Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced economic sanctions against neighbouring Colombia which last week asked the Venezuelan government to explain the presence of arms traced to Venezuela found in rebel Farc arms depots. Venezuela has halted the import of 10,000 vehicles and canceled the participation of a Colombian oil company in an oil auction in Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco region. Trade between the two countries is worth about $7 billion. Venezuela imports almost all its food from Colombia.
The Colombian government announced last week that Swedish-made arms captured from the rebel group Farc had been traced to Venezuela. Chavez said 5 August that the arms had been stolen from a Venezuelan naval post in 1995. Tensions between the two countries remain high, with Colombia and the US negotiating a military bases treaty that would see US troops on Colombian soil to aid in the fight against drugs trafficking and the 40 year-old conflict with Farc, accused of involvement in the drug trade. Venezuela opposes the presence of foreign troops in Latin America. BBC, CNN, El Tiempo (Spa)
The government of Colombia said 27 July that it was investigating how Swedish-made weapons supplied to Venezuela were found in the possession of the rebel narco-terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Colombia’s Vice-president Francisco Santos said “In several operations we have been able to capture arsenals of the Farc. We have found heavy weapons, including anti-tank weapons” that were purchased in Europe.
Jan-Erik Lovgren of the Swedish Inspectorate for Strategic Products, says that, based on the serial numbers, it appears that the weapons were sold to Venezuela in the 1980s. He told Swedish radio that arms sales to Venezuela had stopped in 2006 and that Sweden had never authorized arms sales to Colombia. The Venezuelan government, already embarrassed by findings linking it to Farc when Colombian troops overran a Farc camp in Ecuador in 2008, has rejected the claims. Venezuelan Justice and Interior Minister Tarreck El Aissami said it was a “media show” and “an aggression against our people, our government and our institutions”. BBC, CNN, El Nacional (Spa), Reuters.
Shadu, age 3, has lost his mother, DR Congo (image: ICRC June 2009, P Yazdi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – More than half of the civilians directly touched by the world’s eight major conflicts have been displaced, and half say they have lost contact with a family member. One in five have lost their livelihood.
These are some of the findings of a statistical and interview set of surveys ordered by the International Red Cross (ICRC), based in Geneva, to ascertain the extent to which civilians today are affected by major conflicts.
The greatest fears mentioned by people surveyed:
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has sent 500 police officers onto the streets of Medellin in an attempt to stop the violence as drug gangs battle over territory, in what appears to be a “fight for control of an organization set up by Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel,” reports the BBC. Escobar died in 1993.
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – TSR, Swiss public television, will run a documentary 5 February following its own investigation into charges by Colombian authorities that Jean-Pierre Gontard paid CHF500,000 in ransom money to Farc rebels in order to gain the release of Novartis employees taken hostage.
Six “high profile” hostages, reports the BBC, will be liberated by Farc, the Colombian rebel group, in the next four days, according to Senator Piedad Cordoba who has been involved in previous negotiations with the group. The Geneva-based ICRC (Internaional Red Cross), reportedly involved in the release, has made no public comment. The BBC says this is the first voluntary release of hostages by Farc in the past 12 months.
The similarities are clear: Oscar Tulio Lizcano, a Colombian congressman is freed in Colombia after more than eight years with the guerrillla group Farc, thanks to help from one of his captors, in an escape similar to that of Ingrid Betancourt, released in July 2008. BBC
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ministers from the European Free Trade Association meeting in Geneva Monday with Colombia’s commerce minister, Luis Guillermo Plata Páez, are expected to sign a free trade agreement and to meet with Russia’s commerce minister to discuss the feasibility of a free trade agreement.
A moving amateur video carried by the BBC shows the moment when Colombian hostage Oscar Tulio Lizcano was brought out of captivity by his former Farc captor. The two travelled for three days and went without sleep for 72 hours to escape through the jungle. BBC story
The longest held politician-hostage in Colombia, 63-year-old Óscar Lizcano, escaped the Farc rebels who have held him, with one of his captors, making a three-day trek through the jungle. International Herald Tribune
Bogota, Colombia and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Luis Carlos Restrepo, high commissioner for peace in Colombia, has reportedly said on a private Colombian radio station that the government is ready to hold peace rather than humanitarian talks directly with Farc rebels, and that the time appears to be right, with the new Farc leader open to direct contact.
Restrepo also is reported to have said that he has lost faith in the work of the European envoys, including Jean-Pierre Gontard, which has failed to achieve much over the years. Gontard was sharply criticized by the Colombian government 4 July, which suspects him of being linked to Farc funds.
He remains the Swiss envoy, the Swiss government confirmed Monday, saying that he is recognized by all parties and that Switzerland intends to continue its mediation efforts.
Photo, Jean-Pierre Gontard & Farc's leader Guillermo Cano - Image courtesy of El Espectador.com
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A humanitarian expert from Geneva is at the centre of a scandal surrounding the Colombian Marxist-guerrilla group, Farc. According to intelligence reports cited in Colombia, a Swiss envoy identified as Jean-Pierre Gontard carried hundreds of thousand of dollars belonging to the armed group.
Gontard, who is associated with The Graduate Institute for Development Studies (IUED) in Geneva, is being linked by the Colombian government to almost US$500,000 seized from the Farc in Costa Rica.
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos stated: “All I’m saying is that, that gentleman, Gontard, is going to have to explain why he appears in Raul Reyes’ emails“.
Santos makes reference to Raul Reyes, the Farc’s spokesperson and second-in-command killed recently during a Colombian military operative in Ecuador and whose laptop was confiscated. The minister refused to answer further questions.
The Swiss government reacted immediately through its ambassador in Bogota, Thomas Kupfer. In a press release printed in its entirety by “El Tiempo“, Kupfer says Gontard “is not a Swiss diplomat but an external adviser of the Swiss government seeking a humanitarian agreement.”
Kupfer recognizes that Gontard’s mission on behalf of Switzerland involves a great deal of independent work and “neither his actions nor his statements necessarily compromise the Swiss government.”
The Ambassador added that in 2000 Gontard successfully mediated the release of two workers of Swiss multinational Novartis who had been kidnapped in Colombia and that perhaps the money was related to a possible ransom payment and added that the Swiss government was “unaware” if this was the case or if Gontard had participated in such a transaction.
Updated, 10:35: Monday morning Daniel Vasella, head of Novartis, denied Colombian government reports that link Gontard to Farc money. Speaking to RSR, Swiss public radio, he says Gontard was only a “diplomatic intermediary” when the two Novartis employees were liberated.
Contrary to some reports in Geneva that cite Gontard’s role in operation “check,” the Swiss ambassador says Gontard did “not” play any role in the release of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages. Rather, he says, it was by sheer chance that the Swiss and French envoys were in Colombia at the time.
- Related story, 4 July: Swiss radio: Betancourt and hostages not rescued but released
