Article

2008-03-07 Caribbean-Latin America

Breaking - Venezuelan Soldiers Enter Colombia, Shots Fired

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Posted by Anonymoose 2008-03-07 17:03|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 At least they waited for the market to close.

If Hugo is going to do this, he will have to open a Northern Front. His guys are already in place.

So that means us, folks.

Posted by Penguin 2008-03-07 17:09|| 2008-03-07 17:09|| Front Page Top

#2 Per Adam Housley:

Colombian government confirming.....terrorist group FARC's leader is dead.

*

Posted by 3dc 2008-03-07 17:20|| 2008-03-07 17:20|| Front Page Top

#3 FARC security wacked FARC #2 today and sent his hand to Colombian officials as proof. Will link later, prolly for tomorrowburg.

Posted by Seafarious 2008-03-07 17:23|| 2008-03-07 17:23|| Front Page Top

#4 Columbia is getting serious about taking out FARC. You wanna be next on their shit list, Hugo?

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2008-03-07 17:25|| 2008-03-07 17:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Aw heck, couldn't wait: link

Posted by Seafarious 2008-03-07 17:25|| 2008-03-07 17:25|| Front Page Top

#6 So...what's up with this? 50 minutes ago...

Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela end border crisis

SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela ended a dispute on Friday, publicly shaking hands at a summit after a week of troop buildups that also saw several countries cutting ties with Colombia.

"And with this ... this incident that has caused so much damage would be resolved," leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said before standing up and shaking hands with his U.S.-backed 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 U.S.-ally Colombia, joined in shaking Uribe's hand vigorously, applauding loudly and smiling broadly.

The resolution of the dispute, which erupted on Saturday when Colombia raided inside Ecuador to kill a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was a surprise ending to the summit.

The handshakes were broadcast live on television across Latin America in response to a special request from summit host Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez.

Earlier Uribe and Correa had clashed at the meeting.

Correa had called his conservative Colombian counterpart a liar after he accused him of links to guerrillas.

The crisis had spread across the region with leftist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua joining Ecuador in cutting diplomatic ties with Colombia, while Venezuela and Ecuador poured troops to their borders against the strongest U.S. ally in the region.

Nicaragua responded to the ending of the dispute by restoring ties with Colombia.

Posted by tu3031 2008-03-07 17:37|| 2008-03-07 17:37|| Front Page Top

#7 The smart money would be on Venezuela; el dictador is loaded with oil money, and armed to the teeth. What is Ecuador's interest? They claim that Peru occupies half of their real territory. They are probably thinking of some post-Columbia move against Peru. Then there is Bolivia, which claims much of southern Peru.

Folks, the global enemy is loaded with oil and drug money. We played the political-islam and phony-freedom (viz supporting one-time pseudo-democratic elections) cards and failed, miserably. Six years of post-911 wheel spinning, has yielded nothing but global realignment in favor of the enemy. And now Obama is well positioned to include the White House in said realignment.

If I hear one more politician speak of our need to respect the wishes of the people of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, I will puke. I don't want terrorists to vote; I want them to die.

Posted by McZoid 2008-03-07 17:43|| 2008-03-07 17:43|| Front Page Top

#8 Don't know wether this is related but...
March 7th, 2008
Border incident between Colombians and Venezuela

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=1302

from the above link-
"Noticias24 reports a border incident between Colombian civilians and the Venezuelan Army.
My rough Spanish-as-a-second-language translation follows;

In a confused incident, a unit of the DISIP (Venezuelan Security forces) has crossed the frontier and has penetrated into Colombian territory in Paraguachón. The inhabitants have surrounded the patrol and they have not allowed that the Venezuelan officials to recover the patrol.

Apparently, the unit of the DISIP was recovering a vehicle. The group of citizens of Paraguachón has exchanged insults against the DISIP of Venezuela and, with their aggressive attitude, units of the National Guard have crossed the border to help them and to protect them.

After minutes of tension, the situation returned to the calm but the vehicle of the DISIP still is in Colombian territory surrounded by the inhabitants of the locality. Colombian police units have approached the place."

Posted by Linker 2008-03-07 18:12|| 2008-03-07 18:12|| Front Page Top

#9 My memory of crossing into Columbia is seared... seared into my mind.

