Colombian and Venezuelan Presidents Uribe and Chavez

Dominican President Leonel Fernandez has agreed to mediate a dispute between the governments of Venezuela and Colombia stemming from the latter’s basing deal with the United States, the office of the president said Wednesday.

Fernandez said he accepted a request made by Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe at a private meeting held during the 19th Ibero-American Summit, which concluded Tuesday in Estoril, Portugal.

The Dominican president announced his decision in France, where he is on an official visit.

Fernandez said the Dominican Republic, “due to its geographical position and its friendship with its neighbors, has been a mediator in regional conflicts on other occasions.”

“We maintain very close ties of friendship with (Communist) Cuba, (socialist) Venezuela, but also with (conservative governments in) Colombia, Panama, in other words, with all the countries in the region, which has allowed us to play a mediatory role in solving political and diplomatic disputes that have come up in the region at different times,” Fernandez said.

Speaking to some 25 members of the French lower house’s foreign relations committee, Fernandez referred to a diplomatic spat last year involving Colombia, Venezuela and leftist-led Ecuador.

That dispute stemmed from a March 2008 Colombian bombing raid on a clandestine camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group in Ecuadorian territory, an attack that killed 25 people, including rebel second-in-command Raul Reyes.

Read more here.

Venezuelan soldiers on Thursday blew up two makeshift foot bridges that stretched across the border to Colombia in the latest incident to stoke a diplomatic dispute between the Andean neighbors.

Colombia’s government criticized the destruction of the bridges as an aggression and a violation of international law, which it would denounce at the United Nations and the Organization of American States in Washington.

The long-simmering Andes spat has been mostly limited to diplomatic barbs in the past. But the current crisis is raising the risk of more violence along the volatile frontier where rebels, drug gangs and and smugglers operate.

General Eusebio Aguero, Venezuela’s army commander in the Tachira border region, ordered his soldiers to destroy the bridges using explosives. He said the crossings were unauthorized and used for illegal activities.

“They are two foot bridges that paramilitary fighters used, where gasoline and drug precursors were smuggled, subversive groups entered,” he told reporters, adding that several other bridges would be destroyed. “They are not considered in any international treaty.”

Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said troops from the Venezuelan army arrived in trucks and dynamited the bridges that cross into Colombia’s Norte de Santander department.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “This is a unilateral act and an aggression against the civilian population and the frontier communities.”

Read more here.

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, a “mobster” and said there was no possibility of dialogue with the “treasonous” government in Bogota, says the Latin American Herald Tribune.

“I have nothing to say to the mobster Uribe, because I know that he’s seeking contact. He will have to ask it of the king of Spain or friendly governments, but there’s nothing to talk about with that traitorous government,” Chavez said on Saturday.

“Uribe isn’t a politician. He comes from the world of paramilitarism, drug trafficking, business and shady deals, and he’s capable of anything. He’s a very dangerous man because he has no moral or ethical principles,” the Venezuelan leader said during an event to symbolically award medals the so-called “five Cuban heroes” jailed for spying in the United States.

The insults directed at Uribe were made in the context of Chavez’s references to the recently-signed bilateral accord by which the United States will be able to use several Colombian military bases.

“Starting now if anyone wants to speak with the Colombian government, he’ll have to speak with Washington, which is where the power is,” Chavez said.

Chavez’s comments follow is equally incendiary warning to all Venezuelans that war with neighbor Colombia was at hand.

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The Colombian government will take Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s war threats to the OAS and the UN, says Colombian journal El Espectador.

A press release issued yesterday by the Casa de Nariño – the Colombian President’s House- stated clearly that Colombia, despite Venezuela’s accusations, has no intentions to go to war.

The press release read yesterday by the Colombian government spokesperson stated that “Colombia will not undertake any war gesture against the international community, and far less against neighboring countries. The sole interest that motivates our actions is the will to overcome drug trafficking and terrorism, which have strongly affected Colombians’ lives for several years now.”

The press release continues: “Colombia remains open to frank dialogue with due respect to diplomacy and international law. The Colombian government will take the Venezuelan government’s war threats to the Organization of American States –OAS- and the United Nations Security Council.”

The press release issued yesterday by the Colombian government came a few hours after Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez urged, during his Sunday emission Aló Presidente, the Venezuelan Army and the people in general to get ready for war with Colombia and the United States of America. Venezuela sees the military agreement signed between Colombia and the US as a direct threat to Venezuela’s national security and the socialist revolution.

