reuters.com Mon March 3, 2003 08:01 PM ET (Updates with more quotes) By Ibon Villelabeitia

BOGOTA, Colombia, March 3 (Reuters) - Colombia is on track to meet its IMF targets and achieve growth of 2 percent in 2003, but a possible U.S. war in Iraq and fallout from Venezuela's crisis could threaten well-laid financial plans, the government's economic team said on Monday.

In an interview with Reuters -- the first with foreign media -- Finance Minister Roberto Junguito and two of his top aides said external shocks could derail efforts by Latin America's fifth-largest economy to hold back spending, narrow a budget deficit and boost investments.

"We have to guarantee conditions for a stable exchange rate, stable interest rates, a sustainable fiscal situation, but positive results depend on several factors, including the international climate. How fast the economy grows depends a lot on investors," Deputy Finance Minister Juan Ricardo Ortega said.

"If the U.S. economy slips and the Venezuelan economy slips, you are not going to grow and 2 percent growth is an optimistic figure," Ortega said.

The government is forecasting growth in gross domestic product of 2.0 percent in 2003, compared with 1.6 percent growth in 2002.

President Alvaro Uribe, who took office in August, has pushed key austerity reforms to taxation, pension and labor laws through Congress aimed at reducing the country's budget deficit and boosting investment to fight a four-decade guerrilla war and the poverty that feeds it.

DEBT ANXIETY EASING

Colombia is saddled with public debt accounting for 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product -- up from just 30 percent in 1996. But Uribe's austerity agenda, coupled with pledges to crack down on violence, have eased investor anxiety.

The government says Colombia's consolidated budget deficit should fall to 2.4 percent of GDP in 2003, compared with 4.0 percent in 2002. These figures have been set as targets under a $2.1 billion loan agreement Colombia signed with the International Monetary Fund in January.

After receiving good marks from Wall Street, the government has won almost $10 billion in loans from multilateral lenders including the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the Andean Development Corp.

"This is proof we are doing our homework and that we are transmitting a sense of calm to the markets to the effect that the public debt is sustainable," Junguito said.

But Junguito said Colombia's economic performance is largely tied to that of the United States.

"For us the most important thing is that the United States has good growth. We don't do well if the United States does not have adequate growth. The reason we are not exaggerating our 2003 economic forecast is because it is coherent with a sluggish world economy and we are choosing to be extraordinarily conservative."

Andres Felipe Arias, director of macroeconomic policies, forecast that Colombia will lose $800 million in exports in 2002 and 2003 due to a political crisis in neighboring Venezuela, which is Colombia's No. 2 trading partner.

MORE SECURITY

Apart from easing the country's debt burden, Colombia is trying to improve security to lure foreign investment. The war claims the lives of thousands of people every year and spooks investors. Uribe, elected on pledges to crack down on leftist rebels, wants to boost military spending by $1 billion.

"There's a link between security, a fall in country risk and investment," Junguito said. "The issue of credibility has two fronts. Security and economic measures to stabilize debt create the confidence to attract foreign and domestic investment."

Colombian debt, classified as "junk", has gained in value under Uribe. Sovereign bonds rose 6 percent in December, according to the J.P. Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index Plus.

Uribe plans to hold a referendum by May in which he hopes voters will approve a freeze on public spending for two years and cut higher-than-average state pensions.

Junguito, who says a yes vote would save the government 0.7 percent of GDP in 2003, said he hoped Colombia returns to investment grade rating by international agencies by the end of Uribe's four-year term in 2006.

"I don't like to make projections but that is what we are hoping for," Junguito said.

www.scoop.co.nz Tuesday, 4 March 2003, 7:56 am Press Release: Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Memorandum to the Press 03.07 For Immediate Release Monday, March 3rd, 2003

The Slippery Slope Approaches in Colombia

Buildup of U.S. Troops Begins:

• Washington seeks a "strong response" to the current abduction crisis in Colombia, setting the basis for an accelerated posting of U.S. military personnel to the country

• 150 U.S. Special Forces arrive, surpassing the legislative "non-emergency" limit on U.S. personnel allowed in Colombia

• After 40 years, the ongoing civil war continues unabated, with all signs pointing to further escalation and rising fatalities

• Oil concerns are a prime factor pushing the Bush Administration to wade further into an increasingly spongy South American quagmire

• Washington risks vertigo as it proceeds pell-mell in militarizing its regional diplomacy

• If the U.S. could not subdue Communist insurgency in Vietnam and is unable to liquidate al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, how will it cope with FARC in densely canopied forest and urban settings?

