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New tensions flare in S America

Colombian comments defending its bombing raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador this month have revived tensions in the Andean region, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Monday.

"It has cost us plenty to get back on the path of good relations. We don't want a new escalation of tensions between us," Chavez said during the inauguration of a hospital near the border with Colombia.

"But these declarations immediately cause tension ... with Venezuela, with Ecuador, with neighboring countries," he said.

Colombia on Sunday said its March 1 raid on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camp inside Ecuadoran territory was justified because the rebels had used it to launch terrorist attacks.

Chavez berated Colombia's defense minister, whom he called a "spokesman for war," and said Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe should tell his Cabinet not to make inflammatory comments.

"For the love of god, President Uribe, don't allow this. The government of Colombia is in your hands, send a message to the spokesmen of war," he told a cheering crowd.

The March 1 raid briefly raised fears of war in the region when Ecuador and Venezuela responded by ordering troops to their borders with Colombia and cutting off diplomatic ties.

Tempers cooled somewhat with handshakes at a regional summit a few days later, but Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa is still fuming and has not yet renewed diplomatic relations with his neighbor.

The raid killed No. 2 FARC rebel leader Raul Reyes and more than 20 others.

Reyes was the first member of FARC's secretariat to be killed in the decades-old civil war.

Ecuador's attorney general said the government was considering trying Colombian officials in international courts for their part in the attack.

Uribe's popularity at home shot to a record 82 percent after the raid although most Latin American countries joined Ecuador in condemning the attack.

Uribe, Washington's top US ally in South America, has accused Ecuador and Venezuela of doing too little to help in the battle against FARC.

The rebels hold hundreds of hostages they have kidnapped, including three US defense contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.

Piedad Cordoba, a Colombian senator who helped broker the release of six hostages earlier this year, said that the March 1 attack dashed hope of any more releases while Uribe is in power.

Chavez also ridiculed a probe requested by Bogota of his alleged links to Colombian rebels, saying the computer files under scrutiny might next yield a picture of him standing with Osama bin Laden.

"And now this yarn about a computer. Don't be surprised if that computer coughs up a picture of me with bin Laden and [FARC rebel leader Manuel] Marulanda," he said.

Colombia claims that computer files found at a FARC rebel camp inside Ecuador it bombed and raided on March 1 yielded a trove of documents proving Chavez's relationship with the Marxist guerrillas, including a US$300 million payment he made to them.

Uribe at first said he would report Chavez to the International Criminal Court for his alleged links to FARC, but later settled with turning over the computer files to Interpol investigators.

"Wait for those photos: Chavez meeting with Marulanda, bin Laden, [former Cuban president] Fidel Castro, Rafael Correa and [Bolivian President] Evo Morales," Chavez said mockingly in his speech.

Despite Chavez' dismissal of the Interpol investigation, two US lawmakers on March 14 pointed to the allegedly incriminating computer files and presented a resolution in the US Congress to include Venezuela in a US list of state-sponsors of terrorism.

"Let them make that list and stick it in their ... pocket," Chavez shot back the same day.
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