Venezuelan president sends troops to border after closing Colombian embassy

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez ordered Venezuela’s embassy in Colombia closed and sent thousands of troops to the countries’ border Sunday after Colombia’s military killed a top rebel leader.\nThe leftist leader warned that Colombia’s slaying of rebel commander Raul Reyes could spark a war in South America and the angry rhetoric sent relations between the nations to their lowest point in Chavez’s nine-year presidency.\nSpeaking on his weekly TV and radio program, Chavez told his defense minister: “Move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately.” He ordered the Venezuelan Embassy in Bogota closed and said all embassy personnel would be withdrawn.\nChavez, a fierce critic of Washington, called the U.S.-allied government in Bogota “a terrorist state” and labeled President Alvaro Uribe “a criminal.”\nChavez condemned Colombia’s slaying of Reyes and 16 other guerrillas on Saturday, saying they were killed while they slept in a camp across the border in Ecuadorean territory. He said Colombia “invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador’s sovereignty.”\n“It wasn’t any combat. It was a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated,” Chavez said.\n“We pay tribute to a true revolutionary, who was Raul Reyes,” Chavez said, recalling that he had met the rebel leader in Brazil in 1995 and calling him a “good revolutionary.”\nChavez said he had just spoken to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and that Ecuador was also sending troops to its border with Colombia.\n“The Colombian government has become the Israel of Latin America,” an agitated Chavez said, mentioning another country that he has criticized for its military strikes. “We aren’t going to permit Colombia to become the Israel of these lands.”\nChavez accused Uribe of being a puppet of Washington and acting on behalf of the U.S. government, saying “Dracula’s fangs (are) are covered in blood.”\n“Some day Colombia will be freed from the hand of the (U.S.) empire,” Chavez said. “We have to liberate Colombia,” he added, saying Colombia’s people will eventually do away with its government.\nThe U.S. State Department had no immediate reaction to Chavez’s comments\nChavez maintains warm relations with the Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and has sought to play a role as mediator in the conflict despite his growing conflict with Colombia’s government.\nChavez’s government called the Colombian military attack a setback in efforts to negotiate a swap of rebel-held hostages for imprisoned guerrillas.\nColombia and Venezuela have been locked in a diplomatic crisis since November, when Uribe ended Chavez’s official role negotiating a proposed hostages-for-prisoners swap.\nNevertheless, the FARC freed four hostages to Venezuelan officials last week, and they were reunited with their families in Caracas. It was the second unilateral release by the FARC this year.\nChavez has recently angered Uribe by urging world leaders to classify the leftist rebels as “insurgents” rather than “terrorists.”\nThe FARC has proposed trading some 40 remaining high-value captives, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors, for hundreds of imprisoned guerrillas.