With so much information with last weeks exploding conflict between Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, I tried to take a step back and let the information pour in before investigating the situation. Second there is just so much information that keeps developing it becomes overwhelming to sort through it all, so I decided to start at the basics and then add on from there.
IPS ran a story on March 3, 2008 that covered the initial beginning of the conflict and Ecuador’s response to the situation. The whole issue is about how Colombia went into Ecuador (a section near the Colombian-Ecuador boarder) and killed members of the guerrilla group, FARC ( (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), including their leader Raúl Reyes, whom worked as an intelligence person for France. As IPS explained, Rafael Correa is upset because it was not in the jurisdiction of Colombia to have a military operation in Ecuador. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called the action “a massacre, not a hot pursuit.” Furthermore, Ecuador has cut of its diplomatic ties to Colombia because of “the clear violation of Ecuador’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the grave accusations.” Colombia claimed that Ecuador was working with the FARC. He went on to proclaim,
“We have consistently expressed our condemnation of the actions and methods of the FARC,” but “there is no justification whatsoever for a foreign military operation in our territory, regardless of the motive. International law requires that we be informed and that Ecuadorian forces carry out the capture, as has already occurred on numerous occasions, always with total respect for human rights.” Ecuadorian Defence Minister Wellington Sandoval said his country’s armed forces have discovered and destroyed 47 FARC camps in the last few years and have arrested Colombian guerrillas in Ecuador.
“Well aware of its obligations, Ecuador has constantly guarded the 720-km Colombian-Ecuadorian border, which is, if not impossible to control, at least extremely difficult in terms of keeping citizens from crossing from one side to the other, which is not only an Ecuadorian task,” said Sandoval.
“Our cooperation with the armed forces of our sister nation Colombia has been amply demonstrated. In fact, there is a joint security pact between the armed forces of both countries and CONBIFRON (the Binational Border Commission) to act in cases in which there is suspicion of problems along the border,” said the minister.
With that stated above, Ecuador is justified to me in two ways. First, Ecuador has never been unsupportable of the Colombian governments efforts in capturing FARC members. If anything they have been more than willing to lend a helping hand even in capturing them in their own country. Second, if Ecuador did not stand up to this human rights violation then they would be silently approving the situation, and allowing war into their country. This not only makes their country a dangerous playground but in a sense, a human rights violator for not condemning a massacre.
Ecuador responded formally on March 4 when Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador Crespo read from The Organization of American States charter stating that “Colombia should pay a high diplomatic and economic price for killing a leftist rebel leader in the Ecuadorean jungle by expelling its diplomats, ordering troops to the border and largely halting trade at key points along the frontier.”
Time will tell how much repercussion Colombia will receive from this incident, especially with the US linked to helping them raid the insurgents in Ecuador.
