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Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and top military officials addressed the country late Wednesday to explain the daring rescue operation to freed former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages held by leftist rebels...

<p>BOGOTA (Reuters) - French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans and 11 other hostages were rescued from leftist guerrillas by Colombian troops on Wednesday after years in captivity, the government said.</p>

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is expressing his condolences over the death of the leader of Colombia's largest rebel group, calling him "our brother" in the fight against social injustice. Ortega spoke Sunday in Uruguay at a gathering of leftist parties and organizations in Latin America. He praised rebel commander Manuel Marulanda, who the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia confirmed died in March of a heart attack. Ortega called Marulanda an "extraordinary fighter" who struggled for decades to reverse "profound inequalities." The Nicaraguan president urged attendees at the Sao Paulo Forum to topple "the tyranny of global capitalism," and accused Washington...

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has been caught. Despite his protestations of innocence, Interpol has corroborated the authenticity of thousands of computer files captured during a Colombian Army raid on a FARC rebel camp in Venezuela. Only a small share of this trove has been released, but it leaves little doubt that Venezuela has been aiding the guerrillas’ effort to overthrow Colombia’s democratically elected government. The Colombian government released documents from the computers that suggest Venezuelan intelligence officials tried to secure weapons for the FARC and that Mr. Chávez’s government offered the rebels oil and a $250 million loan. Information...

Lenin once diagnosed his opponents as suffering from an infantile disorder. Who could blame President Uribe of Colombia if he came to the same conclusion about the other presidents of the South American republics? The disorder is characterized by revolutionary romanticism, the view that anyone who takes up arms against an established government in the name of social justice must be motivated by a deep love of humanity. To believe this, it is necessary to understand neither history nor human nature. To pretend to believe it requires considerable cynicism and moral turpitude.

Excerpt - BOGOTA, March 28 (Reuters) - Colombia will free hundreds of guerrilla fighters if rebel leaders release politician Ingrid Betancourt, who is in ill health after being held hostage for years in secret jungle camps, the government said. President Alvaro Uribe signed a decree late on Thursday allowing the massive release of guerrillas from jail if French-Colombian Betancourt, kidnapped during her 2002 presidential campaign and ailing from hepatitis B, is set free, Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo told reporters. The decree was a bid to speed up efforts at swapping rebel-held politicians, police and soldiers for jailed guerrillas after...

But in their totality, the hundreds of pages of documents so far made public by Colombia paint an even more chilling picture. The raid appears to have preempted a breathtakingly ambitious "strategic plan" agreed on by Chávez and the FARC with the initial goal of gaining international recognition for a movement designated a terrorist organization by both the United States and Europe. Chávez then intended to force Colombian President Álvaro Uribe to negotiate a political settlement with the FARC, and to promote a candidate allied with Chávez and the FARC to take power from Uribe. All this is laid out...

What is it about Democrats and Hugo Chávez? Even as the Venezuelan strongman was threatening war last week against Colombia, Congress was threatening to hand him a huge strategic victory by spurning Colombia's free trade overtures to the U.S. This isn't the first time Democrats have come to Mr. Chávez's aid, but it would be the most destructive. The Venezuelan is engaged in a high-stakes competition over the political and economic direction of Latin America. He wants the region to follow his path of ever greater state control of the economy, while assisting U.S. enemies wherever he can. He's already...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reached for what he considered the ultimate insult when he called Colombia "the new Israel." If by that he means a country better governed than its immediate neighbors, that dares to protect itself against terrorists across its border despite getting bludgeoned for it by the international left -- he had a point. Colombia killed Raul Reyes, the second in command of the narco-terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in a raid about two miles inside Ecuador. Usually when a terrorist leader dies, it's cause for celebration. But Ecuador broke off diplomatic relations, and Chavez mobilized...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A single laptop can reveal much, and so it is with the digital treasure chest that Colombian commandos found in the jungle quarters of slain rebel leader Raul Reyes. Files in the computer seized in Saturday's raid into Ecuador that claimed the lives of Reyes and 23 of his comrades offer an intimate portrait of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's desire to undermine Colombia's U.S.-allied government. If authentic, the documents show that sympathies Chavez first aired publicly in January grew out of a relationship that dates back more than a decade. But Chavez is not one of...

