Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa on Wednesday urged the international community to issue a "clear condemnation" of Colombia for its cross-border military incursion into Ecuadoran territory.
Correa stood side by side with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who earlier on Wednesday sent 10 army battalions close to the Colombian border, as diplomats struggled to defuse the crisis.
"Ecuador will not rest until the international community issues a clear condemnation of Colombia as an aggressor," said Correa, who was on a tour of Latin America to drum up support for his cause.
PHOTO: AFP
The joint appearance came after the 34-member Organization of American States (OAS) unanimously adopted a text saying Colombia had violated Ecuador's sovereignty, but stopped short of formally condemning the action.
Correa welcomed the resolution as an "important first step" and applauded the Washington-based body's decision to send a committee to investigate the matter -- but he demanded more.
"If Ecuador doesn't get satisfaction, we'll know how to exact it with our own methods and the OAS and the international community, by their silence and omissions, will be the guilty ones," Correa said.
He did not elaborate, although earlier on Wednesday he had warned that Ecuador would "go to the ultimate consequences."
"We're using up all diplomatic channels, all the peaceful and international channels to resolve this conflict because we will not allow the attacker of our sovereignty to go unpunished," Correa said.
"Ecuador can count on our unconditional support in any circumstance," Chavez said in the joint press conference.
Colombia's attack on Saturday on a camp of Colombian leftist rebels located just inside Ecuador killed the group's No. 2 and led to a diplomatic crisis between Colombia and two of its neighbors.
Bogota said after seizing rebel laptops in the raid that Ecuador and Venezuela had been providing support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have been fighting the Colombian government for four decades.
Both Quito and Caracas strenuously denied the claims, expelled Colombia's ambassadors and cut off diplomatic ties.
Ecuador and Venezuela moved troops to their respective borders with Colombia, which in turn received verbal support from its war-on-drugs ally the US.
Venezuelan military officials confirmed that 10 army battalions -- around 6,000 men -- had been sent to the Colombian frontier and were 90 percent in place.
Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, speaking in Brussels, said his country would not "cede to provocation."
"We are not going to send any force to the border beyond those that are already there," he said.
Despite the escalation, the White House said on Wednesday it was "a little bit premature" to consider US military aid to Colombia.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has called for Chavez to be tried by the International Criminal Court for allegedly paying US$300 million to FARC, on the basis of documents he said were in a laptop recovered from the camp.
In Washington, a top US diplomat said that experts would soon examine the computer's hard drive for authenticity.
"This is the first time that we've stumbled across something coming from the FARC drawing such a straight line" between the rebels and Chavez, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said.
Other documents released by Colombia suggest Reyes was secretly negotiating with representatives of France to win freedom for hostages including politician Ingrid Betancourt.
Chavez said late on Wednesday that despite the row with Colombia, he would continue working for the release of more FARC hostages.
"We'll continue to work for a humanitarian agreement," Chavez said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS