VENEZUELA SHELTERS REBEL 'SUMMER CAMPS,' COLOMBIA ALLEGES

Colombia accused Venezuela on Thursday of providing sanctuary to some
1,500 communist guerrillas who have set up "summer camps" along the
border, where they allegedly rest and feast while planning kidnappings
and attacks on Colombia.

Soon after, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke diplomatic
relations with Colombia-the latest flare-up in a long-running feud
between both Andean nations.

"We have no choice, out of dignity, but to totally break our relations
with our sister Colombia," Mr. Chavez told a press conference while he
sipped coffee with visiting aging Argentine soccer star Diego
Maradona, a longtime fan of Mr. Chavez.

Mr. Chavez also ordered a state of "heightened alert" along the two
countries' shared 1,400-mile border. He said outgoing Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe "was showing signs of lunacy" for accusing Venezuela.

The break in relations wasn't surprising given the allegations' nature
and the high-profile way in which they were delivered. Luis Alfonso
Hoyos, Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of American States in
Washington, gave a two-hour, impassioned address to OAS delegates
outlining the charges.

Mr. Hoyos's voice broke three times as he spoke about Colombia's long
struggle with guerrillas, presenting videos, maps and photographs with
global-positioning system coordinates for at least four guerrilla
camps he alleged were on Venezuela's side of the border.

Mr. Hoyos said there was evidence that the camps were used to plan
kidnappings and drug trafficking, and train terrorists in the use of
bombs.

He also showed pictures of Colombian soldiers, police and civilians
killed by guerrilla raids he said were mounted from Venezuela as
recently as this month. While Colombia has long accused Venezuela of
harboring Colombian guerrillas, much of Mr. Hoyos's evidence was new.

Mr. Hoyos asked the Venezuelan government to dismantle the camps and
go after the guerrillas. He also asked the OAS to form an
international commission to verify Colombia's information, which he
said came from newly captured guerrilla computers as well as the
testimony of recent guerrilla defectors.

Venezuela's OAS ambassador, Roy Chaderton, told the assembly there was
"no evidence" of guerrilla bases in Venezuela. He didn't respond to
Mr. Hoyos's requests for a commission to verify the
information.

Caracas's break with Colombia creates political and economic problems
for Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, who will take the
oath of office next month. Mr. Santos-who, as Mr. Uribe's defense
minister, had often been attacked by Mr. Chavez as a "war monger" and
tool of the U.S.-had made improving relations with his volatile
neighbor a top priority. Mr. Santos recently named a former Colombian
ambassador to Caracas as his foreign minister.

Mr. Santos had hoped better relations with Mr. Chavez would restore
Colombia's trade with Venezuela, which stood around $6 billion in 2008
before dropping to about $1.5 billion currently after Mr. Chavez
virtually closed the border with Colombia a year ago. Mr. Chavez acted
to protest Bogota's agreement to let the U.S. use seven of its
military bases.

In Colombia, political analysts widely interpreted the accusations
against Venezuela as evidence of a rift between Mr. Santos and Mr.
Uribe and a sign that the strong-minded Mr. Uribe wanted to impose his
agenda on Mr. Santos. Earlier this week in Bogota, Mr. Santos denied
reports of any differences with Mr. Uribe.

Speaking to reporters in a press conference in Quito, Ecuador,
Angelino Garzon, Mr. Santos' vice president-elect, said the new
government would do everything in its power to strengthen relations
with countries in the region "including Venezuela."

In Caracas, Mr. Chavez said Venezuela is a "victim" of Colombia's
social ills and that the problem often spills over the border. He said
the remote and difficult terrain along much of the border make it a
good hiding place and that Venezuelan troops over the years have run
into guerrillas, paramilitary fighters and drug traffickers from
Colombia. But they were never there, he said, "with Venezuela's
permission."

On the streets of Caracas, Mr. Chavez's move to cut diplomatic ties
immediately sparked debate between the populist president's supporters
and opponents.

"What good does denying it do if we have no proof otherwise?" asked
Guillermo Benitez, a clothes vendor in central Caracas. "Chavez wants
people to believe him just because he says so. We should let
inspectors into the area to determine whether or not Colombia has a
point."

Across the street, Maria Borges, a grandmother and retiree, disagreed.
"Colombia, like so many other countries, is just a tool of the foreign
capitalists," she said. "Our president speaks for the people and won't
concede to demands based on lies and a desire to upend the socialist
project."

Mr. Hoyos, the Colombian diplomat, said Bogota had pleaded with
Venezuela several times to tackle the guerrillas who have allegedly
found safe haven inside of the country, only to meet with insults from
the Venezuelan government.

Mr. Hoyos described the guerrillas' home on the Venezuelan side of the
border as "summer camps, where we have people getting fat, because
they are not pursued." He added: "Here they rest and gain weight while
they prepare kidnappings and attacks on towns."

The diplomat said the four alleged camps in Venezuela are often
visited by two top commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, Latin America's largest guerrilla army. He
presented videos and photos that allegedly showed guerrilla leaders
roasting a pig and relaxing at headquarters inside Venezuela.

Since taking power in 2002, Mr. Uribe has hammered the FARC, which
once numbered about 18,000 combatants, and threatened the outskirts of
the Colombian capital of Bogota. Their numbers have been reduced to
some 8,000 fighters, most driven deep into Colombia's jungles and mountains.

In 2008, Colombian soldiers killed Raul Reyes, a top FARC leader and
two dozen other alleged guerrillas and sympathizers during a
controversial cross-border on his camp in Ecuador.

That strained Colombia's relations with Ecuador and Venezuela. Ecuador
broke relations, not yet fully restored, with Bogota. Mr. Chavez for a
short time retired his ambassador from Colombia, and said he was
rushing troops to the border. But those troops never arrived, and the
ambassador later returned.

The raid yielded a wealth of information gleaned from Mr. Reyes's
computers recovered from the site. The computers showed that the FARC
maintained an extremely close relationship with Mr. Chavez and in
particular with top Venezuelan intelligence and military officers.

As a consequence of that information, three top Venezuelan officials,
the head of intelligence, the head of military intelligence, and a
former interior minister, were put on a U.S. blacklist for their links
to the FARC, which is considered a terrorist and drug dealing
organization by the U.S. and others.

This time around, much of the information came from a computer
obtained from another guerrilla, whose code name was Canaguaro, who
was killed as he was allegedly bringing plans from Venezuela on a
proposed FARC offensive.

- -Paulo Prada in Caracas contributed to this article.