TENSIONS COULD BOOST COLOMBIA'S ALVARO URIBE AND VENEZUELA'S HUGO CHAVEZ

Here's an interesting theory: the ongoing escalation of
Colombian-Venezuelan tensions will help the two countries' charismatic
leaders become even more powerful and win third terms in office.

Granted, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may have overplayed his card
and may have lost support internationally, but when if comes to
internal politics, both he and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe could
stand to gain. The latest Colombia-Venezuela war of words rose to new
heights following Venezuela's official support for granting diplomatic
legitimacy to Colombia's narco-guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Last week, Chavez made headlines around the world by asking Colombia
and the international community to stop labeling the FARC rebels
"terrorists," and granting them diplomatic legitimacy by defining them
as "insurgent forces" that control territories within Colombia.

Colombia reacted with predictable anger, accusing Chavez of meddling
in its internal affairs. It reminded the world that the FARC rebels
not only hold more than 700 hostages -- many of them in chains -- and
are big-time drug traffickers, but are responsible for thousands of
civilian deaths.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro responded by charging that
Uribe is "obsessed with defeating the insurgent forces militarily,
obsessed with war." Internationally, there is little question that
Chavez's open support for recognizing the FARC as a legitimate
insurgent force will hurt him.

"Of all the guerrillas in Latin America, this has been the worse one,"
former Salvadoran guerrilla leader Joaquin Villalobos told me in a
telephone interview from London. "While most other guerrillas at one
time or another made mistakes, this one has turned narco-trafficking,
kidnapping and terrorism into its main activity."

Even Chavez-friendly countries such as Argentina and Ecuador, as well
as Colombia's own leftist Polo Democratico opposition party, have kept
distance from Chavez's pro-FARC statements. And pollsters say Chavez's
standing in Latin America, which was already low, is likely to drop
even further. According to the latest Latinobarometro poll, a survey
of more than 20,000 people in 17 Latin American countries, Chavez is
- -- along with President Bush -- the second least-liked leader in Latin
America. The leader with the lowest Latin America-wide approval rates
is Cuba's Fidel Castro.

"This will not help him at all," said Marta Lagos, head of the
Latinobarometro poll, in a telephone interview from Chile, referring
to Chavez's pro-FARC stand. "In South America, it will not sit well,
because the people there have experienced terrorism firsthand."

Domestically, however, both Chavez and Uribe may get a popularity
boost, several analysts agree. Chavez most likely started the latest
spat not only because of his addiction to making headlines, but also
because he wants to divert attention from his Dec. 2 electoral defeat
over a constitutional reform that would have allowed him to stay in
power indefinitely, Chavez critics say.

In addition, to regain ground in Venezuela, Chavez may also be trying
to revive age-old Venezuelan animosities against Colombia, and rally
the Venezuelan people around him by creating an international
conflict. Chavez badly needs a popularity boost at home to revive his
bid to change the laws and remain in power until at least 2020, they
say.

Something similar is happening in Colombia, where Uribe will take
advantage of the situation to change the constitution and seek a third
term, critics of the Colombian president say.

"Uribe badly needs to polarize Colombia against the FARC as a
foundation for his possible bid to remain in power," Horacio
Verbitsky, an influential Argentine leftist columnist, told me from
Buenos Aires. "He needs to change the laws, and his only argument is
that he is the big macho who's fighting the bad guys."

My opinion: It's pretty clear that this bilateral spat was started by
Chavez. Also, there is a big difference between the two leaders: While
Chavez is openly trying to change his constitution to stay in power
forever, Uribe has not yet said he plans to do so, and while Chavez is
meddling in Colombia's affairs, Uribe isn't telling Venezuelans what
to do.

But the bottom line is that either by design (in Chavez's case) or by
chance (in Uribe's case), the new Colombian-Venezuelan tensions may
help the two presidents present themselves as "indispensable leaders"
to their peoples, and remain in power beyond their current legal
mandates. That would be bad news for their countries, and a bad
precedent for the region.

Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami
Herald. He can be reached at aoppenheimer@miamiherald.com.