VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA:
Sparks Fly Over Arrests
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS (IPS) - The arrest of eight
Colombians in Venezuela, allegedly for
espionage, further heightened the
political and diplomatic tensions that
have existed between the governments of
the two neighbouring countries over the
past year.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said
two of the detainees "had identification
cards from the Colombian army." The
suspects "were moving around the country
taking photos of thermoelectric and
hydroelectric power plants," he said,
calling on Bogotá to clarify the
incident.
Venezuela is experiencing a crisis in
electricity production and distribution,
blamed by the government on the drought
in the country caused by the El Niño
climate phenomenon, arising from higher
than average surface water temperatures
in the Pacific ocean. But the opposition
blames poor planning and bad management
on the part of the state.
Chávez linked the arrests of the alleged
spies to the use of Colombian bases by
the U.S. military, which he perceives as
a threat.
The Venezuelan president said "I don't
think this is an isolated incident, but
part of something bigger, and that
something bigger is related to the
desperation of the empire (the United
States), which makes it more dangerous."
In response, Colombian President Álvaro
Uribe claimed that Venezuela was
violating the rights of the detained
Colombians.
"This is called violating human rights,
and the Colombian government cannot
allow violations of the human rights of
its citizens, whether they live in
Colombia or abroad," he said.
In a statement, the Colombian Foreign
Ministry demanded that Caracas guarantee
the safety of the Colombian citizens,
and asked for an "urgent intervention"
by the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights to "avoid irreparable harm"
to the life, safety and legal rights of
the detainees.
According to reports from the
authorities and relatives, the first
people to be arrested on Mar. 23 in the
centre-north of the country were
52-year-old Luis Carlos Cossio and his
wife's nephew, 21-year-old Santiago
Giraldo.
On being searched at a check-point, a
camera with photographs of electrical
installations, one of which was
reportedly of a communications antenna
used by the political police, was found
among Cossio and Giraldo's belongings.
Cossio and his wife Elva Giraldo
(Santiago's aunt) own a small ice cream
factory in Barinitas, a small town in
Barinas state, close to the western
border with Colombia.
Uribe admitted that the couple had
belonged to the Colombian army. Elva
Giraldo, a pharmacist, worked in a
military dispensary in Medellín, and
Cossio "was an army doctor at the same
station until 2002, then settled in
Canada where he acquired Canadian
nationality. Since then they have been
in Venezuela, where they have an ice
cream factory," the Colombian president
told the local press.
The family ice cream business and some
houses were searched, and Elva Giraldo
and five factory workers were also
arrested.
According to Venezuelan Interior
Minister Tarek El Aissami, "some
documents in English and other items of
criminalistic interest" were found in
the search, in addition to the
nationality of those arrested which was
"already a cause for concern."
A protest note from Bogotá's Foreign
Ministry following that statement
expressed "concern that citizens should
be stigmatised for being Colombian."
Saúl Ortega, the vice president of the
Venezuelan parliament, said that the
arrest of the eight Colombians "is an
important wake-up call." "The present
government of Colombia, linked to
paramilitary terrorism and drug
trafficking, can be expected to stop at
nothing," he added.
In contrast, Venezuelan opposition
leader Enrique Ochoa criticised Chávez
for being quick to blame others, but
never himself, when things go wrong. "In
every autocratic regime, there is
institutional paranoia which looks for
enemies under every stone," he said.
Meanwhile, Colombia's ombudsman Volmar
Pérez drew a parallel between the arrest
of the eight Colombians and that of
another 12, who were detained a few days
earlier at an estate in the plains of
southwestern Venezuela. "The authorities
found five old guns at the house, and
accused them of belonging to a
paramilitary group," he said.
The spat between Bogotá and Caracas is
reminiscent of their confrontations
after the October 2009 killings of nine
young Colombians in Táchira, in the
extreme southwest of Venezuela -
supposedly revenge killings between
rightwing paramilitaries and leftwing
guerrillas in Colombia. There is no
public information about the
investigation of that incident.
The backdrop to this series of events is
the breakdown of Venezuela's political
relations with Colombia when the latter
country decided last year to open seven
of its air, land and naval bases to the
United States' armed forces. Bilateral
trade declined and diplomatic relations
were frozen.
According to Bogotá, U.S. military
access to its bases is part of Plan
Colombia, a multi-billion dollar
military and police cooperation
agreement under which Washington assists
Colombia to fight drug trafficking and
the guerrillas.
In Caracas' view, however, access to
Colombian bases provides the United
States with a platform for potential
aggressive acts against Venezuela, as
well as facilities for the U.S. to
project its military power over the
whole of South America.
The Uribe administration has expressed
concern about the "arms race" in
Venezuela, which has bought Russian and
Chinese weapons for a total of five
billion dollars in the last three years.
Caracas is now negotiating the purchase
of another five billion dollars' worth
of arms from Moscow, it transpired from
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's
visit to Venezuela last week.
On a personal level, the relationship
between presidents Uribe and Chávez has
swung between expressions of brotherhood
and harshly-worded criticism.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás
Maduro said that the government of his
country will wait for a new president to
be elected in Colombia this year, before
re-examining bilateral relations. |
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