STORM2K

Venezuela, Ecuador break ties with Colombia

* Crisis erupted when Colombia flew troops into Ecuador, killing a senior FARC rebel
* Latin American govts condemn Colombia’s attack

CARACAS/QUITO: Leftist allies Venezuela and Ecuador escalated a crisis with Colombia on Monday, cutting diplomatic ties after their neighbour raided inside Ecuador in an attack that sparked troop deployments and warnings of war.

Colombia also fuelled tensions by accusing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of funding Marxist rebels in its country - a charge denied by the anti-US president’s government. The crisis erupted when Colombia flew troops into Ecuador on Saturday in a bombing raid that killed a senior rebel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It was a major blow to Latin America’s oldest rebel group and also eliminated a key contact for governments such as France, Venezuela and Ecuador in talks to free hostages held by FARC for years in jungle camps.

Chavez has brokered the release of six captives since the start of the year in those negotiations. On Monday, Venezuela and Ecuador said they had been close to securing freedom for high-profile hostage French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt. “The hand of authoritarian war-mongers wrecked everything,” Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on the eve of a Latin American tour - including Venezuela - to lobby for support.

“We have always declared peace with Colombia, we have stretched out a hand of solidarity and we have been betrayed,” he said in an address to the nation.

Govts condemn attack: Latin American governments, including diplomatic heavyweight Brazil, lined up to condemn Colombia’s attack and demand an apology for Ecuador. Governments from France to the United States, as well as US presidential candidates, also urged diplomacy to defuse the tensions. Chavez ordered troops and tanks to the border with Colombia on Sunday and warned conservative President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch US ally, that a similar strike on Venezuelan soil could lead to war. His foreign minister said Venezuela suspected Washington helped coordinate the Ecuador attack.

Ecuador also sent thousands of troops to the border. Both leftist governments intensified their diplomatic measures against Colombia on Monday. Ecuador announced it was cutting off diplomatic ties and Venezuela expelled all Colombian diplomats, a day after it withdrew all its own personnel from its embassy in Bogota.

Colombia’s police chief said documents were found in the raid in Ecuador showing that Chavez gave FARC $300 million. Venezuela denied the charge and said it had its own evidence that the police chief was a drug-trafficker. Colombia also linked the slain commander, Raul Reyes, with an official close to Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa. “The government of Ecuador energetically rejects these accusations which cynically add to the hostile attitude shown in the recent violation of our sovereignty,” said Ecuador’s government.

Other governments criticised Colombia for sending troops into Ecuador. “The territorial violation is very serious and needs to be condemned,” said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, adding, “Brazil condemns any territorial violation.”

Traffic was normal at main border crossing points between Venezuela and Colombia, and while Venezuela said it reinforced the borders, there was no sign of a mass mobilisation.reuters

Venezuela Troops Head To Colombia Border

(AP) 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 Raul 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.

Uribe said he has provided Chavez with precise information on the location of rebel camps in Venezuela. He said one was home to Ivan Marquez, another top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

But Uribe said he would not allow his nation to be drawn into a conflict with its neighbors.

"Colombia has never been a country to go to war with its neighbors," Uribe said. "We are not mobilizing troops, nor advancing toward war with neighbors."

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."

Soldiers boarded buses and trucks at the Paramaracay base in central Venezuela on Tuesday morning, and battalions also were moving out from the northern state of Lara, pro-Chavez Gov. Luis Reyes said.

The Venezuelan military has been tightlipped about troop movements. Venezuela's armed forces include about 100,000 troops, Muller Rojas said. Colombia's U.S.-equipped and trained military has more than twice as many.

Uribe said his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Chavez for "genocide" for allegedly financing the FARC, the country's main rebel group. He cited a reference to a $300 million Venezuelan payment in documents found in a laptop the Colombians said belonged to Reyes.

Colombia said documents in Reyes' laptop also indicate that Ecuador' internal security minister met recently with a FARC envoy to discuss deepening relations with Ecuador, and even replacing military officers who might oppose that.

Both Venezuela and Ecuador expelled Colombia's ambassadors in the wake of the attack and dismissed the allegations as lies.

The biggest losers from the killing of Reyes appeared to be the hostages that FARC rebels have held for years, pending a swap with rebel prisoners. Along with Reyes, 20 other rebels were killed in the raid.