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On October 12, Juan Pablo Escobar, the son of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who now goes by the name of Sebastián Marroquín, presented a documentary that could also be understood as a subtle way of making amends in his father’s name, a man considered to be Colombia’s most feared criminal of all times. In the documentary, Marroquín asks the sons of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán and the country’s former minister of justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, both murdered by his father in the 1980’s, for forgiveness.

According to those who have seen the movie, the documentary is far from being a defense of Escobar. The title alone, My Father’s Sins, is a telling clue. Last week, vía CNN, many saw a preview of a very symbolic scene. Sitting in a park bench in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Juan Pablo (Sebastian) and the son of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, senator Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, appear to be having a conversation. To understand the power of this image, we must rewind 25 years, when minister Lara Bonilla, in agony after being shot by Escobar’s hit men, reached his house and was greeted by his eight-year-old son. He immediately helped his father into a car and went with him to the hospital, where he later passed away.

Read more here.

The Colombian Attorney General’s Office said Monday that it re-opened an investigation into Vice President Francisco “Paco” Santos for alleged ties to murderous right-wing militias, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune.

Acting Attorney General Guillermo Mendoza Diago told Bogota radio stations that prosecutor Fernando Pareja exercised his prerogative to overturn an earlier decision to shelve the probe.

Pareja decided that he needed to see more evidence before making a decision on the merits of the accusations and ordered the investigation resumed “so the doubts are completely dispelled,” Mendoza said.

Santos – a former journalist whose family runs Colombia’s largest newspaper, El Tiempo – said in a statement issued by his office that he respected the prosecutor’s decision and was prepared “to cooperate in all the investigations.”

At the same time, he demanded “a quick and effective investigation” that is not subject to political exploitation by “those who have more interest in discrediting the government than in the right of the victims and the country to the truth.”

“It hurts and surprises me that those who know my career and principles can believe that I could have been behind the formation of a paramilitary bloc in any part of the country,” Santos said.

The AG office took a second look at the allegations against Santos at the request of the independent Commission of Colombian Jurists.

Read our exclusive coverage of the Colombian ‘Falsos Positivos’ scandal written by journalist Simone Bruno.

Even though president Alvaro Uribe is known for his lack of sleep, he is probably sleeping well these days. After months of intense debate, criticism and scandals that hurt his government, this week he received good news: the opposition did not do well in their primaries and he aced the most recent survey practiced on Colombians. His third term seems closer every day.

Unlike other Latin-American or European presidents, who suffer from an accelerated erosion of popularity on the eve of their re-elections, Uribe, so far, doesn’t know what it’s like to be on the loosing side. Furthermore, Uribe has successfully maintained his good image. In the poll it reaches 78% and more than 63% of Colombians intend to vote in favor of his third term.

Not even the wire-tapping scandal in the country’s top intelligence agency (DAS), the suspicious visits of dubious characters to Casa de Nariño, the rise in unemployment rates, or the scandalous business deals of his sons Tomas and Jerónimo, have hurt his good image, the positive perception of his government or the credibility of his figure.

Not even the economic crisis hurts him. Colombians may find the crisis a terrible problem, one that will lead Colombia to a negative growth rate—the first in ten years—or the scandal of DMG pyramid that left millions broke, but these are events that do not touch president Uribe. Before him, everyone blamed national problems on the president. Now, people are thankful that Uribe is president, because he does not hide in times of uncertainty, he faces the problems.

Although nobody expected that the rejection towards Uribe would grow, some did find it possible that more people would reject a new presidential re-election. The growing ranks of uribists against the second reelection made people think, just for a moment, that the opposition could win those belonging to the elite, urban middle classes, and students that, although they appreciate Uribe, consider that a third term is harmful to the democracy.

But the results of the second Great Survey conducted by an alliance between SEMANA magazine, La FM radio station, RCN radio and RCN television, and the results from the opposition primaries (The Liberal Party and the Polo Democratico Alternativo (PDA) held primaries recently) knocked that hypothesis down. Both episodes evidence that although the opposition has performed well, it has reached a standstill. And that Uribe, on the contrary, is still going strong. Seven out of every ten Colombians express strong or very strong support towards him (68 per cent) and the other presidential candidates appear as dwarfs against a giant.

Read more here.

