Posted on Wed, Apr. 23, 2003 FABIOLA SANCHEZ Kansas.com-Associated Press

PUERTO ORDAZ, Venezuela -Colombia and Venezuela agreed Wednesday to increase security along their remote border to stop crossings by Colombian guerrillas and paramilitaries.

Colombia has been fighting a 38-year-war against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the smaller National Liberation Army as well as illegal paramilitary militias.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Colombia's conflict increasingly threatened the stability of the entire Andean region. The two countries share a 1,500-mile border.

"We are going to do everything necessary so that neither rebels nor paramilitaries can cross the border," Uribe said after the leaders' one-day meeting in the southeastern mining town of Puerto Ordaz.

"We value the firm determination that President Chavez has expressed to coordinate (border) efforts," Uribe said.

Both leaders played down allegations that Venezuela harbors leftist Colombian guerrillas and that Venezuelan aircraft bombed rightist paramilitaries inside Colombia.

The two leaders agreed to meet again on July 22 in Medellin, Colombia.

Venezuela had been angered by Colombian accusations that Caracas shelters leftist insurgents.

"We don't understand how Venezuela has allowed itself to become a refuge for Colombian criminals," Colombian Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio said in remarks published Sunday.

Venezuela, in turn, accused Colombia's military of having links with paramilitaries responsible for human rights crimes.

Chavez's government worries that increased fighting associated with the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, which targets drug trafficking, is spilling into Venezuela.

Asked about Colombian claims that FARC guerrilla leader Angel Paris is hiding in Caracas, Chavez said his opponents "say everyone has passed through Caracas," including Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

By ERIC PFANNER <a href=www.nytimes.com>NYTimes.com-International Herald Tribune

VIENNA, April 23 — Amid fears of a postwar oil glut, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries prepared today to cut output significantly in an effort to bolster prices ahead of the eventual resumption of Iraqi exports.

The swift execution of the war in Iraq has OPEC worried about a collapse in prices, even though Iraq's oil industry remains in disarray. While Abdullah al-Attiyah, the OPEC president, said he hoped that Iraq would eventually return to "play a very important role" in the organization, he added that the country would not be discussed, or represented, at OPEC's meeting on Thursday. Advertisement

Instead, analysts said, the 10 other members of OPEC will probably agree to cut production by as much as 2 million barrels a day, though they are unlikely to cut their official production ceiling of 24.5 million barrels. That limit, representing about a third of the world's oil consumption, was breached over the last few months as OPEC members, led by Saudi Arabia, moved to prevent a spike in prices during the war.

"We will discuss all options," said Mr. Attiyah, who is also Qatar's oil minister, as he arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel in Vienna. "Personally, I believe there is a two million surplus in the markets."

Reflecting a declared desire to manage the markets and keep prices stable, OPEC agreed in January to raise its production quota by 7 percent as war loomed and political strife in Venezuela, normally the group's third-largest producer, curtailed its output. But OPEC members actually pumped about 1.7 million barrels a day more than the official limit in March, according to PetroLogistics, a consulting firm in Geneva, and prices have eased after climbing in light of the war.

"OPEC knows it has been through an exceptional period," said Raad Alkadiri, a director at PFC Energy, a Washington consulting firm. "Now that the war is over, they realize they have to get back to the quotas."

On Wednesday, after a report showing a sharp rise in United States stockpiles, crude oil prices fell sharply in trading in New York, down $1.34, to $26.65 a barrel. OPEC's stated goal is to keep the price of a basket of crudes at $22 to $28 a barrel, and it is now in those bounds.

But the uncertain course of the global economy has made it particularly difficult to predict consumption totals. Adding to the uncertainty, Iraq is expected to step up production as wartime damage to production sites is repaired and Western oil companies help tap what experts say are the world's second-largest oil reserves, exceeded only by Saudi Arabia's.

Though some oil started flowing again today from Iraq's southern oil fields, that is for domestic consumption, and any significant resumption of exports is weeks or months away, analysts say.

A variety of political issues must be addressed. United Nations sanctions, which have restricted Iraqi exports since the first Persian Gulf war, in 1991, remain in place for now. And it is still unclear how Iraq's oil industry will be organized, or even who owns the oil fields, with no effective transitional government yet in place.

While Iraq has remained one of OPEC's 11 members since its invasion of Kuwait 13 years ago, it has been outside the group's quota system, as its exports were monitored under the United Nations oil-for-food program.

"We don't have a government today in Iraq, so we don't have any representative," Mr. Attiyah said.

OPEC's program for the meeting, prepared during the war, still lists Amir Muhammad Rashid, oil minister in Saddam Hussein's administration, as Iraq's official representative to the cartel. But he is also included in the deck of playing cards depicting 55 members of the regime sought by the United States, and his whereabouts is unknown.

Over the weekend, a former Iraqi general, Jawdat al-Obeidi, said he would represent Iraq at the meeting, but analysts said no gate-crashers were likely to arrive in Vienna.

"Whoever would have been here, it wouldn't have changed a thing," said Vera de Ladoucette, a senior director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Indeed, OPEC ministers arriving in Vienna sought to portray the discussion of Iraq as a sideshow. For now, they emphasized, the group's focus was on oil prices, not politics.

"This meeting is to make sure we keep the market where it is, to make sure prices stay in the band, preferably right in the middle," the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, told reporters. "OPEC should be given a big credit for putting as much crude as we have done into the market."

By pumping at full tilt during the war, Saudi Arabia sought to portray itself as the responsible citizen of the oil community, analysts say, regardless of the eventual effect of the conflict on the market.

For that reason, these analysts said, Saudi Arabia would probably try to abide by any new production limits for now, even though OPEC members have frequently cheated on quotas, and doing so, in the case of Saudi Arabia, has provided a recent windfall.

While Mr. Attiyah said he hoped Iraq would remain an OPEC member, some advisers in Washington have suggested that the group's leverage over oil prices could be weakened if a new, pro-American government in Iraq steered a course independent of OPEC. Iraq, together with Russia, where output is rising, could then form an effective counterweight to the organization.

But analysts say it could take years just to get Iraqi production back to where it stood before the 1991 war, when the nation pumped more than three million barrels a day, without even tapping the potential of its huge reserves.

"It's going to take a long time to get Iraq up to speed," Mr. Alkadiri said. "In the short term, it will be sort of a marginal issue for OPEC."

Reuters Foundation-Alertnet.com (Updates with joint news conference by presidents) By Magdalena Morales

PUERTO ORDAZ, Venezuela, April 23 (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said on Wednesday Venezuela had promised to help stop Colombian guerrillas and paramilitaries from carrying out cross-border raids from Venezuelan territory.

Uribe and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez held talks in eastern Venezuela to improve security along the 1,400-mile (2,200-km) border, where the violent spillover from Colombia's war has strained ties between the two Andean neighbors.

Before the meeting in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz, both governments had repeatedly accused the other of not doing enough to counter the cross-border activities of Colombia's Marxist rebels and their rightist paramilitary foes.

"We are going to make every possible effort so that neither guerrillas nor paramilitaries will be able to penetrate that frontier," Uribe told a news conference after several hours of talks with the Venezuelan leader.

Uribe, a stern lawyer who has vowed to defeat the guerrilla enemies of his government, and Chavez, an extrovert leftist former paratrooper, had appeared to be uneasy neighbors.

But, looking relaxed and at ease with each other, they took pains on Wednesday to stress they wanted to improve relations and leave behind past recriminations over frontier security.

They also announced a series of cooperation projects, in areas such as energy, transport, infrastructure and forestry, and an agreement for Venezuelan importers to pay around $300 million owed to Colombian exporters. Payment of this has been blocked by tight currency controls existing in Venezuela.

Chavez said the two governments had decided to deal with the sensitive border issue in private in the future and avoid what he called "microphone diplomacy". He described Wednesday's talks as "frank, warm and friendly"

In the weeks before the meeting, Uribe's government, the United States' closest ally in Latin America, had repeatedly accused Chavez, who is portrayed by his critics as an anti-U.S. maverick, of providing a haven for Colombian Marxist rebels.

TRADE ALSO A PRIORITY

Bogota had been investigating complaints by border residents that Venezuelan military aircraft bombed a Colombian frontier hamlet on March 21, killing and wounding several people. Local residents said the aircraft supported Colombian rebels who were fighting rightist paramilitary groups.

Chavez's government fiercely denied these charges. It had in turn accused Colombia's army of collaborating with the paramilitaries on the rugged frontier, a patchwork of mountain, jungle and savanna, where killings and kidnappings are rife.

Both Uribe and Chavez stressed the importance of preserving their countries' traditionally strong trading links.