Ecuador and France said they had been communicating with Reyes, trying to secure a hostage release.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the conversations were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages," Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, said in a nationally televised address. "All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands" of the Colombian government.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani confirmed that France was in contact with Reyes as well, and that "the Colombians were aware of it."

Publicly, there had been no indication of even preliminary progress in securing the release of any of the 40 hostages the FARC wants to swap or hundreds of jailed guerrillas.

Those hostages include three U.S. military contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French national who has become a cause celebre in Europe.

The rebels said in a communique that Reyes died "completing a mission to arrange, through President Chavez, a meeting with (French) President (Nicolas) Sarkozy" aimed at securing Betancourt's release.

Saturday's raid came on the heels of the FARC's release last week of four hostages to Venezuelan Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin. The minister said the raid proved the "intent of the fascist Colombian government is to hamper the handover of hostages, because that is the path of peace."

Several Latin American leftist leaders have suggested the U.S. was intimately involved in executing the raid that killed Reyes. Colombian military officials have said U.S. satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have been key to putting the FARC on the defensive.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command would neither confirm or deny American military participation. "We do provide intelligence support to partner nations but I can't get into details on operations," Jose Ruiz told the AP from Miami.

Another victim of the crisis may be border trade worth $5 billion a year, most of it Colombian exports sorely needed by Venezuelans already suffering milk and meat shortages.

Venezuela said it would stop new exports and imports. At one closed border crossing, in Paraguachon, Venezuela, authorities stopped trucks lined up for about a half a mile Tuesday morning. But traffic was flowing normally at another crossing, in El Amparo, where a handful of Venezuelan troops stood watch as usual, the customs office was open and traffic passed freely.

In Ecuador, where Correa sent 3,200 troops Monday to reinforce the border, there was no halt to trade worth about $1.8 billion annually, said Carlos Lopez, the undersecretary of immigration.

Correa, on a regional tour to rally other Latin American leaders against Colombia, said in Peru that his military has "captured" 47 rebel camps in Ecuador since he took office last year.

"And they ask me if we are accomplices of the FARC?"

___

Associated Press writers Vivian Sequera in Bogota; Howard Yanes at El Amparo, Venezuela; and Fabiola Sanchez and Ian James in Caracas contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Won't go to war, Colombia prez says

CUCUTA, Colombia -- Venezuela and Ecuador both moved thousands of troops to their borders with Colombia yesterday as tensions mounted over Colombia's deadly strike on a leftist rebel base in Ecuador.

Ecuador sought international condemnation of the attack, which killed a top commander of Colombia's main rebel group and 22 other guerrillas. Despite the troop movements and sabre-rattling, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said he would not allow his nation to be drawn into war. "Colombia has never been a country to go to war with its neighbours," he said. "We are not mobilizing troops, nor advancing toward war."

Colombia said documents found at the rebel base showed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were trying to acquire radioactive material that could be used for dirty bombs -- and that Venezuela and Ecuador had deepening ties with the FARC. Venezuelan and Ecuador said Colombia was lying.

The Organization of American States held an emergency meeting in Washington to try to calm one of the region's worst political showdowns in years. Colombia apologized for the attack, but Ecuador wasn't satisfied, calling for OAS to investigate. Uribe said the International Criminal Court should try Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for "genocide" for allegedly financing FARC, listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union.

So, they're going to wait till Venezuela & Ecuador attack them first, which seems pretty likely, at least at the moment.

I think and I hope this won't escalate into a war. International organizations most likely will enter into the conflict and talk with both sides into an agreement. Chávez was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to create commotion in the continent and destabilize the region .

It's true that Colombia shouldn't have entered Ecuadorian territory. Still, in this conflict Ecuador and Venezuela are defending a known terrorist organization which has killed a lot of innocent civilians in Colombia.

Let see what happens. There's nothing here to gain and a lot to lose.

Slain Colombian Rebel Leader's Seized Laptop Shows Ties to Chavez
Wednesday, March 05, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia —

A single laptop can reveal much, and so it is with the digital treasure chest that Colombian commandos found in the jungle quarters of slain rebel leader Raul Reyes.

Files in the computer seized in Saturday's raid into Ecuador that claimed the lives of Reyes and 23 of his comrades offer an intimate portrait of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's desire to undermine Colombia's U.S.-allied government.

