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Latin American leaders agree to diplomatic truce

Talk of war has faded in the Andes in a matter of days, the product of a diplomatic truce between Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador that allowed the leaders of all three to avoid a protracted conflict while saving face.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government announced on Sunday that it was restoring full diplomatic ties with Colombia and reopening its embassy in Bogota after smoothing over a crisis sparked by Colombia's attack on a rebel base in Ecuador. Venezuela also invited back Colombian diplomats expelled by Chavez last week.

But some watchers of Latin American politics viewed the quick reconciliation as a superficial patching up of deeper disputes -- and a politically expedient way out of a damaging confrontation not wanted or needed by Chavez, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe or Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

"They probably all wanted a quick settlement. Ecuador had won sympathy as the aggrieved party, Venezuela had gotten good press as the champion of sovereignty and Colombia had accomplished its goal in killing the FARC leader -- and an apology was a low price to pay for ending the episode," said Shelley McConnell, a Latin America expert at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

As he apologized on Friday, Uribe also pledged to never again carry out another act like the March 1 strike on Ecuadorean soil, which killed 25 people including Raul Reyes, a top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Just days after deploying troops to their borders in response, Correa and Chavez shook hands with the US-allied Uribe on Friday in a stunning turnaround that ended tense debate at a summit in the Dominican Republic.

Veteran journalist Eleazar Diaz Rangel, editor of the Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias, called the making-up "the greatest surprise imaginable in a Latin American summit," crediting Chavez with showing a commitment to "the search for peace in Colombia."

Meanwhile, documents published on Sunday from a slain rebel's computer and confirmed by senior Colombian officials show leftist guerrillas discussing financial contributions to the Ecuadorean president's 2006 campaign.

The documents do not specify an amount or name who allegedly received the contribution.

An Oct. 12, 2006, letter on a laptop recovered by Colombian troops on a raid into Ecuador to kill rebel leader Raul Reyes on March 1 describes rebel deliberations on how much to give Correa's presidential campaign.

In the letter, top rebel leader Manuel Marulanda tells Reyes that fellow commanders differ on whether to donate US$20,000, US$50,000 or US$100,000 to Correa's campaign. The first round of voting in the presidential election was on Oct. 15, 2006. Correa was elected on Nov. 26.

A separate letter, dated Sept. 17 of that year, from Reyes to Marulanda discusses "support delivered to the campaign of Rafael Correa" but does not specify an amount or date.

Two high-ranking Colombian government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the documents' political sensitivity, confirmed that the letters published by Semana magazine were genuine.
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