Uribe Appears to Have Lied

Not President Álvaro Uribe, but Colombian Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe apparently lied when he said that FARC rebel Rodrigo Granda was captured in Colombia. Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez had been claiming that Granda had been kidnapped from Caracas and taken to Colombia.

As it turns out, Chávez was right:

A statement by a Colombian minister that bounty hunters were paid to help capture a rebel leader from Venezuela threatens to escalate a bilateral row. 

Tensions have been high since Rodrigo Granda was captured in December, with Venezuela insisting he was illegally kidnapped in its capital, Caracas.

For weeks, Colombian Defence Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe denied the claims.

But he has now said Colombia paid for information which resulted in the Farc rebel being captured in Colombia.

This is bad. I hold briefs for neither the FARC nor Chávez, but there is a proper way to conduct these matters: arrest warrants, courts and extradition proceedings. If it appeared that Chávez was unwilling to coöperate, then there are diplomatic channels to pursue. As the article notes this incident has further strained relations between the two countries. Whether Uribe (the president this time) likes the mercurial Chávez or not, given that the two nations share a fairly porous border, he would be well-advised to avoid antagonizing Chávez whose cooperation he may need in the future.

As for Uribe (the defense minister), given the false claims of a FARC plot to assassinate President Bush in November and now this, if I were president I might be looking to replace him. His credibility at minimum is thin.

Hat tip to David Holiday.

Comments

[Shawn Slaven]

Nice blog...but I think you're wrong about "a proper way to conduct these matters." Arrest warrants? Courts? extradition proceedings? You are talking about Venezuela, aren't you?

First, upon learning of Granda's presence in Caracas, the Uribe government would have had to convince someone in the Chavez government to arrest him. Then Chavez would theoretically send him to jail, where numerous sympathetic and/or corrupt wardens could let him walk out at any moment. Then there would have to be a trial, where a Chavez-appointed judge would find no evidence of crimes under the laws of the great Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Extradited to Colombia? If Chavez arrested the devil himself, he would never hand him over to Uribe.

If corrupt officials and sympathetic foreign governments could be counted on not to harbor Colombian terrorists, such tactics may not be necessary. But Uribe is not running a Jeffersonian democracy--and neither are his neighbors. This may not be PC or dimplomatic, but the only thing that went wrong in this operation is that word got out about it. A terrorist is behind bars and nobody got hurt.

And why should Uribe avoid antagonizing Chavez? Did I miss the memo that said Chavez is Boilvar resurrected?
Given the interdependence of Colombia and Venezuela, Chavez ought to heed your advice and avoid antagonizing Uribe...Uncle Hugo should stop allowing FARC commanders to vacation in his country and announce a cooperative agreement to rid his country of all groups that run drugs and support violence.

[Randy Paul]

Shawn,

I have to disagree. First of all, imagine the outcry if the reverse were done. Lets say if one of the parties responsible for the car bombing that killed Danilo Anderson sought refuge in Colombia. Would Chávez have had the right to hire bounty hunters in Bogotá to kidnap this person? I don´t think so. So if it would be wrong for Chávez to do so, it wouldn´t make it right for Uribe to do so.

Secondly, Chávez now has a legitimate complaint to air agains COlombia. Why let him become the victim?

Finally, imagine the public outrage all over Latin America if Chávez didn´t turn Granda over. Chávez´s foes would have a legitimate argument that he was harboring FARC terrorists. I think that he would have a difficult time bearing up under that kind of pressure.

So I have to respectfully disagree. Uribe should have gone through formal channels first.

[Shawn Slaven]

The "shoe-on-the-other-foot" theory is one we discussed at work Friday when this story really got big (I work for a firm that invests in Latin America). When you turn the tables, it always sounds bad. What if Fidel Castro kidnapped a Cuban dissedant from Miami? We all agree that's bad. But until you walk mile in Uribe's shoes...none of these analogies make sense because no other country has Colombia's problems.

Any *democratic* leader from a country that had been in a state of war between narcos, Marxists and far-right death squads for forty years would be justified in doing the same thing.

Neverthless, you make some solid points, but there is so much we don't know it's difficult to figure out the real story, especially if you're like me...in America and unable to read Spanish websites.

Somebody's lying, but we don't know who. Chavez says he has no loyalty to FARC, and in the past has sounded like he wanted to work with the Colombians to prevent rebels from crossing the border. Could it be that allowed the "kidnapping" of Granda, and is putting on this dog and pony show of shock and fury to look like a tough guy and appease his leftist supporters? Wouldn't be the craziest thing he's ever done.

[VivaVenezuela]

Realistically, do you really think turning it all over to the OAS would make a difference? As if that group, or the UN, is some kind of power center feared by Chavez for its devotion to law and order? I don't think so. It's a nice idea in principle and such institutions work really well when you are talking about a country like Belgium in a dispute with a country like Luxembourg, but the harsh realities of Colombia, combined with the utter indifference of the international (especially US media) community pretty much leaves President Uribe on his own.

Granda was an extreme murderer walking around happily with a cheaply bestowed Venezuelan passport. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to recognize that Chavez wanted him to feel welcome there. It's now come to light that he was busily plotting by email the murder of a former president's daughter in Paraguay. What a guy. And what a guy who let him in to do that in the comfort of freedom. Normal Venezuelans cannot get passports out anymore but Granda sure didnt' have any problems. Where is Chavez's outrage about Granda? His minions were last seen protesting Granda's capture, declaring him their 'brother.' A FARC guerrilla, their own brother! Lovely. I don't think Chavez is going to change, he feels too much ideological sympathy with the FARC to really shove them out of there. They are his own glorious 'revolucion,' his muscle.

His recent moves to turn over some FARC small fish to Colombia now that President Uribe has shown him what he is capable of, what the terms of engagement are gonna be, is probably Uribe's victory. Chavez understands force and only force, so now he's thinking about what's in his interest. I hope he starts forking over the FARC's big fish with this new Uribe incentive.

The international system works beautifully when you are a country like Canada or Ireland. When you are on the outside looking in, like Colombia, or most of Latin America, your options are very different.

Nobody cares what happens in Latin America, certainly not the international community, and even if they did, they are concerned with process, not results. For them, it's no problem if a 'peace process' takes another 40 years, or if a criminal court war crimes trial of an obvious mass murderer takes 20 years - for them this is just business, just the proof of their ongoing moral superiority. But if you are President Uribe, it is an actual problem because your people need justice and the international community and its institutions just don't have that as a priority.

President Uribe has little choice but to take things into his own hands.