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LATIN AMERICA |
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Venezuela Protests “Effrontery” of Colombia
Defense Minister
CARACAS – The Venezuelan government formally
protested Saturday to the Colombian Embassy
in Caracas a statement by Colombian Defense
Minister Gabriel Silva that it described as
“effrontery.”
Venezuelan Defense Minister Ramon Carrizales
told a press conference that “with limitless
effrontery and cynicism,” Silva said Friday
evening in Bogota that most of the
drug-trafficking flights headed for Central
America and the United States take off from
Venezuela.
After saying that the protest note had been
delivered to the diplomatic legation of the
neighboring country, Carrizalez said that
Silva’s statement was “irrespectful and
vulgar” and “reveals the Colombian
government’s line of provocation,” which is
habitual before meetings with United States
authorities.
“This expression of enormous cynicism, of
limitless effrontery that characterizes
officials of the Colombian government” comes
hours before Silva “goes to the United
States” to discuss with U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates “the subject of U.S.
military bases on Colombian territory,” the
Venezuelan minister and vice president said.
“Don’t try to divert attention from the real
reasons for your trip to Washington. Don’t
accuse us of a problem that originates in
your country,” Carrizales told Silva,
referring to Colombia’s status as the
world’s leading cocaine producer.
Relations between Venezuela and Colombia
have frequently been strained in recent
years, with Caracas wary of President Alvaro
Uribe’s close ties to the United States and
Bogota suspicious that Venezuela is giving
refuge to Colombia’s drug-running leftist
rebels.
In recent months, Chavez has sharply cut
down on imports from Colombia after Bogota
said anti-tank rocket launchers Venezuela
purchased from Sweden in the 1980s – long
before Chavez came to power – were found
last year in a guerrilla camp.
The Venezuelan leader has also protested a
deal that would give U.S. troops access to
Colombian military bases, saying it could
lead to a war in South America.
Colombia has countered by saying the
agreement will bolster the fight against
cocaine trafficking and terrorist activity
by drug-running leftist rebels and is
necessary after Ecuador this year ended a
lease allowing U.S. access to a base in that
country.
Carrizalez forecast further statements
against Venezuela when Silva visits Gates
next week, inventing whatever he wants,
because the fact is that lies are used to
discredit others and to cover up their own
inefficiencies and hide the internal
problems” of Colombia, he said.
The Venezuelan official pointed out that in
the same statement Silva contradicted
himself saying that “more than 70 percent of
the 600 tons” of cocaine produced each year
in Colombia leave from the Pacific coast.”
Colombia “has become more and more isolated
from the rest of South American countries
because it gives primary importance to its
relations with an aggressive, imperialistic
power,” which, moreover, Carrizales said,
has provided it with technology for
producing genetically modified marijuana.
He said that among the almost daily seizures
of drugs produced in Colombia and smuggled
into Venezuela across the more than 2,000
kilometers (1,243 miles) of common border
have been found consignments of marijuana
that has been genetically modified using
U.S. methods.
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