Venezuela Severs Diplomatic Ties With Colombia

(AP) CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez severed Venezuela's diplomatic relations with Colombia on Thursday over claims he harbors guerrillas, and he charged that his neighbor's leader could attempt to provoke a war.

Chavez said he was forced to break off all relations because Colombian officials claim he has failed to move against leftist rebels who allegedly have taken shelter in Venezuelan territory.

He acted moments after Colombian Ambassador Luis Alfonso Hoyos presented a meeting of the Organization of American States in Washington with photos, videos, witness testimony and maps of what he said were rebel camps inside Venezuela and challenged Venezuelan officials to let independent observers visit them.

Neither Chavez nor his OAS ambassador directly responded to the Colombian challenge to let people visit the alleged site of the camps.

In Washington, Hoyos said that roughly 1,500 rebels are hiding out in Venezuela and he showed fellow diplomats numerous aerial photographs of what he identified as rebel camps on Venezuelan territory.

Hoyos said that Uribe's government has repeatedly asked for Venezuela's cooperation to prevent guerrillas from slipping over the 1,400-mile (2,300-kilometer) border that separates the two countries. He insisted that several rebel leaders are hiding out in Venezuela.

"We have the right to demand that Venezuela doesn't hide those wanted by Colombia," Hoyos said, urging the OAS to investigate Colombia's claims.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza told reporters after the four-hour session that his organization couldn't mount an inspection mission without Venezuela's consent.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro announced that Chavez's government had closed its embassy in Bogota and demanded that Colombia's ambassador in Caracas leave the country within 72 hours.

Maduro said Colombia had forced Venezuela's hand, accuing Uribe of blatantly lying about the rebel presence in Venezuela.

Uribe "has put political and economic relations into a hole," Maduro said.

Venezuela is considering other possible measures to protest "Colombia's aggressions against our country," Maduro told state television without elaborating. He hinted the military might take steps to guarantee the sovereignty of Venezuela's airspace.

Chavez's envoy to the OAS, Roy Chaderton, said the photographs that Hoyos showed diplomats didn't provide any solid evidence of a guerrilla presence in Venezuela.

Chavez suggested the photographs could be bogus, saying Uribe "is capable of anything."

The socialist leader has argued in the past that U.S. officials are using Colombia as part of a broader plan to portray him as a supporter of terrorist groups to provide justification for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.

Chavez, who appeared alongside Argentine football star Diego Maradona, said the United States is using Colombia to undermine Venezuela's efforts toward regional integration. He said he has doubts that Colombia's president-elect, Juan Manuel Santos, will stray from Uribe's U.S.-backed military policies.

"Hopefully he'll understand that leftist and right-wing governments can live together," Chavez said of Santos.

During a visit to Mexico, Santos declined to comment on Venezuela's action, saying he felt it was best for the current government of Uribe to handle the situation.

Chavez insisted Venezuela is doing everything possible to prevent members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the smaller National Liberation Army from crossing into Venezuelan territory.

"We pursue them," he said.

Venezuela's opposition echoed Colombia's accusations.

"We have a government that shelters and protects Colombian guerrillas," said Luis Carlos Solorzano of the Copei opposition party.

Solorzano said rebels have taken shelter in the states of Zulia, Tachira, Barinas, Portuguesa, Cojedes, Aragua and Apure, leaving behind their camouflage fatigues and hiding out in sparsely populated rural areas. The military and other state security forces don't bother the guerrillas, he added.

___

Associated Press Writer Luis Alonso Lugo in Washington contributed to this report.

Comments

[AmAxO]

03:23 PM on 07/25/2010

I'm so fed up with Americans mispelling " Columbia", it is Colombia guys, Colombia. One would expect something better from members of a progressive american site, but no, even well educated Americans know shhhait about foreign countries.

[juniorista]

05:14 PM on 07/25/2010

i think it's being done on purpose.

[ehjay]

01:08 AM on 07/25/2010

We've seen this pattern before where the Pentagon is involved in other countries. America has had a policy of regime change in the Central American region for decades. The most despicable Pentagon tactic was when Reagan/Bush allowed Drugs to be imported to the streets of America to raise money for the purchase of weapons. / Vietnam - Drugs / Central America - Drugs / Afghanistan - Drugs. The coincidence is becoming less than coincidence.

[bluescat47]

06:37 PM on 07/24/2010

That self-styled progressives would support a strongman like Chavez, who has arrested labor leaders, had his thugs attack radio stations(Globovision) that oppose his dictatorial policies (including a law that makes it a crime to disseminate "misleading or false" news), and had his political opponents arrested, is unconscionable. And if anyone thinks that there is a conspiracy to stop countries from exploiting their natural resources, they are simply uniformed. That debate ended decades ago with the nationalization of oil in the Middle East and elsewhere. Over 80% of the worlds oil is controlled by national oil companies - Pemex, Petrobas, Saudi Aramco - and nobody cares.
Chavez is driving the economy into the ground - only 25% inflation last year.

[Turukano]

10:23 PM on 07/24/2010

As a self-styled progressive, I find Chavez to be a wackjob. As for the conspiracy to stop countries from using their natural resources, perhaps you should educate yourself on the history of corporate exploition of the 3rd world.

