Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is in the habit of taking dramatic actions to undermine his war-torn country’s fragile peace process, but he sort of outdid himself this weekend when he invaded Ecuador. We’ve got the rundown of some FAQs, after the jump…
FAQs on All This Weirdness
Q: So I was drunk all weekend. What exactly happened?
A: Nobody has all the details because the Colombians continue to lie and withhold important details. Originally Uribe told Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa that they had been in “hot pursuit” of FARC rebels and chased them over the Ecuadorian border. It later turned out that the rebels were actually already in Ecuador at the time of the attack. And that they were asleep. Both the invasion and the lying were major, major diplomatic breaches and freaked out the countries that share a border with this psychopath, so Ecuador and Venezuela both eighty-sixed their diplomatic ties with Colombia and deployed troops to the border to prevent a repeat performance.
Q: Who croaked?
A: In all, 17 rebels were killed, including the FARC’s top diplomat Raul Reyes. Reyes happened to be the point person negotiating the hostage release with Venezuela and France (sorry, Ingrid). One Colombian soldier was also killed.
Q: And this is Venezuela’s fault how?
A: It’s only being portrayed like that in the English language press. Most of the wire services (AP, Reuters, etc.) are saying that the major act of aggression here was Venezuela moving its troops to the Colombian border, rather than the part where Colombia invaded another country and killed a bunch of people. Always a pioneer of the crazy talk, this Washington Times front page story managed to be spectacularly frightening and hilariously inaccurate at the same time. Titled “South America on the Brink of War,” it opens:
Yeah...what?
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.
Q: How do the get away with reporting shit like that?
A: Beats me. They’re owned by the goddamned Moonies and yet still some people take the paper seriously.
Q: How is the international community reacting?
A: Nobody wants to see this escalate, but just about everyone is clear where the blame lies. The presidents of Chile and Argentina demand that Uribe ‘splain himself. France, Switzerland and Spain vow to keep the peace talks going and nobody has the heart to remind them that their chief negotiator was just killed in a massacre. Oh and John McCain blames Chavez natch.
Q: Are any of the foreigners saying comically stupid things?
A: Why, yes actually. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner must have gotten one of those 3 a.m. phone calls Hillary’s been warning us about. His statement: “It is bad news that the man we were talking to, with whom we had contacts, has been killed. Do you see how ugly the world is?"
And another unnamed “European source” (probably Kouchner) uttered this awesomeness: “The negotiations are alive. Nothing has changed. Or everything has changed, except the negotiations.”
Q: War. What’s It Good For?
A: Absolutely nothin’.
