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South American leaders resolve Colombia crisis
South American presidents reached a compromise on Friday to resolve a dangerous crisis triggered by a Colombian military attack in Ecuador, stepping back from a week of insults, troop movements and talk of war.
- AP
- Published: 10:20 March 8, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe, left, and Dominican Republic's President Leonel Fernandez, centre, talk to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez during the Rio Group Summit in Santo Domingo.
Santo Domingo: The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela ended a border dispute on Friday with a summit handshake after a week of regional diplomacy in the face of hostile rhetoric and troop buildups.
"And with this ... this incident that has caused so much damage [is] resolved," leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said before standing up and shaking hands with his US-backed conservative Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had blamed the United States for the crisis as he sent tanks to the border with Colombia, joined in shaking Uribe's hand and applauded loudly and smiled.
The dispute erupted on March 2 when Colombia raided inside Ecuador to kill a rebel leader. Its resolution brought the summit to a surprise ending after bitter exchanges, including Correa calling Uribe a liar.
Armed conflict
The accord came after Uribe apologised to Correa under pressure from governments across the region, which worked to prevent the crisis escalating into Latin America's first armed conflict among states in more than a decade.
The dispute had spread across the region with leftist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua joining Ecuador in cutting relations with Colombia, while Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to their borders against the strongest US ally in the region. Uribe also moved to meet another Correa demand, guaranteeing Colombia would not make similar raids if his neighbours cooperated in the fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Resolution
The resolution was a diplomatic victory for Latin America, whose governments from Mexico to Brazil managed the crisis by emphasising negotiations and took advantage of their previously scheduled summit to force the sides to talk.
Still, the crisis exposed a left-right rift and sparked controversies that could dog the leaders even if their tough stances in the crisis generally bolstered their support at home.
Uribe, popular for a US-financed military offensive against the guerrillas, had said Chavez and Correa supported "terrorists" and they dragged up old accusations he was friendly with paramilitary drug traffickers. The summit host, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez, engineered the handshakes, broadcast live on television across Latin America.
Collateral
5 mexicans killed
Five Mexicans were at the site of a Colombian cross-border attack on rebels in Ecuador, and four of them may have been among at least 25 people killed, the Mexican government said.
Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said Ecuador had issued tourists visas to Fernando Franco Delgado, Soren Ulises Aviles Angeles, Juan Gonzalez del Castillo, Veronica Natalia Velasquez Ramirez and Lucia Andrea Morett Alvarez.
Morett, a 26-year-old student at Mexico's National Autonomous University, or UNAM, was wounded and is recuperating in a Quito hospital. The other four are missing.
"Ecuadorean authorities presume all of them were at the site of the incident," the statement said.
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