• With war in the Middle East approaching, and U.S. troops headed to the Philippines, can Washington's already stretched resources be over-committed to yet another long-term conflict without a sufficiently coherent exit strategy?

America is nearing the point of no return in Colombia. After years of providing an average of over half a billion dollars annually in economic and military assistance to the troubled nation, Washington is rapidly ridding itself of any restraints and is assuming a hawkish stance regarding the depth of its intervention in Colombia's internal affairs. The slippery slope of another Vietnam has never been closer in that country. By sending more troops to search for its kidnapped contract workers, Washington is providing a revealing clue as to how it will respond when its armed forces begin to experience casualties as a result of stepped-up combat there. Already, Colombian troops tracking the guerrilla column thought to have captured the missing Americans, have benefited from the intelligence and logistical leadership provided by U.S. advisors, which helped them to kill four of the rebels who may have been involved. These first few steps, involving relatively small allotments of U.S. personnel, could lead to substantially larger deployments in the future.

Faced with powerful insurgent forces, a deficient battlefield response by the Colombian military, and a growing stake in the country's crude oil, the White House may be coming around to the idea that the seemingly endless, drug-fueled civil war will need a substantial infusion of U.S. military might to push it towards a favorable outcome. But in reality this conflict and the underground narcotic economy that fuels it, most likely cannot be resolved through a blunt military adventure unless the U.S. is willing to shoulder the substantial expense, inflict massive human suffering and commit itself to further years of involvement in Colombian democratic reforms.

Also, the Bush administration would be deceiving itself if it confuses the world-class military cadres formed into the FARC and the other leftist body, the ELN, with the inept troops of Manuel Noriega's Panamanian Defense Force and Maurice Bishop's Grenadian police constabulary, which provided U.S.

armed forces with a cakewalk.

A New, Aggressive Approach

Recent events mark a new development in U.S. involvement in Colombia.

The death of one American and the capture of three contract workers represent the first employees of the U.S. government to be killed or captured in Colombia in twenty years of fighting. Three United States' congressman have voiced their desire to see a "dramatic response" to the kidnappings of American civilians by leftist rebels after a U.S. government plane crashed in the southern province of Caqueta on February 13th. As Washington commits more personnel to the region, it is increasing the certainty that such bloody encounters will not be the last in which Americans lose their lives.

Engine failure caused the single engine Cessna carrying the four American civilians contracted out by the U.S. Southern Command for anti-narcotics intelligence activity, along with one Colombian military intelligence officer, to crash in FARC-controlled territory while on route to the provincial capital of Florencia. Shortly after the crash, the bodies of one American ex-military officer and one Colombian were found with bullet wounds to the head and chest. Although President Bush at first described their deaths as "clearly an execution," U.S. officials later determined, based on an initial autopsy, that at least one of the deceased was in fact killed while attempting to escape their captors. It is believed that the three remaining survivors were taken to mountain strongholds by the FARC, a leftist guerrilla movement primarily financed through narco-trafficking, "war taxes," kidnappings and extortion. It has been battling Colombian authorities for decades in a protracted civil war. Scores of Colombian military and police abductees as well as politicians and civic figures are currently being held captive by the FARC, including one-time presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Carrying a Big Stick

Congressmen Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), James P. Morgan (D-Va.) and Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) met with Colombian and U.S. Embassy officials during a two-day visit to the country to discuss possible responses to the abductions. While the Colombian military, with support from approximately 100 U.S. Special Forces trainers, is already conducting a search and rescue operation, administration officials are indicating that they are seriously considering a response of greater magnitude, possibly using an augmented number of U.S. Special Forces in a more aggressive and combat-oriented approach.

Congressman Davis, Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, was quoted on February 20th in the Washington Post, as saying, "There is no doubt that this act by the FARC is going to meet with a very strong response." He went on to note "they [the FARC] have made a very grave error." But the U.S. could as well be making a grave error by exposing U.S. military and civilian personnel to a war which no U.S. fatalities have occurred through armed combat until a few days ago.

