Border Massacre Sparks Tension Between Venezuela and Colombia

By Ryan C. Kossler

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

 

BOGOTA, Colombia - Venezuelan authorities uncovered the body of the eleventh and final victim in a brutal kidnapping and execution style massacre that recently took place in the state of Tachira, along the border of Venezuela and Colombia.  The victims were said to have been held for several days after being kidnapped at gunpoint by twenty five unknown assailants.  In all, twelve people, consisting of ten Colombians, one Peruvian, and one Venezuelan, were kidnapped while playing a game of soccer.  Only one victim survived, Manuel Junior Cortes, who is now a patient in a hospital in Caracas, Venezuela.  The unknown assailants have been speculated by many to be either drug traffickers, paramilitaries, or one of several Colombian guerilla groups, including the FARC, however, the Venezuelan and Colombian governments have refused to officially accuse and particular group.

 

Tension between Venezuela and Colombia has increased because of this incident.  The Venezuelan government has denied Colombian officials from gaining access in order to collect the bodies of the slain Colombians.  Colombian President Alvaro Uribe issued a statement asking Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for cooperation between the two countries in order to ensure the protection of citizens on both sides of the border.  President Uribe said, “I’m calling on the Venezuelan government, on its president, that above any differences we find a way to coordinate activities to protect Colombian citizens and Venezuelan citizens in their right to life.”

 

President Uribe’s request was met with the refusal by President Chavez to allow a Colombian administration plane to land in Venezuela to bring the bodies home, in order for the families of the victims to be able to perform proper burials.

 

President Chavez, on the other hand, has suggested that the slain Colombians were in fact spies who were sent to Venezuela on the authority of the Colombian government.  President Chavez revealed that his government had captured a Colombian spy last month and that he would continue to look into the possibility of espionage in this situation. 

 

In response, General Freddy Padilla, the commander of the Colombian military, said that “Colombian authorities have clear orders never to send agents into Venezuela and on occasions where there [have] been agents inside other nations, it has always been authorized by the governments of both countries.”

 

In the end, however, the real victims of this latest dispute between the Colombian and Venezuelan governments are the families who lost their loved ones in this brutal slaying, and are being denied closure and peace.

 

For more information, please see:

 

Latin American Herald Times - Venezuela Blocks Colombian Mission to Collect Bodies - 29 October 2009

 

Los Angeles Times - Venezuela Finds 11th Body in Massacre - 29 October 2009

 

Colombia Reports - Venezuela Refuses to Cooperate on Massacre Investigation: Colombia - 28 September 2009