Even by the standards of Latin American regional politics it is a twisted tale, involving clandestine cross-border raids, drug-peddling guerrillas and eye-catching claims of plans for a radioactive ”dirty bomb”.
It is also fast turning into a military stand-off with apparent potential for calamity: after attacking a base belonging to the Farc rebel group inside Ecuador on Saturday, Colombia now finds itself facing mobilised foes on two borders, Ecuador to the south and Venezuela to the north.
On Tuesday, Venezuelan tanks and trucks began rolling towards the Colombian border, sections of which were closed.
The rhetoric has been equally martial, with Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chávez, calling his Colombia counterpart, ÃÂlvaro Uribe, a puppet of the United States.
Colombia, in response, has claimed documents found in Saturday’s raid show close links between Farc, which has funded its four-decade insurgency through the cocaine trade and kidnapping, and Ecuador and Venezuela.
More ominously still, Colombia says it has uncovered evidence that Farc has been seeking uranium to build a dirty bomb.
Despite the sabre-rattling and dramatic words, analysts believe none of the countries involved wants the conflict to escalate much further. ”I would say the prospect of substantial military clashes is very slim. None of the leaders wants this,” said Mark Joyce, an Americas security analyst for the Jane’s defence information group.
Venezuela was particularly dependent on trade across the Colombian border to keep its economy moving, he noted.
But skirmishes could still break out between nervous troop battalions stationed in remote border regions, Joyce said, with a slight chance that these, in turn, could escalate.
The repercussions of Saturday’s Colombian raid highlighted existing strains between Uribe’s US-backed right-wing regime and those of his left-leaning neighbours, most particularly Venezuela’s, Joyce explained.
”Clearly, there is a very specific incident that sparked this, but there are underlying tensions between the countries. This was, initially, between Colombia and Ecuador, but Chávez has managed to manoeuvre himself into the middle of the story. It’s a chance for him to pick a fight with a country that is a close US ally.”
According to Joyce, domestic imperatives explained Chávez’s actions, with the president hoping to tap into long-standing anti-Colombian feelings in the country to distract attention from his political woes, including food shortages.
Venezuela’s main opposition leader, Manuel Rosales, has already made such a claim, accusing Chávez of trying to ”stir up nationalist sentiment to hide the truth of this country, which is falling to pieces”.
Both the Venezuelan and Colombian presidents are, to a great extent, playing to domestic or regional audiences. There is ”a lot of posturing” going on, said Jean-Paul Faguet, a regional expert at the London School of Economics.
He said war between the two appears unlikely: ”We can’t completely predict the future, but it doesn’t seem likely there will be major conflict. Neither country has any serious designs on the territory of the other.”
Another factor to be considered is the response of other regional powers, some of which have already condemned Colombia, among them Brazil and Nicaragua. The Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, is on a six-nation tour of the region to press home his country’s anger. However, analysts believe there is very little appetite for confrontation among other nations in the region, who will most likely argue forcefully behind the scenes for calm and restraint.
There are further sub-plots to the drama. One involves attempts to free 12 hostages held for years by Farc, among them the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three US defence contractors.
Correa has blamed the raid on Saturday for quashing attempts to secure the hostages’ release. ”I’m sorry to tell you the conversations were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, in Ecuador,” Correa said in a televised address. ”All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands of the Colombian government.”
Analysts, however, question how much influence Ecuador holds over the negotiation process, which has been led by Venezuela.
Moreover, the Colombian president has a very personal reason for pursuing his campaign against Farc: the group shot dead his father at the family ranch in 1983. While Uribe has insisted no personal bitterness shapes his policy towards Farc, the group has also attempted to assassinate him, nearly blowing him up with a bomb shortly after he was first elected president in 2002. — Â