Setting the stage for a regional summit scheduled to open yesterday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the Colombian military of entering Venezuela, saying the incursion was a “provocation” by his counterpart, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
“We are not talking about a patrol with a few soldiers that strayed over a border” into Venezuela, Chavez said on Sunday on his weekly TV show Hello President, without indicating when the alleged incursion took place.
“These troops crossed the Orinoco River in a boat and carried out an incursion into Venezuelan territory,” he said.
“When our troops got there, the Colombians had already gone away,” said Chavez, a leftist populist who has very strained ties with the conservative Uribe, the US’ closest regional ally.
Venezuela, along with many other Latin American countries, is incensed at a new agreement allowing the US to use seven Colombian military bases.
“The Yankees are starting to command the Colombian armed forces; they are the ones who are in charge, who are in charge of these provocations, who make up huge lies,” said Chavez, who has long been a thorn in Washington’s side.
The Venezuelan president compared the situation in his country with the one in Panama before the US invaded it in 1989 to arrest Panama’s then-military ruler, Manuel Noriega, accused of drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega is still being held in a US prison.
“That’s the plan they would like to apply to me. But things are different here. Today’s Venezuela is not 1989 Panama and Latin America today is not the same as it was back in 1989, when the US did whatever they felt like across the region,” Chavez said.
Chavez also suggested preferential pricing for Venezuelan oil and oil derivatives may end for Colombia.
“The supply should stop, they can buy it at the market price,” he said. “Why should we be favoring Uribe’s government that way?”
The charges came one day before regional leader were to gather in Quito, Ecuador, for a summit of the Union of South American Nations, during which they are expected to discuss Colombia’s decision to allow limited use by the US of its military bases. Chavez has led a diplomatic offensive against the accord, which he said could lead to war. Colombia, which does not have diplomatic relations with Ecuador is not expected to participate in the meeting, which also plans to discuss the situation in Honduras.
The new charges follow last month’s decision by Chavez to freeze relations with Colombia in response to accusations leveled by Bogota that Venezuela was supplying weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist guerrilla group.
Bogota said it had captured weapons from FARC, Latin America’s oldest and largest insurgency, that had been produced in Sweden and sold to Venezuela.
Chavez argued that Colombia had no proof and warned that Venezuela would suspend Colombian imports to his country.
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