Venezuela, Ecuador accused of FARC ties
March 4, 2008
By Martin Arostegui - SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- The Colombian government
yesterday accused its neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador of working with
Marxist rebels who have waged a four-decade campaign to establish a
revolutionary state in Colombia.
"We are unmasking FARC's sup****t network in Colombia and in other
countries," said Oscar Naranjo, director of Colombia's national police
force, citing information he said was recovered from computer hard
disks seized in a rebel camp in Ecuador.
Frontier closings were re****ted yesterday along Colombia's border with
Venezuela, a day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez deployed
tanks, troops and fighter jets along the border.
Mr. Chavez threatened war over a weekend battle in which Colombian
forces killed a top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) who was hiding in Ecuador.
Gen. Naranjo said there were "close personal links" between Raul
Reyes, the dead FARC official, and Gustavo Larrea, Ecuador's interior
minister.
Gen. Naranjo also said that FARC's chief spokesman, Ivan Marquez,
lives in Venezuela and is the main "interlocutor" with Venezuelan
Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin.
He said Mr. Chacin has provided false Venezuelan do***entation and
facilitated border crossings for FARC leaders.
FARC is Latin America's oldest revolutionary group with Marxist roots.
It was established in 1964 by the Communist Party of Colombia and has
been fighting to overthrow the Colombian government ever since.
Some Latin American governments, including diplomatic heavyweight
Brazil, lined up to condemn Colombia's raid and demand an apology for
Ecuador.
Other nations, including Peru, voiced concern that FARC was using
neighboring countries to wage war against Colombia.
Governments from France to the United States, as well as U.S.
presidential candidates, urged diplomacy to defuse the tensions.
Ecuador yesterday followed Venezuela in ordering troops to its section
of the Colombian border, Reuters news agency re****ted.
Ecuador also severed diplomatic ties with Colombia, and Venezuela
expelled all Colombian diplomats, a day after Venezuela withdrew all
its own personnel from its embassy in Bogota.
Gen. Naranjo said that do***ents captured in Ecuador showed that
Venezuelan and Ecuadorean authorities were aware of clandestine cross-
border movements of rifles, cocaine ****pments to Mexico and a sale of
110 pounds of uranium.
"We can't establish ... for what ends [the uranium] was intended. But
we can determine from information stored in computer hard drives that
trafficking with the substance took place," the general said.
The general did not specify the form of uranium. The most common form
of the element does not sup****t a nuclear chain reaction, and it is
technically difficult to extract and enrich the rare U-235 isotope
that can be used to fuel an atomic power plant or bomb.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said yesterday that Colombia's
neighbors were close to securing a deal with FARC rebels to free 12
hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a one-time presidential
aspirant.
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