Thread: Ecuador pulls diplomat from Bogota

Ecuador pulls diplomat from Bogota

Story Highlights
NEW: Correa calls raid a "massacre" that killed civilians, pulls ambassador

Strike kills two leading FARC figures, including second-in-command

Chavez orders 10 battalions to Colombian border, closure of embassy

Chavez pledges to "support Ecuador in any circumstance"

(CNN) -- Ecuador's President Rafael Correa withdrew his government's ambassador in Bogota, Colombia, and ordered troops to the country's border following a Colombian raid against leftist rebels inside Ecuador.


Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa recalls his country's ambassador to Bogota on Sunday.

1 of 2 In a televised address, Correa called a raid by Colombian national police and air force one day earlier a "massacre" that killed civilians.

The strike at dawn Saturday killed two leading figures in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist movement that has fought a guerrilla war against the country's government for some 40 years. One of the dead was FARC's second-in-command, Luis Edgar Devia Silva, known as "Raul Reyes."

The incident has triggered a crisis among the three countries, as Venezuela President Hugo Chavez also ordered 10 battalions of troops to the Colombian border and the closure of Venezuela's embassy in Bogota.

Chavez pledged to "support Ecuador in any circumstance," he said on his weekly talk show, "Alo Presidente," or "Hello, President."

"We don't want war, but we will not allow the North American empire -- which is the master -- and its sub-President [Alvaro] Uribe and the Colombian oligarchy to divide, to weaken us. We will not allow it."

The three countries are neighbors, with Colombia, a U.S. ally, squeezed between Ecuador, to the southwest, and Venezuela, to the east.

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In the past two months, Chavez has brokered FARC's release of six hostages, who were among 750 hostages the group is estimated to be holding in the jungles of Colombia.

Reyes, who was a member of the seven-man FARC leadership council known as the general secretariat, played a key mediation role in their release.

Also killed was Guillermo Enrique Torres or "Julian Conrado," who was a key FARC ideologue.

"The Colombian oligarchy says it was combat," said Chavez, whose leftist politics have been credited for his warm relations with the rebel group. "It was not combat. It was a cowardly murder, coldly prepared in its entirety. The truth is coming out."

Chavez said Saturday that the Colombian government had violated Ecuador's sovereignty and added that, had the operation been conducted on Venezuelan soil, he would have declared war against Colombia.

"Colombia's government recognizes -- in a happy and irresponsible attitude -- that it has violated the sovereignty of a neighbor country, and that's worrisome," he said.

"President Uribe, think well. Don't think about doing that over here, don't think it. Because it would very serious, a military raid in Venezuelan territory would be casus belli [cause for war]. There is not any excuse."

Also on Saturday, Correa told reporters in Quito that Uribe told him the raid occurred after a FARC column fled across the border and fired at Colombian forces, who "had to defend themselves."

But Correa said his forces investigated Uribe's claims and discovered that the Colombian planes attacked the guerrillas as they slept in a camp 2 km ( 1.2 mi) inside Ecuador.

"Of course Ecuadoran air space was invaded," he said.

He said Colombian ground forces then crossed into Ecuador and retrieved Reyes' body, leaving the others.

"We will not permit this outrage," he said. "Either President Uribe was misinformed and will have to sanction his commanders who deceived him, breaking every international bilateral proceeding by entering our territory or Uribe simply lied. In either case, the situation is extremely grave and the Ecuadoran government is disposed to go to the ultimate consequences."

Chavez called Uribe a "liar," a "criminal" and a "gangster."

"Colombia is a terrorist state, a subject of the biggest terrorist in the world, the United States government, and all of its imperialist apparatus," Chavez said to applause.

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos denied that Colombia violated Ecuadoran airspace in the operation..

The White House said Sunday it was "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," spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

FARC has justified hostage-taking as a legitimate military tactic in a long-running and complex civil war that also has involved right-wing paramilitaries, government forces and drug traffickers.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html

Chavez warns of war with Colombia

By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer
59 minutes ago



CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez ordered tanks and thousands of troops on Sunday to the border with Colombia, accusing it of pushing South America to the brink of war by killing a top rebel leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa also ordered troops to the Colombian border, saying "Ecuadorean territory has been outraged and bombed by an air attack and the later incursion of (Colombian) troops."

On Saturday, Colombian security forces killed senior rebel leader Raul Reyes and 16 other Colombian guerrillas at a camp across the border in Ecuador.

Correa said on Saturday that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had informed him of the raid, but later announced that he was misled after Ecuadorean officials inspected a bombed rebel camp.

