COLOMBIA-VENEZUELA: Guerrillas Put Relations in Check Once Again

By Estrella Gutiérrez Reprint | | Print |

Estrella Gutierrez

CARACAS, Aug 22 1997 (IPS) - The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela will be forced to meet again during this weekend’s Rio Group summit in Paraguay to discuss Colombian guerrilla activity in Venezuela, only two weeks after a meeting that eased earlier friction.

Tension between the two countries had been running high over incursions by Colombian guerrillas into Venezuela. Indeed, that was the stated objective of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) – to create diplomatic trouble for Bogota added to the challenge of internal armed conflict.

On Aug. 9, presidents Rafael Caldera of Venezuela and Ernesto Samper of Colombia began to defuse the tension when they met for the first time since 1995, in the southwestern Venezuelan town of Guasdualito, the seat of one of the military theatres of operation, militarised areas along the border between the two countries.

But things heated up again after Lieutenant Carlos Bastardo was kidnapped Aug. 16 by a Colombian guerrilla commando in Puerto Chorrosquero, 120 kms from Guasdualito and 40 kms from the border.

Nevertheless, the accords reached in Guasdualito for managing crises such as the latest kidnapping, Caldera’s decision to meet with Samper, taking advantage of this weekend’s summit of the Rio Group (a regional political forum), and the ministerial-level coordination on the latest incident — in spite of pressure from political sectors — indicate a positive change of stance with respect to other episodes.

The kidnapping has created a difficult situation for the two governments, however, because if the Venezuelan officer was or is taken to Colombia, despite the immediate cordon of 5,000 troops thrown up around the area, the Samper administration will have to get involved in any possible negotiations for his release.

Venezuelan Defence Minister Tito Rincon declined to speculate on whether the kidnapping, attributed to FARC, was the consequence of Caldera’s refusal to undertake direct negotiations with the rebel group, although the president told Samper he was open to any mediation requested by Bogota.

FARC has tried hard this year to pull Caracas into direct participation in negotiations to put an end to guerrilla attacks in Venezuelan territory, or to mediate in the release of soldiers kidnapped in Colombia.

Besides the recently achieved bilateral detente, the other victim of the kidnapping has been, once more, the civilian population.

Eglee Sanchez, the president of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Chorrosquero, said the town “seems like a concentration camp,” because 3,000 troops have been deployed in the area and 80 percent of the local population has been taken into custody in the wake of Bastardo’s kidnapping.

It was reported Thursday that more than 200 inhabitants of Chorrosquero, including women and children, had been detained. An army officer described all local inhabitants as “guerrillas.”

The entire area has been militarised since the theatres of operations were set up after border post agents were killed in guerrilla attacks in 1996.

That means people can be held in custody for up to 30 days, and the military’s mistrust, not to say animosity, towards the local residents increases with each incident. It also becomes clear in dialogue with troops posted in the theatres of operations, who are isolated in conflict-ridden areas, pawns in complex situations fighting an invisible enemy from across the border.

Beatriz Ceballos, a member of a local humanitarian group as well as the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, who was giving a course in the area at the time of the kidnapping, said that on Aug. 16, security forces began “a large-scale harassment” of the population.

During the Aug. 9 presidential meeting, residents of Guasdualito — a town of 15,000 – and people from nearby farms told IPS that they did not disagree with the posting of army troops in the area.

But in the words of one local inhabitant, Eduardo Guevara, “they have to be taught how to treat people, because they mistreat us and view us as subversives, while we are just peasants always abandoned to our fate, and feeling the blows from all sides.”

A boy named Juan, who works as a bootblack in the town square, said neither he nor his family had ever met a guerrilla, and that everyone in the area got along well with the Colombians, with whom they live side by side in what is popularly known as the “third country” – the long, troubled border area.

“We don’t have problems with them. We have always coexisted, and they are poor just like we are,” said Juan.