[santiago sherwood]

03:35 PM on 07/25/2010

there is a second part of the story which is the way the money is spent. Most of the worlds oil producers have corrupt governments and evil leaders. so oil is a curse not a blessing

[Tasies]

02:25 PM on 07/24/2010

Concocting long running propaganda and dubious ´evidence´ is all to easy identifiable considering Latin America´s experience with Juntas, Oligarchies, and US involvement. How thankful a country Colombia must be to reward Venezuela´s absorption of 4 million of its citizens by rewarding it with Colin Powell like theatrics. How out of touch and cynical must Chavez detractors must be have consider Colombia a paradise of democracy prior to big bad Chavez´arrival.

[bobwalters]

01:28 PM on 07/24/2010

I have no doubt that the Colombian and U. S. oligarchies are itching for a rationale to militarily or otherwise overthrow Hugo Chavez and re-impose the all too familiar School of the Americas-style fascist dictatorship in Venezuela. God forbid that any South/Central American leader tries to exert his/her country's sovereignty over its natural resources, and move to devote exploitation of those resources to the benefit of the country's majorities. Why, that's positively socialistic/communistic, and adverse to the interests of the oligarchs and their corporate/military hegemony! We certainly can't have THAT, now can we?

[LAThinker]

10:47 PM on 07/24/2010

No need, sooner or later this clown will do himself inn

[juniorista]

03:18 AM on 07/24/2010

there are many good arguments on both sides here. but one thing i've noticed: why do all the chavistas refer to the country as columbia, instead of colombia? i know you're doing it on purpose. and i know what you are sniffing glue.

[Ira7]

11:08 AM on 07/24/2010

No--it's just bad spelling. And it happens on both sides of the issue.

[juniorista]

03:30 PM on 07/24/2010

yes, but the difference is very clear this time. (mostly) american chavistas are either a) misspelling by accident, or b) misspelling on purpose. i think HP readers who are responding to a story about a diplomatic row in south america know at least enough about the countries to spell their names correctly. unless if they really don't know about colombia or venezuela and are just siding with whoever is siding against the country with closer ties to the u.s.

[AmAxO]

03:20 PM on 07/25/2010

Hey llave... eche nojoda!!! I'm so agree with you.

[aLittle2theLeft]

01:15 AM on 07/24/2010

“The struggle in Venezuela is not so much about ,Hugo Chávez, as the right would have us believe. as in the rest of South America, it is the right that has the ugly record on human rights and democracy. And it is the right that represents the rich a “Tea Party” view of Venezuela, in which everything that is wrong with the country is the fault of the left government, and Chávezlike Obama for the Tea Partiers is a “dictator.”

since the Chávez government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut in half, extreme poverty by more than 70 percent, and thousands of doctors added to the public sector provide health care for the poor.

average 19 percent annual inflation. high, but much lower than the pre-Chávez years, where inflation passed 100 percent in 1996. Most importantly, it is real economic growth, inflation did not prevent the country’s record growth from 2003-2008 that cut unemployment in half and pulled so many people out of poverty. Most Venezuelans are better off, they have a government that decided to use the country’s oil wealth for the benefit of the majority. That is why Chávez has been re-elected twice, each time by a larger margin.

opposition has acknowledged a “strategy that overtly sought a military takeover” from 1999-2003. is that right-wing strategy which has been supported from Washington that presented the biggest threat to democracy and human rights in Venezuela.”

Oliver Stone

[Turukano]

10:48 PM on 07/24/2010

I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one who does a dramatic interpretation of history.

I have the right to interpretation as a dramatist. I research. It's my responsibility to find the research. It's my responsibility to digest it and do the best that I can with it. But at a certain point that responsibility will become an interpretation.

I will come out with my interpretation. If I'm wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of history, part of the give and take.



Oliver Stone

[ehjay]

01:13 AM on 07/25/2010

I trust Oliver Stone more than I trust propaganda.from Congessmen, Senators, and the Pentagon.

[LAThinker]

10:52 PM on 07/24/2010

I do not see much difference between crazies on the left or on the right. Both want to tell other people of how to live their lives, both care more about themselves more then any ideology they are trying to promote and both, I hope, are doomed at the end

[Edwin Polanco]

11:40 PM on 07/23/2010

Thanks to the stubbornest actions of the Colombian oligarchs, after 60 years of civil war, the FARC and paramilitaries operate their lucrative business (just like Al Capone did in Chicago in the prohibition) from countries of Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and from Venezuela, since the Amazon jungle permits easy cover for their drug trafficking. If the present Colombian logic is true, from the supposed evidence presented at OAS, then all of the countries above are responsible of the FARC's existence and operation. How near sited is this assumption! Quite ignorant to the historic birth of the FARC and to the real logistics that are necessary to control this problem on the ground, I should say that problem lies in the consumption side of the market, which is confirmed by the barbaric internal war that Mexico carries on with the final distributors of the drug to the US. Accusing Chavez is the back side for another dilemma, he sits on top of the world's largest oil deposit, which he knows it, and the US is trying to recuperate after it lost it when the Venezuelan oligarchs where kicked out of power by Chavez. Why do you suppose the sudden need for new seven US air bases in Colombia? This is the real reason why Uribe, a Bush and lately an Obama puppet, is giving his last and final strike at Chavez. But everybody is into a surprise. Chavez is no dummy! He is a lot smarter that any of the puppeteers around.

