Colombia, Venezuela to discuss border

Posted on Wed, Apr. 23, 2003 BY PHIL GUNSON Special to The Miami Herald

MACHIQUES, Venezuela -The blue-green mountains of the Perijá range that rise just a short distance west of this small Venezuelan town mark the official border with neighboring Colombia.

But if border residents, and the Colombian government itself, are to be believed, the border these days is little more than a line on a map, left increasingly unprotected by the Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez, whom they accuse of allowing Colombian leftist guerrillas to cross back and forth virtually at will.

Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel recently responded by accusing the government of President Alvaro Uribe of tolerating the actions of right-wing paramilitaries who, along certain stretches of border, he said, were the ``de facto state.''

Since Colombia virtually had abandoned the 1,367-mile common border, Rangel said, Venezuela could not be expected to step in to do the job.

The Colombians want to see the revival of coordination between the two countries' armed forces along the border.

Uribe and Chávez will be trying to take some of the heat out of these increasingly bitter exchanges when they meet today in the eastern Venezuelan city of Puerto Ordaz for their second summit since Uribe took office last August.

The summit's main focus, however, is on trade, and there is little expectation in Machiques, or in neighboring communities, that the meeting will achieve a real improvement in border security. The biggest concern is that the paramilitaries are crossing into Venezuela in pursuit of the guerrillas, potentially turning the border region into a war zone.

''The paramilitaries argue that there are guerrillas right here in Machiques,'' says Luis Martínez, vice president of the local cattle-ranchers' association.

Some ranchers say there have already been approaches by paramilitaries.

They are looking for support, even small arms, to drive out the guerrillas, who in this region belong mostly to the National Liberation Army, the smaller of Colombia's two main leftist rebel groups.

There is a general consensus that the paramilitary presence is recent, dating from around February this year. The ranchers say, however, that they have rejected such approaches, even though they fear the guerrillas.

In the past, guerrilla kidnappings and extortion were commonplace here, although both businesses have now allegedly been taken over by common criminals, who occasionally try to sell a kidnap victim to the guerrillas.

If guerrillas and paramilitaries start fighting inside Venezuela, ''there'll be a lot of collateral damage,'' says another ranchers' association director, Juan Romero. ``I'd be delighted to see an end to the guerrillas, but they should finish them off over there, not over here.''

Ranchers, church sources and leaders of the indigenous communities that inhabit the Perijá range all complain that the Venezuelan army and national guard no longer patrol the border.

In the past, the Venezuelan armed forces would mount antidrug operations in the Sierra de Perijá, to eradicate marijuana and opium poppy plantations, but these too have ceased, local residents say. The illegal crops are said to be controlled by the guerrillas.

Accusations of inactivity are hotly denied by the army, but the local army commander, Lt. Col. Gustavo Izquierdo, referred inquiries to divisional headquarters in Maracaibo.

'All I can say is that we're doing our job, and that my soldiers' blood boils when they're risking their necks and they have to listen to idiots making up this kind of story.''