Ominous overreation...

The gob-smacking news announced today by Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos has had the effect of tossing a stun grenade into the Andean regional crisis: Colombia on the one hand and Venezuela and Ecuador on the other. "Bogota has already accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of funding the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, after Colombian forces crossed into Ecuador and killed a senior rebel commander on Saturday, sparking troop movements and warnings of war." (Reuters) VP Santos said:

"Just yesterday (Monday) our national police submitted an initial report regarding the content of two computers found with Raul Reyes, second in command of FARC, who was killed last Saturday"...They contained ..."information from one commander to another indicating that FARC was apparently negotiating for radioactive material"

Chavez's major overreaction - IMHO - to the Colombian incursion, as good an admission as any of FARC acitivity in Venezuela, could also be the pin that bursts the bubble of his glory-basking role in the release of hostages having been in direct negotiation with FARC...[worryingly my doppelgänger is in that AP photo on the BBC link; that should make my next visit interesting!]...sorry to be a cynic but I believe his efforts have been for one reason only: to paint a picture of the narco-terrorists as the good guys, being victimised by a stooge of the Empire: he and Venezuela do not recognise FARC as a terrorist group...they're only good ol' Marxist revolutionaries. Chavez has been key in their ploy.

"The guerrillas are trying to use the international community to force the president [Uribe] to give them what they want."

...said Maria Victoria Llorente from Ideas Para La Paz (Ideas for Peace). The other part of the rebel strategy is President Chavez. My opinion is that that has now been revealed for what it really is - a cover and a sham. Rumours/stories, now becoming confirmed, that documents on the lap-tops implicate Ecuador and Venezuela in funding FARC have no doubt have hardened Chavez to prevent at all costs a similar 'coup' against FARC camps in Venezuela - already under Venezuelan Army 'protection' and involved in the flow (Owsblog) of cocaine to Europe. HERE similar from Associated Press.
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STOP PRESS...as I write there are new developments: "Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says he will ask the International Criminal Court to bring charges against President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela" [BBC Online]