The government of Álvaro Uribe is committed to hold on the position that there are camps and leaders of FARC and EPL, the Colombian communist guerrillas, in Venezuelan territory and proves were presented before the Organization of American States. The Maoist guerrillas are considered by the European Community, US, Mexico, Colombia and others as terrorist organizations associated with drug trafficking, while Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other governments do not refer to them under such terms. Accusations of direct contacts with the Colombian guerrillas by governments like Caracas and Quito have been always denied by their top leaders, however the resent accusation of Colombia has been the most direct and strong of the last years, just few weeks of the end of the government of Uribe.

President Hugo Chávez opted for a strong answer to Uribe denying strictly the accusations as an ambush of Bogotá to his revolutionary process in Venezuela and a treat of invasion with the support of the United States, while showing a expectancy for the next presidential period with Juan Manuel Santos. By his part, the new elected president, who comes from the Uribe side, has avoid any declaration to the crisis that was worsen with a diplomatic breakdown by Caracas. President Chávez militarized the border with Colombia under the consideration that there is a possible Colombian attack on his country before August 7.

The Venezuelan chancellor, Nicolás Maduro, visited some South American government, especially those supposedly aligned with Caracas like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and proposing a regional peace process for Colombia that was refused by Bogotá as an intention of distract the attention over the main problem. For Colombia, the real regional commitment with the peace of Colombia is not allowing the presence of terrorist groups like Farc and EPL. A peace dialog is a strategy of the guerrillas to strengthen, avoiding the confrontation with the authorities, manifested president Álvaro Uribe recently. President Álvaro Uribe refused also a declaration of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that suggested in an interview to Prensa Latina that the Colombian – Venezuelan crisis was rather a personal interchange of words.

While Maduro was touring South America to prepare the UNASUR chancellors’ summit in Quito, his Colombian counterpart Jaime Bermúdez was preparing to bring what Bogotá says are more evidences of the presence of guerrilla troops and leaders camping in Venezuela.

The results of the summit were expected: both governments hold their positions.

President Álvaro Uribe proposed recently that the guerrilla troops in Venezuela should demobilize in that country with the presence of Colombian prosecutors and they must return to their country under the guarantees of the Justice and Peace Law, a legal frame created during the first presidential period of Uribe to promote the demobilization of armed groups in Colombia like the communist guerrillas and the rightist paramilitary troops.

Nicolás Maduro denied once more that there are guerrilla troops and leaders hiding in the Venezuelan territory and he said that everything is a lie and attack of the government of President Uribe against the Venezuelan government. He insisted that president Uribe is planning a military intervention in Venezuela before the end of his government on August 7.

We enter by sure an interregnum now: not any diplomatic action from any part will be effective after August 7, when Colombia will see the upcoming of a new president, after 8 years of a strong leader like Uribe. The first declarations of Juan Manuel Santos as president of the Colombians will be strictly a guide to predict how the relations of Colombian with its South American neighbors will evolve.

But Catalonia is not the first region to buried by law the traditional fiesta brava. The first prohibition was ruled in the Spaniard archipelago of Canaries following a regional law for the protection of animals that was established in 1991. The process of Catalonia was observed with attention by those countries were bullfighting is also considered a sport and cultural tradition, among them France and Portugal.

It brought a long discussion among those who fight for the protection of animals and those who see bullfighting as an art and an ancestral tradition. By sure, the discussion will encourage groups of animal protection groups in other Spaniard regions and countries with bullfighting tradition.

In Colombia, the main cities have big plazas for the traditional bullfighting like Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Manizales. There is also internationally recognized bullfighters like Pepe Cáceres and César Rincón. There has been even female bullfighters like Berta Trujilla, known as La Morenita del Quindío.

