Accusations Fly Ahead of Venezuela-Colombia Summit

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela on Monday dismissed renewed charges by Colombia that it was sheltering leftist guerrillas, intensifying a dispute over border security just two days before a bilateral presidential summit.

President Hugo Chavez and his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe are due to meet on Wednesday in eastern Venezuela to try to defuse the controversy over the frontier and shore up ties battered by economic and political problems in both countries.

Relations between the two Andean neighbors, who share a rugged 1,400-mile border, have been strained by accusations from Colombia -- denied in Caracas -- that Chavez's government is allowing Colombian Marxist rebels to operate from Venezuelan territory.

"Venezuela gives no shelter to criminals of any nationality," Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said in an angry response to charges from Colombian Attorney-General Luis Camilo Osorio.

Osorio said at the weekend Venezuela was becoming a "haven for Colombian delinquents" and urged Venezuela to help rid the border of rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers.

Rejecting Osorio's comments as "a provocation," Rangel said in a statement: "If Colombian delinquents have come into this country, then this is more the result of negligence and complicity by the Colombian authorities, rather than by us Venezuelans."

In a war of words in recent weeks, Chavez's government has accused the Colombian army of backing right-wing paramilitaries and allowing them to penetrate into Venezuela.

The latest heated exchange set the tone for what could be a prickly April 23 meeting between left-wing paratrooper Chavez and Uribe, a lawyer who has set himself the task of trying to defeat the Marxist rebels and bring peace to his country.

Uribe, whose father was killed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has appealed to neighboring governments to denounce the FARC and a smaller rebel group as "terrorists" and act firmly against them.

But populist Chavez, who was first elected in 1998 and has declared a self-styled "revolution" in favor of his country's poor, has refused to label the Colombian rebels as "terrorists." He says he wants to maintain a neutral position to be able to contribute to a negotiated peace in Colombia.

His critics accuse him of having ideological sympathies for the Colombian guerrillas.

Chavez has denied the criticism, saying his armed forces will repel any illegal incursions into Venezuelan territory, whether by rebels, paramilitaries or the Colombian army.

"Venezuela, its government and people, want to have the best relations with Colombia ... we hope the Uribe-Chavez meeting in Puerto Ordaz will be fruitful," Rangel said.

Also on the agenda for the talks in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz will be trade between the two neighbors, who are major commercial partners.

Terrorism's Western Ally***U.S. intelligence is still coming to grips with reports that Al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups are setting up bases in Venezuela. A London newspaper reports Osama bin Laden has established a training camp on Venezuela's Margarita Island, a tourist destination that also has an Arab-Muslim community and a bad reputation as a hangout for smugglers and terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The more you know about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and his list of friends, the less surprising this all seems. Footage shows Hugo hugging Iranian President Khatami. More footage shows Hugo hugging Libya's Moammar Gaddafy. By the way, you won't find any video of Hugo meeting, much less, hugging George W. Bush.

But Chavez has met with Saddam Hussein. In fact, he was the first foreign leader to visit Baghdad after the first Gulf War, and he expressed his admiration for Saddam. He has offered support to convicted terrorist Carlos "The Jackal." He considers Fidel Castro his mentor. He gives sanctuary to Colombia's FARC rebels, a group that is trying to overthrow the Colombian government and has also killed Americans.

Hugo Chavez came to power by tapping into frustration over Venezuela's corrupt political system. He was elected in 1998 by a landslide. Since then, Chavez has been engaged in what has been called a "slow-motion constitutional coup." He has abolished the senate, brought in Cubans as strike-breakers against the oil industry, and organized gangs to beat up opponents.***

It's hard to believe Chavez's side of anything.

Venezuela Military Becomes Embroiled in Colombian War - Bombs Village In Support of FARC*** LA GABARRA, Colombia -- Maria, a wizened 57-year-old farmer's wife, lives in a plank-board shack in Santa Isabel, a village on the River of Gold that serves as Colombia's muddy border with Venezuela. Shortly after breakfast one day last month, she and several dozen families watched grimly as Colombia's long war arrived swiftly along Santa Isabel's single dirt street. Violence has washed over the village for years, but never in the way she witnessed that sweltering March 21.

Maria and a dozen frightened neighbors said hundreds of guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attacked their town from Venezuela, crossing the river to engage an anti-guerrilla paramilitary force occupying several riverside villages. Within an hour, Maria saw Venezuelan military aircraft swoop over her village to bomb paramilitary positions inside Colombia supporting the rebel advance.***

A few years back, oil companies were accused of paying off guerrillas to protect their oil operations there. In more recent years, they have been criticised for paying the government for protection. The US has also been criticised for wanting to set aside money for a battalion whose primary mission would be to protect Occidental's pipeline, and Colombia's most important non-narcotic source of income.

I don't want to hyperventilate here, and say that events in Colombia are more important than Iraq, as every anti-terror front is important, and we can indeed walk and chew gum. But now that Chavez is ramping up his support to the FARC, we really do need to take this situation a little more seriously.

We don't need to send in the Marines, or anything like that, but we do need to be quietly building a commando force, maybe masquerading as paramilitaries, to carry the fight to the FARC both in Colombia and in Venezuela. We should be hunting their camps in Venezuela, we should flood Venezuela with specialists, to identify and deal with alQaedist and Hezbollah operatives there.

We should be negotiating with Vz officers. There are guys there who are prepared to do the right thing, if they have the proper encouragement, and know that in the case of failure their families would be cared for.

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