By Fabiola Sanchez, Associated Press Writer.
CARACAS, Venezuela 20 (AP) - Venezuela on Tuesday denied a report that it
helped a Colombian guerrilla leader implicated in the 1999 slayings of three
Americans get to Cuba for medical treatment.
Minister of the Presidency Elias Jaua insisted in a television interview
that Venezuela does not have clandestine s with Marxist rebels in
neighboring Colombia.
``Our relations are with the Colombian state,'' Jaua told Globovision. ``If
all this were true, the Colombian state would not have relations with us.''
Citing unnamed sources, El Universal newspaper reported that Venezuela let
German Briceno Suarez, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC, land in a helicopter in the western city of Maracaibo on June 7.
Suarez boarded a plane to Cuba an hour later, the paper said.
Suarez is wanted by U.S. and Colombian authorities for allegedly
participating in the slayings of three Indian rights activists from the United
States. The slayings were a reason the United States broke off s with the
FARC, Colombia's largest rebel army.
The Americans were seized from the U'wa Indian reservation in eastern
Colombia in January 1999 and were shot to death across the border in Venezuela.
Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, of Wisconsin, Lahe'ena'e Gay, 39, of Hawaii, and
Terence Freitas, 24, of California, were on a mission to help set up schools for
the U'wa.
Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila said Tuesday that the Interior Ministry
will investigate El Universal's report if it considers the matter ``pertinent.''
Both the United States and Colombian embassies in Caracas declined to comment.
Venezuela and Colombia already are in a diplomatic row over Venezuela's
reluctance to extradite a suspect in the 1999 hijacking of a Colombian
commercial flight.
Venezuela insists that Jose Maria Ballestas, a suspected member of the
leftist rebel National Liberation Army, or ELN, be tried for crimes he allegedly
committed in Venezuela before being deported.
That case revived the allegations that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's
government clandestinely s Colombian rebels. Chavez and Colombian
President Andres Pastrana are scheduled to meet Friday in Ciudad Guayana in
eastern Venezuela.
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