Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe told a U.S. navy admiral that he would allow troops to enter Venezuela to capture FARC guerrillas, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks.
Uribe said to Admiral Mike Mullen that he was “prepared to authorize Colombian forces to cross into Venezuela, arrest FARC leaders, and bring them to justice in Colombia,” according to a cable dated January 18, 2008.
In March 2008 Colombia carried out a bombing raid on a FARC camp over the Ecuadorean border which killed rebel commander “Raul Reyes” and sparked a diplomatic crisis with Ecuador that was only fully resolved in November this year, when the two countries agreed to send diplomats to each other’s capitals.
The controversial former leader appeared to justify the contents of the leaked cable while speaking in Lima, after an award ceremony for a former Colombian ambassador to Peru. “To protect Colombians one must capture the terrorists wherever they may be,” he said, reports EPA.
Uribe intimated that he wouldn’t back down from the statements in the cable, saying “it is very important in the lives of public men, on technical matters, to stand by in public what is said in private.”
Uribe went to the Organization of American States (OAS) to accuse Venezuela of harbouring FARC rebels, shortly before leaving office in August 2010. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez responded by breaking all ties with the neighboring country.
Another cable released Friday by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks reported more outspoken comments by Uribe, reporting that he compared the threat posed by Chavez to that of Hitler in the 1930s.