BOGOTA, Colombia — President Alvaro Uribe said Tuesday that his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez for financing and supporting Colombia's main rebel group while it was engaging in genocide. The Uribe government claims documents found in the laptop of a slain commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia indicate Chavez's government recently gave $300 million to the group known as the FARC

As reported by CNN (CNN en Espanol?), Alvaro Uribe (president of Colombia) has just announced a few minutes ago that the Colombian government will submit a criminal complaint against the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez before the International Criminal Court for his ties with the FARC and having financed and supported a terrorist organization. Video coming soon.

Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to their borders with Colombia on Sunday after their Andean neighbor bombed Colombian rebels inside Ecuador in an attack Caracas said could spark a war. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also deployed tanks to the frontier, mobilized warplanes and withdrew his diplomats from Bogota in the worst dispute in the unstable region for years. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a close ally of the leftist, anti-U.S. Chavez, expelled Colombia's ambassador and recalled his own envoy from Bogota in protest over what he said was an intentional violation of his nation's sovereignty. Colombia responded to Correa by offering...

Friday, January 25, 2008 WASHINGTON -- Traveling salespeople always have a hard job. That's especially true when the economy isn't exactly booming -- and the product you are selling will go off the market in a year. That kind of describes Secretary of State Condi Rice as she tries to pitch American foreign policy to domestic and international "customers" in the last 12 months of the Bush administration. That's not to say she isn't trying, but it's proving to be a tough sell. January started with Ms. Rice trying to convince "moderate Arab regimes" that Iran is a major threat;...

It was Christmas week in the Colombian city of Villavicencio and the events, as they were set to unfold, had all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. If only the "heroes" hadn't been exposed as liars. A 3-year-old boy, his mother and another woman, all hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were about to be freed. Credit for their release was to go to Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela. Former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner had flown up from Buenos Aires to take part in the show. Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone was on hand too, eager to document...

Excerpt - Hours after welcoming hostages freed by the Colombian rebel group FARC, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged European and Latin American governments Friday to stop branding Colombia's guerrillas terrorists as does the United States. "I am asking the governments (across Latin America) to take the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and ELN (National Liberation Army) off their lists of global terrorist groups," Chavez told the National Assembly, saying he asked European nations to do the same. "Because those lists exist for one reason alone -- US pressure," Chavez said in his address on the year 2007. The leftist...

via machine translation - Bogota present evidence of life of Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans HOSTAGES. The Colombian government has made public Friday evidence-videos, photographs and letters showing that 16 hostages of the Colombian guerrilla, whose Franco-Colombienne Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans were alive. A video that was broadcast without the soundtrack by television Colombian Ingrid Betancourt demonstrated in extreme thinness, and chained hands crossed, head down and apparently quite tired. Ingrid Betancourt who was in pants and a blue shirt, remained silent. She has very long hair tied up on the shoulder. The hostage, kidnapped on February 23, 2002...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday he was cutting off all contacts with the Colombian government, but fell short of announcing an end to diplomatic relations between the two countries. Chavez's announcement came after a series of sharp exchanges with President Alvaro Uribe set off when the Colombian leader last week abruptly ended the Venezuelan's mediation between Colombia's government and leftist rebels. "While President Uribe is president of Colombia I will have no type of relationship with him or with the government in Colombia," Chavez said. Speaking in the southwestern state of Tachira, Chavez said he will...

CARACAS, Venezuela — A diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia deepened on Tuesday as the government said it has called home its ambassador to Colombia for consultations. The presidents of the two countries have exchanged increasingly sharp words since Colombia's conservative Alvaro Uribe halted efforts by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to mediate a swap of prisoners for hostages held by Colombian rebels...Colombia's foreign minister, Fernando Araujo, however, said that his government will not order its ambassador to return home and said the dispute was with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, rather than Venezuela. "The enemy...

Latin America: Hugo Chavez's reaction to being fired as mediator between Colombia and his narcoterrorist pals shows the evil game Venezuela's dictator has played against his neighbor. It also signals trouble at home. In telling Chavez that his services would no longer be needed, Colombia President Alvaro Uribe was firm but polite. He thanked Chavez for his "help" in seeking a swap between 500 FARC guerrillas in jail in Colombia and some 45 "high value" hostages being held by the same terrorists who've been at war with Colombia since 1964. But as a mediator, Chavez proved he could keep neither...