OAS resolution stops short of condemning Colombia
The Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution in the early hours of 18 March issuing Colombia with a mild rebuke for its bombing of a Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) camp on Ecuadorean soil on 1 March. It differed very little in substance from the Rio Group resolution released 10 days earlier. Ecuador had wanted Colombia explicitly condemned for the action. It had to settle for an article which used the word "reject" in relation to the military incursion. While the Colombian government managed to save face, however, it suffered a setback in its efforts to link Ecuadorean authorities to the Farc.
After 14 hours of discussion (more than half behind closed doors) regional foreign ministers eventually agreed to adopt a resolution which "rejected" the bombing raid. Venezuela was reportedly instrumental in discouraging Ecuador from seeking to humiliate Colombia. This would be consistent with President Hugo Chávez 's efforts to soothe tension at the Rio Group summit and his follow-up phone call to Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe in which both men agreed to meet and promised to work together to prevent either country from being the victim of violent groups. Chávez recently claimed that Colombian paramilitaries are plotting a conspiracy against him along with the US [WR-08-06].
Ecuador's foreign minister, María Isabel Salvador, said the resolution was "a clear triumph for truth". She said Ecuador was evaluating when to restore diplomatic relations with Colombia and would do so at the "appropriate time". Her Colombian peer, Fernando Araújo, said that his country had achieved what it had sought: an article that called for "cooperation with Ecuador in the fight against insurgents and terrorists". The resolution does not specifically say this. Rather it repeats the commitment of all member states "to combat threats to security caused by the actions of irregular groups or criminal organisations, especially those associated with drug-trafficking".
The OAS report - which was compiled by a fact-finding mission to Ecuador and Colombia last week for the foreign ministers to discuss - received scant mention in the resolution. The report, produced by the mission led by secretary general José Miguel Insulza, points out discrepancies in the accounts of the incident presented by the governments of Ecuador and Colombia, but it makes no attempt to reconcile these, merely stating that the two versions "are contradictory". It opts instead for citing a litany of articles from OAS and UN charters on the principle of inviolability of territorial integrity.
Among the platitudes, such as "the ties of trust between the governments of Colombia and Ecuador have been seriously damaged", is a call for the two countries to restore diplomatic ties and reactivate existing political consultation mechanisms, principally Conbifron. Conbifron is the bi-national border commission which coordinates border security issues and which President Rafael Correa suspended in the wake of the attack. A notable omission - in both the report and the OAS resolution - is any reference to the international peacekeeping force for which Correa called to control the border.
Tension persists
The OAS was never likely to issue Colombia with a formal reprimand after its diplomatic rift with Ecuador was ostensibly repaired at the Rio Group Summit, where both countries agreed to maintain communication in order to ensure that a recurrence of the recent sabre-rattling should not escalate into small-scale conflict. The rift is already beginning to open again, however. The cause was the circulation among OAS envoys before the meeting of a photo in Colombia's national daily, El Tiempo, on 16 March purporting to depict Ecuador's security minister, Gustavo Larrea, speaking to Raúl Reyes, the Farc number two killed in the raid. The Uribe administration had accused Larrea of holding secret talks with Reyes without its consent, in a fierce counterattack on Ecuador shortly after Correa condemned Uribe for lying about what he described as "a premeditated attack" on the Farc camp [WR-08-09].
The Ecuadorean delegation denied that the man in the photo was Larrea, who sent a letter to El Tiempo clarifying that it was in fact Patricio Echegaray, the secretary general of Argentina's Partido Comunista. Larrea said that Ecuador would not renew diplomatic relations with Colombia while Bogotá continued its "media campaign" against Ecuador in a clear attempt to exert pressure on the OAS and to try to mislead the international community. He said it was unethical and that Ecuador's government would never disseminate information it received showing Colombian officials linked to paramilitaries and drug-traffickers.
In a contrite editorial, El Tiempo apologised for having published the photo, which it said it had been supplied by a police source from the laptop of Reyes found at the Farc camp. The police admitted one of its employees had leaked the photo. The editorial raises the broader concern about the credibility of the files on the laptop, which Interpol agents are currently looking at: they aim to present their conclusions in late April. The editorial claims that the mistake was regrettable but that the files should not be discounted. It cites a raid on a house in Costa Rica on 14 March, based on information gleaned from the laptop, which turned up a US$480,000 Farc cash-stash.
Future of OAS
Venezuela's foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, indirectly questioned the future of the OAS after the release of the resolution. He said the OAS had "demonstrated its historic limitations", adding (in clarification) that the US had obstructed discussions all day and that the Rio Group accord was "much better". In reality there was little difference: foreign ministers were never likely to modify much what heads of state had agreed upon at the Rio Group.
Venezuela has stated its resolve in recent years to leave the OAS. If it did so, Ecuador might follow suit. Although Correa expressed his satisfaction with the resolution, he had previously called for the establishment of an OAS without the US. While the US supported the resolution to bring about a rapprochement between Ecuador and Colombia, it added a caveat: the text should have mentioned the right to self-defence - Colombia's justification for the raid in the first place.
"We understand why this attack was carried out," John Negroponte, the US deputy Secretary of State, said, citing UN resolutions on terrorism. While the rest of the region's foreign ministers came to Washington, Rice was in the region carrying out a hastily-scheduled visit to Brazil and Chile designed to show that the US has not forgotten Latin America. Argentina's President Cristina Fernández, who is working hard to repair ties with the US, was reportedly incensed at the fact that Rice omitted to visit Buenos Aires.
- Peace Concert
A huge "Concierto para la Paz" took place in Cucuta on the Colombian border with Venezuela on 16 March in front of a crowd of some 60,000 people, symbolically taking place on and around the Simón Bolívar bridge which links the two countries. The concert, which featured seven Spanish and Latin American musicians, was organised by Colombian singer Juanes after the bombing raid on Ecuadorean soil heightened tension in Grancolombia and put Venezuela on a war footing. He said the concert's main aim was to affirm the right of ordinary citizens to live in peace. President Uribe decided not to attend after an appeal from Juanes' manager not to politicise the event.