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Chávez Foe Accuses Him of Allowing Leftist Colombian Rebels

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A prominent opponent of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela accused him on Wednesday of turning a blind eye to leftist Colombian rebels who take refuge in Venezuela near the border with Colombia.

The political opponent, Governor César Pérez of the border state of Táchira, said that both leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups from Colombia operated in nearly a third of his state, but that Venezuelan troops ignored the rebels and tried to root out only the right-wing militias.

“The guerrillas are there with the government’s blessing, and the military has orders to leave them alone,” Mr. Pérez said in an interview. “The government only fights the paramilitaries, and I think it’s good they fight them, but the government has to do the same with the guerrillas, and it isn’t doing that.”

Mr. Chávez, who is a socialist, has long denied that his government aids Colombian leftist rebels, insisting that it has remained neutral through Colombia’s decades of armed conflict. He says he has ordered Venezuela’s military to confront any illegal armed group that slips across the border from Colombia into Venezuela.

For years, Colombian rebels have used Venezuela’s side of the 1,400-mile border as a haven to resupply and treat their wounded, creating friction between the two countries.

Táchira’s state police force is incapable of confronting the illegal armed groups, Mr. Pérez said, because Venezuela’s government has confiscated all of its assault rifles, leaving roughly half of the state’s 2,700-officer force with old .38-caliber revolvers.

“Almost half of the police officers don’t even have revolvers,” he said.

Government officials have said the weapons were seized because they did not have proper serial numbers. Mr. Chávez has accused Mr. Pérez of aiding right-wing paramilitary groups, accusing him of allowing them to cross into Venezuela as part of a broader strategy to destabilize the Chávez government. Mr. Pérez denies that and says that Mr. Chávez has not presented evidence to support his assertions.

Tensions in Táchira have been exacerbated in recent weeks by a string of shootings and slayings.

Gunmen on motorcycles killed two Venezuelan National Guard soldiers at a checkpoint near the border last week. And last month, the Venezuelan authorities arrested at least 10 people in Táchira, accusing them of involvement in paramilitary groups. The bullet-ridden bodies of 11 men, nine of them Colombians, were also found in Táchira last month after they were abducted from a soccer field.

The violence aggravated longstanding tensions between the countries. Venezuela announced last week that it was deploying additional troops to its side of the border, but Mr. Pérez said he had not seen a significant military buildup in Táchira.

Mr. Chávez scaled back diplomatic relations with Colombia in July to protest an agreement that gave United States troops greater access to Colombian military bases.

Calling the pact a threat to the region, Mr. Chávez ordered his military to prepare for a possible conflict with Colombia in case the American military tried to provoke a confrontation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/americas/12venez.html

By tasco66 on Nov 12, 2009, 11:17 in Politics & the war.