If authentic, the documents show that sympathies Chavez first aired publicly in January grew out of a relationship that dates back more than a decade. But Chavez is not one of the correspondents, and his sentiments mentioned in these documents are relayed solely through the rebels.

Venezuela says the documents are lies and fabrications. If they are, they are expertly done.

Not only do they offer an unprecedented glimpse into the rebels' mind-set, they also discuss diplomatic overtures from governments including the United States — cryptically — and France — explicitly.

They are signed electronically by the most powerful men in the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the hemisphere's oldest and most potent rebel movement.

Those signing the documents include:

— Reyes, the FARC's foreign minister and public face, whose killing struck a chilling blow to the group;

— Manuel Marulanda, the rebels' 77-year-old supreme leader;

— Jorge Briceno, their much-feared field marshal;

— and Ivan Marquez, the insurgents' apparent go-between with Chavez. Marquez is believed to live in Venezuela.

Copies of 13 documents were sent to reporters Tuesday by Colombia's national police chief, Gen. Oscar Naranjo. He revealed their existence Sunday as his government came under a withering diplomatic assault for violating Ecuador's territory with the raid.

They indicate that Chavez, seeking to raise the FARC's stature and relieve it of its international pariah status, shares their goal of isolating and discrediting Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe.

But do they prove that Venezuela was actually financing the FARC's bid to overthrow a democratically elected government? That's not clear.

Naranjo alleges the "300," called the "dossier" in a Dec. 23 message signed by Marquez, refers to a $300 million gift from Chavez to the rebels.

In a Jan. 14 missive, Briceno discusses what to do with the "dossier."

"Who, where, when and how will we receive the dollars and store them?" he asks fellow members of the FARC's seven-man ruling secretariat.

Uribe has worked as no other Colombian president to defeat the FARC. So it's no surprise that in the Jan. 14 message, Briceno discusses a desire to undermine Uribe by making him cede a safe haven to the rebels for talks on a prisoner swap.

"Uribe will become more isolated, together with his boss from the North," a clear reference to President Bush, whose government provides Colombia with some $600 million a year in military aid.

In a document dated Feb. 9, Marquez passes along Chavez's thanks for a $150,000 gift when he was imprisoned from 1992-94 for leading a failed coup — and indicates Chavez's desire to smear Uribe.

Marquez tells Marulanda and the other secretariat members that Venezuela wants documentation of damage by Colombia's military to "the civilian population, also images of bombardments in the jungle and its devastation — to use as a denunciation before the world."

Marquez also relays that Chavez's government "invites the FARC to participate in some sessions of the analysis group he's formed to follow Colombia's political situation."

In a letter the previous day to the same recipients, Marquez discusses Chavez's plan to try to persuade leading Latin American nations to help get the FARC removed from lists of international terror groups.

At least three of the documents express Chavez's deep desire to meet with Marulanda, hopefully on Venezuelan soil. Marulanda has reportedly never left Colombia.

Marquez also says Chavez is prepared to offer Venezuelan territory for the FARC's desired prisoner swap, which would be a huge embarrassment for Uribe. The FARC has proposed exchanging some 40 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors, for hundreds of rebels currently in Colombia's jails.

The FARC captured the three when their surveillance plane crashed in February 2003.

The rebels have released six hostages — all Colombian politicians — since Uribe tried to end Chavez's mediation role with the FARC in November, accusing the Venezuelan president of overstepping his mandate.

The four freed most recently, on Feb. 27, say hostage Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate who also holds French citizenship, is extremely ill.

Betancourt has become a cause celebre in France. French contacts with Reyes are mentioned in several documents, including a request that the French envoy, identified only as "Noe," be granted a meeting with Marulanda.

References to U.S. diplomatic overtures are scintillating, if vague.

In a Dec. 11 message to the secretariat, Marquez writes: "If you are in agreement, I can receive Jim and Tucker to hear the proposal of the gringos."

The same message says an Italian referred to only as Consolo has told Marquez "the European Parliament wants to get involved in the prisoner exchange."

Writing two days before his death, Reyes tells his secretariat comrades that "the gringos," working through Ecuador's government, are interested "in talking to us on various issues."

"They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama," noting that Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program.

Reyes said the response he relayed is that the United States would have to publicly express that desire.

Another message, to Reyes from a lower-ranking commander and dated Feb. 16, includes mention of a possible purchase of 50 kilos — 110 pounds — of uranium.

Uribe's government has claimed that means the FARC was seeking to build a dirty bomb. But the message discusses a different motive: selling the uranium at a profit.
____________________________________________________

No surprise here.

Washington Guided Colombian Incursion into Ecuador

Colombian military and police sources confirm US role in Columbian operation. President Correa has broken off diplomatic relations with the Uribe government.

BOGOTA.— The US government provided information that led to the death of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leader Raul Reyes in Ecuador, in violation of this country’s sovereignty.

A high-level source in the Colombian Ministry of Defense told AFP news service on Monday that a US agency informed the Colombian authorities several weeks ago about the existence of a satellite telephone used occasionally by Reyes.

“The US provided the identification of the satellite telephone to Colombian police intelligence forces which then processed the information and worked to establish the location of the phone. The US also provided the informants,” stated an official requesting anonymity.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Ecuadorian government had broken off diplomatic relations with Colombia and troops deployed by Quito on its northern border with Colombia are on “maximum alert” on orders of President Rafael Correa.

At the same time, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro told the National Assembly that Colombian Ambassador to Caracas Fernando Marin had been expelled from the country and spoke about another occasion when Venezuela at prevented a Colombian military aggression.

The presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile, Peru and Mexico and others expressed their concern over the level of confrontation between Colombia and Ecuador and in one way or another expressed their rejection of the incursion by the Colombian military.

Prensa Latina reported that French President Nicolas Sarkozy regretted the death of Raul Reyes ­—the direct interlocutor of the so-called friends of Colombia (France, Switzerland and Spain) in the effort to free prisoners held by the FARC rebels—, which left negotiations practically severed.

Rafael Correa said on Monday that, before the incident, negotiations had advanced to free more prisoners, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The operation that violated Ecuadorian sovereignty took the lives of some 20 persons, including the guerrilla leader who had an important role in the negotiations.

OAS stops short of condemning Colombia

powered by SphereWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Organization of American States stopped short on Wednesday of condemning Colombia for crossing into Ecuador to kill leftist guerrillas, but said Colombia had violated international law.

The OAS, Western Hemisphere's top diplomatic body, agreed in a resolution to form a commission to visit Ecuador and Colombia to investigate the Colombian raid against the FARC guerrillas that led to a crisis that has raised fears for regional stability.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa had asked the OAS to quickly condemn Colombia for its actions in Ecuador's territory on Saturday, and most Latin American leaders supported him.

But the United States backed its ally Colombia, saying the raid was against a dangerous international terrorist group.

Venezuela has deployed tanks and air and sea forces toward the Colombian border, saying it needs to stop Colombia from making similar military incursions on its territory.

(Reporting by Adriana Garcia; Writing by Fiona Ortiz)
______________________________________________

Excellent, OAS didn't condemn Colombia.

HURAKAN wrote:Washington Guided Colombian Incursion into Ecuador

That gives Venezuela even more reason to take action, since the US could be considered to be not involved directly (obvious they support the Colombian government). As much as I'm a westerner, I think Chavez would have a valid point about US involvement in this being an act of war.

Chávez knows he can't go against the US. There is no question about it.

HURAKAN wrote:Chávez knows he can't go against the US. There is no question about it.

Not directly no. Chavez vs the USA would be suicide on his part. I think he's counting on the US not getting directly involved (i.e. not sending troops, just money / weapons)

I don't this conflict to go any further. OAS is already sending delegates to these countries to peacefully resolve the dilema.

The next few days will be interesting as Uribe, the president of Colombia, could sue Chávez in the International Court for the involment of Chávez with a terrorist organization as the FARC is already known as.

HURAKAN wrote:The next few days will be interesting as Uribe, the president of Colombia, could sue Chávez in the International Court for the involment of Chávez with a terrorist organization as the FARC is already known as.

Don't you think that that would just make Chávez more likely to invade?

Cryomaniac wrote:

HURAKAN wrote:The next few days will be interesting as Uribe, the president of Colombia, could sue Chávez in the International Court for the involment of Chávez with a terrorist organization as the FARC is already known as.

Don't you think that that would just make Chávez more likely to invade?

I don't see anything to gain in an invasion of Colombia from Chávez point of view. Remember that Chávez is Fidel's pupil. They both talk, talk, and talk, but don't do anything. I think this is what will continue to happen here. Chávez will continue to talk trash about Colombia and the US but nothing militarized will happen.

I remember how Fidel used to show all his military power in his demonstrations against the US. The reality was that most of his "military power" was and still is scrap metal.

The Columbian Army is better equipped and out-guns the combined armies of Ecuador and Venezuela. That's not a good formula for an attack against Columbia. Chavez is going to rant but he's not stupid. Also it's important to note that even the Ecuadorion President admitted that FARC had promised not to operate out of Equador but that they had obviously lied...

Few days ago Uribe was calling for Chávez to be tried by the International Criminal Court. I'd really like to see that happen as Chávez is nothing more than a sympathiser of this terrorist organisation and thus, to me, a terrorist.

Good for Colombia! Everyone knows the FARC are terrorists. Hopefully this does save lives..

Colombia Pipeline Bombed by FARC After Ecuador Attack

By Matthew Walter and Helen Murphy

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Colombian rebels bombed an oil pipeline and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he may seize local assets of the neighboring country's companies after a Colombian raid into Ecuador killed a rebel leader.

The bombing and Chavez's nationalization threats may be the start of reprisals for the March 1 air raid on Ecuadorean soil that killed the second-in-command of Colombia's biggest guerrilla group. Escalation of the conflict could cut the more than $5 billion in annual trade between Venezuela and Colombia.

``This is definitely the beginning of reprisals against Colombia and it is likely to continue,'' Edgar Jimenez, an equity analyst at Stanford Bolsa y Banca in Bogota, said in a telephone interview.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, bombed the Transandino pipeline in Putumayo province, taking it out of service for at least three days, Colombia's Vice Minister of Mining and Energy Manuel Maiguashca said.

Owned by state oil company Ecopetrol SA, it brings oil from fields in Colombia and Ecuador to an export facility in Tumaco on Colombia's Pacific coast.

Crude oil for April delivery rose 68 cents to $105.20 a barrel at 11:12 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are up 74 percent from a year ago.

Chavez, during a news conference last night in Caracas, asked his ministers to draw up an inventory of Colombian assets in Venezuela.

``Some of them could be nationalized,'' he said. ``We're not interested in Colombian investments here.''

International Reaction

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, who joined Chavez at the press conference, called on the international community to condemn Colombia for its cross-border strike. He said he'll only accept the findings of a panel set up by the Organization of American States to investigate the attack if it denounces Colombia's actions.

``If the international community doesn't condemn this aggressor without question, then Ecuador will know how to respond,'' Correa said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia to reach a diplomatic agreement over the border raid. She called Colombia a ``good friend.''

``Everybody needs to be vigilant about the use of border areas by terrorist organizations like the FARC,'' Rice told reporters after a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers in Brussels.

Mobilizing Troops

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will meet with her Venezuelan and Ecuadorean counterparts today in Caracas. Chavez and Correa, both self-proclaimed socialists, sent troops to their respective borders with Colombia this week to increase security.

``No one can agree with what Colombia did,'' Argentine Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernandez said in an interview on Radio 10 in Buenos Aires today. ``This is a violation of sovereignty that worries and infuriates us.''

The Venezuelan president has accused the U.S. of being behind the attack on the FARC and said the raid risks sparking a war. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe calls the U.S. ``a friend.'' Chavez, in contrast, calls the U.S. the ``empire'' and refers to President George W. Bush as ``Mr. Evil.''

An expanded military presence along the frontier -- already rife with paramilitary, drug trafficking and rebel activity -- raises tensions to a level where a miscalculation could trigger a military clash. Chavez's threats to pull investment from Colombia and seize Colombian industries will strain relations further.

Colombian Companies

Grupo Nacional de Chocolates SA, Colombia's largest food company, stands to lose the most among publicly traded companies if Chavez delivers on the threat, analysts and traders said. The shares have fallen 4.3 percent since the raid.

Colombia is a key trading partner with Venezuela and Ecuador, supplying both with food and other goods.

