Correa.

Because of the FARC’s resilient history at the heart of Colombia’s war, it has had contact with insurgencies and governments throughout Latin America and beyond, including the United States, which classifies the FARC and other armed groups in Colombia as terrorists.

For instance, in 1998 a Clinton administration official, Philip T. Chicola, then the State Department’s director of Andean affairs, had a clandestine meeting with Mr. Reyes in Costa Rica in an effort to establish a way of communicating with the FARC during times of crisis.

The meeting was described in a diplomatic cable written by Mr. Chicola in January 1999 and declassified in 2004. Also present at the meeting was Mr. Reyes’s wife, Olga Marín, who is believed to be the daughter of the FARC’s top commander, Manuel Marulanda, and also reported to be present, and possibly wounded, in the raid on the jungle camp on Saturday.

The Bush administration on Monday reiterated its support for Colombia’s struggle against the FARC and cocaine trafficking, but called for a negotiated solution to the crisis.

“This, for us, is an issue between the governments of Colombia and Ecuador,” said Tom H. Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, in a briefing to reporters on Monday in Washington. “We believe it’s appropriate for them to work that out through diplomatic discussion.”

Still, what began over the weekend as an operation by Colombian forces in Ecuadorean territory has evolved into a wider regional matter.

“Our view of this issue right now is that there is no doubt that there is a territorial violation and we condemn it,” said Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, speaking to reporters in Brasília. “It raises insecurity problems in all countries of the region, mostly in the smaller ones.”

And amid the Colombian accusations, Mr. Chávez remains at the center of the increasing tension, with his political opponents here criticizing his decision to mobilize troops and fighter jets in a show of Venezuelan force.

“If anyone has to protest, it is Ecuador’s government, as the military incident took place in Ecuadorean territory, not ours,” Teodoro Petkoff, the publisher of the newspaper Tal Cual, said in an editorial. “Venezuela has nothing to complain about.”

Jenny Carolina González contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia, and Uta Harnischfeger from Zurich.

Border incursion was Colombian gamble

Tensions continue to mount over the killing of a FARC rebel in Ecuador, but for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, it was a calculated risk.
By Chris Kraul
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 4, 2008

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — President Alvaro Uribe appears to have taken a calculated risk in ordering his armed forces to invade Ecuador to kill a top rebel leader, deciding to risk the ire of his southern neighbor to inflict a major loss in a decades-long war.

Tensions continued to mount Monday after the clandestine operation in which Colombian soldiers and aircraft entered Ecuador to kill Raul Reyes, the nom de guerre of the No. 2 commander in Colombia's largest rebel group, known by its Spanish initials, FARC.

Venezuelan and Ecuadorean troops are massing at Colombia's borders. Uribe faces a scolding at a special meeting of the Organization of American States today, and his neighbors have recalled their ambassadors and expelled his. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening war if Colombian forces cross his border.

All in all, it's a grim situation in a region where good relations have long been the norm. Tensions haven't been this high since 1987, when Colombia sent a naval vessel to Venezuela's Gulf of Maracaibo to stake a short-lived claim to an offshore island.

But experts say Uribe decided that the opportunity to kill Reyes was worth the diplomatic storm, figuring that immigration and economic ties among neighbors, in addition to aversion to war, would stave off anything worse.

"The operation was planned and the risks were studied," said Camilo Gonzalez of Indepaz, a peace advocacy think tank in Bogota. "In the end, Uribe decided to get his military success and assume the cost of a diplomatic incident."

Bruce Bagley, a political scientist at the University of Miami and a Colombia specialist, said Uribe was exasperated by his neighbors' unwillingness to do anything about the FARC's presence on their territory. Uribe gambled because he was "desperate for major kills" and because the chance of war breaking out along either border is small.

"Although you can never discount a mistake leading to a shooting war," none of the three countries can afford to risk the billions in trade between them, Bagley said. "But I foresee weeks and months of tension and a military buildup on all sides."

