Chavez Orders Tanks to Colombia Border, Raises Risks – Bloomberg.com: Hugo Chavez’s orders to close his Bogota embassy and send tanks to the border raise tensions beyond his previous rhetoric and to the point where miscalculation could trigger a military clash.
Chavez, who ordered 10 armored battalions to the border yesterday, said Colombia’s air strike March 1 on a rebel camp in Ecuadorean territory risks a regional war. He pledged to support Ecuador under any circumstances. The raid killed Raul Reyes, reputed to be second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Chavez, who has a history of verbally attacking the U.S. and its allies, may be trying to stir up nationalist sentiment at a time when he’s faltering politically, said Myles Frechette, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia from 1994 to 1997.
Voters in December rejected Chavez’s plan to rewrite the constitution, his first electoral defeat since taking office, while crime and food shortages are cutting into his popularity.
“This is largely posturing and beating his chest,” Frechette said in a telephone interview. “The economic situation in Venezuela isn’t good.”
Venezuela’s dependence on Colombia’s food exports and the Colombian military’s superior training, make a wide-scale war unlikely, said Liliana Fasciani, a legal philosophy professor at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas.
The professor seems to be forgetting the billions of U.S. dollars that Venezuela has spent over the last 9 years in military hardware, including some top of the line Russian fighters.
“We can’t understand how the actions of our government and our armed forces be interpreted as an act of aggression against Venezuela,” former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria said.
You poor thing… Starting to regret your involvement with the Venezuelan referendum some years ago?
“This is an odd reaction by Venezuela to Colombia’s efforts against the FARC, a terrorist organization that continues to hold Colombians, Americans and others hostage.”, said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
With kuzco anything is odd, and after nine years this is a surprise? By the way, the FARC also holds Venezuelan citizens as hostages, not only Colombian or U.S.
He’s a megalomaniac and wants to be President for life. This is just par for the course.
I am Colombian and live in Colombia and I could not be happier about the death of this terrorist.. If the US was able to go into Afghanistan and Irak looking for Osama Bin Laden, why can´t we go a mile into Ecuador for Reyes?
Shame on the venezuelan and Ecuadorian governments for supporting terrorist groups, and shame on Mr. Bush for not being more supportive against these FARC terrorists..
Supposedly FARC members have been found with some of the 100,000 AK-47 that Chavez purchased from Russia a couple years ago.
I agree Bush should be more supportive but I don’t think Colombia has any oil so you might be SOL.
I’m sure Colombia will get support from the US if Venezuela attacks.
Side topic:
Is it me or does Hugo Chavez resemble a Hippopotamus? Notice the tiny George Bush like eyes but with an ENORMOUS head. I think it’s hysterical. Take a look.
Chavez needs to do SOMETHING with all of those Russian made arms he’s been buying. Why not expand the borders of the Great Patriotic Revolution?
Looks like the world has a new member to the Axis of Evil.
Chavez is trying to take over his neighbors either by buying or threatening. So yes, there is going to be another war in South America.
Ecuador has also positioned troops on it’s border with Colombia. I assume they are allied with Venezuela in some way.
#6 – Maybe, if you sign up, now, you could get in on the first wave? Why miss a chance to invade a foreign nation because you hate who they elect?
Silly me. You aren’t signing up – are you?
I forgot to mention the Rio Treaty. I wonder if Chavez has forgotten about it…
If George Bush had an exit strategy when he invaded Iraq, this never would have happened.
How many have died fighting ‘the war to end all wars’? It seems to me that war’s come back into fashion. War should be the last alternative, shouldn’t it? If it doesn’t effect me directly should I even care? Intervention makes you a participant, inaction makes you an accomplice. World’s gettin smaller and more populated everyday . Maybe the next world war is just around the corner. The technology’s advanced, this time I doubt the American civilians will be spared.
Oh boy, here comes an even bigger flood of illegals over the border!
I am a Colombian living in Colombia. I, as many other Colombians, believe that Presindent Uribe did the right thing, even, if it was, as Ecuador and Venezuela said, a “masacre”.
A masacre is what FARC does every day….
We should embrace President Uribe in this difficult time for Colombia´s fight against terrorism represented by FARC.
We would expect a strong support by US Government officials.
If Mexico began bombing its neighbors you can be damned sure we would draw up forces along the border. How you fail to understand the concept of national sovereignty is astounding.
Threathens?
