Chavez is right, Uribe is not .
Saturday, 07 August 2010 13:16 José Maria Rodríguez González
At the end of Alvaro Uribe's last presidential term, Colombia's judiciary was investigating allegations that the president ordered the wiretapping of members of the judiciary and the opposition, as well as investigating the alleged corruption of one of Uribe's own sons. Caught in these cases, which are ongoing and not new, Uribe succeeded in diverting the attention of Colombia towards Venezuelan President Chavez with his accusations, which are also ongoing and nothing new.
Uribe is making believe that the International Criminal Court, the OAS, and the U.N. are going to hang Chavez for supporting terrorists. But Colombia is not a Jewish community, nor is Venezuela a Palestinian community, nor is Latin America the Middle East. The unequivocal international rejection of Operation Phoenix, Colombia's 2008 raid on a FARC camp in Ecuadorean territory, demonstrated the international recognition of the right of each Latin American country to sovereignty over their territory.
The question is, who is responsible for taking care of the Colombian border and fighting the FARC - Chavez? Venezuela is not unique. It is estimated that there are more than 100 FARC camps scattered throughout Brazil, 62 in Ecuador, 40 in Peru, and around 20 in Panama, according to information from different government sources. Even in those countries that say they attack FARC, such as Panama and Peru, the FARC maintains a presence. Are these countries also harboring terrorism?
In all of those cases, Colombia is unable to stop FARC guerrillas crossing into its neighbors' territory, and consequently it does not really have control of its own borders. This situation is Colombia's fault, not that of its neighbors. No bordering country has Colombia's capacity to fight the FARC. That Colombia can't control its borders doesn't make its neighboring countries terrorist collaborators. None of these countries can show that it fought and removed the FARC from their territory, and Chavez can't be the only one forced to take responsibility for what no country has been able to accomplish, even Colombia.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/opinion/jose-maria-rodriguez-gonzalez/11227-chavez-is-right-uribe-is-not.html