Chavez warns of US-Colombia plot

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States and Colombia of conspiring to build a fake guerrilla camp on Venezuelan territory in order to undermine his rule.

In a televised address at Fort Mara military base in the western city of Maracaibo, Chavez referred to the ‘possibility’ of a US-sponsored initiative by Colombia to put bodies and weapons of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters in a neglected region of Venezuela in order to ‘discredit’ his government.

Colombia may transport corpses of leftist FARC rebels “to a mountain in Venezuelan territory, build some huts, an improvised camp, put some rifles there… and say ‘There it is, the guerrilla camp in Venezuela,’” the Associated Press quoted him as saying on Monday.

“We have evidence that the Colombian government, instructed and supported, or rather directed by the United States, is preparing a false positive,” he noted, using statistical terminology to describe the feasibility of such a scheme.

“The verbal war against Venezuela began weeks ago, saying that we have I don’t know how many guerrilla chiefs hidden here… that in Venezuela there are rebel camps protected by the Venezuelan government, which is absolutely false,” the Venezuelan president told soldiers stationed near the country’s second largest city.