Wednesday, 2 April 2003, 11:10 am Press Release: United Nations

Hundreds in Venezuela displaced by armed groups from Colombia, UN says

1 April – Hundreds of people have been displaced by incursions into Venezuela by irregular armed groups from Colombia and reported armed clashes along the border between the two countries, the United Nations refugee agency said today as it appealed to all combatants to respect the rights of the civilian population.

"These events signal a worrying escalation of the Colombian conflict and underscore the growing humanitarian impact on the countries neighbouring Colombia," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Kris Janowski said of the incursions.

Mr. Janowski said an estimated 200 persons, including more than 90 children, fled the remote Rio de Oro area of northwestern Venezuela when Colombian paramilitaries entered the zone two weeks ago. UNHCR has also received unconfirmed reports that some 600 others had fled into the surrounding mountainous area.

"UNHCR appeals to all combatants to respect the rights of the civilian population, and to all governments in the region to continue to abide by their international obligations and ensure the right to asylum," Mr. Janowski said, adding that the agency also, "requests the Venezuelan authorities to provide all the necessary security guarantees for humanitarian staff to undertake an assessment mission to the area as soon as possible."

In the last two weeks there have been reports of armed clashes between Colombian guerrilla and paramilitaries in the border zone, according to UNHCR. These irregular armed groups also reportedly clashed with the Venezuelan army. Last weekend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared that he had ordered a bombing raid against suspected Colombian irregular forces inside Venezuelan territory.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Author Alberto Garrido traces the rough relationship between the two main February 4, 1992 (4F)  coup leaders: Lt. Colonel (ret.) Francisco Arias Cardenas and President Lt. Colonel (ret.) Hugo Chavez Frias.  "It has always been conflictive." 

Arias Cardenas, Garrido recalls, was linked to Ramon Guillermo Santeliz, a militant of the Air Force revolutionary movement ARMA led by William Izarra. Santeliz was the group's liasion with army officers. 

Arias Cardenas and Chavez Frias met up in the army's "Bolivarian Army" Group. Chavez Frias then founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (MBR-200) without Arias Cardenas.  The two came together again in 1986 and agreed to plan a coup according to Arias Cardenas' vision, namely silently as opposed to Chavez Frias' call for a revolutionary approach. 

Arias Cardenas went to Colombia to study and reappeared several years later.

Although Chavez Frias had command over his people, Arias Cardenas had more military officers and designed the 4F plan which Chavez Frias didn't like, namely that Arias Cardenas would take Miraflores if successful and Chavez Frias march to Fuerte Tiuna. 

"Chavez Frias preferred to stay put at the Military museum because among other reasons, he did not want to be a museum piece."

In prison, Arias Cardenas defended Chavez Frias against other officers and with Chavez Frias at his side negotiated peace terms. 

Once they left jail, both went their separate ways. Arias Cardenas learned that Chavez Frias would never stop thinking like Chavez Frias. 

They crossed swords electorally and Chavez Frias won. 

On April 11, Arias Cardenas wanted the military to let Chavez Frias leave the country but the active service officers refused. When he discovered that he had been left out of the equation, Arias Cardenas called on Baduel and defended Chavez Frias.  Commenting on the former Lt. Colonel's  last article, Garrido concludes that in asking the Armed Force (FAN) to vote against Chavez Frias in the recall referendum, Arias Cardenas is in effect saying goodbye to Chavez Frias.

Times On Line April 02, 2003 From David Adams in Arauca, Colombia

VENEZUELA sent its air force to bomb Colombian paramilitary fighters who had invaded its territory and attacked an army border patrol, President Chávez claimed during his weekly television broadcast.

The paramilitaries retreated after a 90-minute gun battle, according to Señor Chávez. “I said to bomb the area, not on direct targets but over the adjacent area to warn them,” he said. “We did it, it was effective and they withdrew toward Colombian territory.”

The attack has not been confirmed by Colombia, whose President Uribe is due to meet Señor Chávez shortly to discuss border controls.

The incident highlights increasing tensions along the lawless, 1,400-mile (2,200km) sparsely populated border of jungle, mountain and savanna, which is a haven for rival paramilitary forces and two guerrilla armies fighting for control of the drug trade.

Colombian officials accuse Señor Chávez, a leftist revolutionary, of not doing enough to prevent guerrillas carrying out hit-and-run attacks from bases inside Venezuela. Colombian police and army posts in the border province of Arauca report coming under rebel mortar fire from across the muddy, 110-yard-wide river that marks the border, using customised 100lb gas cylinders packed with explosives, glass, nails and human excrement.

Some officials accuse Señor Chávez of providing the guerrillas with secret logistical support but the Venezuelans say Colombia does not do enough to prevent its long-running civil conflict from spilling over the border. According to Colombian intelligence reports, guerrillas operate at least two camps in Venezuela, where rebels are given weapons and explosives training. Colombian military sources claim that guerrillas obtain guns from corrupt Venezuelan military officers in exchange for cocaine. They say about 20 per cent of captured guerrilla weapons are stamped with Venezuelan Military Industry markings.

Captured guerrillas and deserters have confirmed the reports. One defector, an 18-year-old commander with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), said she had travelled in and out of Venezuela at will, visiting Farc bases and training new recruits in Venezuela. “The guerrilla (commanders) are counting on Venezuela for their victory,” she said.