Turning Up the Heat

In November, President Bush signed the secret National Security Presidential Directive 18, which officially widened the scope of U.S. military assistance to Colombia. U.S. aid being sent there already had been expanded late last year to include combating the leftist rebels and right wing paramilitary groups -dubbed "terrorist" organizations by the State Department - instead of focusing solely on counter-narcotics as was previously mandated by Washington. In response to the crisis produced by the recent air crash and kidnappings, President Bush, using his presidential authority to "carry out emergency search-and-rescue operations for U.S. military personnel or U.S. citizens," authorized sending an additional 150 Special Forces soldiers to Colombia to support the ongoing search and rescue operation. According to the Washington Post, this put the U.S. military contingent in Colombia at 411 personnel - just over the legislated limit of 400 set by Congress.

For many, this has raised concerns that a cycle of rapidly increasing U.S.

military involvement in that country, as well as growing danger, has begun.

The Oil Connection

As concerns over the reliability of Persian Gulf oil supplies have increased, interest in exploiting alternative petroleum resources in the Western Hemisphere have grown. Four of the ten major sources of oil for the U.S. bound market are located in the Western Hemisphere - Mexico, Canada, Venezuela and Colombia, now the 10th largest supplier of petroleum to this country. In the northeast Colombian town of Aruaca, U.S. Special Forces are training Colombian soldiers in counterinsurgency warfare to combat leftist rebels who repeatedly attack the oil pipeline at Caño-Limon, which is crucial to Colombia's fragile economy.

The Occidental Petroleum Company, based in Los Angeles, half-owns and operates this facility, which transports some 100,000 barrels of crude a day. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Occidental has spent nearly $8.7 million lobbying American policymakers on Latin American affairs, focusing on Colombian aid packages. The funds have been well spent: whereas Occidental budgeted little more than $3.00 per barrel for security costs, the amount that U.S. tax payers are now bearing is over $8.00 per barrel. U.S. policy-makers increasingly realize the importance of preserving stability in important petroleum producing regions and are actively pursuing proactive initiatives to do so. On February 26, the State Department once again referred to its Latin American oil supply, calling for a negotiated settlement of the current political stalemate in Venezuela.

Approaching the Slippery Slope

There are striking similarities between the existing conflicts in Colombia and the Philippines, with that of Vietnam in the late1950s and early1960s.

Special Forces at first trained and advised Vietnamese troops in combat against the Viet Cong. As casualties increased and conflict spread throughout the region, American ground forces were incrementally sent into the country to directly assist Vietnamese personnel as well as the U.S.

trainers, culminating in an ever-growing commitment. As in Vietnam, at a certain point the quantitative growth in U.S. troop strength will become qualitative.

The recent commitment of 3,000 U.S. marines to the southern Philippines to fight the Abu Sayyaf bears a remarkable resemblance to the Vietnam scenario.

It is such unilateral diplomatic and military initiatives by the White House, which are causing serious concerns over the runaway role being assumed by Washington policy-makers around the world. The fatal flaws in past interventions have been the lack of a clearly thought-out exit strategy for controversial U.S. initiatives. The same could be true regarding Colombia, particularly because the guerrilla forces are first-class fighters, superbly trained and armed, as a result of years of fighting in a stalemated war and their ability to purchase sophisticated arms on the international black market.

The Colombian conflict has carried on for nearly 40 years. The FARC, by some estimates, exacts hundreds of millions of dollars yearly from narcotic trafficking, "war taxes," extortion and kidnapping. Access to such substantial funding has allowed the FARC and the ELN to more than adequately arm themselves with a full range of modern weaponry, including shoulder-mounted Stinger missiles designed to knock out low flying aircraft, such as the Black Hawk helicopters the Pentagon recently has given to the Colombian Army. After 40 years of low-intensity guerrilla warfare, the insurgents are battle hardened and remain highly motivated. Any major new commitment on the part of the Pentagon must not be considered lightly, but with a realistic analysis of risks versus benefits.

Colombian President Uribe finds himself in an extremely untenable position.

He is under pressure from the United States and right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia to continue his aggressive campaign against the FARC.

He now must face, as the result of the FARC's recent adoption of an urban strategy, the kind of war that neither the Colombian, or for that matter, U.S. army are trained to wage. Without clear evidence of an enhanced capacity to effectively deal with the insurgents, paramilitary groups, created several years ago by wealthy landowners to defend their own interests, may once again lose confidence in the state, renege on the AUC's cease-fire arrangements with the authorities and also join in an all-out urban war. Regardless, as the conflict escalates, urban combat and attacks on civilians, such as the bloody Bogotá social club bombing on February 7th, may become commonplace.

An increasing U.S. military presence may complicate matters further. U.S. troops will have to enhance coordination with their Colombian counterparts.

Yet, despite years of effort and government orders to the contrary, the latter has consistently failed to completely sever its conspiratorial ties with paramilitary forces. As a result, U.S. forces could get caught up in the chronic massacres staged by the AUC against civilian populations.

Carrying on combat against the leftists while, de facto, excluding the rightists could have potentially destabilizing ramifications. The FARC has warned the United States that American involvement in Colombia is tantamount to a declaration of war and therefore it can be expected to target U.S. personnel and interests. Such strife would occur on a battlefield in which U.S. forces have had minimal training and experience. Deepening U.S. involvement could potentially further radicalize the rebel groups into a patriotic, anti-imperialist framework that may serve to widen the scope of the conflict, while further threatening the stability of Colombia and its neighbors and alienating a population already desperately searching for the answers and solutions which unfortunately are not readily available.

This analysis was prepared by Thomas Gorman and Neil T. Duren, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington, D.C.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization.

It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 216-9261, fax (202) 223-6035, or email coha@coha.org.

www.wsws.org By Bill Vann 1 March 2003

Over the past month, the Pentagon has nearly doubled the number of US military forces it acknowledges are deployed in Colombia, while special operations units are joining directly in a massive search-and-rescue operation that has been mounted to locate three US military contract personnel captured after their plane was downed over guerrilla-held territory February 13.

Another Pentagon contractor and a Colombian military intelligence agent were killed in the incident after they apparently resisted capture by elements of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

According to figures supplied by the Bush administration, the number of US military personnel on the ground in Colombia has climbed from 208 in January to 411 last week. A State Department spokesman disputed published reports that 150 special operations troops had been sent to join the manhunt in the dense jungles of Caqueta province in southern Colombia, where the contractors were captured.

State Department spokesman Philip Reeker claimed on February 25 that only 49 new troops had been brought in to hunt for the captured Americans and that the other 101 new arrivals represented “pre-planned deployments of military planners.” Whatever the case, the incident in Caqueta and the buildup that has followed signals a significant shift in both the size and focus of Washington’s military intervention in the war-torn South American nation.

The Bush administration has continued to withhold any details on the identity or the mission of the Americans captured in Caqueta. The one who was killed, however, was identified as Thomas Janis, 56, a retired career soldier and Vietnam veteran thought to have been the pilot of the downed Cessna aircraft.

Janis and the other three Americans worked for California Microwave Systems, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors. The company specializes in aerial surveillance equipment. US and Colombian sources have indicated that the plane was involved in an attempt to target leaders of the FARC for an attack by the Colombian armed forces.

The FARC has declared the three Americans “prisoners of war,” offering to release them in exchange for the guerrilla group’s own imprisoned members. At the same time, it has warned that the massive military operation that has been mounted in search for the captured Americans could put their lives in danger. An estimated 3,000 Colombian troops, backed by helicopter gunships and US military and FBI “advisors,” are involved in the manhunt. Both the US and Colombian governments have ruled out any prisoner exchange.

The province where the search is taking place was once a huge demilitarized zone established in 1999 as part of a truce between the Colombian government and the FARC. But the truce, which was opposed by the Bush administration, ended a year ago and Colombian troops and right-wing paramilitary squads rushed back into the area, unleashing a wave of killings of suspected guerrilla sympathizers. The FARC, however, continues to control much of the jungle and the outlying villages.

The incident in Caqueta has had the effect of sharply accelerating what is already a qualitative expansion of US involvement in Colombia’s civil war. The US has sent some $2 billion in military aid to Colombia, making it the third-largest recipient of such assistance, trailing only Israel and Egypt.

