VENEZUELA: Kidnappings and Clashes Heat up Border with Colombia

By Estrella Gutiérrez Reprint | | Print |

Estrella Gutierrez

CARACAS, Feb 19 1997 (IPS) - A wave of kidnappings and clashes between Colombian rebels and the Venezuelan military have bolstered the image of the border area as a sort of “Far West” disputed by bandits, drug gangs and guerrillas.

A U.S. engineer was one of 11 individuals kidnapped in a 12- day period in the border states of Barinas and Apure. The U.S. government has demanded his release, and the administration of Colombian president Ernesto Samper launched a rescue operation Wednesday.

It is still not clear whether Jerel Schaffer, a business executive stationed in Venezuela who was kidnapped on Feb. 14 while fishing at an exclusive back-woods tourist camp on the banks of the Orinoco river, 50 kms from the border, is in the hands of drug traffickers or Colombian guerrillas.

If he is being held by drug traffickers, he could be freed soon, because the real objective of his captors would have been the small plane in which he flew to the state of Apure to fish a rare species of fish. The same thing occurred with another group of tourists in January.

But if the kidnapping was carried out by Colombia’s insurgent National Liberation Army, Schaffer, an executive with a company producing compressors for the oil industry, faces a long capture that will only end when a ransom is forked out.

So far this year 18 people have been kidnapped and four airplanes hijacked, and two skirmishes have broken out between the Venezuelan armed forces and Colombian rebels, sparking tension between the two countries.

In the first incident, a child was shot and killed when Venezuelan troops repelled a guerrilla attack between two villages separated only by the natural border provided by the Arauca river. The Colombian foreign ministry denied that the attack and the child’s death were related.

Colombian authorities later accused a Venezuelan patrol of penetrating two settlements in Colombia, which led to the death of a schoolteacher. Venezuela denied its troops crossed the border, protesting that it had merely responded to yet another cross- border attack by insurgents.

The mud-slinging and exchange of formal protests has once again stirred up relations between the two countries, which have been characterised by continuously expanding trade and chronic tension due to an unresolved dispute over the delimitation of the Gulf of Venezuela.

The kidnappings, meanwhile, have already come close to the total number of cases – 25 – reported in 1996. Last week, two engineers working for the State oil company Corpoven were kidnapped in Apure, and a married couple of ranchers who disappeared two days ago in Barinas were presumably taken to Colombia. The wife and young son of a wealthy industrialist were rescued on Tuesday in Barinas, a few hours after they were kidnapped by four men.

The Venezuelan government and authorities of border states protest that they are on their own in the fight against the criminal and insurgent activity that seeps over the Colombian border.

The highest authority of the state of Apure, General Regulo Andrade, criticised the national government on Wednesday for the lack of “an active Venezuelan presence” along the 2,200 km border. He added that Caracas’ efforts to deny that the Colombian guerrillas were active in this country were “like trying to block out the sun with one finger.”

Andrade said the kidnappings have surged thanks to a lack of intelligence work as well as the start of the dry season, which facilitates movement through the plains, that are flooded throughout the rainy season which begins in May.

David Perez, president of the Ranchers Association of Apure, said the industry of kidnappings on the border is driven by “a combination of Colombian narco-guerrillas and common criminals from Venezuela.”

While kidnappings, cattle rustling and extortion – the payment of a fixed “vaccine” charged by Colombian insurgents – hit the rural areas and affluent ranchers hardest in Apure, Barinas and Tachira, the cities and the middle-class business community have also started to feel the effects.

As a result, a growing number of families have been leaving the border area, which is being increasingly militarised by the government – an effort Andrade criticises as ineffective due to a lack of equipment and inadequate strategy.

Defence Minister Pedro Valencia, who once again chided Colombia for a lack of military presence along the border, added that “only the drug traffickers and guerrillas” benefited from the verbal battles between Colombia and Venezuela that break out after each incident.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Burelli said Wednesday from Tokyo, one stop in his tour through Asia, that as long as “Colombia fails to control the banditry, drug trafficking and guerrillas,” bilateral relations will continue to be shaky.

President Rafael Caldera has been hard-pressed to keep his ministers from going overboard in their allusions to Colombia. Environment Minister Roberto Perez Lecuna, who has already presented his resignation, said last week that “the best relations with Colombia are no relations.”