US embassy cable - 05BOGOTA8932

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BOGOTA 008932 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/20/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ETRD, ENRG, PTER, CO, VE 
SUBJECT: NOTES FROM THE FIELD: CUCUTA, NORTE DE SANTANDER 
DEPARTMENT 
 
REF: BOGOTA 8695 
 
Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood, Reasons: 1.4 B & D. 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  In Cucuta, capital of Norte de Santander 
Department along the Venezuelan border, political leaders and 
opinion makers expressed concern about President Chavez's 
meddling in Colombia and Latin America in general.  But few 
offered specifics.  They said Colombia's Armed Forces are 
working to counter the return of FARC and ELN guerrillas to 
the Catatumbo region, made possible by the demobilization of 
paramilitary groups there.  A complicating factor is the ease 
of movement across the Colombian-Venezuelan border. 
Corruption within the Venezuelan National Guard, varied 
application of migratory controls on the Venezuelan side of 
the border, and poor roads to Bogota were common expressions 
of concern.  Interlocutors were optimistic about African palm 
and cacao production to the North and West of the capital. 
Sale of contraband Venezuelan gasoline is extensive and a 
major source of informal employment.  End Summary. 
 
2.  (SBU) Poloff visited Cucuta, the capital of Norte de 
Santander Department, September 15-18, meeting with 
political, armed forces, and commercial leaders.  Cucuta's 
roughly 900,000 residents make up the majority of the 
Department's 1.5 million inhabitants.  Cucuta is the major 
land crossing for Colombian-Venezuelan commerce, and the 
transshipment point for some 70 percent of bilateral trade. 
 
 
Relations with Venezuela 
------------------------ 
 
3.  (C) Cucuta's land crossings (over a largely dry riverbed) 
with San Antonio and Urena appeared virtually unmonitored, 
particularly on the Colombian side.  Venezuelan National 
Guard checkpoints exist several hundred meters beyond the 
actual border point.  Colombian interlocutors described the 
initial checkpoints as perfunctory.  Mario Alvarez Celis, 
Colombia's Consul in San Cristobal (formerly based in San 
Antonio), told Poloff that eight additional checkpoints 
existed on the road from Cucuta to San Cristobal.  He 
described them as loaded with corruption, with Venezuelan 
National Guard members openly hostile toward Colombian 
nationals.  (In order to travel beyond San Antonio and Urena, 
Colombian nationals require either a Venezuelan national 
identity document or a Colombian passport with Venezuelan 
visa.  Venezuelan nationals may travel to any point in 
Colombia without a visa.)  Alvarez, a former member of the 
House of Representatives' Foreign Relations Committee, stated 
that support for Chavez is comparatively low in Tachira 
state, where Venezuelan citizens generally view Colombia as a 
commercial partner rather than a political enemy. 
 
4.  (C) Norte de Santander Governor Luis Miguel Morelli Navia 
worried about the degree of meddling of President Chavez in 
Colombia.  He complained about the increasingly 
anti-Colombian discourse of President Chavez and Venezuela's 
massive arms buildup, noting that he had discussed his 
concerns with President Uribe.  He also called attention to 
increasing levels of corruption in Venezuela, particularly 
among the armed forces, who now occupied virtually all key 
political positions.  Morelli noted that a Bolivarian circle 
group operated in Cucuta.  He was unable to provide an 
estimate, however, of active participants. 
 
5.  (C) The director (Javier Jose Cardenas) and members of 
the executive board of the Chamber of Commerce estimated that 
more than 80 percent of Cucuta's Colombian national residents 
had secured a Venezuelan national identity document (cedula) 
prior to the Venezuelan Referendum on Chavez.  Chamber of 
Commerce officials expressed concern that recent strains in 
the bilateral relationship had translated into more hostile 
treatment of Colombian nationals by the Venezuelan National 
Guard.  For example, until recently, Colombians could 
purchase gasoline at either domestic or international 
stations in Venezuela, where prices are significantly lower 
than in Colombia, by simply showing a Venezuelan cedula.  At 
present, the international stations are closed by executive 
order of Chavez, and domestic stations require Colombians to 
show a Venezuelan residential phone or gas receipt in 
addition to a Venezuelan cedula.  The Chamber's members 
welcomed African palm and cacao projects financed in part by 
USAID, and pointed to nascent local coal production and 
exportation via Maracaibo, Venezuela.  A major problem, 
however, was poor road infrastructure on the Colombian side, 
with trucks requiring roughly 15 hours to travel from Cucuta 
to Bogota (600 kilometers).  Similarly, commercial land 
traffic to Colombia's Caribbean coast required some 10 hours. 
 
Contraband of Gasoline 
---------------------- 
 
6.  (U) Cucuta's streets are filled with vendors of 
Venezuelan gasoline, which costs a mere fraction of the pump 
price at Colombian gas stations.  Also in evidence are 1970s 
and 80s model U.S. vehicles (Caprice, Impala, and the like), 
many of which have additional gas tanks that allow 
individuals to make cross-border runs in order to sell 
Venezuelan gasoline in Cucuta.  Governor Morelli said that 
although the sale of contraband Venezuelan gasoline is a 
violation of Colombian law, the GOC permits the practice 
within the limits of Norte de Santander Department.  Street 
vendors sell openly and apparently without concern for 
prosecution. 
Public Security and Illegal Armed Groups 
---------------------------------------- 
 
7.  (C) Department of Administrative Security (DAS; rough FBI 
equivalent) Director Mauricio Rosales told Poloff that the 
GOC was attempting to address the evolving security situation 
in the conflictive Catatumbo region to the North and West of 
Cucuta.  He said the demobilization of major paramilitary 
groups in the area had allowed the FARC and ELN, working 
largely in unison to traffic drugs, to return to the 
Catatumbo, and in particular to areas surrounding Tibu, San 
Calixto, Ocana, El Carmen, and La Gabarra.  Rosales noted 
that FARC and ELN members easily moved back and forth between 
Colombian and Venezuelan territory in rural land crossings in 
the roughly 200-mile stretch border to the north of Cucuta. 
He stated that Venezuelan security forces do nothing to 
prevent establishment of FARC and ELN camps on the Venezuelan 
side of the border.  Rosales indicated that the GOC's 
operation Strength II (Fortaleza II) had recently placed some 
3500 COLMIL troops in the region. 
 
Local Politics 
-------------- 
 
8.  (C) Cucuta Mayor Ramiro Suarez Corzo was detained in mid 
2004 by the Colombian Prosecutor General's office (Fiscalia) 
for alleged ties to the paramilitaries, but was released 
after eight months for lack of evidence.  Suarez's defense 
lawyer was Jaime Granados, a well-respected jurist and 
architect of Colombia's transition to the accusatory criminal 
justice system.  Ciceron Florez, deputy editor of the leading 
regional daily, La Opinion, told Poloff that public opinion 
is sharply divided over the veracity of the Fiscalia's 
charges against Suarez, who is affiliated with the Colombia 
Alive party, a pro-Uribe movement that recently joined forces 
with the nascent National Unity party (reftel).  Suarez told 
Poloff that he had received the personal support of President 
Uribe during his detention, and argued that the charges had 
been fabricated by former Prosecutor General Luis Camilo 
Osorio.  Suarez suggested that his landslide victory in 2003 
(roughly 80 percent of the vote) had motivated Osorio to 
presume that paramilitaries had pressured in favor of his 
election. 
WOOD