The country’s right-wing president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, has sought an expanded US involvement in the country ever since he was elected last May, suggesting recently that Washington should mount a military operation in Colombia on a similar scale as the one being prepared against Iraq.

Colombia’s Vice President Francisco Santos felt compelled last week to deny that the steady increase in the number of US military “advisers” on Colombian soil represented a “Vietnamization of the Colombian conflict.” Suggestions to the contrary, he affirmed, were the work of “enemies of the US aid to Colombia.”

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has shifted the axis of US involvement in Colombia from the so-called “war on drugs,” which was the pretext for the “Plan Colombia” military aid program begun under the Clinton administration, to the “global war on terrorism.” The effect has been to free up military resources that had previously been provided for coca-eradication efforts to be used in counterinsurgency campaigns against the FARC and another guerrilla movement, the National Liberation Army, or ELN.

The downing of the US spy plane over Caqueta is only one in a series of setbacks for this counterinsurgency campaign that together could pressure Washington to increase its direct military involvement. On Wednesday, 23 Colombian troops died when a US-supplied Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the mountainous northeast of the country in the midst of an anti-guerrilla operation. While military sources initially blamed the crash on weather conditions, peasants in the area reported that they heard gunfire before the helicopter went down. The US has supplied Colombia with nearly 50 Black Hawks for use as gunships and to transport troops.

Meanwhile, the campaign has increasingly focused on protecting US oil interests in Colombia, with the deployment of some 70 US Special Forces troops and the allocation of $98 million for the training of a new Colombian brigade to guard the oil pipeline that is jointly operated by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and Ecopetrol (Empresa Colombiana de Petroleo), Colombia’s state-run oil company. With a war against Iraq imminent and continuing disruption of supplies from Venezuela, a steady flow of oil from Colombia has become an increasingly important US interest.

Part of this battle to secure US domination of the country’s oil wealth is being waged against Colombia’s oil workers, one of the most combative sectors of the country’s workforce.

Colombian army troops and police are continuing to occupy the country’s two main oil refineries in Cartagena and Barrancabermeja after they were brought in February 21 to suppress a protest march by workers inside the Barrancabermeja facility. Nine workers were wounded and 15 arrested in the confrontation, which saw security forces use tear gas and rubber bullets against the workers.

The union representing some 6,000 employees at state-run Ecopetrol is currently negotiating a contract and has denounced attempts by the government to roll back gains won over decades by the oil workers. In particular, it has opposed provisions allowing the contracting out of work, which is says is part of the Uribe government’s preparations to privatize the country’s oil resources.

Workers have charged that the government is conducting a lockout by militarizing the refineries, while management insists that it is guarding against “sabotage” and “subversion,” implicitly threatening the union with the same treatment meted out to the guerrillas.

The union has also denounced a deal between the government and Texaco-Chevron that cedes control of one of the country’s main natural gas fields in La Guajira to the multinational for another 12 years after the current contract expires next year. Under the existing deal, Ecopetrol was to take over both the gas reserves and the infrastructure in December 2004.

The union, the USO, has also pointed to deals ceding control of pipelines to the foreign oil companies, the elimination of subsidies on gas prices, the slashing of maintenance budgets for the refineries and a halt to independent exploration for new oil reserves as warnings that the Uribe government is planning to sell off the country’s petroleum resources to the multinationals.

The oil workers union issued a statement denouncing the repressive measures of the Uribe government and linking them to the Bush administration’s war drive: “behind the policy of smashing the USO there is hidden a perverse proposal for paving the way to the liquidation of Ecopetrol as the public property of the Colombians and to deprive the nation of the exploration, exploitation, refining, transportation, distribution and technological investigation of petroleum and other strategic fuels for national development.

“The attack is not separate from Bush’s crusade to trade ‘blood for oil’, which was justly denounced last week by formidable demonstrations of millions of people throughout the world against the unjust war against Iraq that is promoted by North American imperialism.”

The oil workers union has suffered persistent repression at the hands of both the military and the right-wing death squads. Since 1988, more than 80 oil workers, including a number of union leaders, have been murdered, without any action taken by the government against their killers.

