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 News from Around the Americas | March 2008 
Regional Bloc Criticizes Colombia Raid in Ecuador
 Simon Romero - New York Times
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Caracas, Venezuela - The Organization of American States approved a resolution on Wednesday declaring the Colombian military raid into Ecuador a violation of sovereignty, in a move aimed at easing a diplomatic crisis in the Andes involving Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
The resolution was approved in Washington after talks in which the United States was the hemisphere's only nation explicitly supporting Colombia, a top Bush administration ally. The measure stopped short of condemning Colombia for the raid, which took place on Saturday and killed 24 guerrillas, including a senior commander of the rebel group FARC in Colombia.
"We consider this agreement a triumph for the concept that every nation's territory cannot be violated whatever the reason," María Isabel Salvador, Ecuador's foreign minister, said in a telephone interview from Washington. "Ecuador is a peaceful country that had been dragged into this unfortunate situation."
While the resolution allows both Colombia and Ecuador to save face and begin to repair relations strained this week, it fails to address some of the broader implications of Colombia's raid. Foremost among these is the emphatic support for Colombia's guerrillas expressed by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
Mr. Chávez mobilized his armed forces in response to the raid, pledging war with Colombia if it tried a similar foray into Venezuelan territory, where both the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and a smaller Colombian group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, operate along the border.
Venezuela's troop movements continued on Wednesday, with Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel saying that 10 tank battalions were being sent to the border, along with mobilizations of the air force and navy. General Rangel said the maneuvers were aimed at containing the reach of the United States.
"It is not against the people of Colombia, but rather the expansionist designs of the empire," General Rangel said, referring to the United States, at a news conference here.
Colombia reiterated on Wednesday that it did not plan to send troops to its border in a response to Venezuela's action. "The precise instructions to our armed forces are not to move one single soldier toward the border," said Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's defense minister.
Venezuela's mobilization drew a rebuke from the Bush administration, which has portrayed Colombia as an ally in need of a trade deal delayed because of concerns over killings of Colombian trade union officials.
"We do think it's curious that a country such as Venezuela would be raising the specter of military action against a country who was defending itself against terrorism," said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman. "I think that says a lot about Venezuela."
Mr. Chávez chafes at such portrayals of Venezuelan policy from Washington, positioning the dispute as a struggle between Ecuador and Venezuela, two like-minded governments, and Colombia, the largest recipient of American military aid in Latin America and one of the largest outside the Middle East.
"It must be said: They, the empire and its lackeys, are war. We are peace. We are the path to peace," Mr. Chávez said in comments on state television here.
Mr. Chávez added that he had been discussing the dispute with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. France has been relying on Mr. Chávez's mediation to try to free Ingrid Betancourt, a captive of the FARC with dual French and Colombian citizenship who was once a candidate for Colombia's presidency.
Ecuador also said it was sending 3,200 troops to its border after Colombia's raid early Saturday. While President Rafael Correa did not go as far as Mr. Chávez in showing support for the FARC, senior officials in his government said there was little they could do to prevent the Colombian guerrillas from returning to the area.
Mr. Correa arrived here Wednesday night to meet with Mr. Chávez after visits with the leaders of Peru and Brazil in an attempt to shore up support for Ecuador's criticism of the raid.
Mark Schneider, a special adviser on Latin America at the International Crisis Group, a research organization in Brussels, said, "Failing to get Venezuela and Ecuador on board regarding the dangers posed by the FARC, which engages in drug trafficking, kidnapping and terrorist violence, is a failure of policy of both Colombia and the U.S."
Colombia is emerging from the dispute with a major tactical victory against the FARC, having killed Raúl Reyes, a commander believed to be the group's second in command, after Manuel Marulanda, the 77-year-old chief of the guerrillas.
Colombian authorities said Wednesday that FARC rebels, in a possible reprisal attack, had bombed an oil pipeline in Putumayo Province, in Colombia's southwest, Reuters reported. Such pipeline bombings are fairly common in Colombia, but this was the first since the current crisis began.
Distaste persists around the region for the way Colombia carried out the operation without the Ecuadorean government's knowledge and moving about a mile into Ecuador's territory.
The resolution approved Wednesday requires José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, to form a panel to go to Sucumbios Province in Ecuador and across the border to Putumayo Province to investigate the raid and determine ways of repairing ties between the countries.
Unmentioned in the resolution, however, was the intensifying ill will between Colombia and Venezuela, especially after Mr. Chávez's expulsion of Colombia's ambassador and other diplomatic staff members here this week.
At stake is the annual $5 billion in trade between Colombia and Venezuela, dwarfing the $2 billion in trade between Colombia and Ecuador, as commerce on the border dwindled Wednesday to bare necessities like food.
"These past days showed that a radicalization of the positions by the parties involved in the conflict are not in the interest of peace," said Aldo Civico, director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University. "On the contrary, they destabilize the region."
Jenny Carolina González contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia; Uta Harnischfeger from Zurich; and Ginger Thompson from Washington. |
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