MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colombia-Venezuela dispute spirals

Far from apologizing as has been demanded by Venezuela, Colombia says it is the “offended one” in the case of a key Colombian insurgent captured by bounty-hunters in Caracas, and that it will provide proof that the Marxist guerrilla had received protection from Venezuelan authorities.

The capture of leftist rebel Rodrigo Granda last month in Caracas, --and heated bilateral argument over how it was achieved--, has sparked a major diplomatic crisis between the neighbours in northern South America.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recalled his ambassador to Colombia last week and vowed that relations, including economic ones, will remain frozen until Bogotá apologizes.

But the administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe maintains that it paid "rewards, not bribes" to Venezuelan police who aided Granda's capture.

In a statement read to reporters Sunday at Caso de Nariño - the presidential palace - in Bogotá, Mr. Uribe said it was Venezuela that violated Colombia's sovereignty by allegedly harbouring Granda in the first place.

President Uribe also demanded that Caracas offer proof of its allegations of bribery in the apprehension of the reputed "foreign minister" of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a group that appears on both the U.S. and European Union lists of international terrorist organizations.

The Nariño statement, which emerged from a more-than-five-hour meeting involving the president, Vice President Francisco Santos, Foreign Minister Carolina Barco and other Cabinet members, promised that Bogotá would provide evidence of Venezuela's official hospitality toward Granda.

In addition, Mr. Uribe's government said it will once again share with Chavez detailed information about the identities and location of Colombian guerrillas operating from Venezuelan territory in the hope that authorities in the neighbouring country will take action to expel the rebels.

Caracas and Bogotá can't even agree on how to characterize the incident involving the FARC's Granda, with Mr. Chavez speaking of a "kidnapping" while Mr. Uribe's aides say the rebel was "captured" in the Colombian border city of Cucuta prior to payment of any reward.

President Uribe said he cannot accept the idea that representatives of terrorist groups should be accepted at a political event sponsored by official institutions in Venezuela, because "while political opposition is one thing, terrorism is something very different."

"We cannot fall for the cynical deceit of the FARC, which presents the capture of the kidnappers as a kidnapping," said the Nariño statement, alluding to the hundreds of hostages held by the Colombian insurgent group.

Venezuela's interior minister, Jesse Chacon, said last week that Mr. Granda was grabbed in a Caracas coffee shop after taking part in the 2nd Bolivarian Congress of the Peoples, which was held Dec. 6-11 in the capital and other Venezuelan cities with sponsorship from the Chavez government, which calls its program the "Bolivarian Revolution," invoking South American liberator Simon Bolivar.

Mr. Chacon stressed, however, that Mr. Granda was not invited by the Venezuelan government to attend the congress or any other event, rejecting claims by the FARC that the Chavez government was responsible for ensuring the rebel's safety.

Uribe's communiqué on Sunday made no mention of Chavez's earlier decision to suspend bilateral accords and trade and to keep Ambassador Carlos Rodolfo Santiago - called home from Bogotá last week for consultations - in Caracas until Colombia apologizes for the episode.

Prior to issuing Sunday's statement, Mr. Uribe had invited Mr. Chavez to meet him "face-to-face" in the presence of other presidents from the region to air the Granda issue and address "matters such as security and the struggle against terrorism"

President Chavez pushed the bet Friday during his state of the union address to Venezuelan lawmakers, all but announcing a freeze in diplomatic relations pending public apologies from president Uribe.

Bogota responded within hours, not only refusing to apologize but proclaiming that the apprehension of the "terrorist" did not violate Venezuela's sovereignty.

In a column entitled "The Epic of Granda," appearing in this week's edition of the Colombian magazine Cambio, Maria Elvira Samper said the real truth of the episode will remain permanently hidden.

"From here on," wrote Samper, a cousin of former Colombian President Ernesto Samper, "what's going to come first is internal politics there (Venezuela) and here. And as we know, politics is never interested in truth".

Mr. Uribe fighting with an iron fist the decades old Marxist guerrilla groups and drug lords has become the region's top Washington ally. Mr. Chavez Venezuela on the other hand, clearly leans towards the Marxist regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba.