Colombia Says Chavez Meddling, Protests to OAS

Reuters Created: Aug 26, 2009 Last Updated: Aug 26, 2009
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BOGOTA—Colombia on Wednesday filed a formal complaint against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with the Organization of American States, accusing the leftist leader of meddling in its domestic affairs.

Tensions are high between the Andean neighbors over a Colombian plan to allow the United States more access to its military bases. Chavez is a bitter foe of Washington, while Colombia's conservative President Alvaro Uribe is an ally.

The OAS complaint came after Chavez attacked Colombia as a "narco-state," ordered investigations of Colombian companies in Venezuela and urged his socialist party supporters to reach out to left-leaning Colombians and politicians.

Colombia's ambassador to the OAS, Luis Hoyos, denounced what his government saw as an "interventionist plan" by Chavez, a Cuba ally who promotes socialist revolution as the counterweight to U.S. influence in Latin America.

"This project violates the fundamental principles of relations between states," Hoyos said in an address to the OAS session in Washington.

Chavez said in a televised speech on Wednesday he would continue to speak out against the bases plan.

"We are obliged to use all our efforts to ensure our voice and our true ideas reach the Colombian people in the face of this barrage of lies," Chavez said.

"It is not expansionism to speak our truth. Only the Colombian people will decide its destiny but the Colombian people has the right to know the truth."

Chavez has clashed before with Uribe, who has received U.S. aid to battle Marxist rebels and cocaine traffickers.

The Venezuelan president sees the base plan as U.S. "imperialist" aggression and has taken economic measures against his neighbor, including ending a deal to supply cheap fuel and threatening Colombian imports.

Chavez late on Tuesday warned he could cut off diplomatic ties with Colombia over the bases proposal and is expected to try to rally opposition to it at a South American leaders' summit on Friday in Argentina.

Colombia, the world's No. 3 coffee exporter and a major oil producer, says the deal will allow the U.S. military to use at least seven bases for drug and counter-insurgency missions.

Although Bogota says U.S. forces will not have offensive capabilities at the bases, the announced plan has fueled concerns in the region.



 
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