Chavez is a crazy shitbag. (This week: Invading Colombia!)

[Rogue 9]

CBS

Chavez Goads Colombia With A Show Of Force
CARACAS, Venezuela, Mar. 2, 2008

(AP) President Hugo Chavez ordered tanks and thousands of troops sent to Venezuela's border with Colombia on Sunday, accusing his neighbor of pushing South America to the brink of war and saying his government's embassy in Bogota will be closed.

The leftist leader warned Colombia's U.S.-allied government that Venezuela will not permit acts like its killing of top rebel leader Raul Reyes and 16 other Colombian guerrillas Saturday at a camp across the border in Ecuador.

"Mr. Defense Minister, move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately - tank battalions, deploy the air force," Chavez said during his weekly TV and radio program. "We don't want war, but we aren't going to permit the U.S. empire, which is the master (of Colombia) ... to come divide us."

He ordered the Venezuelan Embassy in Bogota closed and said all embassy personnel would be withdrawn. It pushes already tense relations between the South American neighbors to their lowest point yet, with potentially far-reaching effects on billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

Though Chavez didn't say how many troops he was sending, a Venezuelan battalion traditionally has some 600 soldiers - meaning some 6,000 could be headed to the border.

Chavez called the Colombian government "a terrorist state" as he sided with the leftist rebels it has battled for decades, saying its military "invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador's sovereignty."

Chavez said he had just spoken to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and that Ecuador was also sending troops to its border with Colombia. Ecuador, meanwhile, called home its ambassador from Bogota.

Chavez said his Ecuadorean ally told him that Uribe had lied and that the rebels were killed while asleep in their camp.

"This is something very serious. This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said. He warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe: "If it occurs to you to do this in Venezuela, President Uribe, I'll send some Sukhois" - Russian warplanes recently bought by Venezuela.

He called Uribe "a criminal" and saying "Dracula's fangs (are) are covered in blood."

The slaying of Reyes and 16 other guerrillas, Chavez said, "wasn't any combat. It was a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."

Neither Colombia's foreign minister nor the country's military leadership would comment on Chavez's latest move when asked by reporters Sunday as they left a funeral service in Bogota for a Colombian soldier killed in Saturday's raid.

Colombia's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have been waging a decades-long battle. Colombia's prosecutor's office said Reyes was wanted in connection with more than 120 different criminal processes, including 60 charges of murder and four for kidnapping.

Speaking in Texas, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said officials were monitoring the situation.

"This is an odd reaction by Venezuela to Colombia's efforts against the FARC, a terrorist organization that continues to hold Colombians, Americans and others hostage," Johndroe said.

Colombia denied it violated Ecuador's sovereignty but acknowledged attacking the camp maintained on Ecuadorean soil by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"The terrorists, among them Raul Reyes, have had the custom of killing in Colombia and taking refuge in the territory of neighboring countries. Many times Colombia has suffered from this situation," Colombia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement released early Sunday.

Correa said Colombia's military violated Ecuadorean airspace and entered to carry away Reyes' body. Colombian officials have long complained that Ecuador's military does not control its sparsely populated border and has not tried to remove rebel camps.

While Ecuador called home its ambassador in protest, that does not entail a "definitive rupture of relations" and commercial ties will remain, Ecuadorean Deputy Foreign Minister Jose Valencia said.

Chavez interrupted his program to take a call from Correa and said according to his ally, Colombia's military "entered from the south and bombed from Ecuadorean territory."

Colombia's military tracked Reyes' location through an informant and bombed a camp on its side of the Ecuadorean border, where Reyes was thought to be, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said. He said that when ground troops moved in, they came under attack from another camp across the border in Ecuador. When the military overran that camp, they found Reyes' body.

Chavez interrupted his program Sunday for a moment of silence in honor of the slain rebels.

"We pay tribute to a true revolutionary, who was Raul Reyes," Chavez said later, recalling he had met rebel in Brazil in 1995 and calling him a "good revolutionary."

"The Colombian government has become the Israel of Latin America," an agitated Chavez said, reiterating his criticism of Israeli military strikes on Palestinian militants. "We aren't going to permit Colombia to become the Israel of these lands. ... Uribe, we aren't going to permit you."

"Someday Colombia will be freed from the hand of the (U.S.) empire," Chavez said. "We have to liberate Colombia," he added, saying Colombia's people will eventually do away with its government.

