Security & Strategic Review - August 2005

ECUADOR-COLOMBIA | Border incidents. On 20 July the office of Ecuador's ombudsman and several rights NGOs claimed that Colombian troops had recently entered Ecuadorean territory. The spokesman for the Asamblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos (APDH), Alexis Ponce, said he had received the information directly from Ecuadorean military sources on the border. They had told him, he said, that a patrol had intercepted armed men in plain clothes who, when challenged, identified themselves as Colombian soldiers. They were escorted back to the 
border. Ombudsman Claudio Mueckay said he had received similar information during an inspection of the border province of Sucumbí­os.