Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said on Saturday he was sending more troops to the border with Colombia to stop paramilitaries from crossing and unsettling the area, and called on Bogota to better patrol its side of the border.
“We’re taking very drastic steps because the situation is also tremendously drastic,” Correa said.
Quito and Bogota broke off diplomatic relations a year ago over a Colombian military attack on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camp inside Ecuador that killed 25 people. To resume relations, Correa is demanding permanent border patrols by Colombia.
PHOTO: AFP
Colombia has accused Correa, a leftist socialist leader and close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, of providing a safe haven to the FARC.
Correa said Ecuador’s border provinces were being infiltrated by deserters of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary group, who bring with them weapons. All gun permits in the area, he said, have been suspended.
“There were people in Esmeraldas [Province] with automatic weapons. That’s crazy,” Correa said.
Ecuadoran Security Minister Miguel Carvajal said 3,000 additional troops were being deployed to the 720km border with Colombia, where 7,000 soldiers and 3,541 police are already stationed.
He said five new military bases and 10 police stations would be built in the area.
Correa also accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of having lied last year about the attack last year on the FARC camp that killed FARC deputy leader Raul Reyes.
“President Uribe calls me ... tells me there’s been a clash ... between the Colombian Armed Forces and FARC ... that in that fight the FARC fled to our territory and that in pursuing them, 10 or 17 guerrillas were killed, 11 were made prisoners and one Colombian soldier died,” Correa said.
“That was the lie President Uribe told,” Correa said, adding that the Colombian attack was really a bombing raid on the guerrilla base.
“They didn’t tell us it was a bombing raid inside our territory that was planned, deliberate, ordered by President Uribe himself,” he said. “Everything Uribe said was a lie. The only truth he [told] was that Raul Reyes was dead.”
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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