Venezuela deploys troops to Colombian border

Several Latin American leftist leaders have suggested the U.S. was intimately involved in executing the raid that killed Reyes. Colombian military officials have said U.S. satellite intelligence and communications intercepts have been key to putting the FARC on the defensive.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command would neither confirm or deny American military participation. “We do provide intelligence support to partner nations but I can’t get into details on operations,” Jose Ruiz told the AP from Miami.

Another victim of the crisis may be border trade worth $5 billion a year, most of it Colombian exports sorely needed by Venezuelans already suffering milk and meat shortages. Ecuador also depends on some $1.8 billion in trade with Colombia.

Venezuela said it would stop new exports and imports. At one closed border crossing, in Paraguachon, Venezuela, authorities stopped trucks lined up for about a half a mile Tuesday morning. But traffic was flowing normally at another crossing, in El Amparo, where a handful of Venezuelan troops stood watch as usual, the customs office was open and traffic passed freely.

Colombia’s national police chief, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, made a series of shocking allegations based on documents in laptops he said were seized by commandos after the bombing at the camp. Among them, he said, was evidence that Chavez gave the rebels $300 million for some sort of “armed alliance.”

He said other documents suggest Correa’s administration was deepening its relations with the rebels, considered a drug-dealing band of terrorists band by the European Union and United States.

And the Colombian police chief even said some documents suggested the rebels were seeking to buy uranium, though he gave no details.

Both Venezuela and Ecuador expelled Colombia’s ambassadors in the wake of the attack and dismissed the allegations as lies.

Venezuela later displayed the laptop of a slain drug trafficker, and said it implicates Naranjo in the cocaine trade.

Correa flew to Peru Tuesday as the first stop in a regional tour to rally other Latin American leaders against Colombia. Other diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis were under way in Washington on Tuesday, where an emergency OAS meeting was scheduled.

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