Andean Group - March 2008 (ISSN 1741-4466)

President Alvaro Uribe's decision to launch an air strike against a leader of the Farc on Ecuadorean territory has left Colombia completely isolated in Latin America. Ecuador is furious at the violation of its territory, while Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez claims to fear that Colombia might try the same in his country. The rest of Latin America has united to condemn Colombia for an action which poses such a risk to regional security. Uribe, however, is unrepentant. Moreover, he considers himself to be more sinned against than sinner.

Correa's response

From the moment Rafael Correa discovered that Uribe had lied to him about the hot pursuit, the Ecuadorean president has acted with considerable pragmatism. Believing that the raid is not a bilateral issue but a regional concern, Correa promptly embarked on a whistle-stop tour of Latin America. He first visited Peru - one of Colombia's strongest allies in the region - before heading on to Brazil where he met President Lula da Silva. He will also call on Venezuela, Panama and Nicaragua before ending his tour at the Rio Group summit in the Dominican Republic on 6 March.

Correa was encouraged by the attitude of Peru's president, Alan Garcí­a, who said that he would not tolerate Colombia doing the same thing on Peruvian territory and asked Uribe to apologise. The other countries on Correa's itinerary are similarly sympathetic to his cause. An emergency meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) underlined the united condemnation of Colombia in the hemisphere: only the US was willing to defend Uribe.

It now appears likely that the OAS will call for an investigation into the raid in which Reyes was killed. Neither Colombia nor the US favour this outcome, for fear that an investigation would fully expose the techniques and technology that the US has passed on to Colombia's military. At the time of writing the ongoing emergency OAS meeting has failed to reach an agreement, though the organisation has already arranged a further foreign ministers' meeting on 17 or 18 March. Before then, however, Colombia will almost certainly face more regional reproach at the Rio Group meeting.

Correa's response stands in marked contrast to that of Chávez . The Venezuelan president is entitled to worry that Colombia might consider attacks on Venezuelan soil, but his approach to the situation has been far less constructive than Correa's. Chávez sent ten battalions to the border with Colombia where Correa only mobilised forces already in the north of Ecuador. Chávez was also quicker than Correa to sever ties with Colombia, and needless to say the Venezuelan president was also much more forthcoming with belligerent talk and insults. Chávez also held a minute's silence for Reyes on his weekly broadcast, 'Aló, Presidente'.

Computer defence

Notwithstanding, Correa and Chávez have adopted a similar line in ridiculing and largely ignoring Uribe's counter accusations. The Colombian government claims to have discovered three computers at the camp where Reyes was killed which show that Correa was indirectly involved in negotiations with Reyes and that Chávez had offered to donate US$300m to the Farc.

The first documents released by the Colombian authorities concerned a meeting between Reyes and Ecuador's security minister, Gustavo Larrea. After these achieved a partial success (see page 5), the Colombian government published more documents from the computers which, it claimed, were even more explosive. By far the most noteworthy is a series of communications between the Farc's top leaders which reportedly indicate that Chávez has promised to donate oil worth US$300m to the Farc this year.

Uribe's defiance when faced with the region's wrath is based entirely on the alleged contents of the computers. This is despite there being two major flaws to his argument. First, there is no corroborating evidence regarding the contents of the computers; there is nothing to say that Colombia's intelligence services haven't manipulated what documents were there. Secondly, Uribe cannot justify his attack on Ecuador on the basis of computers found at the site of the raid after it had occurred.

Yet this has not deterred Uribe from his accusations. On 4 March he announced that Colombia will go before the international criminal court to accuse Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez of "sponsoring and financing genocide". Moreover, he and his government are using the evidence on the computers to argue that the raid was legitimate on the basis of Article 51 of the United Nations charter and UN Resolution 1373. Article 51 recognises "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence". Resolution 1373, which was approved after the 9/11 attacks on the US, states that nations should refrain from providing financing, support or safe haven to terrorist organisations.

Uribe must know that the chronology of events undermines his legal basis for the strike and that the best way to appease the OAS would be to apologise to Ecuador. His refusal to do so suggests that Uribe is playing to his domestic audience. There are numerous short-term reasons why he would do this: the release of four of the Farc's hostages on 27 February underlined that Chávez rather than Uribe is the most likely avenue for a prisoner swap, while an anti-paramilitary protest planned for 6 March has threatened to revive the parapolitical scandal. In the longer term, however, Uribe might be trying to engineer the kind of "hecatombe" - catastrophe - that he said last year might persuade him to run for a third term in office.

• OAS emergency

The OAS rarely calls emergency meetings. The last occasion was during the 1993 crisis in Haiti, though there were also emergency meetings after the US invasions of Panama and Granada and the outbreak of the Falklands War (Guerra de las Malvinas). In order for a resolution to be approved by the emergency meeting it must secure the support of two thirds of the 34 OAS members in an open vote.

• Hostages freed

On 27 February the Farc handed over four of its hostages: Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltrán, Luis Eladio Pérez and Jorge Eduardo Géchem Turbay. The Farc has unconditionally released six hostages so far in 2008 , but its munificence is at an end: upon freeing the four former members of congress, the guerrilla group stated that it will not free any more of its 40 remaining high-profile hostages until the government demilitarises for 45 days an area of 800 square kilometres in the municipalities of Pradera and Florida in the western department of Valle.