BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — President Alvaro Uribe appears to have taken a calculated risk in ordering his armed forces to invade Ecuador to kill a top rebel leader, deciding to risk the ire of his southern neighbor to inflict a major loss in a decades-long war.
Tensions continued to mount Monday after the clandestine operation in which Colombian soldiers and aircraft entered Ecuador to kill Raul Reyes, the nom de guerre of the No. 2 commander in Colombia's largest rebel group, known by its Spanish initials, FARC.
Venezuelan and Ecuadorean troops are massing at Colombia's borders. Uribe faces a scolding at a special meeting of the Organization of American States today, and his neighbors have recalled their ambassadors and expelled his. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening war if Colombian forces cross his border.
All in all, it's a grim situation in a region where good relations have long been the norm. Tensions haven't been this high since 1987, when Colombia sent a naval vessel to Venezuela's Gulf of Maracaibo to stake a short-lived claim to an offshore island.
But experts say Uribe decided that the opportunity to kill Reyes was worth the diplomatic storm, figuring that immigration and economic ties among neighbors, in addition to aversion to war, would stave off anything worse.
"The operation was planned and the risks were studied," said Camilo Gonzalez of Indepaz, a peace advocacy think tank in Bogota. "In the end, Uribe decided to get his military success and assume the cost of a diplomatic incident."
Bruce Bagley, a political scientist at the University of Miami and a Colombia specialist, said Uribe was exasperated by his neighbors' unwillingness to do anything about the FARC's presence on their territory. Uribe gambled because he was "desperate for major kills" and because the chance of war breaking out along either border is small.
"Although you can never discount a mistake leading to a shooting war," none of the three countries can afford to risk the billions in trade between them, Bagley said. "But I foresee weeks and months of tension and a military buildup on all sides."
In Colombia, Uribe's gamble adds to his popularity, which in recent polls already exceeded 80%. Few here mourn the loss of Reyes, 59, who as the public face of the FARC embodied the killings, extortion and kidnappings the rebels have inflicted on Colombians for decades.
