Venezuela police kill two in Colombia border sweep

www.alertnet.org 18 Mar 2003 15:17

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 18 (Reuters) - Venezuelan police shot dead two suspected Colombian right-wing paramilitaries and captured three leftist rebels from the neighboring country in a sweep of part of the border area, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

The operation followed charges by Colombia's government that Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, was not doing enough to guarantee security along their 1,400-mile (2,200-km) common frontier, where Colombian rebel and paramilitary groups are active.

A police spokesman in Venezuela's western border state of Tachira told Reuters the two men killed on Monday were believed to be members of the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

They were part of a group of eight men traveling in a jeep who opened fire on a police patrol on a border road outside Urena near the Venezuelan frontier town of San Antonio.

In the ensuing gunfight, two of the group were killed and the rest fled over the border into Colombia.

The incident followed the capture in San Antonio on Sunday of three members of the Colombian leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army. Known by its Spanish initials ELN, the group is one of several outlawed armies fighting in Colombia's drug-fueled guerrilla conflict.

The police spokesman said the capture was the result of a joint crackdown on both sides of the frontier at San Antonio by Venezuelan and Colombian police. "We're exchanging intelligence and information," he said.

Chavez has angrily denied repeated accusations by Colombia's government and military that Colombian leftist rebels are operating from bases inside Venezuelan territory. He and his army commanders have said they will repel any guerrillas found on Venezuela's side of the border.

Police said the three rebels captured were members of a faction of the Cuban-inspired ELN suspected of carrying out a bomb attack in the Colombian border town of Cucuta earlier this month that killed more than 10 people and wounded dozens.

The leader of the ELN faction, who goes under the alias "Commander Tyson," escaped the dragnet on Sunday and was still on the run on the Venezuelan side of the border.

Some 300 Tachira state police officers were taking part in the sweep of the San Antonio area launched last Thursday, the spokesman said.