The ministry explained in a brief note that Valdes's return is in response to the decision of the State Council on Aug. 26 to sever diplomatic ties for an indefinite time with Panama.

Valdes has remained in Panama after Cuban ambassador Carlos Zamora left the Central American nation last Sunday at the request of Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso.

On Thursday, the Cuban government cut off diplomatic relations with Panama after Moscoso pardoned four exiles accused by Cuba of trying to kill its leader Fidel Castro. Moscoso said the release is for "humanitarian reasons".

The four Cuban exiles, Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Pedro Remon and Guillermo Novo Sampol, were arrested in November 2000 for having allegedly planned to assassinate Castro at the 2000 summit of Latin American and Iberian leaders in Panama.

A Panamanian tribunal sentenced Luis Posada and Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo to eight years in prison, and Guillermo Novo Sampol and Pedro Remon, seven years in prison, for endangering public safety and forging documents, but not for the presumed assassination attempt against Castro.

The diplomatic rift erupted just days before Moscoso was to hand over the presidency to Martin Torrijos on Sept. 1.
 

Colombia's rebels want direct negotiations with govt
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has proposed to hold face-to-face negotiations with the government in a demilitarized zone, instead of over the Internet.

Interior and Justice Minister Sabas Pretelt said Monday that the government is studying the rebel group's position.

He said the proposal for the establishment of a demilitarization zone must be discussed at the talks, since the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), another rebel group in the country, set up a similar zone and gained some achievements in a demobilization process and peace negotiations.

FARC leader Raul Reyes told a radio interview Sunday that the guerrilla organization accepts government Peace Commissioner Luis Restrepo as a negotiator to discuss the humanitarian exchange of jailed guerrillas.

The FARC is holding 22 Colombian politicians, 37 government soldiers and three US citizens. It says hostages will be freed only when the government releases 500 jailed guerrillas, but the government said only rebels accused of rebellion and not more serious crimes would be freed.

The FARC is the country's most powerful guerrilla group with upto 17,000 combatants. It had requested the government several times to free more than 400 jailed guerrillas in return for the hostages it held. But the requests have been rejected by the government.

Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade civil war, in which leftist rebels, far-right paramilitary and government troops fight each other, killing 3,500 people every year.

About 2,000 people, including 22 foreigners, were kidnapped in Colombia last year.
 

Stripping Pinochet of immunity opens way to int'l proceedings: lawyer
The recent stripping of former Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet from immunity has opened the way for legal investigations by judges from other countries, a lawyer said Monday.

The stripping of Pinochet from immunity has led to the immediate sending from Belgium of an investigation commission that will present new difficulties to the defense of the retired general, an attorney close to the Pinochet case said.

The lawyer, as cited by daily La Nacion, said the panorama will become quite murky should the cases opened against Pinochet in other countries be not attended.

The Chilean Supreme Court authorized on Aug. 26 the cancellation of Pinochet's immunity as former ruler of Chile.

An adviser to Pinochet said that if the Chilean authorities allow the Belgian tribunals to proceed with the investigation, there will immediately be judges from other countries ready to start similar investigations.

Judges from Spain, France, Sweden and Argentina have for a longtime been waiting to continue their cases against Pinochet.

The Supreme Court ruling came in a case involving "Operation Condor" -- a plan by South American military dictatorships to eliminate leftists and quash dissent.

Pinochet led a right-wing military regime in Chile from 1973 to1990 as the country's de facto president. He was allegedly involved in the arrest, kidnapping and disappearance of 19 people in the 1970s through "Operation Condor".

Pinochet, who took control of Chile by ousting constitutional President Salvador Allende in 1973, faces hundreds of charges of homicide, kidnapping and torture in Chile.

He was arrested in London in 1998 on an extradition request from Spain to face four genocide charges, but Britain eventually allowed him to return to Chile 17 months later on grounds of poor health.

The Chilean Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that proceedings against Pinochet in the Death Caravan case should be permanently suspended, given the dictator's "progressive" and "incurable" mental insanity.
 

Venezuelan opposition criticizes Chavez's land policy
The Venezuelan opposition coalition on Monday attacked President Hugo Chavez's land policy, accusing the government of being the protector of robbers.

The statement, by the Democratic Coordination, followed Chavez's pledge Sunday to enforce an agriculture law that allows the government to tax and expropriate idle land and give it to poor peasants as a part of his "agrarian revolution."

The opposition coalition said in a statement that "most of the owners who are not working on their lands are in such a position because they cannot do so, since in our country the government, instead of protecting our producers, protects robbers."

Chavez, who won a recall referendum on Aug. 15, ordered his military commanders to investigate large rural estates and report idle land not in productive use, but the opposition said most of the idle lands are already in government hands.

"Out of every five potentially productive hectares laying idle, four are in the hands of the State," the statement said.

The opposition said the country's agricultural production is damaged by the "official negligence" in the combat against guerrillas, whose members kidnap and extort agricultural producers and ranchers, and by the illegal seizure of privately-owned lands with tacit government approval.

The 2001 Land Law imposes strict rules on what ranchers and farmers can produce on land, and sanctions idle land with taxes or by expropriation.

The law also permits the state to grant state-owned land to the homeless who will farm with the help of cheap state credits. But private land owners claim mistakes have been made in classifying land as state-owned or private.

Chavez, who survived a coup in 2002 and months of street protests and strikes, said that he will try to negotiate with landowners to persuade them to voluntarily sell their land to the government.

"We aren't enemies of the landowners, nor do we want to burn them or to invade their property," Chavez said. "I call on all those who own lots of idle land, let's talk."

According to a 1998 census, 60 percent of Venezuela's farmland, or nearly 179,200 square kilometers, was owned by less than 1 percent of the population. The survey said 90 percent of farmland given to peasants in a 1960 reform program reverted to large landholders.