Cross-Border Tension: Colombia and Venezuela

By David N. Weinreb, CIP intern

August 22, 2003

During an August 12^th press conference in Bogotá, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commented about Venezuela’s role in Colombia’s conflict. “It is simply not helpful when countries do not fully support the antiterrorist fight,” Myers said. “I think there is more to learn with respect to Venezuela and we are going to have to continue to explore that.” [1] General Myers was referring to a continuing point of contention between Bogotá and Caracas. Since 1999, critics have repeatedly accused President Hugo Chávez and his government of involvement with Colombia’s Marxist FARC guerrillas.

Despite Venezuela’s vehement and continuing denials, the accusations have continued and have begun to be taken up by senior US officials. In his statement, General Myers did not say that the United States believes Venezuela’s government has a direct link with the FARC, which is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. However, Myers does, for the first time, acknowledge publicly that such links might exist and those considerations need to be taken into account in future dealings with Venezuela. General Myers went on to compare the situation in South America with that of Iraq, alluding to Venezuela playing the role of Syria, allowing enemy fighters to travel freely across the border to commit acts of violence. [2]

Allegations of this sort are nothing new. As early as September of 2001 a Colombian senator said that there was Venezuelan influence in the FARC and went so far as to say Chávez himself was seen in the presence of a guerrilla official during a visit to Bogotá. [3] These rumors were never proven, but the man seen with Mr. Chávez was later arrested for plotting the assassination of then-presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe. [4] Since then, allegations have ranged from the existence of FARC camps in Venezuelan territory to Colombian Interior-Justice Minister Fernando Londoño claiming, in February 2003, that Chávez personally and “frequently” meets with the guerrillas. [5] For this last accusation Venezuela threatened to cut off relations with Colombia, and President Uribe publicly reprimanded Londoño. Some Colombians have also suggested a link between the Venezuelan “Bolivarian Liberation Front” and the FARC based on similar ideology. In general, Chávez is often portrayed as sympathetic to the guerrilla cause simply because of his leftist political views.

Some of the more interesting allegations – all unproven – include the Colombian Army’s report to El Tiempo that FARC and ELN “guerrilla schools” in Venezuela had trained upwards of four hundred men. [6] The presence of FARC leaders taking refuge in Venezuela is another frequent allegation. Notably, Senator Jimmy Chamorro accused Venezuela of harboring Andrés Paris, a high-ranking FARC leader, and allowing him to live in Caracas. [7] Chamorro said that Venezuela was “creating a sanctuary for terrorists and Colombian delinquents.” [8] In April 2003 the Brazilian Intelligence Service released a report alleging that the FARC controls commercial operations in Venezuela, as well as in Brazil and Guyana, to mine gold, diamonds and bauxite. [9] An alleged 2002 Venezuelan government report, referred to by a reporter’s question in a State Department press briefing but never produced, apparently details a planned agreement between the Venezuelan government and the FARC to exchange oil, gas, medicine, and refugee asylum for the assurance that the guerrillas not kidnap Venezuelans. [10] None of these accusations was ever proven.

Most of these accusations have originated with the Colombian government, especially the armed forces. Colombian military units fighting in the border region of Arauca say they frequently engage in combat with rebels who flee into Venezuelan territory. They have reported the existence of rebel base camps inside Venezuela. Gen. Martin Carreno of the Colombian Army’s Second Division said in April 2003 that he witnessed guerrilla fighters cross the border into Venezuela after a major battle in March. [11] Chávez’s government responded by sending an investigative team of ministers and army officials, who declared the zone absolutely free of guerrilla presence.

Many elsewhere in the Colombian government have alleged Venezuelan involvement in the conflict, from senators to ministers to President Uribe himself. As recently as August 20^th the president asked Hugo Chávez to pass a message on to FARC commanders about his willingness to engage in talks. This was, in political terms, a slap to Chávez and all but a public proclamation of President Uribe’s belief that there is contact between the rebels and the Venezuelans.

Representatives of the FARC have also responded to questions about the group’s presence in Venezuela. A woman who claimed she was an ex-guerrilla stated in April 2003 that there were FARC bases in Venezuela and that the rebels were receiving arms and economic support from Chávez. She said she had documents written by Venezuelan officials and said that her superiors had spoken directly to President Chávez. [12] A guerrilla leader identifying himself as “Dario” told El Tiempo that FARC camps existed in Venezuela and even went so far as to indicate their general locations, over one kilometer inside the border. [13] El Tiempo reporters visited one location and confirmed there was a residence for fifty people only thirty-five minutes’ walking distance from the border. [14] Chávez responded by denying the existence of any camps, saying that Colombia was blaming him for their own “tactical failures”.

In fact, few Venezuelan government officials seriously deny that there is a FARC presence within their country. The guerrillas are also acknowledged to pass freely across Colombia’s remote, unguarded borders with Panama, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. Only Venezuela, however, faces charges of official government support for the guerrillas – charges that the Chávez government categorically rejects.