In Colombia, Uribe's gamble adds to his popularity, which in recent polls already exceeded 80%. Few here mourn the loss of Reyes, 59, who as the public face of the FARC embodied the killings, extortion and kidnappings the rebels have inflicted on Colombians for decades.

In Venezuela, there were signs that Chavez's call to arms was falling on unreceptive ears. Several opposition politicians and retired generals questioned the need for a mobilization. Others charged that Chavez wanted war to distract Venezuelans from rising inflation and scarcity of food items.

"Most Venezuelans are against the Colombian guerrillas," said political analyst Anibal Romero in a telephone interview from Caracas. "We have nothing in common with them, we don't like them and there is no reason for us to support Chavez in his support of them."

Colombian officials say the predawn raid Saturday began on their side of the border. But after troops and aircraft allegedly drew fire from FARC rebels in a camp on the other side of the Putumayo River, Colombian forces entered a mile deep into Ecuador in "hot pursuit."

Reyes and 16 other guerrillas were killed.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa's initial reaction was muted.

But on Sunday night he lashed out, saying Uribe had lied to him about what happened.

By then, Ecuadorean military experts had visited the site and determined that at least some of the guerrillas were killed as they slept.

In a televised address to the nation, Correa said the mission was a "planned air attack" two miles inside Ecuador "in plain consciousness that they were violating our sovereignty."

Ecuador will ask the OAS today to denounce Colombia's incursion. A State Department spokeswoman declined to say how interim U.S. representative Robert Manzanares would vote on the measure. But Colombia will make a charge of its own, that Chavez and Correa support the FARC rebels, and will ask the OAS to authorize a special commission to investigate the alleged links.

Among Colombia's evidence are three laptop computers seized in Reyes' jungle camp.

Colombian police said they contained a trove of information on the close relations between the leftist FARC guerrillas and the Ecuadorean and Venezuelan governments.

Files alleged to have been stored in the computers were released here Monday. The files include information on a $300-million payment Chavez allegedly made to the FARC and a promise from FARC leader Manuel Marulanda to help defend Venezuela in the event of American aggression, police commander Gen. Oscar Naranjo said at a news conference.

On Sunday, Colombia said Reyes' computer files indicated that Ecuador accommodates the presence of the rebels by stationing "non-hostile" police and army units in the zone where they camp.

Files also documented meetings between Ecuadorean Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea and Reyes, the Colombians charged.

Larrea acknowledged Monday that he met with Reyes in January in an unspecified third country to discuss the release of hostages held by the FARC.

chris.kraul@latimes.com

Bush Says US Stands by Colombia

The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 4, 2008; 2:58 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush criticized "provocative maneuvers" toward Colombia by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying Tuesday that the United States stands with its ally, Colombia President Alvaro Uribe.

"America fully supports Colombia's democracy," Bush said. "We firmly oppose any acts of aggression that could destabilize the region."

Bush said he personally delivered this message to Uribe during a phone call earlier Tuesday. Colombia has received some $5 billion in U.S. aid to counter the drug trade and battle leftist guerrillas since 2000, and Uribe is considered a right-leaning ally of Bush's in a region dominated by leftist politics.

Relations have hit a new low between Uribe on one side and Chavez and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa on the other. Bush, making a rare and hastily scheduled personal appearance to describe a private conversation with a foreign leader, added himself to Uribe's side.

The raised tensions were triggered by a weekend raid by Colombian troops into Ecuador that killed a top commander of the FARC, Colombia's main rebel group, which had set up a camp there. Since then, Colombia and Ecuador have traded accusations and Chavez, sympathizing with the leftist rebels, ordered thousands of troops to move toward Venezuela's border with Colombia.

"America will continue to stand with Colombia as it confronts violence and terror and fights drug traffickers," Bush said.

Colombian military officials have said that U.S. satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have been key to putting the FARC on the defensive.

Bush said one of the chief ways that Washington can help Uribe is for Congress to approve a free-trade deal with Colombia. Though signed by the two countries in 2006, Capitol Hill's Democratic leaders have refused to pass the agreement, citing human rights violations in Colombia and its standing as the deadliest country in the world for organized labor.

Supporters have argued that the pact would level the playing field for U.S. products by requiring Colombia to lower or eliminate tariffs on them when many Colombian products already get such preferences in the American market.

Bush has sought to add new urgency to the debate by proclaiming the issue also a matter of national security _ and he used the crisis in South America as an opportunity to do so again.

"If we fail to approve this agreement, we will let down our close ally, we will damage our credibility in the region, and we will embolden the demagogues in our hemisphere," he said. "(Uribe) told me that the people across the region are watching to see what the United States will do. So Republicans and Democrats in Congress need to come together and approve this agreement."

Venezuela sends troops to Colombia border

The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

BOGOTÁ: Hundreds of Venezuelan troops moved toward the border with Colombia on Tuesday, where trade was slowing amid heightening tension after Colombia's cross-border strike on a rebel 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, between Colombia and Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, and his allies.

Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, meanwhile, traded accusations in the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

The escalation of tensions was set off over the weekend when Colombia troops crossed the border with Ecuador and killed Raúl Reyes, a top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whose rebels had set up a camp there.

Chávez, who sympathizes with the leftist rebels, condemned the killing and angrily ordered about 9,000 soldiers - 10 battalions - to Venezuela's border with Colombia. He warned President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia that any strike on Venezuelan soil could provoke a South American war.

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

President George W. Bush said the United States would stand by Colombia and criticized Venezuela's government for making "provocative maneuvers." Colombia has received about $5 billion in U.S. aid to fight drugs and leftist rebels since 2000.

Alberto Muller Rojas, a retired Venezuelan general and former top Chávez aide, said the troops were being sent to the border region as "a preventative measure."

Soldiers boarded buses and trucks at the Paramaracay base in central Venezuela on Tuesday morning, and battalions also were moving out from the northern state of Lara, its pro-Chávez governor, Luis Reyes, said.

The Venezuelan military has been tight-lipped about troop movements. Venezuela'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.

Uribe said his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Chávez, alleging that he had financed "genocide" committed by the FARC. Uribe alleged that a laptop computer the Colombians said belonged to Raúl Reyes contained a reference to a $300 million Venezuelan payment.

The biggest losers from the killing of Reyes appeared to be the hostages that the FARC 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 jungle camp. Along with Reyes, 20 other rebels were killed.

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

A French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Pascale Andréani, confirmed that France had been in contact with Reyes and that "the Colombians were aware of it."

Colombia said documents in Reyes's 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 hostages the FARC wants to swap for hundreds of jailed guerrillas. Those hostages include three U.S. military contractors and a former Colombian presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, who also has French nationality and who has become a cause célèbre in Europe.

The raid Saturday followed last week's release by the FARC of four hostages to Venezuela's justice minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín. The minister 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, valued at $5 billion a year, most of it Colombian exports sorely needed by Venezuelans who are already suffering milk and meat shortages. Ecuador also depends on about $1.8 billion in trade with Colombia.

Venezuela said it would stop new exports and imports. At one closed border crossing, in Paraguachon, Venezuela, the authorities stopped trucks lined up 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.

Dead rebel's laptop shows Chavez is funding rebels, Colombian police say

The Associated Press
Monday, March 3, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia's police chief said Monday that documents recovered from a slain rebel leader's computer reveal financial ties between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombia's largest guerrilla group, including a recent message that mentions US$300 million in Venezuelan support for the rebels.

The official, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, didn't say if there was any indication in the Feb. 14 message that Venezuela actually delivered this money to the rebels.

Another document found in the laptop belonging to slain rebel leader Raul Reyes suggests financial ties between Chavez and the rebels dating back to 1992, Naranjo said. At the time, Chavez was jailed in Venezuela for leading a coup attempt, and was plotting the comeback that eventually led to his election as president in 1998.

"A note recovered from Raul Reyes speaks of how grateful Chavez was for the 100 million pesos (about US$150,000 at the time) that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, delivered to Chavez when he was in prison," said Naranjo told a news conference.

