The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, entangled in a crisis sparked by a raid by Colombian forces into Ecuador, plan to join other Latin American leaders at a summit Friday.
Colombian forces killed 22 people in the cross-border raid, which targeted a rebel group that has fought the Colombian government for more than 40 years.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, has operated out of camps in Ecuador, according to Colombia's government.
Colombia has apologized for conducting an attack inside Ecuador, but it also has said the killing of a senior leader of FARC in the raid was the most significant blow in more than four decades of warfare between the Colombian government and the group, which the United States and European Union label a terrorist organization.
After the raid, Ecuador and Venezuela, leftist allies that border Colombia, moved troops toward the frontier and denounced the rightist government of Colombia.
They have urged other countries in Latin America to condemn Colombia's actions, efforts that paid off as Nicaragua broke diplomatic relations with Colombia on Thursday.
The Colombian government, meanwhile, said it seized laptops from the attacked rebel camp showing that Venezuela gave $300 million to the rebels and that senior Ecuadoran officials met with FARC rebels.
The Rio Group summit, to be held in the Dominican Republic, was scheduled before the crisis.
The group is an organization of Latin American nations that seeks to expand cooperation among member states and recommend solutions to common problems, among other things.
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador would like the Rio Group to "categorically reject the aggression against Ecuador," according to a statement on an Ecuadoran government Web site.
His counterpart in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, says that Colombia should "accept that it made a mistake," he said, according to the Bolivariana News Agency.
Foreign ministers from across Latin America met Thursday in a prelude to the presidential meetings scheduled for Friday. They said they hoped for a calm resolution to the crisis.
"We have to see everything -- every action that can be seen to bring about a peaceful solution," said David Choquehuanca, the Bolivian foreign minister.
Alejandro Foxley, the Chilean foreign minister, said he worried that Colombia's action would set a "bad precedent in a region that, more than anything, needs to be united."
"The promotion of peace is an essential value of democracy," he said, "and you're not going to see any integration in Latin America or South America if those of us in the various countries don't actively cooperate so that these acts never happen again."
The Rio Group is the second regional forum to consider the crisis.
On Wednesday, the Organization of American States ordered a commission to investigate Colombia's attack. The commission plans to visit Colombia and Ecuador and "propose formulas for bringing the two nations closer together."
The organization also adopted a statement referring to the Colombian attack as "a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ecuador and of principles of international law."
In Ecuador, thousands of people marched in the capital of Quito to advocate peace and a defense of Ecuadoran sovereignty. Prosecutors in the province where the attack happened said they have opened an investigation into the 22 deaths.
No comments:
Post a Comment