Post by Steve Gardner on Mar 2, 2008 18:56:54 GMT
Here are two reports about the same event from different parts of the world. Spot the big difference.
Source: Yahoo
Regional tensions on the rise after Colombia raid
Source: The Australian
US helps to kill guerilla leader
Source: Yahoo
Regional tensions on the rise after Colombia raid
BOGOTA (AFP) - Tensions between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela reached a new high Sunday after Bogota launched a cross-border raid into Ecuador, killing the second-ranking official of Colombia's largest leftist rebel group.
Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was killed Saturday in an air raid conducted by Colombian forces on a jungle camp located on the Ecuadoran side of the common border.
In response, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa recalled his country's ambassador to Bogota "for consultations" and warned the action might result in "ultimate consequences" because of "the offense" suffered by his country.
As a result of the "very difficult situation" Correa canceled a visit that had been planned for Cuba on Monday and Ecuador's foreign ministry said it had lodged a formal protest with Bogota demanding an explanation.
Colombia, for its part, insisted Sunday that it did not violate Ecuador's sovereignty, because its military operations one day earlier were taken for "legitimate defense."
In a statement from its foreign ministry, Bogota added that it would issue a formal response to Correa's letter.
"Terrorists, including Raul Reyes, customarily have carried out assassinations in Colombia, and then fled to neighboring countries for refuge," the response from Bogota read.
Meanwhile in Caracas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned Colombia not to carry out raids against the FARC on Venezuelan territory, saying it could spark a war.
"President Uribe, think about it long and hard. You had better not get the idea of doing this on our territory because it would be a 'causus belli', cause for a war," Chavez said in his first reaction to the raid.
"This is something very grave which is unprecedented in our lands," said Chavez, adding that he telephoned his ally Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa "and we agreed to keep exchanging information."
"The government of Colombia acknowledges having made an incursion, violating the (air) space of a neighboring country in an irresponsible way. This is worrisome," Chavez said.
Uribe telephoned Correa to talk to him about the operation, but it was unclear if they spoke before or after the raid. Correa said he had deployed troops to the area to "verify" what had taken place.
Reyes was in a rebel camp located 1.8 kilometers (a mile) from the Ecuadoran-Colombian border when the air force began bombing shortly after midnight, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told a news conference.
Colombian ground troops were then deployed into the guerrilla hideout to secure the area, Santos said. A total of 17 guerrillas and one soldier were killed in the operation.
"It is the heaviest blow ever dealt against this terrorist group," Santos said.
Reyes, 59, whose real name was Luis Edgar Devia, was a union leader working for Swiss food giant Nestle in the southern department of Caqueta when he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the 1970s.
The grey-bearded, bespectacled rebel, who went on to become the FARC's chief spokesman, donning olive fatigues and carrying a rifle, had been viewed as a possible successor to the group's 77-year-old boss, Manuel Marulanda.
His killing was a major coup for Uribe, who has taken a hard stance against the 17,000-strong FARC, South America's biggest insurgency which has bedeviled successive governments since the 1960s.
It was the first time that one of the seven members of FARC's secretariat, or leadership council, was killed in combat.
After the death of FARC's ideological leader Jacobo Arenas in 1992, Reyes became the group's international face, taking the group's message abroad. In this capacity, he met with US government representatives in Costa Rica in 1997.
Reyes's death came three days after the FARC unilaterally released four former lawmakers who had been held hostage for years, handing them to the Venezuelan government and the Red Cross in a snub to Uribe.
Source: The Australian
US helps to kill guerilla leader
ECUADOR and Venezuela yesterday warned Colombia against any further cross-border raids after US-backed troops killed a senior commander of Colombia's largest rebel army in an air-and-ground attack.
In a stunning setback to the nation's leftist insurgency, Raul Reyes, the spokesman of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and considered as a successor to the group's leader, died in combat across the border in neighbouring Ecuador.
"This is the strongest blow dealt to the terrorist group to date," Colombia's Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said.
Mr Santos said the military tracked Reyes's location through information from an informer. The air force then bombed a camp where Reyes was thought to be. As the ground troops moved in, they came under attack from another camp located just over the border in Ecuador. When the military overran the camp, they found Reyes's body, he said.
A total of 17 rebels and one soldier died in the operation, which involved Colombia's army, police and air force, the defence minister said.
The US, which has provided Colombia billions in military aid, had offered a $US5 million ($5.37million) reward for the capture of the 59-year-old Reyes, a member of the FARC's seven-member secretariat.
The death of Reyes, whose real name was Luis Edgar Devia Silva, is the latest in a series of setbacks the rebels have suffered at the hands of President Alvaro Uribe's Government, which has vowed to use US aid to defeat the FARC, Colombia's largest guerilla group.
It was also one of the most severe blows to the group since its 1964 inception.
But Lazaro Riveros, a government negotiator who dealt with Reyes during talks that ended in 2002, cautioned that the FARC would replace Reyes immediately and "will keep moving forward in line with their principles and their structures".
As the guerillas' top leader, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, grows older, Reyes had frequently been mentioned as a potential successor. "This could hit morale (in the FARC) because the myth of the invulnerability of the bosses is over," Colombia's top security analyst, Alfredo Rangel, said.
There was no immediate reaction from the FARC.
The Colombian and US governments accuse the FARC of being one of the largest cocaine cartels in South America, a claim rejected by the group, which says it taxes only coca growers and buyers.
Combatants in Colombia's bitter four-decade conflict frequently cross the porous border with Ecuador, creating friction between the neighbours.
Colombian neighbours Ecuador and Venezuela protested against the incursion.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Mr Uribe had informed him of the raid, but later announced that he was misled after Ecuadorean officials inspected a bombed rebel camp.
"The (Colombian) President either was poorly informed or brazenly lied to the President of Ecuador," said Mr Correa, who called home the ambassador to Colombia for consultation and promised a diplomatic note of protest. "There was no hot persecution" of the rebels, Mr Correa said. They were "bombed and massacred as they slept, using precision technology. Clearly, Ecuadorean airspace was violated."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is actively negotiating for the release of FARC-held hostages, warned that any such an incursion into Venezuela would lead to war. "Don't think about doing that here because it would be very serious, it would be cause for war," Mr Chavez said at a televised meeting with his cabinet.
It was not immediately clear how Reyes's death would affect efforts to negotiate the release of rebel-held hostages, including French-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US defence contractors. But Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro read a statement calling Reyes's death "a hard blow to the humanitarian agreement process".
