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Kidnaps,
Murders Heat Up Border with Colombia
Humberto
Márquez
CARACAS, (IPS) - The unresolved
kidnap of a Venezuelan politician has
added fire to the already hot
situation along the Colombia-Venezuela
border, where the murders of dozens of
ranchers and agrarian activists and
the presence of Colombian guerrillas
and paramilitaries have the
authorities in the two countries on
tenterhooks.
In the middle of Venezuela's own
domestic polarisation, the political
opposition is pointing to the kidnap
of social democratic leader Sergio
Calderón as some sort of retaliation
by the Hugo Chávez administration.
But evidence indicates that it is just
one more case that illustrates all too
well the political and social violence
thrashing the border area.
Many peasant leaders who have led
occupations of ostensibly abandoned
lands or been part of the land
redistribution programme promoted by
Chávez have been murdered. Assassins
have also targeted human rights
defenders and leftist pro-government
activists.
Jorge Fernández, leader of the
Peasant Federation of Venezuela, told
IPS that at least 120 agrarian
activists have been murdered since
1999, the year Chávez took office.
”Some have died in ambiguous
circumstances but others were victims
of killers hired by the ranchers who
were under pressure from peasants
demanding land,” said Fernández,
Peasant Federation leader for Zulia
state, on the northwest border with
Colombia.
José Luis Betancourt, president of
the Venezuelan Ranchers Federation and
political opposition leader, said
Wednesday, ”Even though the
kidnapping of Calderón is political,
the explosion of the kidnap industry
in general operates assisted by
impunity.”
Betancourt read a list of 36 owners of
big farm operations, the last being
Calderón, who have been kidnapped so
far this year, according to the
Ranchers Federation count.
Calderón, former governor of the
southwest state of Táchira, was
kidnapped last Friday from his ranch,
20 km from the Colombian border.
Police reports indicate that he was
taken by five people carrying handguns
and crude rifles.
So far, no one has claimed
responsibility for the kidnap, and the
captors have not contacted the
politician-rancher's family nor
demanded a ransom.
Known as ”the priest” for his days
as a seminary student, Calderón was
secretary-general of the
social-Christian COPEI party, also a
Venezuelan football executive and
mayor of San Cristóbal, capital of Táchira,
an administration taken over by
”Chavistas” after they won the
2000 elections.
Spokespersons from the government and
the judicial police say they are
investigating all hypotheses in the
case, including the possibility of
”self-kidnap”.
The Attorney General's Office has
noted that the modus operandi of
Calderón's kidnap resembles the work
of common thugs, not the style of the
guerrillas or paramilitaries of
neighbouring Colombia.
Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy in Caracas
expressed concern and asked the Chávez
government to take appropriate action
for an in-depth investigation of the
crime.
The communiqué from the Washington
delegation here gave rise to yet
another episode of tensions between
Venezuela and the United States.
Venezuela's Vice-President José
Vicente Rangel charged the U.S.
representatives of handling the matter
in an ”irresponsible and
discriminatory” way.
Rangel noted that the U.S. embassy
”publicly expresses its concern
about this and other cases that
involve certain sectors, but ignore
and keep quiet about the murders of
more than 60 peasant and social
activists who support the government,
at the hands of hired killers and
other elements related to the ranchers
and big landowners.”
In Táchira and in the states of Apure
and Barinas, on the southwest plains,
there are constant reports from
ranchers that they are being forced to
pay ”immunisations” -- war taxes
-- to the Colombian guerrilla groups
FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia) and ELN (National Liberation
Army).
And the right-wing paramilitary United
Self-Defence Units of Colombia (AUC)
also demand payments from Venezuelan
landowners in the border area. The AUC
have held Venezuelan industrial
executive Richard Boulton since July
2002. That kidnap reportedly is what
triggered a rift between the
paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño
and some sectors among the AUC ranks.
The local media report that the AUC
have set up a Venezuelan arm, the
United Self-Defence Units of
Venezuela, but all ranching
associations deny any ties to
paramilitary groups.
Along the roads through Táchira and
Apure one can see numerous signs and
graffiti that praise the
”revolution” and are signed ”FBL”,
the Bolivarian Liberation Forces.
”Bolivarian” refers to Latin
American independence leader Simón
Bolívar.
The anti-Chávez press in Venezuela
and the Colombian television company
RCN maintain that the FBL are a
Venezuelan branch of the FARC, and
train as a militia to support the Chávez
government, all allegedly financed by
extortion and kidnaps.
A communiqué signed by the FBL,
disseminated in San Cristóbal, denied
that this group played any role in
Calderón's kidnap. The FARC and ELN
have done the same via their Internet
sites.
”I come from a Marxist left in which
we learned that a guerrilla war is
waged to overthrow a government, not
to defend it. What may be happening is
tolerance from the authorities for
these illegal militias,” Venezuelan
lawmaker Julio Montoya, of the
opposition Movement to Socialism, said
in comments to IPS.
The 2,200-km border between Colombia
and Venezuela, particularly the
1,000-km stretch between Sierra de
Perij in the north and the Arauca
River plains to the south, is the
scenario of numerous illegal
activities.
In addition to guerrilla and
paramilitary actions, there is drug
trafficking, cattle rustling,
kidnappings, hired murders and money
laundering, according to press
reports.
Then there are the sporadic incursions
of the armed forces of one country
into the neighbour's territory and the
flow of thousands of Colombians
displaced by the civil war in their
country, seeking refuge in Venezuela.
Political analysts speak of a ”third
state” along the extensive border,
where authorities from Colombia and
Venezuela alike fail to impose law and
order.
But Rangel plays down those
criticisms, responding, ”There are
three borders. One Venezuelan, another
Colombian, and a third, which is the
border that goes uncontrolled by the
Colombian state and is full of
guerrilla and AUC combatants.”
Throughout the border zone, Venezuela
has 180 military bases with
approximately 20,000 soldiers, while
Colombia has just 6,000 soldiers and a
handful of military posts, said the
vice-president.
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