Bermúdez said that a true plan of peace is the not intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries. The chancellor added that a compromise for peace is that no place in the world must become a shelter for criminal groups like the Farc guerrillas. ‘The true plan of peace is arrest those criminals wherever they could be,‘ he concluded. Bermúdez said also that there is not plans to attack Venezuela with the support of US, as Caracas insists. ‘Our enemies are the drug traffickers and terrorism. It is unthinkable an aggression or confrontation against a brother country,‘ he insisted. He concluded that Colombia will look in the UNASUR summit for the ways to verify and prevent the presence of Farc guerrillas in Venezuela.

Venezuela asks ‘rectification’ from Colombia

By his part, the Venezuela chancellor Nicolás Maduro said in Buenos Aires that his country needs a due ‘rectification’ from the next Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos in order to forward a relation based in an ‘absolute respect.’

He insisted also that the South American nations should promote a plan of peace for the region. ‘The solution is going to the peace of Colombia and build the peace; the solution must be built by South America,‘ he said in a press conference in the Argentinian capital.

The words of Maduro were answered by chancellor Bermúdez, who said that Colombia cannot give any kind of ‘rectification’ to its denounces of Farc and ELN presence in the Venezuelan territory. ‘What to be rectified? Do you think we are going to rectify? Do you think that Colombia will go back in what it is said? Do you think it is a story? Absolutely no! he said and concluded that Colombia has proves of the guerrilla presence in Venezuela and its locations.

Farc tries to promote a peace process in order to strength

President Álvaro Uribe said that Farc is trying to promote a peace process in the international arena in order to gain strength. ‘It is a trap in order to get strength and avoid confrontation with the authorities,’ he said. He asks the fulfillment of international law in the war on terrorism by not sheltering its members. Uribe recommended to the next government of Juan Manuel Santos, who will take possession on August 7, to keep up the offensive against illegal groups. He concluded that his government fought guerrillas and paramilitary groups alike and there were not the temptation to think that some were heroes and other villains. He asked also to the Colombian army a deep compromise with the human rights.

Social emergency in the border with Venezuela

The Colombian government decreed a social emergency status in the border region with Venezuela for the collapse of commerce after the conflict with Caracas. In the measures the traders of the region (16% of the towns of border with the neighboring country) were temporary exonerated from VAT  from several products like food, clothing, shoes, textile and material for construction.

There is also the possibility to create economic zones in municipalities at the Venezuelan border until December 31, 2011.

Everybody thinks that the reaction of Chávez is natural: he holds in his opposition to the US military posts in Colombia that Bogotá and Washington declare to be a way to fight drug trafficking in the region. It is without doubt his main argument to fear a possible US invasion over Venezuela to get control on its oil resources, although Venezuela is one of the main world oil providers to the US. Technically, it is little probable that the Obama administration would engage in an invasion to Venezuela, especially now that US does not find the way to withdraw in a political correctness way from Iraq and Afghanistan. Chávez by sure knows that Venezuela by itself is not considered at the same level of US national security’s risk as Washington considers Iran or it considers Libya, North Korea or Syria. However, even the rather tolerant Obama administration – if we compare it with the Bush’s – can feel annoyed by a Venezuela linking openly itself to nations like Iran, buying weapons to Russia and insisting that Venezuela will be invaded by the Americans at any time ‘through the puppet Colombian government.’ At the end you feel that the only country talking of a possible US invasion to Venezuela is only Venezuela and Chávez mentions it at any step of the debate with Colombia. Ahmadeinejad or Kim Jong-il, who have more probabilities to be invaded by Western forces than Venezuela, do not mention such case as Caracas does. Not even Sadam Hussein or Noriega thought they were going to be invaded by US, at least in the beginning. The good question is Why Chávez uses that figure of the invasion when Colombia puts any question to his government? The answer could be that he wants the reduction of the US influence over Latin America and especially over Colombia. It is not good to export his socialist political programs to a country where US has a strong alliance as Colombia. At the same time, the Chávez geopolitical project needs Colombia in order to grow.

It seems that the actions of president Uribe, by the other part of the northern South American borders, are unexpected. Those who think in that way know very little about the Colombian history and about the political tradition of president Uribe. Few days before the most affected businessmen of the Colombo-Venezuelan border were very optimistic with the words of Chávez promising to come to the Juan Manuel Santos possession in Bogotá. It reminded the optimistic words of the Venezuelan president when Barack Obama was elected president of the US to compare him with Bush few months after.

The serious accusations of the Colombian government over guerrilla presence in Venezuela are not new. When the Colombian political conflict goes out of the borders to countries like Venezuela and Ecuador, the song is the same: ´It is a Colombian internal problem´ as a way to prove innocence and take distance over it. What it is a historical demonstrable fact is that the 50 years Colombian political conflict has had the active presence of other countries of the region, more active than what it is possible to imagine, from the same US to Cuba, from Brazil to Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, from Peru to Argentina and Chile. Everyone, at its own way, with good or bad intentions, has had to see with the oldest regional political conflict. It is not new that the Colombian guerrillas use to take refuge in the neighboring countries. The problem is if such event has been known and supported by Caracas and Quito or they are really innocent of it. The Colombian army bombing over the Raul Reyes camp on March 1rst, 2008 was in Ecuadorian territory. Reyes felt safe in that place. Why? Now well, if a government is innocent of it, if guerrilla camps are hidden there without their knowledge or if it is a false alarm, Why to deny it immediately without an open international investigation? The accusation is deeply serious and it is a causal of war by sure, because it means that the territory of a country is used by an organization that is internationally hold as terrorist to attack another country. It would be the most evident prove that the Colombian political conflict is not constricted to Colombia as Chávez suggests, but he is a willing participant in that conflict. When a political leader wants to participate in a conflict of other nation, it is because he wants something for his own benefit from that conflict.

If the government of Uribe came to be with the strong proposal to end the Maoist Colombian guerrillas, it is not strain therefore that Uribe will let it as a legate to the next government. Uribe took distance from former peace intentions like Pastrana´s and he does not believe in good intentions of the guerrillas, after the Pastrana-Marulanda peace process failure in 2002.

In the middle of the strong declarations of the Venezuelan government after Colombia presented its evidence of allegedly guerrilla camps in Venezuela, there are already some signs of a better understanding: Venezuelan Chancellor Nicolás Maduro said that his government wants to build a relation of respect and cooperation, but at the same time the Venezuelan vice-president Elías Ajua called president Uribe an outlaw and the Colombian ambassador to OAS a criminal. If the Venezuelan government wants to build such a respect, must start to study the most select principles of diplomacy. If serious accusations like the ones of Colombia are to be answer with insults, it creates more suspicious than a real work for the true.

Santos seems to be more Obama than Uribe. He is around the continent making friends and giving hopes to everybody. By sure, his speech of possession on August 7 will be a piece of good promises inside and outside. But at the end we are going to prove something: history is written and the future is frequently consequent with it.

He said in an meeting at the west of Bogotá that it is not possible to abandon General Fredy Padilla de León in the name of a ‘honeyed and slug diplomacy.‘

A court of Ecuador opened a investigation against Padilla de León for the bombing to the Farc guerrilla camp that was located at the south of the Putumayo river in the Ecuadorian territory, just few meters at the south of the Colombian border in a locality known as Angosturas.

A magistrate of the Sucumbíos province, northern Ecuador, in the Amazon region, opened a file to the Colombian military authority, as well to now elected president Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, who will assume the presidency after August 7 in Bogotá. An Ecuadorian attorney, Carlos Jiménez, announced this week that the General will be inquired once more for his responsibility in the bombing that is considered a violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty. According to the defender of Padilla before the Sucumbios’ court, Walter Lombeida, the General has 30 days to defend his case. If the General does not present himself in the court, it will issue a warrant.

In the bombing by the Colombian army and police, 25 persons died, including the second top leader of the Farc guerrilla, Raúl Reyes. There were also in the Maoist guerrilla camp four Mexicans and an Ecuadorian. The judge declared recently that the Ecuadorian justice has 30 days to inquire, notify and sentence Gen. Padilla for the bombing.

