By Selwyn Duke

It has received scant attention in the midst of our election season jostling, but a very explosive situation has developed in South America.  The Washington Times treated the matter yesterday, writing:

South America was on the brink of war
yesterday as Venezuela and Ecuador amassed troops on the Colombian
border in response to the killing of a Marxist rebel leader.

Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez threatened to join the rebels in a war to
overthrow hard-line Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a key ally of the
United States, deploying tanks, fighter jets and thousands of troops
along the Colombian border.

At issue is a military operation that Colombia launched against FARC Marxist rebels on Ecuadorian soil.  Colombian forces entered Ecuador, killed FARC’s second in command, Paul Reyes, and then found documents indicating ties and cooperation between the rebel group and the Ecuadorian government. 

This certainly means that Columbia and Ecuador have some talking to do, but one is left to wonder how the matter is the business of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s cokehead-in-chief (Chavez has acknowledged chewing coca daily).  The answer is that the demagogue has decided to seize the moment for propaganda purposes — and perhaps as a pretext to invade Colombia — as demagogues will do. 

Chavez’ grandstanding is evidence of this.  On national television he sided with the communist group, likening the situation between the Colombian government and FARC to that between the Israelis and Palestinians and said that Colombians would soon be freed from the U.S. "empire."  Ever the manipulator, he even went so far as to say on TV,

"Mr. Defense Minister, move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia
for me, immediately — tank battalions, deploy the air force.  We don’t want war, but we aren’t going to permit the U.S.
empire, which is the master . . . to come divide us."

Chavez is an evil man, an imperialist and a troublemaker, and  I wonder how many people will think Pat Robertson’s call to have him assassinated was irrational a few years hence.

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