Andean Group - March 2008 (ISSN 1741-4466)

The Ecuadorean minister for Internal and External Security, Gustavo Larrea, admitted on 3 March that he had met a delegate of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). He insisted that this was solely to try and secure the release of Franco-Colombian former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, and eleven other hostages including one Ecuadorean, Marcelino Arriaga, three US citizens, Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell, and several other high-profile hostages.

The announcement came after Larrea was accused by Óscar Naranjo, head of the Colombian national police, of having "links" with the Farc according to documents found on Raúl Reyes' computer. First Larrea had denied these claims, passing them off as slander and "a lie". He changed tack on 3 March, though maintaining that Naranjo's allegations were "totally false" and "a smoke screen" to distract attention from Colombia's "injustifiable_ violation of our national sovereignty."

Larrea qualified that he had indeed met a Farc delegate in early January - a meeting which took place "outside Ecuador". "As is obvious, these conversations were not public," he admitted, but he added that the Colombian government had been informed of them.

He explained that negotiations were at an "advanced" stage, adding that the hostages' release could have been expected in the next few weeks. Larrea had been part of the humanitarian mission which secured the release of hostages Clara Rojas and Consuelo González in January, and had offered Ecuador's help in mediating negotiations for a possible prisoner swap.

Larrea confirmed what President Rafael Correa had asserted previously - that the raid on the Farc camp in Ecuador by the Colombian armed forces on 1 March has dashed hopes of Betancourt being liberated any time soon.

Though Ecuador claims that Colombia was aware of Larrea's negotiations with the Farc, Colombia denies this, saying that it knew nothing about them. However, one of the documents found on Reyes' computer dated 28 February mentions that the US was involved. If this is true, it would be difficult to believe that Colombia was uninformed of what was going on.

The Farc communiqué reads: "The gringos will ask for a meeting with the minister to ask him to communicate to us that they are interested in discussing various issues." If the minister in question is Larrea, this would suggest that the US had been trying to get Ecuador to substitute Venezuela in negotiating a prisoner swap. (Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe sacked his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez , last November from his role as mediator.)

By contrast, Naranjo claims that Correa's government has been looking to formalise relations with the Farc and even replace the commanders of its security forces near the border with Farc-sympathisers. Larrea insisted that "we were negotiating absolutely nothing with the Farc other than the liberation of the hostages and principally Ingrid Betancourt."

It is as yet unclear how Naranjo's accusations will reflect on Larrea - and on Correa's government - in the perceptions of the international community. It would certainly not look good for Correa and his party's majority bloc in the Constituent Assembly, Acuerdo Paí­s (AP), if it were proven that his interior minister had been striking under-the-table deals with senior Farc leadership. This is far from being proven, however.

• Social tensions

Colombia's violent incursion into Ecuadorean territory is likely to fuel anti-Colombian sentiment among Ecuadoreans, leading to social as well as military and political tensions. Roughly 50,000 Colombians live in Ecuador, both legally and illegally, though estimates vary. Most are recent refugees who have fled the conflict. Feelings about this mass immigration already run high, and the hostile diplomatic climate between the two countries may see itself reflected in increasing discrimination against Colombians living in Ecuador.