Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Related: Documents Reveal FARC Working On Dirty Nuke

Related: Chavez’s troops reach Colombia’s border

Times Online:

President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia said today he would denounce his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, in an international court for allegedly funding the leftwing rebel group at the centre of the regional military crisis.

The move increased the tension triggered by Colombia’s weekend raid inside Ecuador to kill a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which today saw Venezuela close its border with Colombia as the three neighbours edged closer to war.

Colombian officials claim the raid netted records showing that Mr Chavez, a left-wing firebrand, secretly provided the group with $300 million to wage their armed campaign against the Caracas government.

Mr Uribe said he had ordered his envoy at the United Nations to ask the International Criminal Court “to try Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, for sponsorship and financement of genocides.”

Mr Chavez and President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who have both long opposed Colombia’s pro-US leader, have already sent thousands of troops to the borders of Colombia and expelled Bogota’s ambassadors from their countries.

But the Venezuelan Agriculture Minister Elia Jaua said Caracas had now gone further. “We have taken some measures, like closing the border,” he said, according to the Colombian television station Caracol.

Colombia initially apologised to Ecuador for the raid on a Farc camp inside Ecuadorian territory that killed Raul Reyes, considered the number two leader of the decades-old Marxist insurgency.

However it later claimed it had been justified in making the incursion, which took place in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning.

It said that documents recovered from rebel laptops seized during the raid proved the Farc had links with Quito and Caracas and had “transnational terrorist ambitions.”

Both governments vehemently denied the allegations. Ecuador severed diplomatic relations with Bogota over the “succession of events and unfriendly accusations,” while Venezuela dismissed all charges of links to Farc, including the allegation against Mr Chavez, as “absolute lies, without any foundation”.

But Colombian government officials say the raid uncovered a letter dated February 14 sent by Ivan Marquez, a Farc commander, to Reyes which spoke of “Venezuela’s financing of the Farc with $300 million.”

Mr Uribe has said the seized documents would be presented to the Organization of American States, which was to meet in Washington this afternoon to discuss the crisis, and to the United Nations.

Meanwhile Mr Correa was to visit Brazil, Latin America’s biggest diplomatic power, to present his grievances and drum up support. He was also to visit Peru, Venezuela, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

In dismissing the Colombian allegations, Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez highlighted Mr Chavez’s role as mediator in recent efforts to secure the release of hostages held in jungle camps by the rebel group

“To talk of $300 million – there are absolute lies, without any foundation,” he told reporters late yesterday.

The President’s only contact with the rebels had been during his mediation attempt, as a result of which six hostages were released to Venezuelan and Red Cross officials, he said.

Mr Rodriguez added that “several times we were close to getting Ingrid Betancourt,” the French-Colombian politician who had been campaigning for the presidency when she was taken hostage in 2002.

The Venezuelan minister also claimed that his government had its own documents allegedly showing that Colombia’s police chief, General Oscar Naranjo, was caught up in drug trafficking.

Observers fear that the dispute could engulf the entire region, with pro-US governments and leftist allies lining up against each other.

Fidel Castro, the former president of Cuba and ally of Mr Chavez, weighed in on the stand-off today, using an article in the state newspaper Granma to accuse the United States of complicity in the “monstrous crime” in Ecuador.

“They were Yankee bombs guided by Yankee satellites,” he wrote.

Colombia insists the raid was an “autonomous operation”, but has acknowledged that intelligence from the US, which has supplied it with five billion dollars since 2000 to combat Farc, played a crucial role.