Recently Venezuela has shown signs of co-operation. Last month its soldiers, acting on Colombian intelligence, intercepted a 3,000lb lorry bomb that Farc rebels had planned to use to blow up a bridge across the border. Venezuela also arrested three suspected National Liberation Army rebels accused of planting a bomb that killed seven people in the Colombian border city of Cucuta.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, March 31, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

What started as a trickle of 190 persons feeing fighting between the Colombian paramilitaries and guerrilla groups and has now blossomed into 500 displaced persons reported crossing the Oro River for safety in Zulia State. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office (UNHCR) and the International Red Cross have announced that they are offering humanitarian aid to the refugees and will inspect Bari indian settlements in La Vaquera, La Cooperative and La Escuelita on the Venezuelan banks of the Oro River. 

• The Venezuelan Ombudsman Office is also undertaking on-site visits with National Guard (GN) soldiers to draw up a complete list of displaced persons. 

Zulia State Ombudsman, Antonio Urribarri says the number of displaced persons could be as high as 1,000, given increased fighting over the last four days.  Army Operations Theater No. 2 (TO-2) has denied news reports that two Venezuelan soldiers were injured during a skirmish with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) 33rd column.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Letters - Express Your Opinion/Reply Posted: Friday, March 28, 2003 By: Einnoc Lebrac

Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 19:45:07 -0800 (PST) From: Einnoc Lebrac venezuelanoestuya@yahoo.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor: Perhaps I am naive, but I find that more and more the Venezuelan opposition tactics seem too USA tailored, the lies, the terrorist stories, the unproven proofs, the illegal legality of certain acts, the seemingly altruistic actions pretending to justify everything by claiming honorable intentions behind them. (e.g. the supposed Circulos de terror, the supposed guerrillas, the supposed Cuban infiltration, etc.)

When I say USA, I do not mean all Americans; only those who support the Bush administration’s outrageously invasive policies (my best friends happen to be Americans); and when I say the opposition, I mean all those who support the tactics being used to get rid of the President by destroying Venezuela. I do believe in clean opposition.

I was at a conference in Montreal, Canada, a few days ago and, during a break, of course the subject of conversation was the attack on Iraq. There were people from different countries, including a gentleman from Iraq who lives now in the USA. He was explaining certain things about his country that made me think of my dear Venezuela.

Of course the cultures are different between the two countries (Iraq/Venezuela) … although Americans seem to think the whole world should become Americanized, as if Democracy (as we know it in this side of the world) were the ultimate truth and the only way to drive a country, and therefore a mandatory way.

This gentleman from Iraq was saying that he believed that Saddam Hussein probably killed those Kurds with chemical weapons, but that apparently it was the USA who supplied Saddam with such technology at a time when using those weapons was not a bad thing … and I wonder, what reason did the USA have to give this kind of technology to this individual?

As I wonder why did Bin Laden end up having those weapons to kill Russians?

Is it perhaps that, when it suits the USA, the possession and use of those weapons is right, and when it does not suit their interests it is not?

I can not help but feel that the weapons that were not found in Iraq, now will be found … as soon as they get downloaded from the tanks and trucks that are arriving in Baghdad. Why? Because they have to prove it somehow. They have to justify the massacre of a country whose people have known the horrible consequences of inhuman economic sanctions.

• If the problem was Saddam, why didn’t they do this before… if they cared so much about the Iraqi people?

Some say, it is because it was convenient then to build terror around Saddam, to create a market to sell weapons in the surrounding countries to help them defend themselves from Saddam (even if in most cases, people did not even know how to use them, and had to import pilots and soldiers from Poland and other countries to fly those sophisticated machines, etc).

It is similar to the tactics of convenience being used by our own people in Venezuela.

People I had admired have become so greedy that they have not even stopped for a moment to think that if we open the doors for an American invasion (by asking them to intervene) they will not do it for nothing, and the price will be way too high to pay. Bombs will fall on our houses, buildings will be totally destroyed, people will die, and maybe by accident some of our own will fall as well.

Why do we insist on asking the Americans to fix our problems?

Who decided that they know it all?

What is it that people find so good about the US?

I have been there many times (have good American friends) and every time I visit, I get more scared of that society … the way teenagers treat their parents and teachers, the way they treat one another, the way police officers hit people, the rate of suicide, the rate of crime. They are just a bigger country with a bigger ego, and a bigger economy, but in my opinion, unfortunately, with a rotten society … where family means nothing anymore, where values don’t seem to count, where everybody is out for himself or herself.

The more they have, the more they want ... their “so evolved” government does not even care about protecting the environment for the generations to come.

Please, good American people (and I know there are millions of very good people out there) don’t take offence at my writing. You love your country and I love mine. I bet you would not want other countries from the “South” to come and invade your country and tell you to live your life in a “Southern” way.

It would be totally unjust, because your way of life is different than ours, and, as that of Iraq. I have said this many times ... Communism is a thing of the past, and perhaps so is your type of Capitalism.

A new world order is needed, and I believe Democracy/Capitalism is not it … at least not for other societies. The whole world is asking for change and advancement which Democracy has not been able to provide (except for those who are stronger and have used it to grow and flourish at the expense of others, by taking advantage of the corrupt and greedy governments of other countries).

Anyway, I find that these opposition tactics in Venezuela smell too much like “made in the USA” and it is scary!

Einnoc Lebrac venezuelanoestuya@yahoo.com

P.S. Readers, the above are my sincere thoughts/feelings … please do not send me more of your hate mail, as I will not read it… It is painful to realize that we Venezuelans are no longer communicating like Venezuelans … our methods of communication are now imported?