Detention Order Strains
Ecuador-Colombia Ties
QUITO - An arrest warrant issued by an
Ecuadorian court against Colombia's
presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos
has strained the relations between the two
countries.
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on
Wednesday accused Santos, a former Colombian
defense minister, of having carried out a
raid against a camp of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the
Ecuadorian territory in 2008.
Correa recalled that the Colombian forces
invaded Ecuador on March 1, 2008, and that
the raid had left at least 25 people dead,
including former head of the FARC Raul
Reyes, one Ecuadorian citizen and several
Mexican students.
Ecuador's Sucumbios Provincial Court on
Monday reactivated the order to arrest
Santos for his role in the raid on
Angostura, near the border with Colombia.
It was the second time Ecuador had filed
such charges. An Ecuadorian judge in charge
of the case ruled in February that there was
not enough evidence to pursue the case.
Correa said that he "expects the law process
against Santos to continue in the most
transparent way supported by the laws ...
Santos recognizes that he was the author of
the raid and feels proud of it."
Correa said that Santos' declarations "go
against the position of Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, who apologized for the raid
and committed to impeding something similar
from happening again."
However, the Colombian Foreign Ministry said
in a statement that it "does not recognize
the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the
Ecuadorian justice to investigate and trail
Colombian former officers."
Meanwhile, the judicial decision was
questioned on Tuesday by Colombian President
Uribe, who said it was a "grave" decision
and would affect ties with Quito.
Santos, who heads the president's Social
National Unity Party, is the frontrunner in
the election campaign. The presidential
election will be held on May 30.
However, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo
Patino said that the ministry "will continue
boosting the normalization of the ties with
Colombia, independently of the judicial
decisions." |
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