President Álvaro Uribe rejected the situation and he said that the Military forces of Colombia are fighting drug trafficking and terrorism and that Ecuador cannot treat them as criminals.

‘The sister Republic of Ecuador, through its judicial system, insists in linking our ministers and top military positions as criminals, when what they have done are heroic tasks against terrorism,” said the president in the capital.

‘Who is the criminal? Reyes or General Fredy Padilla de León…? It is unacceptable! added Uribe.

The president thanked also Ecuador for its efforts to fight drug trafficking and guerrilla in the border region and that Colombia is committed to reestablish diplomatic relations with its southern neighbor, but it is not possible to tolerate this case.

‘The process is the sole responsibility of the judicial system,’ said Ecuadorian chancellor

Ecuadorian chancellor, Ricardo Patiño said that the process to the Colombian Commander of the National Army, General Freddy Padilla de León, is a strict concern and competence of the judicial system and the judges can involve those that they have to involve.

The Ecuadorian tribunal opened an investigation process over the Colombian military operation that killed Farc top leader Raúl Reyes in Angosturas, a jungle locality few meters far from the Colombian border. At the time the Ministry of Defense of Colombia was the now elected president Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, while the high commander of the army is Padilla de León.

The chancellor answered questions to the press after a strong declaration of President Álvaro Uribe questioned the validity of the process over the Colombian military commander. ‘Who is the criminal? Reyes or General Padilla de León? he said in Bogotá. To the question about the expression used by president Uribe – it is not possible to abandon General Freddy Padilla de León in the name of a honeyed and slug diplomacy, Patiño answer that maybe the president was referring to other’s diplomacy, but not their diplomacy.

It was a State’s action and the State must answer

General Padilla said that the operation over the Farc camp in Ecuadorian territory was an action of the State, as president Álvaro Uribe estated and that it is the State that must answer to its responsibility. The General, who is finishing his term as top commander of the Colombian Army in August 7 with the change of government, spoke to the media in Cúcuta, near the Venezuelan border, where he received an award for the 100th anniversary of the creation of the State of North Santander.

The General said also that the security in the borders were always a priority of the current government and the one to come and that it was a mistake the kidnapping of four human rights defenders by the National Liberation Army guerrillas (EPL). Such action of that guerrilla group shows its weakness, said Padilla.

The elected Colombian chancellor, María Ángela Holguín, declared that the government of elected president Juan Manuel Santos will continue the commitment to reestablish the diplomatic relations with Ecuador and other countries in the hemisphere.  She underlined the importance of the dialog in the process and the overcoming of the judicial issues over General Padilla de León and former Ministry of Justice, Santos Calderón.

‘A war has never been won by losing popular support. The overwhelming favorability with which Colombians judge our conduct must not make us vain or turn us from our path. Under the instructions of the civil power we will contribute to building the peace.’

‘We have the capacity to host the World Cup,‘ said Woodman to the media in Lima. ‘Our three nations are brothers for their common history and our passion for soccer. I think that the decisive suppport of the governments and the federations will be important to fulfill our dream of being hosts,’ he concluded.

At least in Colombia the proposal got a good score. ‘ It is a constructive proposal, very positive, imaginative, welcome, magnificent. Everything that is a positive proposal, is welcome,’ said Uribe.

The idea of the headquarters of a World Cup in two or three countries if not new. Spain and Portugal have it for 2018 and Belgium and Holland proposed it for 2022, while in 2002 the sport world competition was in Japan and South Korea.

Soccer is considered a national sport in the three Andean countries and they have the common aspiration to be headquarters of a World Cup. Although no one has been a world champion, their soccer experience is noticeable in the Latin American context, while they have important stadiums in their main cities.

ALBA-TCP is the Spanish acronym for the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and the Trade Agreement of the Peoples. The movement that was motivated by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and gather already 8 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean region, met this month in Ecuador in a summit that invited indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders from the member nations.

President Correa said in the international meeting that the problem of the Latin American nations have been and are poverty:

‘It is intolerable that to be born as indigenous or black in our America is practically a synonymous of being a poor, to be born and to die as a poor. That is not more tolerable anymore, we have to change it with a quick and revolutionary way,’ he said.

Correa recommended also that the countries of the region should stop the practice of being mono-producers and it is necessary to change the way of production.

He mentioned also that it was during the colonial times that the richness of countries from South America and Africa were obliged to put blood and richness for the functional process of the capitalism in what are today the industrialized nations. However, after colonialism is technically over, the American countries continue to be an object of exploitation. Their richness leaves their territory in an unfavorable number that is superior to hundred thousand millions of dollars per year, just counting the net capital transfers, out of losses for unequal trades, the deterioration in the trade interchange terms, the brain drain and others.

The Ecuadorian president as host of the international summit, declared that the countries of the so called Third World were given the task of being providers of raw material that was imposed by the International Division of Labor.

The president criticized also projects like the free trade agreements as impositions from industrialized countries, ‘something that those developed countries never practiced themselves.‘

Correa proposed the review of such agreements upon the mutual benefit and exposed that it is necessary to practice a policy of economical protectionism at the same level the developed nations did at their time.

A diversification of the production, association between nations and not competitions, integration, solidarity, unions and collective actions, are the alternatives for countries like the Latin American ones, proposed the president of the Ecuadorians.

ALBA-TLC was created in La Habana in 2004 with the leadership of Cuba and Venezuela. The current country members are Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The declaration of Chávez came after the Colombian candidate, who was Ministry of Defense of President Uribe, answered to a question last Sunday in a radio and television debate with other candidates. The question was:

´Would you authorized a bombing against a guerrilla leader if he stays in another country, like the incident of 2008 in Ecuador?´

The question was especially sensitive to Santos, who was precisely the Ministry who authorized the bombing of the camp of Reyes. The problem was that Reyes was hidden at the south of the Putumayo River and it means in the Ecuadorean territory. The event created the historical Andean crisis that broke diplomatic relations with Quito and put more troubles with Venezuela.

Santos just answered that it would be irresponsible to answer such question at the moment. But it was enough for President Hugo Chávez to come to the conclusion that Santos, as successor of Uribe, would be a danger for the Venezuela and other neighboring countries to Colombia.

The answer of Santos came immediately:

´Otros candidatos sí dijeron que bombardearían en otros países si hay campos terroristas, pero el presidente Chávez se me viene a mí, lo cual indica claramente que quiere interferir en las elecciones. Al pueblo colombiano no le debe gustar que el presidente Chávez interfiera en las elecciones´

´Other candidates said yes, that they would bomb in other countries if there are terrorist camps, but President Chávez comes to me; it is a clear indication that he wants to interfere in the elections. The Colombian people would not like that President Chávez interferes in the elections.´

Of course President Hugo Chávez is interfering in the Colombian elections. It is easy to demonstrate. He has interfered in any Latin American elections, but the elections in our country are in especial near to his heart. He must see with deep worry the popularity of Santos, because in any case, Santos is a kind of continuation of Uribe.

If there are not guerrilla camps in Venezuelan and Ecuadorean territory, why Chávez is so worry? If President Chávez is able to say that a particular Colombian candidate is a danger for the region, Colombians have the full right to say the same about President Chávez, who order a economic blockade to Colombia, is persecuting Colombian citizens and accusing them of spying for Uribe and buying weapons of mass destruction!!!

The conflict between the two Andean nations sparked by the incident where the Colombian military trespassed onto Ecuadorian territory to attack  a Farc camp is already more than a year old. However diplomatic ties between the two countries remain severed.

On first of March 2008 the Colombian army launched military operation “Operación Fénix” for the “Angosturas Bombing”, in order to capture the second strongest leader of the Communist insurgency of the Farc, Luis Edgar Devia Silva, better known by his nom de guerre as Raúl Reyes

The Farc camp was in the southern border of Colombia with Ecuador, separated by the Putumayo River and near to Santa Rosa de Yanamaru in the Ecuadorian province of Sucumbíos. The Colombian bombing of the Farc camp caused the dead of 22 persons, including Reyes, 4 Mexican students and an Ecuadorian citizen, Franklin Aisalla.

The Reyes computers

The military incursion into Ecuador was denounced by Rafael Correa’s government as a violation of national sovereignty. Tensions between the two countries increased in the following months, including an active participation of Venezuela and Nicaragua to produce the so called “Andean Crisis”. The Organization of the American States (OAS), ruled that the Colombian military incursion was a violation of international law.

But the last straw came were “Reyes computers” that were found by the troops in the camp. They have become a main instrument of possible accusations, not only to link several personalities to the Farc, but also foreign governments accused of supporting the Farc such as Ecuador and Venezuela.

The Colombian government asked the International Police (Interpol), to evaluate the veracity of the computers. Three technicians from South Korea, Singapore and Australia analyzed the data in order to prove their authenticity. The general secretary of Interpol, Ronald Kenneth, declared on 15th May 2008 that the information on the computers had not been tampered with.

“The Interpol investigation team did not find any alteration, modification or deletion of any of the 8 pieces of evidence”, said Kenneth in a press conference in Bogotá at the date.

It’s one thing to prove that the computers were authentic and that they were not tampered with by Colombian officials; it’s another thing is to prove that the information on those computers is true, partially true or not true at all. That is work for the Colombian authorities and itthat should be the work of the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan authorities, since the information involves their respective governments.

“That is false!” What is false?

Quito and Caracas have continuously denied the veracity of the information on Reyes’ computers and have underlined that it is “fabricated evidence” from Álvaro Uribe’s government to cause conflict and hide their own domestic scandals – such as Para-politics (involvement of political leaders with the Paramilitary groups.) Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez also blanmed the CIA for what he said was manipulated content and condemned Interpol’s investigation.

According to what has been revealed from the Reyes’ computers, both Caracas and Quito have had strategic military and political relations with Farc.

Therefore, the WSJ article rubs salt in their wounds and the reaction of Correa follows the same patterns as previous reactions. He accused the WSJ of basing their information on evidence that he considered tainted and an act of aggression against Ecuador.

“Se ha mandado una carta por Cancillería al Wall Street para que rectifique la información, o en caso contrario demandaremos al Wall Street, porque ya basta de tanta mentira”

“A letter was sent by the Chancellor to The Wall Street so that the information can be rectified, otherwise we will sue The Wall Street, because we have had enough of so many lies,” said the President in his weekly TV program.

However, any evidence that the information in the computers is false has not been provided by Quito or Caracas. Instead the two governments have maintained agressive stances that even threaten the media, while continually condemning the Colombian decision to crossed into Ecuadorean territory.

The article of WSJ

O’Grady compares Correa with Fidel Castro and describes the evidence on Reyes’ computers that associated his government with the Farc, for example letters to late Farc commander Manuel Marulanda and possible military agreements between the Ecuadorean government and the insurgents.

“He also reported that Ecuador “would sue Colombia in international court for the damages caused by fumigating” the coca crops and revoke the license for the U.S. military base at Manta. (Ecuador did both.) Ecuador “has made it clear that Uribe represents the interests of the White House, the multinationals and the oligarchs and considers him dangerous to the region,” writes O’Grady.

According with some versions, experts were studying the possibility of having the Dollar and a local currency, but it was denied by Borja who said that the government will defend the dollarization because it has to see with the salaries of the workers.

Minister Borja mentioned also the project of a Latin American currency, but such idea has nothing to see with the dollarization of his country, according with what was reported by La Hora, a national newspaper.

United States is the main Ecuadorian partner, although the rhetoric of president Rafael Correa is anti-American and shows sympathy for the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez. In that sense, it is possible that the government will follow a similar intervention of the national economy under same Venezuelan patterns, while increasing social spending.

According with The Economist of Britain, the inflation expected for this year will remain about the official rate of 5% in 2008.