Good question. Columbia raided a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) guerilla base in Ecuador and killed FARC leader Raul Reyes known as FARC's leading negotiator. In response, Ecuador and Venezuela moved their troops to their borders with Columbia, broke off diplomatic relations with Columbia and demand an apology with assurances that no further cross border incursions will be made. In the most recent moves, presidents Uribe of Columbia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have traded hand shakes and declared the incident over. This, apparently, in response to promptings from Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua--a country that also broke diplomatic ties with Columbia over the incident.
All of this might be regarded simply as a series of strange, provocative responses from leftist regimes in the region to Columbia's efforts to defend itself against the terrorist activities of FARC, a designated terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. That is precisely how it is portrayed here in the USA. Surely, however, more is going on.
The FARC is a decades old revolutionary group in Columbia which has come to be associated with the struggle of the indigenous people of Columbia against the urban and large scale landowning Latino classes who have long regarded the "indios" as economically expendable. The FARC has become involved with cocaine sales as a source of finance, and has committed human rights crimes against the very peasant classes with whom they identify. Equally, the right wing death squads actively and passively supported by the Columbian military are also financed with cocaine revenues, so all sides are tainted with drug money. Columbia is a major beneficiary of the United States under the provisions of Plan Columbia which is a program which funnels hundreds of millions of dollars of primarily military aid to Columbia to ostensibly fight cocaine trafficking, but which has also been significantly aimed at fighting leftist guerrilla groups such as the FARC. Interestingly, the original Plan Columbia called for nearly half the aid to be for economic development and alternative income plans for coca cultivating peasants. The actual plan written in Washington DC was composed in English with the Spanish translation appearing for the first time months after the actual Plan Columbia went into action. In the actual plan, the vast share of aid was military, not economic.
In light of this, it is not terribly surprising that Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua would all react viscerally to Columbia's cross border raid into Ecuador. Whatever taint stains the current FARC, the (at least theoretical) ideals of the FARC stand aligned with the very constituency upon which Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador have built their governments--the indigenous poor. Columbia, and its president Uribe, however, stand as lone allies of the United States in the region, and fight actively against the rights of the indigenous poor. The most surprising element of all of this is its sudden and apparently amicable ending with handshakes all round.
Forgotten, apparently, are the accusations from Columbia that a FARC laptop computer delivered by a defector to Columbian troops (along with the severed hand and ID of the FARC leader supplied by his admitted defecting killer) implicated Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Ecuadorian chief Rafael Correa as sponsors of the FARC, with Chavez allegedly offering $300 million in aid to FARC. Both Chavez and Correa dismissed the claim as preposterous. For some reactions to this purported evidence of collaboration, I submit the following link to the site of Gregg Palast who offers some insights into the laptop incident.
Laptop Evidence Fake
In addition, for further insight into Rafael Correa, a lesser known figure in the emerging South American populist movement, I include this portion of a recent interview with him done by Gregg Palast and shown on Democracy Now
Correa-Palast Interview
Oh, and by the way, here's the latest on Columbian President Uribe. It's quite interesting, and pretty well documented. Have a look.
The Uribe Record
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