FARC-ETA collaboration

According to investigating judge Eloy Velasco, the Venezuelan government has been supporting an alliance between the two armed terror groups. They are said to have planned an assassination attempt on high-ranking Colombian officials, including President Álvaro Uribe and his predecessor Andrés Pastrana.

The judge's report summarizes confiscated information on arrested ETA leaders going back as far as 1993. It documents alleged meetings between ETA and FARC, including military operations in the Venezuelan-Colombian jungle.

FARC as well as Basque separatist organizations are considered terrorist groups by the European Union. The connection between the two organisations has been known in Colombia and Venezuela since the early 1990s, Andrés Otálvaro, a Colombian researcher at the Institute for Iberian and Latin-American at the University of Cologne, told Deutsche Welle.

Venezuelan official accused of acting as link to FARC

Judge Velasco opened the trial against six alleged members of ETA and seven members of FARC. According to the court the accused ETA members are currently on Venezuelan or Colombian soil. They travelled there after the demobilization of ETA in the late 1980s but never stopped the coordination of military activities between the two groups, the report goes on.

The accusations against the Venezuelan government are connected to Arturo Cubillas Fontán, a high-ranking official in Chávez's administration. Cubillas was hired by Venezuela's Agriculture Ministry in 2005. He is accused of being "the ETA representative in this part of Latin America since 1999." He allegedly also acts as a link with FARC.

According to Velasco, joint military operations of ETA and FARC were coordinated by Cubillas and took place in the presence of an unidentifed person wearing a Venezuelan military secret service emblem on his uniform. The judge also says that a military escort vehicle with Venezuelan soldiers was used for the operations.

Colombia and Spain urge Venezuela to address accusations

The general secretary of the Spanish opposition party Partido Popular, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, has put pressure on the government of Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero to "seriously consider severing relations" to Caracas if the alleged connection to ETA should be confirmed.

After speaking to Chávez on the phone, the Spanish Ambassador to Venezuela said that the president had offered "full" support in the investigation of possible ties between ETA and FARC. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratines pointed out that his government will first wait to hear the Venezuelan side: "As soon as we have all the information, the Spanish government will most certainly act."

In Colombia, former President Andrés Pastrana said he wants Chávez to address the accusations "clearly, directly and to the point." President Uribe said he would closely follow the Spanish court's investigation. Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez announced that he had requested the Colombian embassy in Spain to obtain extensive details on the case.

The Venezuelan government has rejected the accusations made by the judge and described them as "inacceptable." Officials said that Velasco's report was "politically motivated."

Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan Ambassador to Spain, Isaías Rodríguez, raised doubts about the validity of the archives on which judge Velasco's report is based. The archives were found on FARC leader Raúl Reyes' computer which was "allegedly" confiscated after Colombian troops had bombed a FARC camp in Ecuador in 2008. However, Interpol has confirmed the validity of the archives.

Columbian-Venezuelan relations deteriorate further

The accusations by the Spanish judget come during a tense period of Colombian-Venezuelan relations. They have deteriorated due to a dispute over US troops potentially being able to operate from Colombian military bases, which Venezuela sees as a threat to its national security. The dispute has also affected trade relations between the two countries.

However, both sides are trying to reestablish ties. Foreign Ministers Maduro and Bermúdez are preparing to launch talks on resuming diplomatic relations with the help of "a group of partners" like the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Brazil.

Author: Rosa Muñoz (JB)
Editor: Rob Mudge