Venezuelan troops to Colombian border
Updated: 2008-03-05 10:08
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa angrily denied the allegations, calling Uribe a "bold-faced liar." He said his military had "captured" 47 rebel camps in Ecuador since he took office last year.
"And they ask me if we are accomplices of the FARC?" Correa said during a visit to Peru, part of a regional tour seeking to rally other Latin American leaders against Colombia.
Venezuela was sending about 9,000 soldiers -- 10 battalions -- to the border region as "a preventive measure," retired Gen. Alberto Muller Rojas, a former top Chavez aide, told The Associated Press. Ecuador was sending 3,200 troops to its border.
"We cannot depend for anything at all on a country that's in a war posture against its neighboring countries," Jaua said.
Venezuelan soldiers were turning away Colombian tractor-trailer trucks at the frontier bridge in the city of Cucuta, where 70 percent of cross-border trade occurs.
Extra Venezuelan National Guard troops were stationed at the Cucuta crossing, where people entering Venezuela were being subject to more stringent searches.
Some 300 vehicles, including trucks carrying food, shoes, ceramics and other products, were stuck waiting for permission to enter Venezuela, said Leonardo Mendez, a spokesman for a Colombian cargo transport association.
Fuel distribution fell sharply in the Venezuelan border state of Tachira, said Isidoro Teres, who runs a Venezuelan business chamber the border town of Urena.
In Ecuador, where trade with Colombia totals $1.8 billion annually, commerce and migration continued freely on Tuesday, said Carlos Lopez, Ecuador's undersecretary of immigration.
The biggest losers from the killing of Raul Reyes, who was the official spokesman for the FARC, could be hostages that might have been swapped for jailed guerrillas.
Reyes was a key negotiator with France for the release of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French national whose case has been a priority for French President Nicolas Sarzozy.
The FARC said in a communique that Reyes died "completing a mission to arrange, through President Chavez, a meeting with President Sarkozy" aimed at securing Betancourt's release.
Correa claimed his government also was working toward a hostage swap. "All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands" of the Colombian government," he said.
Publicly, there had been little indication of progress toward a swap of 40 hostages, including three US military contractors, for hundreds of jailed guerrillas.
Several Latin American leftist leaders have suggested the US was intimately involved in executing the raid that killed Reyes. The Colombian military has said US satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have put the FARC on the defensive.
On Tuesday, the US Southern Command would neither confirm or deny American military participation. "We do provide intelligence support to partner nations but I can't get into details on operations," spokesman Jose Ruiz told the AP from Miami.
At a UN disarmament meeting in Geneva, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos claimed the FARC were trying to acquire radioactive material that could be used to make "dirty bombs."
Without providing details, he said the evidence was found two computers found with Reyes. Colombian officials said Monday that investigators found documents suggesting the rebels had bought and sold uranium.
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