Talking About Colombia

Wikileaks revealed former President Alvaro Uribe was ready to send Colombian troops into Venezuelan territory to arrest FARC leaders and bring them to justice in Colombia. According to a cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá to the State Department in Washington on January 17, 2008, Uribe told U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield and U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Mullen that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has a five to seven-year plan to push his Bolivarian agenda onto Colombia by using the FARC as his militia inside Colombia. Another cable, dated April 14, 2008, revealed former Colombian Armed Forces Commander Freddy Padilla asked the U.S. for intelligence on Venezuela.

Another cable sent on October 7, 2005, also from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, revealed that when former Ecuadorian president Lucio Gutiérrez was asked if there were FARC bases in Ecuador, he replied, “of course.” But, Gutiérrez added, it is very hard to go after the FARC in Ecuador because “all of them are dressed as civilians.”