Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said on Saturday he was sending more troops to the border with Colombia to stop paramilitaries from crossing and unsettling the area, and called on Bogota to better patrol its side of the border.
“We’re taking very drastic steps because the situation is also tremendously drastic,” Correa said.
Quito and Bogota broke off diplomatic relations a year ago over a Colombian military attack on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camp inside Ecuador that killed 25 people. To resume relations, Correa is demanding permanent border patrols by Colombia.
PHOTO: AFP
Colombia has accused Correa, a leftist socialist leader and close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, of providing a safe haven to the FARC.
Correa said Ecuador’s border provinces were being infiltrated by deserters of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary group, who bring with them weapons. All gun permits in the area, he said, have been suspended.
“There were people in Esmeraldas [Province] with automatic weapons. That’s crazy,” Correa said.
Ecuadoran Security Minister Miguel Carvajal said 3,000 additional troops were being deployed to the 720km border with Colombia, where 7,000 soldiers and 3,541 police are already stationed.
He said five new military bases and 10 police stations would be built in the area.
Correa also accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of having lied last year about the attack last year on the FARC camp that killed FARC deputy leader Raul Reyes.
“President Uribe calls me ... tells me there’s been a clash ... between the Colombian Armed Forces and FARC ... that in that fight the FARC fled to our territory and that in pursuing them, 10 or 17 guerrillas were killed, 11 were made prisoners and one Colombian soldier died,” Correa said.
“That was the lie President Uribe told,” Correa said, adding that the Colombian attack was really a bombing raid on the guerrilla base.
“They didn’t tell us it was a bombing raid inside our territory that was planned, deliberate, ordered by President Uribe himself,” he said. “Everything Uribe said was a lie. The only truth he [told] was that Raul Reyes was dead.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS