By DPA
Bogota : Colombia plans to file a complaint against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the International Criminal Court for sponsoring and financing groups that commit genocide, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Tuesday.
“We do not need to simply be patted on the shoulder to say they are sorry for our dead while they are giving refuge to the executioners of Colombia,” Uribe said.
He had just met former legislator Gloria Polanco, held hostage by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for over six years and released last week along with three other former legislators.
Uribe stressed that his government needs “active solidarities against terrorism” and called upon his compatriots to remain firm “against terrorism and those who finance it”.
Earlier Tuesday, Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace Luis Carlos Restrepo said the Colombian government thinks Chavez offered leftist Colombian rebels a “stake in oil companies”.
Saturday, Colombian forces attacked a camp of FARC rebels in Ecuadorian territory, killing among others the rebel group’s number two, Raul Reyes. The attack caused great tension between Bogota, on the one hand, and Venezuela and Ecuador, on the other.
Restrepo added that the alleged offer by Chavez springs from the information that Colombian authorities found at the camp where Reyes was killed.
“The report says Venezuela committed to handing $300 million over to FARC. Besides, it talks of commercial commitments through a stake in companies related to oil,” Restrepo said.
These comments coincided with a report published Tuesday by the Colombian daily El Tiempo, referring to specific contents of the three computers found at the FARC camp.
According to the report, the rebel leader Ivan Marquez, who met with Chavez last year in Caracas when the Venezuelan was formally a mediator in the Colombian conflict, told the FARC leadership of the offers he received from Chavez.
These included, the report said, granting the rebels a portion of the oil produced in the oil-rich Venezuela for FARC to sell for its own benefit.
On Monday, Colombian Police chief Oscar Naranjo charged that the leftist Chavez had given $300 million to FARC. The computers also yielded evidence that FARC had traded 50 kilograms of uranium and sent illegal drugs to Mexico, Naranjo said.
However, Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizales denied the allegations.
“We are used by now to the lies of the Colombian government. For me whatever they say is totally unimportant. Now they can make up anything to try and get out of the violation of Ecuadorian territory that they committed,” Carrizales told reporters Monday.
The same day, Ecuador formally broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia, while Venezuela has withdrawn its diplomats from Bogota and expelled the Colombian ambassador in Caracas.