Other companies that operate in Venezuela include Cementos Argos SA, Colombia's biggest cement maker, and Compania Colombiana de Inversiones SA, an investment holding company, said Rupert Stebbings, head of international sales at brokerage Interbolsa, said by phone from Medellin.

``If push comes to shove, and Chavez is able to somehow reduce Colombian exports to Venezuela, Colombia takes a hit,'' said Boris Segura, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York. ``A lot of Colombia's exports to Venezuela are industrial goods, which have high value added, and generate a lot of employment.''

40-Year Fight

The FARC is South America's largest guerrilla group and has been fighting the Colombian government for more than 40 years. The strike on a rebel camp inside Ecuador killed the group's second-in-command, Raul Reyes.

Colombian security officials say they found documents on laptop computers belonging to Reyes linking the group to Venezuelan and Ecuadorean authorities. Colombia said March 3 the evidence showed Venezuela funneled at least $300 million to FARC.

General Oscar Naranjo, Colombia's police chief, this week said the computer files also indicated Ecuadorean Security Minister Gustavo Larrea had been in contact with Reyes in a bid to get Correa involved in the release of rebel-held hostages to boost his political standing.

Chavez and Correa have denied the allegations and recalled their ambassadors from the Colombian capital, Bogota.

Colombia Worried Rebels Seek Uranium
By FRANK BAJAK – 16 hours ago

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia is worried about a document on the laptop of a slain rebel leader indicating the guerrillas were trying to obtain uranium, but has no evidence they intended to use it as a weapon, the vice president said Wednesday.

Francisco Santos told The Associated Press that despite fears he expressed to the world disarmament agency in Geneva on Tuesday, his government doesn't have any indication that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are seeking to build a radioactive dirty bomb.

Santos told the 65-member Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday that his government is alarmed because uranium is "the primary basis for generating dirty weapons of mass destruction and terrorism." A day later, he was backing off slightly.

"What I said was, 'Take note. To put the FARC and the word uranium in the same sentence is to make anyone's hair stand up,'" Santos said in a telephone interview from Brussels, Belgium. "Don't take it lightly."

The FBI, which has an office in Bogota, also has "no information or intelligence regarding the FARC attempting to use WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, spokesman Richard Kolko said in Washington.

The document addressing "the matter of the Uranium" was found in a laptop belonging to Raul Reyes, a top FARC commander killed Saturday in a raid into Ecuador that has generated intense international criticism. The poorly written communication, dated Feb. 16, is addressed to Reyes and signed by Edgar Tovar, who Santos said commands a FARC front near Ecuador.

Tovar writes that a man named Belisario in Bogota who supplies him with explosives "sent me a catalog and the specifications."

"They propose to sell each kilo at US$2.5 million (euro1.65 million) and they'll deliver it and we'll see to whom we can sell it and so the deal would be with a government to sell them a lot," he writes. "They've got 50 kilos ready and they can sell a lot more, they have direct contact with those who have the product."

The uranium reference was quickly cited by Colombia's government as it sought to deflect criticism over the raid.

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium, this means that the FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," Gen. Oscar Naranjo said at an explosive news conference.

Santos took Colombia's complaints Wednesday to Javier Solano, the European Union's foreign affairs representative.

"The Europeans are really worried about this. They're not taking it lightly," he told the AP after meeting with Solano.

But Colombian officials say they have no other information — either from the laptop or other sources — indicating an interest in radioactive materials or unconventional weapons by the FARC, which has been fighting successive Colombian governments for more than four decades without even using shoulder-fired missiles.

It wasn't clear what exactly the material Tovar was writing about might be. Santos said "this sounds like processed uranium."

The price mentioned suggests that the uranium would be processed, and hence dangerous. Unprocessed uranium is relatively harmless and goes for about US$100 (euro66) a kilo, according to Charles Ferguson, a physicist with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

"If it were weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium, I'd be freaking out because you can make a low-yield improvised nuclear device from that," Ferguson said. But he added: "I'm not aware of any highly enriched uranium of appreciable quantities in the region of Colombia, Venezuela or anywhere else near there."

Associated Press writer Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this story from Washington.

While I doubt FARC was actually trying to make a dirty bomb the fact they were even in "the market" and somebody is selling is and should be alarming. It does sound like a good deflection from the minor and qualified invasion by Colombia. Nukes and any terrorist organizaton are not to be taken lightly of course.