Down South

I've been following the news of Latin America as closely as possible (limited because of language barrier) over the past couple years. Earlier this week tensions between Colombia and Ecuador, Venezuela, and most recently Nicaragua have grown unstable. Colombia has long struggled against its own people (rebels). The guerrilla group that has given Colombia all this trouble is known as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or FARC). They have been responsible for many murders, kidnappings, bombings, drug trades, weapon trafficking, and other high crimes.

Recently Colombia has become increasingly frustrated with its neighbors, Ecuador and Venezuela, for their allowance of the FARC to take refuge just their side of the Colombian border. On Saturday, the Colombian military attacked a group of around 25 rebels that were encamped about a mile inside the borders of Ecuador, killing more than twenty on foreign soil.

Venezuela and Colombia's relationship has been strained in the past few months due to complications in a prisoner exchange between Colombia and the rebel group, FARC. Venezuela has played the mediator during the exchanges and crossed some line along the way in the eyes of Colombia.

They said some words, yanked diplomats back home, threatened trade, etc. Now this.

Venezuela stepped in quickly to make clear to Colombia that if the same thing happened inside of their borders, there would be war.

Colombia claims that hey have uncovered rebel laptops which yield evidence that Venezuala can be linked to supporting the rebels financially (300 million dollars worth).

With already uncomfortable relations in this region, things have thickened quickly following the attack.

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Chavez, Venezuela's president, has been itching for war or at least paranoid of a possible attack for months now. He has been buying Russian fighter planes, submarines, and machine guns left and right.

Correa, Ecuador's president, is recently elected but has been snuggling often with other socialist/dictators like Castro and Chavez.

Uribe, Colombia's president, has been getting cozy with the United States as they try to tighten down the screws on the drug trade that is rampant in this region. Colombia's army is U.S. backed. With this warm and fuzzy relationship between U.S. and Colombia, Colombias' neighbors have become nauseous to say the least.

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I pray that things cool down soon. Join me.

If you want to keep up with this story, yahoo news does a pretty good job of keeping me up to date.