Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Wednesday asked the Prosecutor General to investigate members of new leftist group the Continental Bolivarian Movement (CBM) because they support the FARC, El Espectador reported Thursday.
The CBM, an international group that endorses Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s policies, recently expressed their support for the FARC and praised its commanders ‘Alfonso Cano’ and ‘Manuel Marulanda’ during an international conference in Caracas.
“We have asked the Prosecutor General to investigate members of these groups that yesterday declared themselves accomplices of the FARC, so that they can be tried in Colombia for intent to commit a crime,” Uribe said Thursday.
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday asked the Venezuelan government to clarify its relationship with the CBM amid ongoing tensions between the two neighboring countries.
Relations between Bogota and Caracas are tense, as Chavez accuses Colombia of exporting right-wing paramilitary violence to Venezuela to destabilize his leftist government. Colombia on numerous occasions has accused Chavez of supporting left-wing guerrilla groups in Colombia that, financed by the drug trade and extortion, have been at war with the Colombian state since the 1960s.