Posted by Lt Juan Kerrisimmo 2008-03-07 18:30|| 2008-03-07 18:30|| Front Page Top

#10 One more...
reported in the English side of El Universal, a newspaper from Caracas, Venezuela.

Caracas, Friday March 07 , 2008
http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/03/07/en_colcd_art_venezuelan-troops-en_07A1417447.shtml

Venezuelan troops enter Colombian territory

A Venezuelan National Guard patrol vehicle Friday entered Colombian territory at the Paraguachón Bridge, in the border

peninsula of Guajira, north Venezuela-Colombia, and some gunshots were made, television reporters said in the place.

"The (Venezuelan) National Guard went into Colombian territory, trespassed the border, and apparently guns were shot in both

sides," Antonio Hernández, an official with the Colombian Department of La Guajira told reporters, according to AFP.

Hernández called for calm among the inhabitants in the zone who threw stones at the Venezuelan patrol. "I am asking people to

calm down, because we cannot fall into the trap of provocation," he said.

Posted by Linker5 2008-03-07 18:55|| 2008-03-07 18:55|| Front Page Top

#11 From AP,

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) A top rebel leader was killed by his own chief of security, who gave Colombian troops the leader's severed hand as proof, the defense minister said Friday. Ivan Rios was the second top rebel killed in a week, a major setback for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel force.

No top Colombian rebel leader had ever been slain until Raul Reyes was killed Saturday in a cross-border raid by Colombian troops into Ecuador that set off an international diplomatic crisis.

"The FARC has suffered a new, major blow," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters, calling Rios' death "yet another demonstration that the FARC is falling apart."

He said troops launched an operation designed to capture Rios on Feb. 17 after receiving tips that he was in a mountainous area straddling the western Colombian provinces of Caldas and Antioquia, and engaged the guerrillas' outer security ring seven times.

Thursday night, he said, a guerrilla known as Rojas came to the troops with Rios' severed right hand, laptop computer and ID, saying he had killed his boss three days earlier.

It was unclear what motivated the killing, but Santos said it was to "relieve the military pressure" because the rebels were "surrounded, without supplies and without communication."

Posted by Phil_B 2008-03-07 19:04|| 2008-03-07 19:04|| Front Page Top

#12 Caldas and Antioquia are well away from Venezuela border. So it seems 2 seperate incidents here.

Posted by Phil_B 2008-03-07 19:13|| 2008-03-07 19:13|| Front Page Top

#13 Still waiting for a non-Colombian source. Or a severed head.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2008-03-07 19:42|| 2008-03-07 19:42|| Front Page Top

#14 Lt Juan Kerrisimmo,
Ima damn impressed Lt. JK~!, Could you find Hugo's Head?

Posted by RD">RD 2008-03-07 21:21|| 2008-03-07 21:21|| Front Page Top

#15 Dammit RD, I'm just a country ~~doctor~~ Army Lt., not a proctologist!

Posted by Lt Juan Kerrisimmo">Lt Juan Kerrisimmo 2008-03-07 21:33|| 2008-03-07 21:33|| Front Page Top

#16 I am going to guess that the shots were Venezuelan government troops attempting to stop a mass defection to Columbia.

Posted by crosspatch 2008-03-07 21:43|| 2008-03-07 21:43|| Front Page Top

#17 Chavez's conquistadors 0, Columbian campesinos 1.

Posted by ed 2008-03-07 22:01|| 2008-03-07 22:01|| Front Page Top

#18 Oooooh, his computer -- that's even more exciting than his hand, whether left or right.

Thank you for the translation, Linker5. :-)

Posted by trailing wife 2008-03-07 22:56|| 2008-03-07 22:56|| Front Page Top

23:45 JosephMendiola
23:30 Frank G
23:30 JosephMendiola
23:23 crosspatch
23:23 tu3031
23:22 trailing wife
23:21 crosspatch
23:18 Seafarious
23:17 trailing wife
23:16 JosephMendiola
23:15 Frank G
23:09 trailing wife
23:08 Free Radical
23:07 mojo
23:01 mojo
23:00 Free Radical
22:56 trailing wife
22:55 ed
22:52 tu3031
22:44 trailing wife
22:34 Spailet Black6588
22:33 ed
22:26 ed
22:21 trailing wife