Trial for Chavez?

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Venezuelan Troops Inch Closer to Colombian Border As Tensions Between Two Countries Mount

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, speaks during his weekly broadcast "Alo Presidente" in Caracas on March 2.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Hundreds of Venezuelan troops moved Tuesday toward the border with Colombia, where trade was slowing amid heightening tension over Colombia's cross-border strike on a rebel base in Ecuador.

The Organization of American States scheduled an emergency afternoon meeting in Washington to try to calm one of the region's worst political showdowns in years, pitting U.S.-backed Colombia against Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez and his allies.

Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, meanwhile, traded accusations in the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

The escalation of tensions was triggered over the weekend when Colombia troops crossed the border with Ecuador and killed Reyes, a top commander of the Colombian FARC rebels who had set up a camp there.

Chavez, who sympathizes with the leftist rebels, condemned the killing and angrily ordered about 9,000 soldiers — 10 battalions — to Venezuela's border with Colombia. He warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that any strike on Venezuelan soil could provoke a South American war.

Colombia's defense minister said Monday that he would not be provoked into mobilizing troops in response.

President Bush said the United States will stand by Colombia and criticized Venezuela's government for making "provocative maneuvers." Colombia has received some $5 billion in U.S. aid to fight drugs and leftist rebels since 2000.

Retired Venezuelan Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas, a former top Chavez aide, told The Associated Press the troops were being sent to the border region as "a preventative measure."

Earlier Tuesday, Uribe said his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Chavez for financing and supporting Colombia's main rebel group while it was engaging in genocide.

The Uribe government claims documents found in the laptop of a slain commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia indicate Chavez's government recently gave $300 million to the group known as the FARC.

"Colombia is proposing that the International Criminal Court charge Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, for the support and financing of genocide," Uribe told journalists after meeting with an ex-congresswoman who was recently freed by the FARC after more than six years as a hostage.

The United States and the European Union classify the FARC as an international terrorist organization.

Uribe did not explain what arguments against Chavez would be presented to the Netherlands-based court.

Colombia has also halted trade to Venezuela at points along the border amid the diplomatic crisis, Reuters reported.

The Colombian government said documents found in the laptop of Reyes, a senior FARC leader killed Saturday in a raid on a guerrilla camp just inside Ecuador, show that Chavez's ties with the rebels date back more than a decade.

The documents indicate, Colombia alleges, that the FARC even sent Chavez money when he was in jail from 1992-94 for leading a failed coup.

Venezuela says Colombia is lying about the documents.

Meanwhile, President Bush expressed support for Uribe, who is increasingly at odds with the leftist presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador.

The White House said Bush would make a statement Tuesday about a telephone call with Uribe. It also said that Bush would urge the Senate to approve a free-trade agreement with Colombia.

Relations have hit a new low between Uribe on one side and Chavez of Venezuela and Ecuador's President Correa on the other. Tensions were raised by a Colombian commando raid that killed a key leftist rebel commander across the border in Ecuador.

The news comes as Ecuador announced that Colombia violated human rights obligations by killing a leftist rebel leader in the Ecuadorean jungle.

Ecuador and Venezuela broke diplomatic ties with Colombia after its forces killed a rebel inside Ecuador in a raid that sparked troop deployments and warnings of war.

In a speech at the U.N. Human Rights Council, Justice Minister Gustavo Jalkh said Colombia's incursion on Ecuadorean territory violated the right to life and security of Ecuador's people. He said Colombia also attacked fundamental principles of peace and security.

Ecuador "energetically rejects any actions which violate its sovereignty and its integrity, particularly when its territory was intentionally bombed, setting at risk the human rights of Ecuadoreans," Jalkh told the 47-nation council.

On Monday, Ecuador and Venezuela ordered troops to the Colombian border, expelled the country's diplomats and largely halted trade at key points along the frontier in response to Colombia's killing of Reyes on Saturday.

Colombia has said military commandos, tracking Reyes through an informant, were fired upon from Ecuadorean territory. But Ecuador said Colombia deliberately carried out the strike beyond its borders, and that the rebel was killed as he slept.

"The international community will know that it must close ranks," Jalkh said, adding that Colombia's action "cannot be justified by any arguments."

Correa added to the pressure by saying Monday that Colombia's attack scuttled talks between his government and the guerrillas to free 12 rebel-held hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors.

Colombian officials have long complained that FARC rebels take refuge in Ecuador and Venezuela, and accused both countries of supporting the rebels financially and politically. But Venezuela and Ecuador have dismissed Colombia's allegations as lies.

The rebels, who have been fighting for more than four decades for a more equitable distribution of wealth in Colombia, fund themselves largely through the cocaine trade, while holding hundreds of kidnapped hostages for ransom and political ends.

Washington has supported Colombia's right to defend itself against FARC.It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money Finance.