The Economist: Security in Venezuela. A lack of clarity on terror. More doubts about President Chávez

IS HUGO CHAVEZ, Venezuela's erratic strongman, friendly with terrorists?

It is a charge sometimes hurled at him by his more diehard conservative opponents, so far with little or no evidence. Now the question is more widely asked.

At a conference in Miami last week, General James Hill, who as commander of Southern Command is the United States' top soldier for Latin America, talked of his worries about Margarita, a Venezuelan tourist island in the Caribbean. He said it was a haven for activists from two Middle-Eastern extremist groups, Hamas and Hizbullah. Last month, Hasil Rahaham, a Venezuelan Muslim whom police suspect of links to al-Qaeda, was arrested at London's Gatwick airport after a grenade was found in his baggage. He had boarded the flight in Caracas. Days later, powerful bombs damaged the Colombian and Spanish embassies in Caracas. Opponents blame radical supporters of Mr Chávez.

The president, who has survived a recent two-month general strike by the opposition, claims to be leading a “Bolivarian revolution”. His political history of radical nationalism gave him colourful friendships: it is hard to judge whether these involved naivety or something more sinister. As a young army officer, he was close to Venezuelan guerrillas with links to Saddam Hussein and North Korea. After being democratically elected as Venezuela's president in 1999, he exchanged cordial letters with Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (“Carlos the Jackal”), a notorious Venezuelan terrorist serving a life sentence in a French jail.

In 2000, Mr Chávez became the first foreign leader to visit Baghdad since the Gulf war. He criticised the American attack on Afghanistan, saying “you can't fight terror with terror”. His more radical supporters demand that Mr Chávez oppose any attack on Iraq, and have looked askance at his current overtures to the United States, which include a promise to keep supplying it with oil.

None of this amounts to credible evidence of presidential complicity in terrorism. But Venezuelan intelligence agents say that operations to keep track of terrorist suspects have been given a low priority by Mr Chávez's government. They suspect that the Arab community in Margarita raises funds for terrorism—but in the Middle East, not Venezuela.

Claims of Middle-Eastern terrorism are not new in Latin America. American officials have long been watching the Levantine traders of the “tri-border” area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. On March 7th, an Argentine judge asked Interpol to arrest four former Iranian officials in connection with a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre, which killed 85 people. Iran denies any involvement.

Probably more damaging to Mr Chávez are claims (which he denies) that he is friendly to guerrilla groups in next-door Colombia. Mr Chávez has declared Venezuela “neutral” in the conflict between Colombia's democratic government and its drug-funded rebels. That goes down badly with Colombians.

Colombia is especially annoyed at Venezuela's refusal to agree to joint anti-guerrilla operations along the porous border. Álvaro Uribe, Colombia's president, said recently that his government is “ready to fetch the terrorists that mistreat the Colombian people, from Venezuela or from whatever place they may be hiding”. This week, Venezuela's army chief replied that his troops would indeed drive out any rebels who cross the border.

Mr Uribe also wants Venezuela to define the leftist guerrillas of the FARC and ELN as terrorists. Venezuela's foreign minister says this would be “interference” in Colombian affairs. But Colombians note that Mr Chávez often describes as “terrorists” his own political opponents.

Officials from both countries say that the guerrillas use Venezuela for supplies and as a transport corridor, as well as extorting funds from its ranchers. Mr Chávez has downgraded border security. The army's most senior general (jobless because of his political dissidence) claims that there are three Colombian guerrilla camps inside Venezuela.

While it has been preoccupied with Iraq, the United States has been relaxed about Mr Chávez (although it all but applauded a military coup against him last April). But the Americans give much military aid to Colombia. And terrorism is an issue on which they are unlikely to welcome ambivalence from Mr Chávez.