Colombia Clashes With
Nicaragua Over Guerrilla
Tie
By JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA,
wsj.com
BOGOTÁ, Colombia --
Daniel Ortega,
Nicaragua's president
and the U.S.'s Cold War
bête noire, has taken up
the cause of Colombia's
hard-pressed FARC
guerrillas -- and set
off a new regional spat
in the process.
Diplomats had a heated
exchange last week at a
meeting called by
Colombia at the
Organization of American
States in Washington to
protest Mr. Ortega's bid
to negotiate on behalf
of the 9,000-strong
Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia,
known as the FARC.
Things got worse when
Managua's La Prensa
newspaper reported that
top FARC guerrillas flew
to the Nicaraguan
capital in a Venezuelan
plane to meet Mr. Ortega
July 19, the anniversary
of the rise to power of
Mr. Ortega's Sandinista
revolutionaries in 1979.
The Venezuelan
government said the
report was "totally
false," as did Mr.
Ortega, who accused La
Prensa of "treason."
Mr. Ortega appeared to
be trying to throw a
diplomatic lifeline to
the FARC, the region's
biggest guerrilla army,
considered a terrorist
group by the U.S. and
European Union for its
reliance on kidnapping
and drug running, among
other things.
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez had acted as
the FARC's principal
international sponsor,
but after revelations
that he appeared to be
helping fund the group,
he backed off and called
on the group to disarm.
Mr. Ortega refers to the
FARC as "brothers." His
help would be welcomed
by the rebels, who have
suffered a string of
recent setbacks,
including the deaths of
three of its top members
and the recent rescue by
Colombia's military of
some of the group's most
prized hostages.
Latin America's oldest
and largest insurgency,
the FARC funds itself
through drug trafficking
and kidnapping. It holds
about 700 hostages, most
for ransom. While many
analysts believe the
guerrillas are on the
run, the FARC has vowed
to fight on -- and said
it won't negotiate a
peace pact with
Colombian President
Álvaro Uribe. Mr. Uribe
has denied the
guerrillas' demand that
he set aside a
Manhattan-size haven for
the group as a condition
for their participation
in hostage-release
negotiations and,
eventually, peace talks.
In a letter dated in
June but made public
July 15, FARC leaders
asked Mr. Ortega for a
meeting to discuss
"issues of war and
peace." Mr. Ortega
agreed to mediate the
conflict, much to the
annoyance of the
Colombian government,
which resents the
sympathy with which Mr.
Ortega and some other
Latin American leaders
view the FARC, which is
trying to overthrow Mr.
Uribe's democratically
elected government.
"President Ortega, help
us bury the cadaver
which is the FARC. Don't
bury yourself along with
them," Camilo Ospina,
Colombia's ambassador to
the Organization of
American States, said at
the Washington meeting.
Mr. Ospina said his
government had sent
Nicaraguan authorities a
warning, through
Interpol, that FARC
members could be
arriving in Managua from
Venezuela by air, and
asked for their
detention. He said
Colombia could bring
charges against
Nicaragua for harboring
terrorists.
Denis Moncada,
Nicaragua's Organization
of American States
ambassador, retorted by
calling Colombia a "narco-government"
and a threat to regional
peace. Mr. Moncada added
that his government
considered the FARC to
be a "national
liberation movement."
Mr. Ortega, a former
leader of the Sandinista
guerrillas who came to
power in Nicaragua after
defeating the
U.S.-backed Somoza
regime, has longstanding
ties to the FARC. In
1999, Mr. Ortega
traveled to a FARC-held
area in Colombia where
the guerrillas were
holding peace
negotiations with the
government to decorate
the FARC leader Manuel
Marulanda with the Order
of Sandino, the
Sandinista movement's
most important medal.
The latest diplomatic
clash has its roots in a
March cross-border
military strike by
Colombian troops that
killed the FARC's No. 2
leader, Raul Reyes, in
his camp in Ecuador. In
response, Mr. Chávez
ordered troops to the
border and briefly cut
relations with Colombia.
Ecuador also ordered
troops to its border and
has yet to renew its
relations with Colombia.
Information found in Mr.
Reyes's computers showed
that the guerrillas had
a close political and
economic allegiance with
Mr. Chávez, who had
seemingly promised them
millions of dollars in
financial support and
had thrown the full
weight of Venezuela's
oil-fueled clout into
getting them diplomatic
recognition.
Mr. Ortega has been slow
to smooth over things
with Bogotá. In the
weeks following the raid
on Mr. Reyes's camp, Mr.
Ortega sent a Nicaraguan
air force plane to
Ecuador to pick up three
female survivors,
including two Colombian
guerrillas and a Mexican
FARC sympathizer. Since
then, Mr. Ortega has
granted the three women
political asylum in
Nicaragua even though
they are wanted by
Colombian and Ecuadorean
authorities. |
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