CUBANET ... CUBANEWS 564432

March 21, 2001



Venezuela denies it helped guerrilla

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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Copyright © 2000 The Associated Press.

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