No Venezuelan hideout for Colombia Three
The kidnap of a Colombian FARC leader in Venezuela means that the country is no safe haven for the Colombia Three, whose whereabouts are still unknown, reports Michael McCaughan
A Colombian guerrilla leader arrested in Colombia last month had been kidnapped in Venezuela and smuggled across the border to Colombia, it was claimed last week. The claim casts doubts on speculation that the Colombia Three could find a safe haven in Venezuela.
The Colombia Three were last month sentenced to 17 years in jail in Colombia for collaborating with the left-wing guerilla movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). However, they have been in hiding – possiby in another Latin American country – since their release on bail last April. Their supporters have claimed that their imprisonment in Colombia would amount to a virtual death sentence. Venezuela had been thought a likely possible refuge for them because their president, Hugo Chavez, is reportedly sympathetic to FARC.
The Colombian authorities announced that FARC's foreign minister, Rodrigo Granda, had been arrested by their police in the city of Cucuta, near the Colombia-Venezuela border, on 14 December. Last week, FARC's High Command stated that Granda had been kidnapped in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, by agents of the Venezuelan secret police, and smuggled across the border into Colombia.
The Venezuelan authorities had no knowledge of the kidnapping, and the Minister for Justice has since stated that evidence of a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty by Colombian agents involved in the kidnapping would provoke "stiff action".
The Venezuelan secret police are notoriously corrupt and have little allegiance to the president, Chavez, or to his left-wing project.
Venezuela's Minister of Justice, Jesse Chacón, has since acknowledged that a kidnapping happened in Caracas as described by FARC, but said that there was no confirmation that the victim was Granda.
Colombia's attorney general, Luis Camilo Osorio, who led the legal battle to convict the three Irishmen, has insisted that Granda was arrested legitimately in Colombia. "I believe in upholding the law", he said. However, any "extradition" of Granda from Venezuela to Colombia would have been illegal, even if carried out by police agents, as it did not have government authorisation. A close personal ally of President Hugo Chavez has confirmed that Chavez had no advance knowledge of the kidnapping.
However, Chacón, said that there was no record of Granda being in the country legally, and that he had no obligation therefore to respond to FARC's claims that Granda had been kidnapped. FARC have claimed that Granda was in Venezuela at the invitation of the government, attending a left-wing "Bolivarian" conference of Chavez sympathisers from across Latin America.
Colombia and Venezuela's 1,400 mile shared border has provoked tensions between the two countries for decades. Much of it is impossible to police, and large areas on the Colombian side are in de facto FARC control.
Were the Colombia Three to attempt to enter Venezuela, or another neighbouring country, legally, they would likely be identified and arrested by Interpol agents based in the region. The kidnapping of Granda, and the reluctance so far of the Venezualan authorities to pursue an investigation, indicates that the Irishmen could be at risk of a similar operation were they in Venezuela illegally.
When Hugo Chavez was elected president in December 1998, he inherited corrupt police institutions which routinely accepted bribes to protect local and international criminals. Chavez has repeatedly purged agents engaged in sabotage against his government, and a number of dismissed officers have been reported to be involved in criminal activity.
One former Venezuelan secret police agent, José Guevar, is currently in a FBI witness-protection programme in Flordia, having been arrested while on the run, after he fled charges of corruption and murder in Peru.