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Colombia accuses Chávez of funding Marxist rebels

Mar 04 2008 07:26

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Venezuela and Colombia were locked in a tense stand-off on Monday, with explosive accusations levelled against Venezuelan President Hugo ChÃ¡vez a day after he ordered tanks and troops to the border.

There was no sign of imminent conflict but the war of words escalated when Colombia accused ChÃ¡vez of bankrolling the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), Marxist rebels categorised around the world as terrorists.

Colombia's police commander, General Oscar Naranjo, told a media conference that BogotÃ¡ had evidence that ChÃ¡vez paid $300-million to the organisation, an allegation which complicated efforts to cool a serious regional crisis.

Colombia triggered the dispute last Saturday by bombing a Farc camp a kilometre inside Ecuador, killing 17 rebels, including RaÃºl Reyes, a senior commander. In response, Ecuador and Venezuela on Monday severed diplomatic ties. Quito sent 3 200 troops to its border and ChÃ¡vez, from the other end of the Andes, ordered the mobilisation of 10 armoured battalions and war planes to deter what he called Colombian aggression.

BogotÃ¡ said the situation was under control and it would not match the mobilisations. But it dropped a bombshell by claiming that laptops belonging to Reyes that were recovered from the Farc camp showed ChÃ¡vez had funded the guerrillas. The laptops also purportedly showed that Farc had given money to ChÃ¡vez in the mid-1990s.

The leftist affinity between them is no secret, but if proved the allegation potentially makes him a sponsor of terrorism. Venezuela's Vice-President, RamÃ³n Carrizalez, rejected Colombia's claims.

Farc, which has been waging a decades-long insurgency against the Colombian state, is thought to fund its 11 000-strong armed force through drugs and kidnapping.

ChÃ¡vez warned that a similar anti-guerrilla operation in Venezuela would lead to war and called Colombia a terrorist state bankrolled by United States imperialism.

Brazil, Chile, Italy and Cuba, among others, condemned the incursion into Ecuador. Colombia apologised to Ecuador but sought to justify the raid by saying it had found evidence of collaboration between Ecuador's government and Farc.

CONTINUES BELOW

Naranjo said the recovered laptops showed contacts between Reyes, the dead rebel, and Ecuador's Security Minister, Gustavo Larrea. Ecuador denied any political relations with Farc and questioned the documents' veracity, calling them a smokescreen for Colombia's territorial violation. -- guardian.co.uk Â© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008

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