David wrote,
“If Mexico began bombing its neighbors you can be damned sure we would draw up forces along the border. ”
Uh… No.
Mexico can pretty much do whatever it wants and the U.S. government will support it. This includes the U.S. Government doing effectively “nothing” to protect the U.S. border with Mexico against the influx of drug smugglers, (potential) terrorists and illegal aliens.
This also includes spending U.S. taxpayer money (now 1.4 Billion dollars) to protect Mexico’s souther border instead of protecting our own border.
See the “Merida Initiative”.
http://tinyurl.com/26ammt
When all out war breaks out. I hope Panama can protect the canal we gave them.
Chaz is out of coke,
#20 Pedro: Bingo!
Simon Bolívar. Chavez has always stuck to the idea of an United South America. That was the Bolivaran dream. And Che Guevara, before Chavez. Cuba was much too poor to do it, but Venezuela is rich. They have enough size,natural riches and oil to do it.
Just don’t know what the real Regional Power will think of it when time comes:
Brasil.
Pedro–ok, in good faith, I have spent some time googling “Kuzco” and the only thing that turns up is YOUR postings here at DU.
What do you mean by that term?
#25–reminds me a bit of the early 1900 dispute around Iguassu Falls–seems there is a pattern. Country A attacks B. Then C attacks A and wins territory while B is protected. Too many agendas going on.
I wonder what a strong “political” program of unification could accomplish as opposed to a military one?–ie==bribe the populations with welfare programs. Start with plebiscites, or with european union type stuff?
Its such a natural idea, has to happen sometime?
“The raid killed Raul Reyes, reputed to be second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.”
so, he raided JUST over the border…
And V. is threatening WHO??
Let me ask 1 question.
USA has backed fighting the drug Lords in WHAT countries for HOW LONG??
And NOW, between THESE 3 countries that the USA has been helping… military training and Drug lords with MORE guns then MOST countries..Someone WANTS to start a WAR with them?
GO FOR IT..
The USA can walk in AFTER and pick up the pieces.
Go Chavez! The US giant is weak and pitiful and cannot even manage a war in a weak, decapitated third world country like Iraq. Columbia is the last rightist state in the Andes, propped up mostly by narco dollars both on the supply and “interdiction” side. Colombia is also the remaining bellwether of US imperialism in Andean Latin America; if it falls, US influence in the region will be greatly reduced. This is what drug wars lead to…
“WTF”: precisely what we venezuelans are asking ourselves. Our president not only chews coca leaves on national TV and claims to frequently eat coca paste for breakfast, but also sides with terrorists and threatens Colombia with a war that shouldn’t concern us.
Serve us right for voting for him (I didn’t)
#15…..Sovereignity?
How many people killed Osama in November 11 attack? Whatever the figure was, it is nothing compared to the people that FARC have killed in 40 years…. and God knows how many people they have kept as prisoners for 5-6 years….
I have a friend… her husband was kidnapped by FARC and paid a ransom of US$25.000 (a lot for a regular colombian citizen) and was then charged US$10.000 to have her dead husband back…. If you were her….
If you were the father of a 15 year old peasant girl taken by FARC to serve as a cook or sexual sattisfaction of the troops……..
PLEASE!!!!
Mmmm WAR
And it goes on and on….
I suppose it’s just me but…are things getting more F’kd up everywhere and is it really the US’s fault for becoming so weak we can’t hold things together or…wtf ?!?
I was wrong in #6 where I said it looks like there will be another war in South America.
There ALREADY IS ANOTHER WAR in South America. With Chavez supplying arms, support, and safe haven to an avowed enemy of Colombia, this qualifies Venezuela as committing an act of proxy war against Colombia. FARC has become a mercenary force for Colombia.
#29 hits the WTF tone right. Chavez is out of his mind! Given this new information about the support given to FARC, Colombia has every right to attack irregardless whether they are in Colombia, Ecuador, or any other country that aids and abets their enemies.
Oops, a mercenary force for Venezuela.
Some of us venezuelans have another theory: this is a trick from Chavez to get ousted from the presidency himself.
The situation in our country (corruption, crime, hunger, unemployment, etc) is so bad that it is rumored that even the president wants to bail out, but in such a way that he can later say that “they didn’t allow the revolution to develop and bear fruit” (“they” being USA, Colombia, martians or whoever is not himself)
The insistence in going to war is only another of already several ways to try to force the issue and avoid the blame of the worst and longest government in half a century.