World
Institutional
links
Welcome back on
26 -29 August,
ONS 2008
Bridging
the energy gap
is ONS 2006 theme,
from 22-25 August,
in Stavanger, Norway
Petroleumworld
Business
Partners:
Centre for
Global Energy
Studies
  |
Venezuela's Chavez : No relations with Colombia 'as long as Uribe is president
AFP/Mauricio Duenas
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe gives a press conference in Bogota. A raging row between Venezuela and Colombia intensified Wednesday when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would not have any relations with the neighboring country "as long as (Alvaro) Uribe is president".CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 11 29 07
A raging row between Venezuela and Colombia intensified Wednesday when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would have no relations with the neighboring country "as long as (Alvaro) Uribe is president."
"As long as Uribe is president, a president that is capable of brazenly lying, of showing disrespect for other presidents ... I will not have any sort of relations with him or with with the government of Colombia," Chavez told a group of supporters in the western town of Tachira, near the Colombian border.
It was not immediately clear whether Chavez was speaking personally, or on behalf of his government.
The Venezuelan leader already said last Sunday that he was putting diplomatic ties with Colombia "in a freezer," and has recalled his ambassador to Bogota for consultations after Uribe last week abruptly axed him as a mediator in negotiations to have leftist Colombian rebels free 45 hostages.
The Venezuelan government has said it is proceeding "with an exhaustive evaluation of bilateral relations," without elaborating.
Chavez also said Wednesday his mediation efforts with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had been suspended just as they were bearing fruit.
He claimed that FARC leader Manuel Marulanda had promised "to send me a first group (of hostages) before the end of the year." He added that "the next step would be to speak with Marulanda."
The Colombian president withdrew his support for the Venezuelan leader's mediation efforts with the FARC after Chavez ignored his demand not to speak directly with Colombian generals about the hostages.
Uribe alleged Chavez was not interested in peace "but rather in Colombia becoming the victim of a terrorist government by the FARC."
He also said Chavez was trying to incite hate against Colombia to rally domestic support among voters ahead of a Sunday referendum that, if passed, would significantly expand Chavez's powers and allow him to seek reelection as many times as he wants.
Uribe, however, did not respond to the Venezuelan ambassador's departure by recalling his own ambassador to Caracas.
Speaking to reporters in Bogota just before Chavez' ultimatum, Uribe took his own shot at his Venezuelan counterpart, saying: "Heads of state must think not in terms of their own rage, in their own vanity, but in the need to, above all, respect the people they represent."
Relations between the two countries have long been rocky.
The leftist Venezuelan leader on Tuesday accused Uribe of being "a sad pawn of the (US) empire" after Uribe, a conservative, claimed that Chavez wanted to "build an empire" using its vast oil wealth.
Venezuela and Colombia are each other's second-biggest trading partners, sending more than four billion dollars' worth of goods over their shared border.
Colombia supplies most of the Venezuela's basic foodstuffs like eggs, milk and chicken because such produce was unprofitable in Venezuela under government price controls.
El Universal, a Venezuelan daily, reported companies in Colombia were making preparations that could have "a grave impact" on Venezuela.
It quoted Venezuelan Food Minister Rafael Oropeza as saying "we are going to see how export restrictions and the closure of borders might affect us, but we are determined to buy from other countries."
The rival El Nacional noted that Colombia exported 2.75 billion dollars' worth of cars last year to Venezuela, which has no auto manufacturing base, and warned a worsening conflict would "force us to look to new markets."
Robert Betome, an analyst at the Veneconomia consulting firm, told AFP the row was an eruption of long-simmering tensions between Chavez and Uribe, but that the countries' dependence on each other would prevent a complete shutdown of relations.
"The fact that it (the row) has been brought out in the open doesn't change very much," he said.
"I don't see it going any further than it has now."
Story by Marc Burleigh from AFP
AFP 282231 GMT 11 07
Copyright© 2007 Petroleumworld. All rights reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels