Sunday, January 16th, Caracas, Venezuela. The kidnapping of Colombian guerrilla FARC's "foreign minister" last month, outside a Caracas cafe in broad daylight, allegedly by bribed members of the Venezuelan army's elite counter-kidnapping division, has sparked a crisis that threatens to further polarise the people of both countries, especially regarding public opinion of their Presidents. On Thursday, Hugo Chavez recalled his Ambassador in Bogota, which was followed by Friday's announcement of a trade freeze until Alvaro Uribe publicly apologised. Although this doesn't seem likely (in fact the Colombian government has responded by repeating this was standard operating procedure for them and they would do it again) the fact is that Colombia needs Venezuela's trade a lot more than Venezuela needs Colombia's, with over $2-billion flowing between the two last year, much of it fuelled by Venezuelan oil. If this was a poker game, Chavez would have a high stack of chips backing up some pretty strong cards. On the other hand, Uribe would be dealing from a marked deck with a US-made cannon under the table.

Rodrigo Granda was abducted in the Venezuelan capital on December 13th while receiving a mobile phone call, and smuggled to the Colombian border town of Cucuta where he was officially arrested. He had been present at the "International meeting of Intellectuals and Artists for the Defence of Humanity" in Caracas the previous week, along with over six hundred delegates from Venezuela and around the world, although both the government and organisers say they didn't invite him. The Colombian government at first denied that Granda had been apprehended in Caracas, and have insisted throughout that in no way have they violated Venezuelan sovereignty. The Venezuelan government were initially quiet on the matter, and it wasn't until Noam Chomsky and others sent Chavez an open letter asking him to investigate involvement by members of the political police, DISIP, that they admitted rogue security officials were believed to be behind the kidnapping. A couple of days later, on his re-launched new-look Sunday talk-show, Alo Presidente, Chavez accused the Colombian police of lying when they said Granda had been captured in Cucuta. On Wednesday the Colombian government admitted they had paid for Granda's abduction and had specifically sought out bounty-hunters, thus they claim never violating Venezuelan territory with their state security forces. (They didn't mention the four Colombian security officials who were temporarily detained in early December for allegedly taking photos of military buildings in the city of Maracay, only one hour from Caracas.) Venezuela responded the next day by recalling its Ambassador. It is still not clear whether the trade freeze applies to all business between the two countries or just government contracts, such as the giant gas and oil pipeline deal, which both buys a bit of regional peace and opens up delivery to Venezuela's newest energy customer, China.

Chavez' confidence comes from the fact that there's no doubt this was a scandalous act by Uribe, and even the middle-class opposition anti-Bolivarians in Venezuela realise this. They consider suspending trade a massive over-reaction, but they see Chavez as having to do something in order to show the FARC he's on their side. It goes without saying that they are convinced these Colombian "narco-guerrilla" are arm-in-arm with Chavez (an image the FARC, who indeed describe themselves as Bolivarian, don't exactly go out of their way to dispel). They claim to have evidence that Granda illegally gained Venezuelan citizenship, which the government says is fraudulent. This latest claim doesn't seem to have been picked up by the international media yet but they are reporting that a militant Bolivarian party from Maracaibo, the oil capital near the border, accused the CIA of being behind the abduction and then promptly had their headquarters searched by Venezuelan police. Maracaibo is in one of only two states still with an opposition governor after October's local elections.

To put this in context, much of the middle-class here do believe some rather odd stuff; for example, many still maintain that the coup of 2002 simply did not happen. Rather, there had been a "constitutional crisis" whereby Chavez resigned leaving a "power vacuum", which for some reason Pedro Carmona, head-honcho of "civil society" (who in their opinion went a bit over the top during his brief dictatorship, dissolving the National Assembly and tearing up the Constitution - not that they complained at the time) filled out of public duty. (Why the Vice-President didn't assume command I've yet to find out.) They also maintain that the referendum of August 2004 was fraudulent, and in fact +they+ won with 60% of the vote. I'll admit it's difficult to know what to say to that. Mention the Carter Center or the OAS - well, they're just Chavez stooges. As for why Washington (grudgingly) accepted the results, the answer is they need the oil, and therefore stability in Venezuela. Luckily the anti-Bolivarians have largely given up trying to tear up the Constitution again and there doesn't seem to be any appetite for next year's general election fight. Their favourite slogan is, "If you don't like it, move to Miami!" (This is said in response to almost any complaint.)

Back to the crisis: Friday night Bogota responded to the trade freeze with a carefully-worded, nine-point legal-type argument, spelling out their justification for hiring bounty-hunters to snatch state enemies abroad. Apart from hypocritically claiming the "right to free itself from the nightmare of terrorism", Uribe's government's main thrust is summed up by their third point, that "the UN prohibits member countries from harbouring known terrorists 'actively or passively'". The problem is that the FARC are only classified as "terrorists" by Colombia and the US, not by the UN. Also there was no warrant out for Granda's arrest, which Interpol confirmed to Chavez, until January 9th, almost a month after Colombia had him in captivity. Chavez responded to Uribe's statement a few hours later with a great line: What would be the reaction to his bribing of Colombian commandos into kidnapping Pedro Carmona (currently claiming asylum in Colombia, having fled from house-arrest following the coup to the Colombian Embassy and then given safe-passage by Chavez out of the country) and smuggling him into Venezuela where he's wanted for a quite clear-cut case of treason?

Then Saturday the US weighed in, with their Ambassador in Bogota backing Uribe's 9-point brief "100%". It's difficult not to imagine them having a little chuckle over all this as the pipeline plan was certainly not in Washington's interests. Uribe requested a regional summit at the Presidential level, but Chavez instead has insisted on an exclusive bilateral between the two of them in Venezuela. The bottom line is the Colombian government must apologise, not just to Chavez but to all the Venezuelan people. No matter who you're after, it is intolerable to hire mercenaries (almost certainly active state security officials, though Uribe won't say who he paid) in order to extra-judicially abduct someone and smuggle them out of the country. That's the reason we have international law, diplomatic norms, extradition processes, things like that. Screw Lord Spam's squealing about squatters farming "his" fertile pastures, I wonder what the UN, Human Rights Watch or even the UK government will have to say about Colombia's clearly provocative violation of Venezuelan sovereignty? As Chávez said just a few days ago, "you can't fight crime with more crime."