Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Chavez and Uribe in happier times…

More on Sunday’s Chavez vs. Columbia Story:

Somebody get Hugo a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, please. Just scratch out Carnegie’s name and put “Chomsky” in there…he’ll devour it, short-circuit his brain, and that’ll solve everything.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez summoned home his ambassador to Colombia, escalating a conflict that threatens to damage trade and diplomatic relations between the neighboring countries.

Ambassador Pavel Rondon was recalled for consultations about “recent events,” according to a statement on the foreign ministry’s Web site. The statement gave no additional details.

Chavez turned on President Alvaro Uribe Nov. 25, calling him a “liar” after the Colombian leader rescinded permission for Chavez to negotiate with Colombia’s biggest guerrilla group in a bid to free 45 hostages. Since then, the two leaders have traded insults, with Uribe accusing Chavez of attempting to spread an “expansionist” socialist agenda across the continent.

“The attacks are very personal and will be very hard to come back from,” said Adam Isacson, director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy in Washington. “This will require international intervention to get them to sit down and work this out.”

Colombian stocks have dropped since the presidents traded barbs, with shares of exporters hardest hit. Venezuela and Colombia are both each other’s second-biggest trading partners.

Textile exporter Cia. Colombiana de Tejidos SA, based in Medellin, headed for its steepest two-day fall in 18 months amid concern over its business in Venezuela. Colombia’s benchmark stock index fell for a second day, declining 0.6 percent to 11,211.77 at 1:11 p.m. New York time.

“An end to relations will have a severe impact on both economies, most probably worse for Colombia,” Rupert Stebbings, head of international sales in Bogota at Interbolsa SA, Colombia’s biggest brokerage, wrote in a note to investors.

Colombia has had a $1.8 billion trade surplus with Venezuela so far this year, Interbolsa reported.

The row with Uribe began after Chavez directly contacted Colombia’s army commander to discuss his efforts to help secure the release of hostages being held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Chavez may be trying to “play the nationalist card” before a referendum in Venezuela on Dec. 2 on his plan to overhaul the country’s constitution to further implement socialism, said Isacson, with the Center for International Policy.

Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said his government doesn’t plan to pull its ambassador in retaliation. “We will monitor the situation to see what will happen and then take decisions,” Araujo, himself held captive six years by the FARC, told reporters in comments broadcast by RCN television.

(Bloomberg)