Colombian officials have long complained that Ecuador's military does not control its sparsely populated border, allowing rebels to take refuge on its territory.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez ordered tanks and thousands of troops on Sunday to the border with Colombia, accusing it of pushing South America to the brink of war by killing a top rebel leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Denouncing Colombia's killing of the rebel commander in a cross-border raid into Ecuador, Chavez said Venezuela will respond militarily if Colombia violates its border. He ordered Venezuela's embassy in Bogota closed.

"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 divide us."

Chavez called Colombian President Alvaro Uribe "a criminal," and branded his government a "terrorist state," likening it to Israel for its U.S.-backed attacks on militants.

Colombian officials have long complained that Ecuador's military does not control its sparsely populated border, allowing rebels to take refuge on its territory. The same holds true for Venezuela, where rebel deserters say the guerrillas routinely rest, train, obtain medical care and smuggle drugs.

Chavez denies that his country provides refuge to the FARC.

In protest of Colombia's raid, Ecuador recalled its ambassador from Bogota but said commercial ties would remain unaffected. A spokesman for Uribe, Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, announced Sunday that Colombia would apologize to Ecuador for the military incursion on its territory.

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, said the rebels were "bombed and massacred as they slept, using precision technology." He said Colombia's military violated Ecuador's airspace and that the camp bombed was 1.2 miles from the border.

Ecuadorean soldiers recovered the bodies of 15 rebels in their jungle camp, and found three wounded guerrillas.

Lt. Col. Jose Nunez told reporters in the remote village of Angostura, where the bodies were found, that officials determined there were two bomb attacks on the camp early Saturday.

Before the Ecuadoreans arrived, Colombian commandos removed the cadavers of Reyes and one other rebel.

Chavez called the raid "cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."

"This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said. He warned 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 "lapdog" of Washington, saying "Dracula's fangs (are) are covered in blood."

Neither Colombia's foreign minister nor the country's military leadership would comment on Chavez's actions when asked by reporters on Sunday in Bogota as they departed a funeral for the lone Colombian soldier killed in Saturday's raid.

Chavez has increasingly revealed his sympathies for the FARC. In January, Chavez asked that it be struck from lists of terrorist groups internationally.

His Sunday announcement pushes tense relations with Colombia to a new nadir, though cross-border trade, worth some US$5 billion (euro3 billion) annually, has not yet been seriously affected.

It could not be determined whether troops had yet been mobilized for the border. Chavez did not specify how many he was sending. A Venezuelan battalion traditionally has roughly 600 soldiers.

The peasant-based FARC has been fighting Colombia's government for more than four decades, seeking a more equitable distribution of wealth. It funds itself largely through the cocaine trade and kidnaps for ransom and political ends.

Reyes was the FARC's key interlocutor with journalists and with foreign governments trying to mediate in the conflict, and thus the member of its leadership most vulnerable to being located, though eavesdropping or other intelligence.

In Texas, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said of Chavez's latest moves: "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."

Colombia did not deny it attacked the FARC on Ecuadorean soil.

Its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, said Colombian commandos, tracking Reyes through an informant, first bombed a camp on the Colombian side of the Ecuadorean border. He said the troops came under fire from across the border in Ecuador and encountered Reyes' body when they overran that camp.

How exactly Reyes was killed was not immediately clear.

In a statement, Colombia said FARC "terrorists" including Reyes "have had the custom of killing in Colombia and taking refuge in the territory of neighboring countries."

After observing a moment of silence during his program Sunday in honor of the slain rebels, he praised Reyes as "a true revolutionary," recalling meeting the former trade union leader in Brazil in 1995.

Chavez called Uribe's government "the Israel of Latin America," criticizing the Jewish state's military strikes on Palestinian militants.

"We aren't going to permit Colombia to become the Israel of these lands," he declared. "We have to liberate Colombia" from U.S. dominance, he added.

Colombia and Venezuela have been locked in a diplomatic crisis since Uribe sought in November to halt Chavez's efforts to mediate a prisoner swap. The FARC has since freed six hostages to delegates of Chavez, including four released last week.

The FARC has demanded that a safe zone be created in Colombia to negotiate a swap of some 40 high-value captives, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors, for hundreds of imprisoned guerrillas.

___

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak and Vivian Sequera in Bogota; Gabriela Molina and Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito, Ecuador; Diego Norona in Angostura, Ecuador; and Sandra Sierra in Caracas contributed to this report.

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