[A-List] Venezuela: Colombians arrested

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Colombian army denies coup plot link

AP in Bogota and Caracas
Wednesday May 12, 2004
The Guardian

The arrest in Venezuela of dozens of Colombian paramilitaries took a new
twist yesterday when the Colombian military admitted that ex-soldiers were
among the detainees but denied they were part of any plot to topple the
president, Hugo Chávez.

The admission will further test relations between two South American
neighbours who habitually trade accusations over supposedly destabilising
activities across their mutual border.

The group was picked up at the weekend at a farm owned by an opponent of Mr
Chávez outside the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

The Colombian army chief, General Martín Orlando Carreño, said 26 out of 90
people arrested in raids on Sunday and Monday had been identified as former
members of the Colombian armed forces.

But he denied that he or the armed forces had been in volved in a plot
against the leftwing Venezuelan president, who survived a coup last year.

The Venezuelan vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, has hinted Gen Carreño
himself was involved, saying the general met members of the Venezuelan
opposition in a Colombian border town.

Gen Carreño denied that he had met Venezuelan "politicians", but
acknowledged meeting Venezuelan "asso-ciates" two months ago to discuss
"border problems, kidnappings and extortion" carried out by leftwing
Colombian rebels operating along the frontier.

Colombian authorities have repeatedly accused Mr Chávez of failing to
crackdown on leftwing rebels and arms crossing the border.

Many members of Colombia's rightwing paramilitary groups, which have been
waging a dirty war against leftwing rebels, are former members of the
Colombian military.