See Also: After capture of Pentagon contractors: Wider US war threatened in Colombia [21 February 2003] As Green Berets deploy in war zone Colombian president seeks massive US intervention [1 February 2003]

www.voanews.com Dan Robinson Washington 28 Feb 2003, 02:03 UTC

Listen to Dan Robinson's report (RealAudio)   Robinson report - Download 405k (RealAudio)  

The Bush administration is reporting some success in efforts to eradicate coca in Colombia. However, the administration's top narcotics control official was pressed by skeptical lawmakers in a congressional hearing Thursday about the effectiveness of U.S. policy in Colombia and other countries.

The United States helps the Colombian government in spraying the coca crop as part of efforts to reduce the flow of cocaine to the United States.

Ninety percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States originates in, or passes through Colombia. Heroin, too, originates in Colombia which still has some 6,500 hectares under opium cultivation.

The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, John Walters, says the coca crop declined by 15 percent last year, to about 144,000 hectares.

Mr. Walters says this shows U.S. anti-drug efforts in Colombia are paying off, and credits Colombian authorities and President Alvaro Uribe for a more aggressive approach to eradication.

However, he says a difficult task lies ahead as President Uribe continues to fight terrorist organizations and paramilitary groups relying on narco-trafficking.

"[He has pledged] to make rule of law a fact in all of Colombia for all Colombians," he said. "To make security, education, health reform and economic development a long-term goal. I think he, and we, understand that we have to first reduce the extent to which Colombia is a war zone."

But with three Americans still held captive by rebels in Colombia, and the recent violence in Bolivia, some lawmakers are criticizing the administration for, in their view, failing to pay enough attention to Latin America.

In the words of the Republican chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Cass Ballenger, "We're distracted, and we're not paying enough attention to what's happening in our own front yard."

Congressman Ballenger lists a range of problems: narcotics-related violence and terrorist activity in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, economic difficulties in Argentina, political upheaval in Venezuela, high-level corruption in Guatemala and Haiti.

But the sharpest criticism came from New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, "The reality is that the administration's policy towards the Western Hemisphere in my mind is in disarray," he said. "The reality is that the results do not even begin to approach the rhetoric. The reality is that serious foreign policy mis-steps have done lasting damage to our relationships in this hemisphere."

Another Democrat, Massachusetts Congressman William Delahunt, says U.S. policy toward the Western hemisphere has been too focused on narcotics, and not enough on social development.

Nobody in the White House seems to be paying much attention. And given the president's pledge to elevate the hemisphere as a paramount concern of American foreign policy, to me and to many, is profoundly disappointing.

In testimony submitted to the committee, the acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, J. Curtis Struble, says the administration recognizes there has been "backsliding" with growing democracies facing threats from all sides. But he says the problems are not intractable.

www.alertnet.org 25 Feb 2003 00:33

BOGOTA, Colombia, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Colombia on Monday said Marxist guerrillas hide in Venezuela, intensifying a diplomatic war of words between the two South American neighbors.

"The case of the frontier with Venezuela is worrying because of its length, its level of traffic, and the presence of members of violent groups who use the neighboring country to hide," the Colombian government said in a news release.

Relations between the two countries nose-dived last week when Colombia's Interior Minister Fernando Londono accused Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez of frequently meeting Colombian Marxist guerrillas.

An angry Chavez hit back in his "Hello President" television program on Sunday, threatening to break off diplomatic relations with Colombia and accusing it of celebrating when it seemed he had been overthrown in a coup last year.

"We will insist to the Venezuelan government on the need for the forces stationed on either side of the frontier to cooperate, as we have repeatedly asked President Hugo Chavez," said the Colombian government, warning that Venezuela could "end up as a branch of the Colombian tragedy".

Colombia's armed forces have in the past accused Chavez, a former paratrooper turned populist politician, of allowing guerrillas to cross the 1,400-mile (2,200-km) border, much of which is thinly populated jungle and savanna.

But until now relations at the government level were more civilized, despite the differences of ideology and personality separating the flamboyant Chavez from the right-leaning Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Colombian soldiers suspect Chavez, a friend of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, of ideological sympathies with rebels fighting a four-decade-old war which claims thousands of lives a year.