Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Ecuador rejects apology for raid

Meanwhile, Colombia accuses the rebels it attacked of pursuing a dirty bomb, but its evidence is under question.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Hundreds of Venezuelan troops continued moving Tuesday toward the border with Colombia, where trade was slowing amid heightening tension over Colombia's cross-border strike on a rebel base in Ecuador on Saturday.

The Organization of American States held an emergency meeting in Washington to try to calm one of the region's worst political showdowns in years. Colombia apologized for the attack, but Ecuador wasn't satisfied, calling for OAS to investigate.

The confrontation pits U.S.-backed Colombia against Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez and his allies. Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, meanwhile, traded accusations in the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

At a U.N. disarmament meeting in Geneva, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was trying to acquire radioactive material that could be used to make dirty bombs.

Without giving details, he said evidence was found in computers found with the body of Raul Reyes, a top FARC commander who was killed along with 23 other rebels in the Colombian operation in Ecuador.

But documents shared Tuesday with reporters in Colombia didn't support the allegation, indicating instead that the rebels were trying to buy uranium to resell at a profit.

Several Latin American leftist leaders have suggested the United States was intimately involved in executing the raid that killed Reyes. The Colombian military has said U.S. satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have put the FARC on the defensive.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Southern Command would neither confirm or deny American military participation.

"We do provide intelligence support to partner nations, but I can't get into details on operations," spokesman Jose Ruiz said.

Chavez, who sympathizes with the leftist rebels, condemned the killing and angrily ordered about 9,000 soldiers - 10 battalions - to Venezuela's border with Colombia. He warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that any strike on Venezuelan soil could provoke a South American war.

President Bush said the United States will stand by Colombia and criticized Venezuela's government for making "provocative maneuvers." Colombia has received some $5-billion in U.S. aid to fight drugs and leftist rebels since 2000.

The biggest losers in the turmoil appear to be hostages that FARC rebels have held for years, pending a swap with rebel prisoners.

Ecuador and France said they had been communicating with Reyes to secure a hostage release when Colombia's air force crossed the border to bomb his jungle camp.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the conversations were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages," Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, said in a nationally televised address.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani confirmed that France was in contact with Reyes as well, and that "the Colombians were aware of it."

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified March 5, 2008, 02:05:50]