Colombia will not send troops to borders to Ecuador and Venezuela

Two days after the killing of FARC’s number two commander Luis Édgar Devia aka Raúl Reyes, who was in a camp inside Ecuador, Colombian government said Monday morning in a statement that "it will not make troop movements to the borders" with Ecuador and Venezuela because "Colombia does not have a warmonger tradition and its only interest is to recover its internal public safety".

In the statement, read by spokesman César Mauricio Velásquez, Colombia reasserted "its affection and respect for the people of Ecuador and Venezuela" and said its government is concerned because of the "agreements that may exist between FARC terrorist group and the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan governments". Finally, the statement said that the revelations on those agreements will be known by the OAS and the UN.

On Sunday evening, Colombia apologized to Ecuador because of the action carried within its territory with ended with the killing of Reyes and another guerrilla fighters, whose corpses were "rescued" by Colombian security forces, by claiming that its Army, Air Force and National Police "had to take over the border area" in order to locate "the place from which it took fire". Ecuador had protested an alleged "aggression" and a violation of its sovereignty by Bogotá after its president, Rafael Correa, learned from its army that the guerrillas "were not killed in hot pursuit, but were bombed and massacred in their sleep". Quito had recovered the bodies of 15 guerrillas and another 3 women injured, among them a Mexican philosophy student.

Mr Correa did not accept the apologies from Colombia and ordered to expel its ambassador Carlos Holguín Medina, as well as the deployment of extra troops to its northern border. Ecuador had already recalled Francisco Suéscum, its ambassador to Colombia.

Around one hour later, Colombian National Police Director, general Óscar Naranjo, said that the authorities had found documents and laptops with Reyes, whose content, according to a preliminary report, shows ties between Quito and FARC, through Gustavo Larrea, Ecuador’s Internal and External Security minister. The documents (PDF), letters written by Reyes and addressed to the FARC Secretariat, involve some alleged commitments by Ecuador with FARC, which had promised to deliver Correa Army corporal Pablo Emilio Moncayo, kidnapped in 1997, for Mr Correa to become another mediator between the terrorist group and the Colombian government. Ecuadorian officials have denied the claims.

On Sunday afternoon, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez said that Reyes’s killing was a "murder", after paying tribute to him with a minute of silence, during its weekly TV and radio programme Aló presidente. "Mr Defence Minister, move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately — tank battalions. Deploy the air force (…) We don’t want war, but we aren’t going to permit the U.S. empire, which is the master [of Colombia]… to come divide us", Chávez said. Venezuelan president also ordered to close definitively its embassy in Bogotá. Pável Rondón, ambassador to Colombia, had already been recalled in November.

Chile, although criticized Colombia for the raid in Ecuadorian territory, offered itself as a mediator. Brazil and Argentina are holding talks with the Andean presidents, whereas France, which had been negotiating with Reyes the release of former presidential candidate Íngrid Betancourt, who is also a French citizen, "called for restraint on all sides", according to Reuters. In Geneva, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos filed a complaint to the UN "asking neighbouring countries to stop harbouring terrorist organizations", according to Bloomberg.

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