Reyes, the FARC's main spokesman, was among the rebels killed Saturday in a Colombian commando raid on their camp just across the border in Ecuador, infuriating Chavez and his ally, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

Chavez has called Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe a "mob boss" and a "liar." In return the Colombian government has expressed its concern at links between Venezuela and the FARC.

Chavez Warns of War With Colombia

By IAN JAMES
The Associated Press
Sunday, March 2, 2008; 3:47 PM

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Warning that Colombia could spark a war, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent tanks and thousands of troops to the countries' border Sunday and ordered his government's embassy in Bogota closed.

The leftist leader warned Colombia's U.S.-allied government that Venezuela will not permit acts like Saturday's killing of top rebel leader Raul Reyes and 16 other Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas at a camp across the border in Ecuador.

"Mr. Defense Minister, move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately _ tank battalions, deploy the air force," Chavez said during his weekly TV and radio program. "We don't want war, but we aren't going to permit the U.S. empire, which is the master (of Colombia) ... to come to divide us."

He ordered the Venezuelan Embassy in Bogota closed and said all embassy personnel would be withdrawn. It pushes already tense relations between the South American neighbors to their lowest point yet, with potentially far-reach effects on billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

Though Chavez didn't say how many troops he was sending, a Venezuelan battalion traditionally has some 600 soldiers _ meaning some 6,000 could be headed to the border.

Chavez called the Colombian government "a terrorist state" as he sided with the leftist rebels it has battled for decades, saying its military "invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador's sovereignty."

Neither Colombia's foreign minister nor the country's military leadership would comment on Chavez's latest move when pressed by reporters for comment Sunday as they left a funeral service in Bogota for a Colombian soldier killed in Saturday's raid.

Speaking in Texas, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said officials were monitoring the situation.

"This is an odd reaction by Venezuela to Colombia's efforts against the FARC, a terrorist organization that continues to hold Colombians, Americans and others hostage," Johndroe said.

Chavez said he had just spoken to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and that Ecuador was also sending troops to its border with Colombia. Chavez said his Ecuadorean ally told him that Uribe had lied and that the rebels were killed while asleep "in their pajamas."

"This is something very serious. This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said. He warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe: "If it occurs to you to do this in Venezuela, President Uribe, I'll send some Sukhois" _ Russian warplanes recently bought by Venezuela.

He called Uribe "a criminal" accusing him of being a "lapdog" of Washington saying "Dracula's fangs (are) covered in blood."

The slaying of Reyes and 16 other guerrillas, Chavez said, "wasn't any combat. It was a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."

"We pay tribute to a true revolutionary, who was Raul Reyes," Chavez said, recalling that he had met rebel in Brazil in 1995 and calling him a "good revolutionary."

"The Colombian government has become the Israel of Latin America," an agitated Chavez said, mentioning another country that he has criticized for its military strikes. "We aren't going to permit Colombia to become the Israel of these lands. ... Uribe, we aren't going to permit you."

"Someday Colombia will be freed from the hand of the (U.S.) empire," Chavez said. "We have to liberate Colombia," he added, saying Colombia's people will eventually do away with its government.

Chavez maintains warm relations with the Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and has sought to play a role as mediator in the conflict despite his growing conflict with Colombia's government.

Colombia and Venezuela have been locked in a diplomatic crisis since November, when Uribe ended Chavez's official role negotiating a proposed hostages-for-prisoners swap.

Nevertheless, the FARC freed four hostages to Venezuelan officials last week, and they were reunited with their families in Caracas. It was the second unilateral release by the FARC this year.

Chavez has recently angered Uribe by urging world leaders to classify the leftist rebels as "insurgents" rather than "terrorists."

The FARC has proposed trading some 40 remaining high-value captives, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors, for hundreds of imprisoned guerrillas.

In Ecuador, army Gen. Fabian Narvaez told The Associated Press that soldiers had found the bodies of 15 rebels and that soldiers planned to hand the bodies over to Ecuadorean officials, who will conduct forensic exams.

He said three Ecuadorean battalions have been stationed in the area in the country's northeastern jungle since Saturday, just a few miles from Colombian territory.