CARACAS, Thursday January 17, 2008 | Update
The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Thursday published
a communiqué replying to the Colombian government's formal
protest on Wednesday against President Hugo Chávez's
interference with Colombian domestic affairs.
Following his mediation to seek a humanitarian swap in Colombia
and his major role in the release of Colombian hostages Clara
Rojas and Consuelo González, Chávez asked that the
rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the
National Liberation Army (ELN) be removed from the list of
terrorist groups.
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in the communication
that the Colombian government is not committed to peace, but
obsessed by the idea of defeating the insurgents militarily.
"It is obsessed with war."
"Rather than using every possible effort to find a viable,
lasting political solution to the armed conflict, the Colombian
government is looking for any excuse to justify its militarist
logic."
The communiqué claimed that President Álvaro Uribe
is not committed to the humanitarian swap, but "he is blindly
determined to show his war arguments."
10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.