Ecuador rules out any overtures to Colombia
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa angrily declined Saturday to follow the example of his ally on the South American left, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, in mending tattered relations with Colombia.
“Our sovereignty has been trampled on and we have been disrespected,” Correa said during his Saturday radio show in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. He said he had no interest in restoring normal ties with Colombia, led by conservative President Alvaro Uribe, until there was a government “worthy of talking to.”
Relations between the neighbors have been strained since Colombia mounted a raid in Ecuadorean territory in March that killed Colombian leftist rebel leader Raul Reyes. Ecuador and Venezuela rushed troops to their borders with Colombia, sparking the region’s worst crisis in years.
Afterward, Colombia claimed that electronic files recovered from Reyes’ laptop computers indicated that Chavez was aiding the rebels and allowing the insurgents to use western Venezuela as a haven. Chavez denied the allegations.
Chavez and Uribe met Friday in the western Venezuelan refining town of Paraguana and, in Chavez’s words, “turned the page” on relations. Chavez said he would also like Uribe’s help in fighting drug trafficking. Uribe proposed a railroad to connect the two countries.
Diplomatic problems are in neither Chavez’s nor Uribe’s interest.
For Uribe, Colombian trade with Venezuela is too important to risk. “Political difficulties shouldn’t be confused with the nation’s needs,” Uribe advisor Jose Obdulio Gaviria told the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo.
Chavez’s allies face local and state elections in November, and polls show that most Venezuelans don’t like his stated admiration for Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC. More than 1 million Colombians live in Venezuela, many of them registered to vote.
Chavez recently called on the FARC to release the 700 or more hostages it still holds, a sign he is softening his support of the rebels.
Chavez said he would try during a visit to Ecuador this week to persuade Correa to seek a rapprochement with Uribe. But Correa said Saturday he was having no part of it, that he had taken offense at Colombia’s portrayal of his country as an “accomplice and staging area” for the FARC.
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Times staff writer Kraul reported from Bogota and special correspondent Mogollon from Caracas.
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