The presidents of Venezuela and Colombia exploit the feelgood factor in the region to mend a relationship that had turned sour.
The founder and chief commander of Colombia’s Farc rebel force, Manuel Marulanda, has died after more than 40 years fighting the state from jungle and mountain camps. If confirmed, the death of Manuel Marulanda, who organised the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas in the 1960s, would be the heaviest blow yet to Latin America’s oldest insurgency.
The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela ended a border dispute on Friday with a summit handshake after a week of regional diplomacy in the face of hostile rhetoric and troop build-ups.”And with this … this incident that has caused so much damage [is] resolved,” leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused his Colombian counterpart of war crimes as Venezuela and Ecuador turned up the heat on Bogotá over its military strike on an insurgent camp inside Ecuador. ”A war crime occurred there,” Chávez charged late on Wednesday at a joint press conference with Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa.
Colombia’s military said on Saturday its troops had killed a top rebel commander in an attack on a jungle camp across the border in Ecuador in a severe blow to Latin America’s oldest guerrilla insurgency. Raul Reyes, one of seven members of the secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, was killed in an operation that included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the border.
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/ 27 February 2008
Two Venezuelan helicopters flew into Colombia on Wednesday to pick up four lawmakers held hostage for years in jungle camps by Marxist rebels, in a diplomatic victory for Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia last month released two politicians in a deal brokered by Chávez.
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/ 14 January 2008
A Colombian woman freed last week after six years as a rebel hostage arrived in Bogota on Sunday and headed straight for a reunion with her son, Emmanuel, born in a jungle camp and then taken away by her captors. A slightly dazed Clara Rojas arrived from Caracas, where she had been since leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez brokered her release.
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/ 10 January 2008
An airborne operation to pluck two hostages from their rebel captors deep in the Colombian jungle lurched back to life on Thursday, after a botched handover attempt collapsed 10 days ago. Two Venezuelan helicopters departed for Colombia at dawn, said a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
A delicate mission to free three hostages held by Colombian guerrillas appeared to collapse on Monday as the government and rebel leaders accused each other of trying to kill the deal. The Venezuela-led plan to pick up two women hostages and a child born to one of them in captivity has been repeatedly delayed since last Thursday.
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/ 22 December 2007
Venezuelan authorities are standing by to receive three hostages Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels have said could be released as early as this weekend after spending years of captivity in the jungle. ”The mobilisation for the operation has begun,” one source close to the government said.
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/ 2 December 2007
Venezuelans vote in a tightly contested referendum on Sunday on whether to allow left-wing President Hugo Chávez to stay in power for as long as he keeps winning elections or hand him his first defeat at the polls. The anti-American firebrand, who has easily won one election after another against a fragmented opposition, is in the hardest campaign of his life.
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/ 30 November 2007
Colombian officials on Friday showed recently seized videotapes of rebel-held hostages, among them three United States defence contractors and a former presidential candidate — the first images in years providing evidence the captives may be alive.
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/ 26 November 2007
Colombia and Venezuela faced the worst crisis in their relations in years on Monday after the Colombian president accused Venezuela of seeking to install a Marxist regime in his country and Caracas ”froze” relations between the two countries. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said earlier he was putting bilateral ties in a ”freezer”.