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Nicaragua breaks Colombia ties
2008-03-06
Nicaragua broke off diplomatic ties with Colombia on Thursday, widening a Latin American crisis over a raid by Colombia on a rebel camp inside Ecuador last Saturday. Venezuela and Ecuador have also cut relations with Colombia and sent troops to their frontiers with the U.S.-backed state in reaction to the cross-border raid, which prompted leftist allies in Latin America to line up against Colombia. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, an ex-guerrilla whose country is in a territorial dispute with Colombia, said he was breaking off relations "in solidarity" with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, who was visiting Managua. Ortega's move strengthened the leftist alliance that has formed around Ecuador and Venezuela and left their neighbor, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, increasingly isolated and under pressure to apologize. "We are breaking with the terrorist politics that Alvaro Uribe's government is employing," Ortega said. Mexico has been relatively quiet about the crisis but may be drawn into the fray as Ecuador's government said it was investigating whether Mexicans were among the more than 20 dead in the FARC camp. The leaders of Colombia and Ecuador and other presidents from the region were heading on Thursday to a summit of Latin American leaders in the Dominican Republic where the Andean crisis would be center stage. Ecuador's Correa hopes to win an explicit condemnation there against Colombia, which has the backing of U.S. President George W. Bush and receives billions of dollars of U.S. aid for fighting guerrillas and the cocaine trade. "We have to make decisions ... to clearly condemn the Colombian aggression and make sure this government never again dares to attack a brother country," Correa said. COLOMBIA SAYS HAD TO ACT Earlier this week, the United States helped block moves at the Organization of American States for a formal condemnation of Colombia. Instead, the diplomatic body noted that Colombia had broken international law by violating Ecuador's sovereignty. At the summit, Uribe hopes to persuade leaders he had to act against the rebel FARC because Ecuador allows the guerrillas to take refuge there. Uribe, who is popular at home because of his hard line against the FARC, also accuses Chavez of supporting the guerrillas, who have killed and kidnapped thousands in their four-decades insurgency. Colombia says documents and photos found on computers at the bombed rebel camp prove Ecuador and Colombia were supporting the Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Anti-U.S. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is also expected to travel to the Dominican Republic. "Never before has any country in Latin America reached the point of taking a pre-emptive attack doctrine or the doctrine of pursuing your internal enemies in every corner of the globe," he said on Thursday in his latest criticism of Colombia. Chavez, who says socialism can unite South America against what he calls "U.S. imperialism," jumped into the dispute during the weekend, warning war could break out. With governments worldwide, including the United States and Russia, calling for a negotiated solution, Colombia played down worries the dispute could escalate into what would be the first military conflict between Latin America nations in more than a decade. "I don't think there is a risk of war. The Colombian government has been very clear it won't use force," Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos told Reuters during a visit to Brussels for talks with EU officials. "It won't fall into the game of provocation." (Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Fiona Ortiz and Peter Cooney)
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