http://www.nytimes.
Editorial Mr. Chávez's Unsavory Friends
Published: May 25, 2008
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has been caught. Despite his
protestations of innocence, Interpol has corroborated the
authenticity of thousands of computer files captured during a
Colombian Army raid on a FARC rebel camp in Venezuela. Only a small
share of this trove has been released, but it leaves little doubt
that Venezuela has been aiding the guerrillas' effort to overthrow
Colombia's democratically elected government.
The Colombian government released documents from the computers that
suggest Venezuelan intelligence officials tried to secure weapons
for the FARC and that Mr. Chávez's government offered the rebels oil
and a $250 million loan. Information in the files has already led to
the seizure of FARC funds in Costa Rica.
Colombia can now take the issue to the Organization of American
States, the United Nations Security Council or the International
Court of Justice. But it might need further corroborating evidence,
as Interpol only certified that the Colombian government did not
tamper with the files but said nothing about the veracity of their
content.
Mr. Chávez has a more important choice to make: he can sink once and
for all into the role of regional pariah, to be contained or
isolated in the name of regional stability, or he can commit to
becoming a responsible neighbor. All of his neighbors, and all
Venezuelans, should urge him to choose the latter course.
Responsibility means that Mr. Chávez must halt all aid to the FARC -
which long ago chose drug trafficking over political liberation -
and use his influence to get the rebels to lay down their arms and
join the demobilization process that is under way for Colombia's
right-wing paramilitary groups.
Mr. Chávez's posturing as a populist liberator is wearing thin at
home, where voters defeated his proposal to overhaul the
Constitution so he could stay in power indefinitely. It is also
wearing thin abroad, where Mr. Chávez has used Venezuela's oil
riches to meddle in Argentina, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among
others.
Latin America's leaders need to realize that his actions threaten
the stability of the entire region and that cheap oil does not
lessen that threat. They need to remind Mr. Chávez of the commitment
to nonintervention and democratic rule in the Organization of
American States charter. And they need to make clear that he has
only two possible moves from here: he can become a responsible
neighbor or be ostracized in the hemisphere.
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