Venezuela and Peru feud over Montesinos capture
( 2001-06-30 11:14 ) (7 )

Venezuela and Peru recalled their ambassadors on Friday as a fierce squabble over who should take credit for the capture of spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos erupted into a full-blown diplomatic dispute.

The two countries recalled their ambassadors less than a week after Venezuelan military intelligence seized the fugitive Montesinos, Latin America's most wanted man, in Caracas, initially prompting effusive thanks from Peruvian Prime Minister Perez de Cuellar.

That praise then turned to recrimination as Peru's Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal revealed on Wednesday that a secret operation by his government to take custody of Montesinos at its Caracas embassy was "mysteriously interrupted," as it turned out, by Venezuelan agents.

Both countries disputed the credit for seizing the shadowy Peruvian spymaster, who was taken back to Lima on Sunday after eight months on the run. He faces life in prison if convicted on charges ranging from embezzlement to murder.

"Venezuela is a sovereign country and no police force can come here and act behind the government's back. That was a violation of international law," Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said in a speech lasting into early Friday.

Warning regional unity could be threatened by Peru's "unfriendly actions," an indignant Chavez said he was recalling his ambassador to Lima.

In a tit for tat move, Perez de Cuellar announced hours later that Lima was withdrawing its ambassador from Caracas. He cited what he called Venezuela's "real verbal aggression."

Chavez, a left-leaning former paratrooper and coup-plotter, said an "international conspiracy" was trying to tarnish his government as "criminals" who had sheltered Montesinos.

RELATIONS TENSE BUT NOT BROKEN

Normal diplomatic relations with Lima will resume once President-elect Alejandro Toledo takes office on July 28, Chavez said. President Valentin Paniagua's interim government took office after a corruption scandal sparked by Montesinos toppled former President Alberto Fujimori in November.

"Recalling the Venezuelan ambassador to Peru definitely does not mean we have broken off relations," said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Luis Davila. "Ties between Peru and Venezuela are suffering from a situation we hope will shortly be solved."

Accusing Ketin Vidal of lying, Chavez said Montesinos had been held in Venezuela by a group of former police officers looking to extort money from him. He promised a full investigation.

"What cheek! God help our Peruvian brothers," said Chavez, accusing Ketin Vidal of using "deceitful" methods which he said seemed borrowed from the once-feared Montesinos, Fujimori's right-hand man during his 10-year rule.

Peruvian media reacted furiously to his incendiary comments. "CLOWN!" howled the La Republica newspaper in big red letters with a full-page photo of Chavez.

Veteran Latin American diplomats in Lima alleged the Venezuelan president was using the Montesinos issue as a nationalist rallying cry to deflect domestic discontent with his government's record.

Chavez insisted Venezuela's military intelligence (DIM) deserved sole credit for apprehending Montesinos, in an investigation which ran parallel but separate from Peruvian and FBI probes.

Armed DIM agents snatched Montesinos at gunpoint from his bodyguards' car and bundled him into a waiting van, unaware that he had been en route to the Peruvian embassy to be handed over to authorities there, Chavez said.

"He left point A to go to point B, but he ended up at point C -- that is C for Chavez," quipped the colorful leader, who said his government would send an official note of protest to Lima concerning their covert police operations.