Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe mended relations on Friday after months of sniping that threatened trade and unleashed a diplomatic crisis between Latin America’s top US opponent and closest US ally.
Chavez, who just months ago called reconciliation impossible, said the talks allowed the two to “completely turn the page after the storm that passed.”
“From today on begins a new era,” Chavez said after the talks. “We’re destined to be together.”
PHOTO: AFP
The two have repeatedly clashed over their stances toward Colombia’s leftist rebels, but Uribe said “we’re brothers” and gave Chavez a book about South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
It was their first one-on-one meeting since August last year.
Analysts say the two are setting aside their on-and-off feud because each benefits politically from normalized relations. The countries share some US$6 billion in annual trade, and the leaders pledged to link their Andean countries with a new railway.
Relations sank to their lowest point in decades in March after Colombia attacked a rebel camp in Ecuador. Chavez responded by briefly dispatching troops to the border and temporarily pulling out his ambassador.
Uribe said he hopes relations can be similarly restored with Ecuador’s leftist government, and Chavez said he believes it’s possible.
“I’m sure President [Rafael] Correa would also be willing — I think so — to re-establish direct relations with Colombia as we have,” said Chavez, who will visit Ecuador next week.
Chavez reiterated his willingness to help mediate in Colombia’s four-decade conflict, but only if invited.
“We’ve tried to help in [Colombia’s] internal matters only when it’s been asked of us,” he said.
During a spat over Chavez’s mediation role with rebels earlier this year, the Venezuelan president lashed out at Uribe a “pawn of the US empire” and likened him to a mafia boss.
Colombia, meanwhile, accused Chavez of offering an open-ended loan of at least US$250 million to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — charges bolstered by documents Colombia said were retrieved from a laptop at the bombed guerrilla camp. Colombian officials also have said Venezuela has long harbored several rebel leaders.
Chavez denies the accusations, and Uribe did not publicly bring them up.
“We came out refreshed and relieved,” Chavez said after some four hours of talks at the Paraguana oil refining complex.
He pledged cooperation with Colombia in counter-drug efforts.
Chavez made reconciliation easier for Uribe last month when he called on the FARC to disarm — after previously urging world leaders to consider the FARC a legitimate army of insurgents rather than a terrorist group.
At a news conference on Friday, Uribe blamed the rebels for flouting past peace initiatives.
“On many occasions in Colombia, all the conditions for definitive peace have been created [but] the terrorists haven’t wanted to,” Uribe said. “Many citizens of the world have tried to mediate. ... The answer was more violence.”
Uribe said Venezuela and Cuba have helped in talks with rebels of the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, but said those rebels responded “without advances toward peace.”
Through Chavez’s mediation, the FARC freed six hostages earlier this year. The FARC said subsequently that it was finished with unilateral releases, and Colombia’s military rescued 15 rebel-held hostages last week in a bold operation that pushed Uribe’s popularity to new highs.
“Uribe is strengthened internationally,” while “Chavez has realized he was riding the losing horse” and expediently adjusted his stance, said, Colombian analyst and former deputy justice minister Rafael Nieto said.
Adolfo Tayhardat, a Venezuelan analyst, said Uribe is looking to defend Colombian trade while Chavez is aiming to ease conflict and shore up support ahead of state and local elections in November.
The FARC issued a statement on Friday condemning what it called the “betrayal” of two guerrillas responsible for holding the 15 hostages freed by Colombian troops, and said it remains open to trading other hostages for imprisoned guerrillas.
Neither leader referred to that statement, and Uribe did not publicly mention any invitation for Chavez to participate in new negotiations.
“What we want now is to be able to have the rest of the 27 hostages who the FARC call ‘exchangeables’ freed quickly,” Uribe said.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
In the East Room of the White House on a particularly frigid Saturday afternoon, US President Joe Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science. Former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton aroused a standing ovation from the crowd as she received her medal. Clinton was accompanied to the event by her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, daughter, Chelsea Clinton, and grandchildren. Democratic philanthropist George Soros and actor-director Denzel Washington were also awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor in a White House
RSS