Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN) on Monday asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to distribute a letter to other UN member states explaining the socialist country’s decision to break all diplomatic ties with Colombia.
In the letter, Venezuelan ambassador Jorge Valero Briceo condemned “the new and false smear campaign” led by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe just a few days before the end of his term as “part of a systematic and warmongering strategy to justify a foreign military aggression against Venezuela.”
“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela considers that in this moment there is a probability, as it never existed in the last 100 years, of a foreign military aggression against Venezuela, from Colombia, with the support of the government of the United States,” the letter said.
The letter went on to say Venezuela hopes that the government of Colombia’s President-elect Juan Manuel Santos — to be installed on August 7 — “gives clear and unambiguous signals that it has the political will to resume the path of dialogue, taking into consideration that the current government of Colombia has severed all diplomatic bridges with Venezuela.”
Venezuela cut all diplomatic ties with Colombia land vowed to further restrain trade between the countries, following a presentation before the Organization of American States last Thursday, wherein Colombia presented allegations of the existence of 87 Colombian guerrilla bases on Venezuelan soil.
Caracas on Monday also announced it had increased the number of troops guarding the Colombian border. “We sent an enforcement of 980 to 1,000 troops that will join the border patrol guards, but there are no extraordinary operations,” General Franklin Marquez of the Venezuelan National Guard was quoted by press.