Chavez maintains warm relations with the FARC, Colombia's largest guerrilla group, and has sought to play a role as mediator in the conflict despite his growing conflict with Colombia's government.

Colombia and Venezuela have been locked in a diplomatic crisis since November, when Uribe ended Chavez's official role negotiating a proposed hostages-for-prisoners swap.

Nevertheless, the FARC freed four hostages to Venezuelan officials last week, and they were reunited with their families in Caracas. It was the second unilateral release by the FARC this year.

Chavez has recently angered Uribe by urging world leaders to classify the leftist rebels as "insurgents" rather than "terrorists."

The FARC has proposed trading some 40 remaining high-value captives, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors, for hundreds of imprisoned guerrillas.

Chavez said the Colombian military "are guided from the Pentagon." The U.S. government routinely provides satellite intelligence and communications intercepts from surveillance planes that overfly Colombia.

U.S Embassy spokeswoman Suzanne Hall, in Bogota, would not comment on possible American government involvement in the operation that led to Reyes' death.

"This is a government of Colombian operation," she said. "Talk to the government of Colombia for any operational details."

[frigidmagi]

BBC

Ecuador and Venezuela have moved troops to their borders with Colombia in an escalating row over the killing of a Farc rebel leader in Ecuador.

Ecuador and Venezuela have also both expelled Colombian diplomats.

Colombian troops entered Ecuador on Saturday in a raid that killed Colombian rebel leader Raul Reyes.

Colombia's foreign minister said he regretted that troops had to cross the border, but said it had been necessary "in the fight against terrorism".

"The Colombian government has never wanted to disrespect or violate the sovereignty or integrity of the sister republic of Ecuador," Fernando Araujo said.

A spokesman for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said that during the raid, troops had found documents that provided information that "[Ecuadorean President Correa] has a relationship and commitments with Farc",

Police commander Gen Oscar Naranjo said one document showed Reyes had met Ecuador's minister of internal security and that they discussed Mr Correa's "interest in making official relations with the Farc".

Killing lamented

On Sunday, Mr Correa announced the expulsion of Colombia's ambassador in Ecuador.


Senior Farc commander Raul Reyes, file picture

Farc 'invincibility' shattered
Analysis: War talk
Send us your reaction

The Ecuadorean president also said he was calling for an immediate meeting of the Organization of American States and the Andean Community of Nations.

Spain and a number of Latin American countries including Mexico, Argentina and Brazil have offered to mediate in the dispute.

Speaking on his weekly television show, President Chavez said Venezuela's embassy in Bogota would close.

He lamented the killing of Reyes - whom he called a "good revolutionary" - when he spoke on his show, "Alo, Presidente".

Mr Chavez has been mediating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - or Farc - to secure the release of hostages the rebels hold, and six have so far been freed under this initiative.

'Violated'

Colombia's defence minister had described the death of Reyes as the "biggest blow so far" to Farc.

But Mr Chavez described the strike as "a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated".

Map

He said Colombia had "invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador's sovereignty".

Mr Chavez addressed his defence minister, asking him to "move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately" - a deployment likely to involve several thousand soldiers.

"The air force should mobilise. We do not want war. But we are not going to let them... come and divide and weaken us."

Colombia's government has received billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight the guerrillas - as the US, along with the EU, views Farc as a terrorist organisation.

Colombian troops have recently retaken control of areas previously held by rebel groups, but Farc retains a strong hold over Colombia's more remote regions.

Damn bastard. His good revolutionary was fronting and leading an organization that kidnapped, bombed and terrorized it's own people. It got a chunk of the nation in question and turned it into a feudal druglab! How is that a good revolution?

Not to mention FARC's supplying drugs that get into American cities and poison our populace.

[Rogue 9]

Reuters

Colombia says FARC documents show Chavez funding
03 Mar 2008 18:41:36 GMT
Source: Reuters
BOGOTA, March 3 (Reuters) - Colombia's police commander said on Monday documents found at the camp of a top rebel commander killed in a raid showed evidence Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had made $300 million payments to FARC guerrillas.

Gen. Oscar Naranjo earlier said computers found in the camp of FARC commander Raul Reyes had revealed documents showing ties between the rebel leader and a representative of the government of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

Ecuador has dismissed the charges as false.