President Hugo Chavez has closed the Colombian Embassy and sent 10 battalions of troops to the Colombian border. (according to an AP report.)
Is a shooting war next? Will Chavez have his army link-up with the FARC inside Colombia?
Alone I would wonder aloud about war and farc links, but Venezuela is doing this as a result of what Colombia just did in Ecuador:
Not enough evidence yet, but bombing foreign territory to kill a revel is not seen as a nice thing to do, specially when usually citizens of the bombed nation are killed also.
It’s not surprising that Sr. Chavez is attempting to foment talk of war. His domestic policies are failing and his popularity is being to fall as a result. War talk is often seen as a way to deflect criticism of domestic policies.
Venezuela would be insane to invade Columbia. The last thing Venezuela wants to do is become the latest example of what happens when you start a war with a friend of the United States of America.
Having said that, Columbia will likely have to assuage the feelings of Ecuador somehow.
So far what I’ve read is that Colombia, apparently using precision weapons of some type (US-supplied? No idea), bombed a guerilla camp just inside the Ecuadorean border, killing approximately 15 persons, including high-level FARC leader Raul Reyes, and wounding at least three others. There may very well have been some civilians in the camp, but what little information I’ve seen from the Ecuadorian side so far does not suggest there were. As it happens, I worked on a drilling project in that general area some years ago, and it is mostly sparsely-populated, hilly jungle, with few settlements and almost no improved roads.
My guess is that Colombia calculated that it could get away with at least one cross-border raid into Ecuador, given the high-value target, and that it has no further plans for the same in the near future. Just a guess, though. One imagines that a second such raid would indeed provoke military retaliation by Ecuador, but the area is frankly too remote and the terrain too difficult for either country to expect to be able to fight a sustained conflict over it.
It appears that Chavez’ saber-rattling probably has most to do with a perception that Venezuela may also be harboring, or at least tolerating the presence of, FARC guerillas, and he is pre-empting any temptation Colombia may have to carry out a similar raid on Venezuelan territory. I was somewhat surprised to hear that Chavez seems to support this organization to begin with. My understanding is that FARC is not exactly the poster boy for honorable guerilla movements, but maybe my opinion is colored somewhat by knowing that a few years ago, a French employee of the company I work for died in their captivity. In any event, seems to me that expressing even verbal support for a group that has long been dedicated to the overthrow of a neighboring country’s government would suggest to that neighbor that more than just verbal support is being supplied, and thus risks war.
One major question is if Equador was informed beforehand, as Colombia says they were. If so, and permission was given, Chavez clearly knows what’s better for Equador than Equador does.
Clearly.
It kind of sucks that people can come into your country, kill your citizens and try to overthrow your government, but you’re not allowed to fight back because they retreated a tenth of a mile behind an invisible magic diplomatic border barrier.
It’s like that Lethal Weapon 3 or 4 movie, I forget which, where the Russian guy goes around committing all sorts of shitty crimes, cackling in a deep vodka-voice “haha! You can do nothing! I have diplomatic immunity!”
The second one. They were white guys from Apartheid-era South Africa.
But what can you do, if those borders are to mean anything?
Since Ecuador has also mobilized on the Colombian border, it’s obviously not just a Hugo Chavez thing.
This is “interesting” to say the least.
FARC is supposedly also looking for 50 kilos of Uranium.
They can have some of mine, I need the garage space.
Yeah, to say the **absolute ** least…
Well, good. I’d hate for this to be straightforward and look like it could be easily resolved… 
Great! Maybe Dubya can find some WMDs before he leaves office!
Look, there’s no chance this could . . . [gulp] . . . could affect the supply of coffee, is there? 
:eek:
There is an unconfirmed report that Juan Valdez was seen spurring his donkey for all he was worth, purportedly saying “Chinga madre!” When asked how Juan feels about Chavez he is reported as saying “Pendejo!” as over his shoulder while trotting at high speed for the border…
So…coffee futures aren’t looking so hot atm. There is always that chicory stuff, ehe…?
-XT
Please wait. Someone from Homeland Security will be right with you… 
Interesting, as in completely unsurprising to me; I already had suspected that te recent hostage releases by the FARC via Chavez negotiations are nothing but a backdoor deal between the them, the guerilla gets something (money, support, whatever) and Chavez gets the publicity of being the facilitator of the releases. I haven`t thought about a military agreement though.
Yesterday I heard a very pissed off Ecuatorian official (Minister of the Interior?), we can lay to rest the notion that Colombia had a green light to go into Ecuador.
Frankly to me, that doesn’t really mean anything one way or the other. You’d expect that the deal would include a “if you get busted doing this, you realize we’ll have to yell and posture a lot, right?” discussion.
That doesn´t make any sense, Ecuador busted Colombia, and what would the later gain from such an agreement anyway?
According to this, 12 LA presidents of the “Rio Group,” including Colombia’s and Venezuela’s, are scheduled to meet in the DR this Friday. Maybe they can work out something reasonable. (Like submitting the whole dispute to arbitration by the purple monkeys flying out of my ass.)