Pubdate: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Copyright: 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 Author: JOSE DE CORDOBA BOGOTA INTELLIGENCE SERVICE LINKS VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIAN REBELS ARAUCA, Colombia -- Even as a U.S.-backed war against Colombia's drug-financed guerrilla insurgency intensifies, Colombian intelligence reports suggest that Venezuelan authorities are providing the rebels with arms, a haven and, in some cases, training. Colombian guerrillas operate at least two training camps in Venezuela and use the country as a launching pad for cross-border attacks, according to the reports, which also cite interrogations of guerrillas to assert that the rebels have received training in explosives and military tactics from Venezuelan soldiers. The documents offer no evidence that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez himself -- a firebrand leftist who has made no secret of his sympathy for the guerrillas -- condones the cross-border incursions. But they underscore Colombia's concerns about its neighbor, which have deepened with each passing year of a Chavez administration that began in February 1999. In June 2000, Jesus Urdaneta, a former comrade-in-arms who had broken with Mr. Chavez, said that when he, Mr. Urdaneta, headed the Venezuelan state security force, Mr. Chavez had suggested backing the Colombian guerrillas with weapons. Gustavo Egui, head of the counterinsurgency unit of the force, resigned in February of last year after saying that the "Venezuelan government gives protection to Colombian guerrillas." Venezuela has long contended it cannot plug every leak along the sparsely settled, 1,400-mile border of jungle, mountain and savanna that separates the two countries -- and blames Colombia for failing to contain the violence that sometimes spills into Venezuela. Some 60 Venezuelan soldiers have been killed in confrontations with Colombian guerrillas in the past 15 years, Venezuelan officials say. Venezuela's foreign minister, Roy Chadderton, dismisses the drumbeat of accusations that have accompanied Mr. Chavez's tenure as just so much speculation in the media. "We don't see proof or evidence," he says. He adds that "malicious" accusations are the work of Mr. Chavez's political foes, working in concert with Colombians unfriendly to the Chavez government, and points out that Venezuela recently captured three suspected guerrillas from the National Liberation Army, Colombia's second-largest leftist rebel group. Those three guerrillas allegedly were involved in a March 5 bombing in the Colombian border city of Cucuta that killed seven and injured scores more. It was the carnage of the Cucuta bomb that caused Colombia's frustration with Venezuela to boil into the open. "We know [the guerrillas] have fooled the people and government of Venezuela," said Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, after the blast. "They disguise themselves as good citizens. They hide on the other side of the border and come to do their terrorist acts in Cucuta." Captured guerrillas and defectors say the rebels are at home on the Venezuelan side of the border. One defector, an 18-year-old commander in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whose nom de guerre is Jennifer, says she spent a year in and out of Venezuela working on political propaganda and psychological warfare and training new recruits. Jennifer says her superiors were focusing a great part of their political effort on Venezuela in the belief that under Mr. Chavez Venezuela was fertile soil for revolutionary indoctrination. "The guerrilla comandantes are counting on Venezuela for their victory," she says. Victor (also not his real name), who was a bodyguard for a top FARC commander until their December capture, says he was present when his boss worked out a deal with a local Venezuelan National Guard lieutenant allowing guerrillas to travel unmolested on the Venezuelan side of the Arauca River that is part of the Venezuela-Colombia border. Lt. Danny Garcia of the Colombian navy says his base, on a bend in the Arauca River, came under withering fire last year from a detachment of Colombian guerrillas on the Venezuelan side of the border. He says the guerrillas lobbed 20 home-made mortar shells -- gas canisters packed with screws, nails, broken glass and human excrement. Colombian officials say that at the very least President Chavez has fostered a climate of tolerance toward the guerrillas. At the beginning of his term, Mr. Chavez declared that he was "neutral" in the Colombian conflict, leading many to believe he planned to politically recognize FARC, which with an estimated 17,000 fighters is the country's largest guerrilla organization. Mr. Uribe was elected on a platform that stressed his determination to deal harshly with the drug-financed rebels and end the nation's 39-year civil war. Washington has backed his troops with training as part of its Plan Colombia antidrug program. Mr. Chavez hasn't formally recognized FARC. But Colombian military officers contend that guerrillas exchange drugs for weapons and ammunition with corrupt Venezuelan army and National Guard officers. Colombia has captured 514 rifles stamped with official Venezuelan markings -- roughly 20% of the total number of weapons taken from guerrilla forces. In the small border town of Amparo, Venezuelan National Guard Capt. Jose Ramirez says the guerrillas get no cooperation or arms from the Venezuelan military. "I keep this town clean," he says. "The Venezuelan armed forces are against the guerrillas. They are terrorists who should be eliminated. Those are my orders." - -- Marc Lifsher in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this article. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens