Chavez Says Uribe Playing With Fire if U.S. Base is Installed on Border

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, warned this Wednesday that his colleague from Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, would be “playing with fire” if he cedes that the United States military base that is in Ecuador be transferred to the border of his country.

“I denounce the Colombian government of rendering a perverse game to destabilize South America, not only towards Venezuela, Ecuador, and other countries as well. This is very dangerous; this is a game with fire. I believe that the government of Colombia is playing with fire”, declared Chavez.

The U.S. Ambassador in Bogota, William Brownfield, said two days ago that “without a doubt there is some” possibility of transferring to Colombia the military base that his country operates in the coastal population of Ecuadorian Manta.

Brownfield did not indicate the place in Colombia that can pick up the American military installation, but he lowered the possibility that it would be in La Guajira, the northwestern border with Venezuela.

“This is a thing that we cannot accept. That, for example, is an explosive thing, because if we were able to say: “When would it arrive in Venezuelan La Guajira?” All of La Guajira was Venezuelan; They took this land from us. Now, what does Colombia want, that we return to discussing this?” sustains Chavez.

“If they are going to enter a gringo (stupid white person) military base there, we shall begin to completely discuss La Guajira. How would this be able to be done, where is Colombia going?” added Chavez and recommended that Uribe might “reflect”.

The Chief of the Venezuelan state signaled, “Uribe must be asked to reflect, that he might go there alone, to a river: I do it sometimes because the pressures that are felt are hard”.

He added that the commander should recuperate “a good feeling”, because “in Columbia they are playing with fire and that doesn’t benefit anyone in the world. It benefits the empire, the United States, and no one else”, underlined Chavez.

The American ambassador in Colombia, recently arriving to the country after completing the same mission in Venezuela, assured El Espectador that if Ecuador completes its announcement of retiring that base in its territory, “then the United States government has to search for another place to do this important work against the illicit drugs and the threats that confront all the towns of the region”.

The American base was established in 1978 in the port of Manta in an agreement with Washington and the then Ecuadorian President Jamil Mahuad, with validity until 2009 and that the current Head of State in Quito, Rafael Correa, decided not to extend.