COLOMBIA SAYS it has proof that top leaders from the country’s two main guerrilla groups are hiding in neighbouring Venezuela, sparking a new round of tensions between the ideologically opposed neighbours.
“The national government has evidence showing the presence in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of some of the ringleaders of the terrorist group the Farc [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia],” claimed a statement issued by the president’s office.
Among those Colombia claims to be operating out of Venezuela are two members of Farc’s ruling secretariat and its so-called foreign minister. Officials showed evidence – videos, satellite photos and testimony by rebel deserters – to local media executives, but it has not been made public.
The statement said Carlos Marín Guarín, a leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN) – the smaller of Colombia’s two main guerrilla groups – was also hiding in Venezuela. Mr Guarín escaped Colombian custody last year en route to court, where he was to be tried for the 1989 assassination of the Catholic archbishop of Arauca, among other charges.
Colombia’s authorities have long suspected that Marxist rebel groups find sanctuary in Venezuela and that the socialist government of Hugo Chávez provides them with material support.
Last year the Colombian military found Swedish weapons in a Farc camp that the manufacturer said it sold to the Venezuelan military. Following the latest accusation, Gabriel Silva, Colombia’s defence minister, said the presence of rebel leaders in Venezuela “represents a threat to Colombian national security”.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry dismissed the Colombian claim, saying it was “a desperate attempt to mine the terrain of an eventual normalisation of bilateral relations”. It said every time Colombia denounced the presence of rebels on Venezuelan territory, its authorities had investigated the claim “and systematically demonstrated the falseness of such information”.
Relations between the two countries have been tense since Colombia last year signed an accord giving the US military access to Colombian military bases.
In response, Mr Chávez warned of the risk of a war in the region. He sent troops to the Colombian border and closed off most of the country’s $7.2 billion (€5.56 billion) trade with its neighbour, exacerbating his country’s domestic food shortages brought on by economic mismanagement.
Colombia’s president-elect Juan Manuel Santos had adopted a more conciliatory stance towards Caracas since his election last month. On Thursday he called for “the start of a dialogue to resolve the problem which today is on the table – the presence of terrorists on Venezuelan territory”.
Neither Venezuela nor Ecuador has maintained full diplomatic ties with Colombia since its military attacked a Farc camp inside Ecuador two years ago, killing Raúl Reyes, the group’s number two and chief ideologue.
In the past, President Chávez lobbied for Farc to be recognised as a “legitimate insurgent force” – the group is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU and US. In June 2008, he called on the Farc to abandon its campaign, release its hostages and sit down and talk with the government in Bogotá.
“Guerrilla war has passed into history,” he told the group, saying its campaign provided a pretext for US meddling in the region.