The proposed cooperation projects they mentioned included one to provide Venezuelan electricity to Colombia and another for a pipeline that would carry Colombian gas to refineries and power stations in Venezuela.

Other proposals focused on cross-border river transport and joint hydroelectric and forestry projects.

Both governments also signed an agreement to improve the treatment of refugees displaced by the war in Colombia.

The two leaders agreed to meet again in Medellin, Colombia on July 22 to review progress made in improving relations. (Additional reporting by Silene Ramirez, Pascal Fletcher)

Forbes.com-Reuters, 04.23.03, 8:07 PM ET By Pablo Bachelet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and its allies Wednesday failed to pass a resolution condemning rights abuse in Cuba in the Organization of American States but vowed to come back with a revised text soon.

Reflecting deep divisions over President Fidel Castro's Cuba within the Americas, many OAS members voiced skepticism over the resolution, including Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico.

The proposed text, presented before the OAS' Permanent Council by Nicaragua and co-sponsored by the U.S. and Costa Rica, called on Havana to "immediately free all unjustly arrested Cubans."

More than 75 dissidents have been sentenced to long prison terms in a crackdown started in March, and three men were executed for hijacking a ferry in a failed attempt to flee to the United States.

The resolution, which was also backed by Canada and Chile, will be presented again, after a round of further talks. Permanent Council resolutions must obtain consensus to pass.

Carmen Marina Gutierrez, the Nicaraguan ambassador, said countries needed more time to consider the text. "I am requesting that the project be remitted to the General Commission next week so that delegations continue the consulting process, since I consider they need more time."

The General Commission is part of the Permanent Council, and the U.S. and its allies will try and hash out a consensual text there, before returning it to the Permanent Council.

The U.S. ambassador, Roger Noriega, said it was "essential" to move quickly on the resolution.

While most OAS ambassadors condemned the recent abuses in Cuba, objections hinged on the procedural issue of whether Cuba could be condemned by a body from which it was ejected in 1962. Venezuelan ambassador Jorge Valero said he proposed to initiate a debate on Cuba "free of prejudice."

But some went further, questioning Washington's human rights policies and its continuing embargo against Cuba.

Valter Pecly Moreira, the Brazilian ambassador, said flatly that "Brazil cannot support this project" and spoke out against what he called a "selective" policy on human rights, in a reference to the U.S. effort to pass resolutions condemning Cuba in multilateral organizations such as the OAS and the U.N., while other rights abusers are ignored.

But Canada said "procedural issues" should not block a resolution. "Human rights, in our mind, stand alone and they are a higher priority than procedural issues," said Paul Durand, the Canadian ambassador.

By Peter Blackburn, Boston.com-Reuters, 4/23/2003

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - South American defense ministers agreed at an inaugural meeting Wednesday to step up efforts to jointly fight international crime, drugs and arms smuggling.

''This first meeting strengthened our conviction that we have a joint future of peaceful collaboration,'' Brazil's Defense Minister, Jose Viegas, said at a news briefing.

It followed a decision last November by 34 Western Hemisphere defense ministers in Santiago, Chile, to support a U.S. proposal to combat terrorism.

Viegas said that ministers had agreed to improve the exchange of information on international criminals and aim to gradually standardize military equipment.

''It would enable the creation of regional joint ventures to take advantage of economies of scale,'' he said.

Chile, which is wary about using the military to combat drugs trafficking, gave general support.

''Our countries share common interests and democratic principles,'' said Chile's Defense Minister, Michelle Bachelet.

But Bachelet said that ministers needed to define what kind of security was needed.

South American countries differ over sea, land and air security priorities, perceptions of internal and external threat and if the army, paramilitary or police should be used.

Less than 10 years ago, South American countries were still locked in bloody border disputes.

Asked about regional security and arms spending after the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Viegas said it would have little impact as South America was strategically remote from the conflict.

''We are all convinced that orthodox threats of war are very remote. But we must be prepared to face new threats from illicit transnational activities such as drugs and arms,'' Viegas told Reuters afterward.

''We must do this as cohesively as possible. Each country has its own point of view ... but we face common problems,'' he added.

Viegas stressed the need to tighten joint air and land surveillance of the vast Amazon jungle, a largely deserted area greater than western Europe, to clamp down on drug and arms traffickers, illegal loggers and miners.

Brazil's Amazon borders on seven countries, including war-torn Colombia.

Ministers from nine south American countries met during a Latin American Defense Fair in Rio de Janeiro. Senior officials from Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana were also present.