Venezuela warns Colombia rebels not to meddle

www.alertnet.org NEWSDESK   09 Mar 2003 22:46

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 9 (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez, accused of having links with leftist rebels from neighboring Colombia, warned Marxist guerrillas on Sunday not to meddle in Venezuela.

"(The Venezuelan government) has insisted that Colombian guerrillas don't meddle in our territory," Chavez said in a rambling four-hour monologue during his weekly "Alo Presidente" state-sponsored television show.

Chavez sounded more conciliatory than he did last month, when he threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Colombia.

Colombia has accused Chavez of sympathizing with Colombian rebels amid a war of words between the two South American nations, which share a porous 1,400 mile (2,200 km) border of sparsely populated jungle and savanna.

"Our land is sacred ... we're ready to defend ourselves, whether they're guerrillas or not guerrillas," Chavez said in a speech during which he also told ghost stories and sang "Happy Birthday" to a member of the audience.

Relations between the two countries soured last month when Colombia's Interior Minister Fernando Londono accused Chavez of meeting Marxist guerrillas. Chavez hit back by threatening to end diplomatic relations.

A powerful bomb attack at the Colombian consulate later in February notched up tensions.

Venezuela's opposition as well as Colombian soldiers suspect Chavez, a friend of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, of ideological sympathies with Colombian rebels fighting a four-decade-old war that claims thousands of lives a year.

More controversy surfaced last week following media reported that Manuel Marulanda, top commander of Colombia's biggest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, was hiding in Venezuela near Colombia's border.

This year Chavez has faced a national strike and huge street protests against his "revolutionary" government by a largely middle- and upper-class opposition that accuse him of taking Venezuela down the road of Cuban-style communism.

The crisis in the world's No. 5 oil supplier has drawn the international spotlight amid fears Venezuela could slide into civil war.

Chavez has refused to describe that FARC as "terrorists -- as Colombia would like them labeled -- and instead calls them "guerrillas."