[angrymanspokane]

02:42 PM on 07/23/2010

Why is it that the freaking craziest of people wind up leading nations? Must be a megalomaniacal personality and the ability to tell people exactly what they want to hear - and then kill them if they disagree.

[therealist2000]

05:06 PM on 07/23/2010

angry, you sound irrational...

[GuyCybershy]

05:09 PM on 07/23/2010

Strange isn't it? In the case of Venezuela, the light skinned minority held power for generations and never thought to share the benefits of its wealth with the rest of society. Eventually the poor majority of the poulation organized behind a candidate who actually promised to do something about this situation - Mr. Chavez. Whether or not he has succeeded is still an open question.
In our own society we have made megalomania part of our culture - so much so that very few people even notice or question it.

[therealist2000]

05:12 PM on 07/23/2010

So true Guy, So true!

[Morena]

07:32 PM on 07/23/2010

"Light-skinned"? Don't you mean white-skinned? Not arguing your larger point, though.

[LMPE]

02:16 PM on 07/23/2010

Before we jump to conclusions, Chavez can't want a war with the US. He's seen what the US has done to the rest of Latin America over the past century, so he can't want the same for Venezuela.

[therealist2000]

04:54 PM on 07/23/2010

The USA has trashed Latin America & stole their natural resources before killing them.

[Turukano]

10:50 PM on 07/24/2010

Oh really. Wow, those Americans are really bad guys. Heaven forbid we get credit for keeping Latin America free from European oppression.

[Biendiosa]

01:40 PM on 07/23/2010

He's a crazy person...remember Bolivar's recent exhumation ?

[therealist2000]

05:07 PM on 07/23/2010

to you he is crazy, to the People of Venezuela he is a hero!

[GuyCybershy]

05:12 PM on 07/23/2010

Any leader who would dare question American hegemony is crazy by definition according to our liberal intelligentsia.

[max08]

01:41 AM on 07/24/2010

Exactly! The US just sent 46 warships to Costa rica and 7,000 troops three weeks ago, ostensibly for the drug war. Look at the map. Is the US trying to start war with Venezuela to steal their oil?

[henrypapillon]

01:05 PM on 07/23/2010

They are probably heartbroken.

[ommadon]

12:53 PM on 07/23/2010

If Chávez truly was a responsible and mature leader, he would have accepted and let an OAS commission verify the locations in question and see if there are any such camps or at least their remnants. Since he didn't, which is technically within his rights, it shows that he's not willing to cooperate even when it is in his own best interests.

The easiest way to dismiss false accusations would be to show the world, preferably through independent verification, that they aren't true. But Chávez prefers to assume a political and ideological position of total rejection that will be defended by those who are automatically and preemptively anti-U.S. or anti-Colombia, but it doesn't do anything to objectively address these accusations.

Personally, I believe that it's possible some of these accusations are inaccurate or exaggerated, but if even a small percentage of them are absolutely true, it doesn't help anyone, much less Venezuela itself, to pretend that there is nothing to discuss and instead scream loudly.

Then again, it's not surprising, since there is a lot of thinly veiled or even explicit sympathy for FARC in some Chavista sectors, regionally and abroad, so expecting even a bit of self-criticism would be surprising.

[therealist2000]

05:39 PM on 07/23/2010

Ommandon...you sound ignorant about Latin America...

[max08]

01:43 AM on 07/24/2010

Oh god, you do not understand Latin America. Columbia is coming up with this routine to see it to the Americans. And people like you who believe it's OK to invade my privacy if I have nothing to hide.

[merger]

03:58 AM on 07/26/2010

ColOmbia

[blueskybigstar]

12:39 PM on 07/23/2010

Colombia is killling all their black people and taking their land.

[ommadon]

01:04 PM on 07/23/2010

No. Some economic and political sectors within Colombia are killing or displacing some Afro-Colombian communities and taking parts of their land, but the simple fact is that there are millions of black people in Colombia who are unaffected by this as they don't even live in communities per se, so this makes your description rather simplistic and inaccurate.

[blueskybigstar]

05:53 PM on 07/23/2010

Where does it stop? The number is in the tens of thousands, maybe more, that they are driving off their land and taking the lives of those who resist.

Taking the life of one is too many. The racial nature of this is without doubt. The comment was meant to bring attention to their plight. Nothing simplistic about it. Perhaps, a little bit inaccurate, but that was obvious.

[moflard]

05:34 AM on 07/26/2010

In case you hadn't noticed, this has been happening to Native Americans throughout South America for centuries, and now the drug gangs are the biggest threat these people have.

[davidwayneosedach]

12:26 PM on 07/23/2010

Somehow I don't think Columbia could care less!

[henrypapillon]

01:06 PM on 07/23/2010

Colombia. Not the coat company

[merger]

04:00 AM on 07/26/2010

ColOmbia