However, reports continue to emerge about contact between the guerrillas and official Venezuelans. A captured guerrilla known as “Victor” made one startling declaration in March 2003, claiming that his superior had worked out a deal with a local Venezuelan National Guard officer allowing FARC soldiers to travel freely in Venezuela. [15] It is unclear whether this occurrence, cited in the Wall Street Journal, was evidence of rebel links to Caracas or simple corruption of an individual soldier. Corruption was determined to be behind Colombian officials’ early 2003 capture of 514 guerrilla rifles with official Venezuelan markings. The guerrillas were trading drugs for weapons and ammunition with members of Venezuela’s National Guard. [16]

Certain accusations have even come from Venezuelans themselves, particularly those who oppose Chávez. Jesus Urdaneta, Chávez’s former head of State Security, said in 2000 that President Chávez suggested giving arms to the Colombian guerrillas. The head of that department’s counterinsurgency force resigned after Chávez reportedly said that the Venezuelan government protects Colombian guerrillas. [17] The Venezuelans denied these allegations, saying that Colombia is failing to contain its problem and that around sixty Venezuelan soldiers had been killed in confrontations with guerrillas in the past fifteen years. [18]

The Venezuelan response to all allegations of collaboration with guerrilla forces has been absolute denial. The individual who responds most often to these accusations, Venezuelan vice-President Jose Vincente Rangel, has said in many interviews that if there are any FARC soldiers inside Venezuela it is a failure of Colombia’s military, not Venezuela’s. In an interview with Colombian news magazine El Espectador, Rangel said only that there is no government involvement in the rebel cause. Any guerrillas inside Venezuelan territory are just “passing through” and are not permanently installed there to attack Colombia. These accusations “are part of a plan to sour relations between the two countries,” said Rangel. “[The FARC] are not our problem, they are a Colombian problem.” [19] He added that similarities between the Bolivarian ideology of the Chávez government and that of the FARC are “pure coincidence.”

Rangel cites the near impossibility of guarding the border between Colombia and Venezuela, which is 2,200 kilometers long, much of it inhospitable jungle. “It is very difficult to say that there are not, at any given moment, guerrillas passing into Venezuelan territory,” says Rangel. Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia Rodolfo Santiago made the same point when asked about border controls between the two countries. [20] Just as during the Vietnam war, when guerrillas used Cambodian and Laotian territory as a refuge, the FARC have over twelve hundred miles of jungle border that they can cross with relative safety.

Chávez himself blames political opposition groups and business interests in Colombia for propagating rumors designed to hurt him politically and perhaps aid in deposing him. A referendum to remove Chávez from office is currently being debated in Venezuela. Chávez and Rangel believe that an article that appeared in El Espectador, later proven to be false, about connections between Rangel and FARC commander Raul Reyes was a Colombian plot to sow instability within the Venezuelan government. [21]

Despite the Venezuelan denials and lack of concrete proof linking Chávez to the FARC, there is reason to believe that some connection might exist. In The Washington Post on April 10^th 2003, Scott Wilson detailed a series of battles in the Catatumbo border region. The article reports that FARC soldiers, pursued by AUC paramilitaries, fled across border into Venezuela. The AUC were then engaged by Venezuelan army troops and Venezuelan fighters allegedly bombed towns inside Colombian territory. Vice President Rangel called the bombing allegations a “grotesque lie.” [22] The paramilitaries claimed that the Venezuelan military was defending the guerrillas. Witness testimony in the Post article seemed to indicate that the Venezuelans were militarily supporting a FARC assault on AUC forces as they attempted to cross the river. “Everybody knows that the guerrillas are on the other side of the river, that they maintain their camp there,” [23] said one frightened villager.

All of the evidence is unclear, and much more is conjecture and barely credible. However, serious allegations continue to emerge and the evidence seems to support at least some of them. No hard evidence has come forward, however, linking any high Venezuelan government official to the guerrillas.

The present situation at the border is difficult at best. Venezuela, as of June 26^th 2003, reportedly had 24,000 troops stationed along the border - about 11 troops per kilometer of border. [24] The Venezuelan contingent is not sufficient to prevent the crossing of rebels into their territory, with or without the support of anyone inside Venezuela. One army commander in the region, when asked about rebel presence in the area, responded that he had “never seen any,” [25] despite commanding a base less than one kilometer from the border.

President Chávez officially remains politically neutral towards the FARC, refusing to call them terrorists, while condemning individual acts of violence committed by the rebels. The issue has been a point of contention between Colombia and Venezuela for many years and has now come to light even in US dealings with the two countries. Washington has made very clear that it wholeheartedly supports the efforts of Colombian President Uribe. Relations with the Chávez administration are much more distant. The Venezuelans resent American “meddling” in their affairs, from Washington’s quick endorsement of those who briefly took power during a failed April 2002 coup attempt to U.S. officials’ stated support for a possible upcoming referendum to recall Chávez. It is not clear whether the U.S. government intends to move forward on allegations of Venezuela’s relationship to the rebels. However, Gen. Myers’ recent remarks indicate that, as America digs in for the long haul in Colombia’s war, this issue – whether real or imagined – will not be going away.

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