Having tried unsuccessfully to delay the OAS meeting (which was supposed to be livecast on line but wasn’t) in which Colombia presented video evidence of FARC camps inside Venezuelan borders, Hugo Chavez has now severed relations with Colombia.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said his country will sever diplomatic ties with Colombia over claims he harbours militants.
“We have no other choice but to totally break our relations with our brother nation of Colombia,” he said on TV.
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The Venezuelan president made his announcement while standing next to the Argentina football coach, Diego Maradona, who was visiting Caracas.Mr Chavez said that he was acting “out of dignity”.
“I have ordered maximum alert on our border, maximum vigilance on our border which we do take care of,” he was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.
During the OAS meeting, the Colombian ambassador to the OAS, Luis Alfonso Hoyos, accused Venezuela of harboring 1,500 terrorists in 39 camps, and provided video evidence, eyewitness accounts, coordinates of the camps’ locations, and photographs, which will be verified by third parties. Here’s part of the video (in Spanish) presented at the meeting:
Colombia demanded that Venezuela stop harboring terrorists and that Venezuela allow an international commission to visit the sites. Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS Roy Chaderton declared the Colombian allegations “a lie”.
Colombia had previously recalled its ambassador to Caracas, Maria Luisa Chiappe.
