By David A.G. Fischer
26 June 2008

BOGOTA, Col.—The northwestern region of the South American continent has been receiving a bulk of bad press in the past few months. While Ecuador’s coverage is relatively recent, Colombia has been accustomed to media exposure for decades, whereas Venezuela only began receiving criticism since President Lt. Colonel Hugo Chavez Frias came to power in 1998. Nonetheless, the three have been highlighted since March.

As far as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez and Chavez go, each leader has his own domestic demons to battle. Uribe has a personal vendetta against Colombia’s Marxist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the group by whom his father was killed in 1983 during a kidnapping attempt. In order to conquer the insurgent group and save face, Uribe allows Washington to maintain a short leash on his political agenda, and he in return receives billions of dollars through an ever-failing Plan Colombia.

Chavez, on the other hand, finally assumed the presidency six years after his failed coup attempt of 1992. A nation ravaged by poverty and economic inequality with an entrenched oligarchy that was too subservient to Washington’s demands were the catalysts that brought Chavez to action against the Venezuelan government. His Bolivarian Revolution Movement captured the support of a majority of impoverished citizens who elected to him to office with a 57-40% victory on December 6, 1998 (1).

By the time Uribe came to office in 2002, Plan Colombia had been underway for two years. With a political platform that promised to crush the guerrillas once and for all, Uribe made no hesitations to continue accepting funding from the U.S. Government. His volition to go to the negotiating table with Washington in order to secure a free-trade agreement between the two nations demonstrates additional willingness on behalf of Uribe to cooperate with Washington.

This is where the tensions mount for Chavez, who is determined to set the entire region against what he refers to as the Empire and its sulfuric smelling leader. Anyone who cooperates with Washington is essentially an enemy to Chavez. As such, accusations from Chavez point to Uribe as an ally of the Empire, and therefore a nemesis of his Bolivarian Revolution Movement. It seems the longer Uribe snuggles up to Bush, the more inflammatory Chavez’s criticism becomes.

In response to Chavez’s mudslinging, Uribe has accused the Venezuelan president of cooperating with the FARC and being sympathetic to terrorists. Both ammunition and economic assistance is purported to have been funneled to the group via Venezuela. There are even claims that Raul Reyes, a commanding officer of the FARC who was killed in combat this past March, had direct access to Chavez through his recovered laptop. Those allegations, however, were never validated. Regardless, the reason for the conflict between Colombia and its neighbor to the east is hereby substantiated.

Venezuela and the FARC are not the only thorns under Uribe’s fingernails at present. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa recently defended his nation’s sovereignty when the Colombian Armed Forces were instructed on March 1, to neglect the two countries’ shared border in the south of Colombia. The military crossed only a few miles into Ecuadorian airspace to attack guerrilla members with an airstrike that killed 17 members, including the aforementioned Reyes. While the Colombian Foreign Ministry claims that they acted within the principle of legitimate defense (CS Monitor – Colombia’s Cross-Border Strike On Farc Irks Neighbors), President Correa withdrew his Ambassador to Colombia and threatened that further violations could result in grave consequences.

Correa is one of Chavez’s leftist allies in the region, and Chavez supported him by stating that if Colombia were to do the same thing on the Venezuelan border, that it would be a cause for war. It seems that Colombia is faced not only with a conflict in its own interior, but from the outside as well. One begins to wonder if Colombia will ever overcome its conflictive nature.

As Latin America’s black sheep that refuses to stand in defiance to Washington with the rest of the region, Colombia and its ongoing internal conflict are beginning to spill over its borders. Issues with the conflict pouring into neighboring Panama are nothing new either.

While drugs and oil may produce internal problems for Colombia, its acquiescence to Washington, and its uncontrollable guerrilla conflict, are now producing external issues. Although tensions between the three nations have eased in the past several weeks, one never knows what tomorrow may bring.

Sources:
1. McCoy, Jennifer L. 1999. Chavez and the End of “Partyarchy” in Venezuela. Jounal of Democracy, 10.3, 64-77.
2. CS Monitor – COLOMBIA’S CROSS-BORDER STRIKE ON FARC IRKS NEIGHBORS

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