WHO IS DOING WHAT TO WHO

There has been a bit in the news recently about Venezuela backing the FARC guerrillas. Colombia's government has accused Hugo Chavez of meddling in their little war.

Well, turn about is fair play, and the media in Venezuela is reporting now on right wing and druggie paramilitaries wrecking havoc in their country.

You won't see anything about that in the U.S. mainstream media.

As far back as 2004 the Venezuela has been trying to get someone's attention about the Colombian paramilitaries operating on their soil.

Also, in that year, the paras made headlines in Venezuela and around the world, when around 70 Colombian men were arrested outside Caracas, accused of being paramilitaries involved in a right-wing plot against the government of Hugo Chávez.

Anyway this new business follows on the heels of accusations by Venezuela that Colombia's U.S.-backed government is undermining efforts led by President Hugo Chavez to negotiate a prisoners-for-hostages swap with Colombia's largest rebel group.

Venezuela's government took aim at Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, issuing a statement that his government has ignored the plight of hundreds of rebel-held hostages and is obsessed with war.

«The Colombian government has reached the extreme of obstructing and sabotaging the humanitarian missions led by the international community, putting the lives if innocent people at risk,» Venezuela's foreign ministry said in its statement.

The following is from La Prensa Latina.

Colombian Paramilitary in Venezuela

Colombian paramilitary posses, present in Venezuelan rural zones for many years, are also penetrating the cities and control illegal activities in some neighborhoods, denounced local weekly Temas Friday.

In an article headlined "Venezuela: The Invasion Is On" Venezuelan intellectual Luis Brito assured that he had reports that paramilitary groups, mostly known as "paracos", are replacing illegal national gangs in the traffic of people, drugs, gambling and usurious loans.

Colombian gangs with training, organization, military armament and financial support from organized crime, replace thieves, and in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, have replaced national gangs lending money to street sellers.

Brito said that if the phenomenon spreads, another coup in Venezuela is possible, popular sectors will not be able to mobilize, as they did in 2002 to defeat the coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

He warned of the danger because of the proximity of Colombia, in an election year in the US, a country in which presidents strike at other countries as a sort of campaign propaganda.