On Saturday March 1 following a Columbian cross-border raid into Ecuador to kill members of the FARC rebel group Venezualan President Hugo Chávez mobilised troops on his border with Columbia. The  Columbian operation killed Raul Reyes, a leader of the group and seventeen other rebels.

“Mr. Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the frontier with Columbia immediately, tank battalions,” Chávez said on his weekly TV show. “The air force should mobilise. We do not want war.”

Chávez warned Columbia that similar raids into Venezuala would be seen as a “cause for war.” Venezuala also shut down its embassy in Columbia and withdrew all diplomatic staff, similarly Ecuador withdrew its ambassador from Columbia in protest.

FARC is South America’s oldest guerrilla insurgency group, formed in 1964 by Manuel ‘Sureshot’ Marulanda who named them the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. They began as a Marxist organisation, but any political motivations they might once have held have since been discarded; in recent decades their focus has shifted to kidnappings and drug trafficking.  FARC is considered a terrorist organisation by Columbia the United States and the European Union, a status that Chávez has petitioned to have changed. The Venzualan President on Sunday called Columbia’s actions a “cowardly assassination” of a “good revolutionary.” Venzuala and Ecuador are close allies, while Chávez and Columbian President Alvaro Uribe ascribe to opposite ends of the political spectrum. Columbia is one of a dwindling number of right-wing states in South America and is the United States’ strongest ally in the region.

President Uribe has been perturbed in recent months by Chávez’s mediation with FARC rebels over the release of hostages. Columbia accuses FARC of holding more than 700 hostages, the highest profile among the 43 ‘political’ hostages being held is Ingrid Betancourt, a French citizen and former Columbian presidential candidate who has been held by FARC for six years. Two other kidnapped women, friends of Betancourt were released a month earlier as the result of Chávez’s intervention.

Venezualans living near the 1,300 mile border with Columbia are increasingly angered by their President’s support of the rebels, as they believe the group has been kidnapping Venezualan citizens and holding them in camps within Venezuala’s borders. A wide range of people from small-time politicians to cattlemen, businessmen and farmers say that FARC and a smaller group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, have been either directly involved in the kidnappings or have paid criminal organisations to carry them out. Figures from the Venezualan government show that 382 hostages were taken last year, up from 232 in 2006 and 44 in 1999, Chávez’s first year in office. Although these figures could also be attributed to the crackdown by Uribe in Columbia that has forced FARC to the border regions. Chávez has stated that he trusts the word of FARC’s commander Manuel Marulanda that FARC and ELN do not kidnap Venezualan citizens.

Columbia, at the centre of the world’s cocaine trade, has for decades endured civil war between left-wing rebels with links to the peasants in rural areas, and right-wing paramilitaries, most notably the United Self-defense Forces of Columbia (AUC) a coalition of paramilitary groups that was formed in the 1980s to help wealthy cattle ranchers, business owners and drug mafias battle leftist guerrillas. Following a peace process which began with the government in 2003 the AUC disbanded. An offshoot of the AUC, the Black Eagles is one of a number of groups that has been rearming, largely from among the 4,731 demobilised fighters that the Columbian government has “lost track” of.  From 2006 the ‘parapolitics scandal’ has seen several congressmen and other politicans indicted on suspicion of colluding with the AUC and other paramilitary groups. Columbian Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo suggested the term, “parauribismo”, since the scandal was primarily affecting officials or political allies of President Uribe’s administration.

“He (Uribe) is a criminal,” Chávez said following Columbia’s raid into Ecuador. “Not only is he a liar, a mafia boss, a paramilitary who leads a narco-government and leads a government that is a lackey of the United States... he leads a band of criminals from his palace.” He has yet to admit to FARC’s involvement in the narcotics trade.

On March 2 the Columbian government revealed that documents it had found in Ecuador in the possession of Raul Reyes showed links between Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa and FARC rebels. Columbia’s police chief also stated that the documents show financial ties between Venezualan President Hugo Chávez and the group. A recent message mentions US$300 million in Venezualan support for the rebels. Another document suggests financial ties between Chávez and the rebels dating back to 1992 when he was in jail in Venezuala for leading a coup attempt, and plotting the comeback that would lead to his election as president in 1998.

A recent investigation by journalist John Carlin found links between the Venezualan armed forces and Columbia’s rebels after talking to some of the 2,400 guerrillas who deserted FARC last year. He stated that some had deserted “because they feel betrayed by the leadership, demoralised by a sense that the socialist ideals that first informed the guerilla group have been replaced by the savage capitalism of drug trafficking. Others leave to be with their families. Still others leave because they begin to think that, if they do not, they will die.” He reveals that the Venezualan army let the rebels operate feely because “they share the same left-wing, Bolivarian ideals, and because FARC bribes their people.”

Thirty per cent of the 600 tons of cocaine smuggled from Columbia each year goes through Venezuala, with most of this 30 per cent ending up in Europe. The sources agreed that powerful elements within the Venezualan state apparatus had forged a strong working relationship with FARC, and that FARC and Venezualan state officials operated actively together on the ground, where military and drug-trafficking activites coincide. But the relationship becomes more passive, less actively involved, the higher up the Venezualan government you go. While none of the sources accused Chávez of being directly involved they thought it highly unlikely that he was not aware of the degree to which FARC is involved in the cocaine trade.

On March 4 Uribe said that he would ask the International Criminal Court to bring charges against Chávez based on documents found in computers captured during Columbia’s raid into Ecuador. Uribe said he would ask the court to bring charges of “financing genocide” against Venezuala’s president. Columbian Vice-President Francisco Santos, speaking earlier at a disarmament conference in Geneva, said evidence of plans to make a dirty bomb – a bomb using radioactive material – was also found on the computer. The following day FARC released four local tourists kidnapped at a Pacific beach resort in January. Word came from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which facilitated the release.

President Bush came out in support of the United States’ ally Columbia criticising the “provocative maneuvers” towards Columbia by Chávez. Bush has also urged Congress to pass a free trade agreement signed by the two countries in 2006 which has been blocked by Democratic leaders, citing human rights violations in Columbia and its standing as the deadliest country in the world for organised labour.

Seeking to cool tensions, Uribe stated that “Columbia has never been a country to go to war with its neighbours,... We are not mobilising troops, nor advancing toward war.” The U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he saw little chance of war erupting between Columbia, Ecuador and Venezuala. He also expressed his opinion that if military conflict were to break out in the region Columbia would not need the assistance of the U.S., as they could “take care of themselves”.

A day later Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said that his nation was breaking relations with Columbia “in solidarity with the Ecuadoran people.”

On March 7 Coumbian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said that Ivan Rios, the youngest member of FARC’s seven man secretariat had been killed by his own men.  This was announced during a regional summit where the Presidents of Venezuala, Ecuador and Columbia shook hands. "With the commitment of never attacking a brother country again and by asking forgiveness, we can consider this very serious incident resolved." said President Correa, before shaking hands to the applause of the summit’s delegates.

FARC is arguably holding back the ambitions of left-leaning politicans by their continued terrorist attacks and the kidnapping and assassination of leftists choosing to participate in the political process. Chávez’s support of the group is therefore counterproductive to his goals for the region. The far-right Government of President Uribe will not be defeated by a group of rebels more intent on drug trafficking than in improving their country. The previous Columbian government attempted to make peace with the rebels by offering them partly autonomous regions, however FARC simply ramped up their kidnapping and drug operations. Kidnapping left-leaning presidential candidates such as Ingrid Betancourt is not something that Hugo Chávez should support if he is serious about socialist reform in the region.

Image By Xmascarol
Courtesy of Creative Commons