Colombia will reduce electricity exports to Venezuela and Ecuador due to natural gas supply shortages in some parts of the country, Colombian Energy and Mines Minister Hernan Martinez said, and left open the possibility that Colombia may be set to turn a temporary suspension of gas deliveries to Venezuela caused by what were initially described as difficulties of a “technical” nature into a more lasting cut. And, it would seem, it might not only be gas that’s affected.

“We’re going to cut back a little on electricity exports to Ecuador and Venezuela,” Martinez told reporters, adding that the measure would go into effect gradually beginning Wednesday.

Martínez also said that Bogotá didn’t “rule out the possibility” of having to “restrict” exports of gas to power stations in Venezuela “indefinitely” – and that the same would apply to Ecuador.

Some reports had it that this was actually the government’s intention, and that the decision had already been taken. In the light of Colombia’s continuing stand-off with both Ecuador and Venezuela, the decision quickly came to be seen in a distinctly geopolitical light in Caracas.

Martínez had reportedly said that gas supplies to both Venezuela and Ecuador would be limited because there was a need to attend to the domestic supply to be used to generate electricity for the domestic market.

In official circles, the fact that Venezuela – which has the largest estimated natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere, some 151 trillion cubic feet at the last official count – is having to ship gas in from Colombia is privately deemed a bit of an embarrassment that will eventually fade into thankfully forgotten history.

The dispute between Chávez and Uribe has been rumbling for years. In its current reincarnation, the latest spark that set Chavez off was Uribe’s agreement to allow United States military forces to use bases in his country.

Chávez deems the bases agreement a threat to the region in general and to Venezuela in particular – and by implication, an underhand act on Uribe’s behalf. He has plunged political and trade relations with Venezuela into a “freezer” until further notice, cutting off exports of gasoline to Colombia border towns.

Read more here.

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EU’s free trade agreement negotiations with Colombia and Peru are at 99%, says Colombian newspaper El Colombiano.

Last week in Brussels free trade agreement negotiations between the European Union, Colombia and Peru reached consensus in many of the most disputed issues. Negotiators reached full agreement regarding industrial goods, while a last round of negotiations will be held in Bogota on late November aiming to close agreements on agricultural issues.

According to the Colombian Ministry of Industry and Trade, negotiations on services and intellectual property are very close to be finalized, but they will be wrapped up on November’s meeting.

Colombian minister Luis Guillermo Plata expressed his satisfaction for the progress made during the negotiations in Brussels: “this progress contributes to consolidate the national government’s plan to diversify markets”.

Shrimps are among the non-agricultural goods that will access the EU without paying customs duties, which is perceived was a great success by the Colombian and Peruvian teams in the negotiations. The Colombian government’s press release does not deepen in the progress of the negotiations on the access of bananas to the EU market, which remains the central matter to overcome before closing the agreement. However, the government cheers for the progress made concerning the elimination of EU subsidies to agricultural goods and the access to the EU’s market to other Colombian and Peruvian agricultural goods.

Agricultural goods that remain controversial in the negotiation, besides bananas, are beef, sugar and other products sugar-based like ethanol and rum.

Posted by our contributor David Restrepo Amariles

Cuba’s government-run paper, Granma, writes that Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez , warned this Sunday that the location of U.S. bases in Colombia is an attempt to dominate all of South America in order to take possession of its natural reserves of gas and oil, vegetation and fresh water located in the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela, Amazonia and the Paraná Aquifer in the Southern Cone.

On August 14, the Colombian government announced the completion of negotiations over the U.S. use of seven bases in that country, within a cooperation agreement supposedly aimed at “combating drug trafficking and terrorism.”

In that context President Chávez affirmed on his regular Sunday Alo, Presidente program, “they say that they are not bases (but) they are converting the whole of Colombia into one large base, because details of the agreement have already begun to come out.”

“The Colombian government has once again betrayed (Latin American) trust by allowing the installation of imperialist military forces,” he stated.

“The agreement is aberrant… the troops will have immunity… they can do what they like, Colombian justice can’t even touch them,” Chávez stated.

According to the Bolivarian leader, Colombia is to become “a U.S. operational center that will allow it to cover all of South America, with its spy planes, spy satellites, its intelligence and counterintelligence corps.”

President Chávez specially emphasized to the Venezuelan people that no “ultra-nationalist or far less anti-Colombian sentiment,” can be allowed and noted that, in fact, “if there’s anything that the Yanki bourgeoisie is frightened of, it is Colombian and Venezuelan unity.” They are afraid of the union of our peoples,” he affirmed.

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