Or: High Politics according to Hugo, Rafa and Álvaro

Now that the diplomatic crisis in the Andes is over, it’s time for some analysis: what did it all mean? Well, many things. Let’s start from the beginning.

• Why did Ecuador get ticked off? - Last weekend, Colombian military forces entered Ecuadorian territory in order to kill a prominent member of the Colombian guerrilla organisation FARC, Raúl Reyes, in the border region. This was an intrusion of Ecuadorian sovereign territory. The worst thing was, they didn’t tell the Ecuadorian government about it before they went in, which would have been the nice thing to do. Understandably, Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa was unimpressed. No-one likes foreign military just randomly wandering into their country to shoot some people (even if they are criminals and citizens of the other country).
• So why didn’t Álvaro Uribe tell the Ecuadorians they were popping over for a visit? - According to himself, to make sure the operation would succeed. There is also a long-standing history of mistrust between the two neighbours regarding the goings-on with the FARC in the northern Ecuadorian region.
• Why did Hugo Chávez get involved? - Several reasons:
  1. He sees himself as an important regional actor.
  2. He’s (political/ideological) friends with Rafael Correa. Both are leftwing leaders, and Chávez sort of views Ecuador as a younger brother and companion in the Bolivarian Revolution whom he had to protect against ‘aggressive Colombia’.
  3. Chávez and Uribe haven’t been on the best of terms since Uribe decided to withdraw permission from Chávez to negotiate with the FARC over the release of hostages such as Íngrid Betancourt. See also this post. At the moment, Chávez seems to welcome any opportunity to confront Colombia, whose president Uribe he also sees as a puppet of his longest-standing enemy, the United States.
• How dangerous was it really? - Now that it’s over, it is always easy to say that it wasn’t that dangerous to begin with. But thinking about it, it probably really wasn’t. Would Colombia, who already has enough on their hands with internal problems, really enter a military conflict over this? Probably not. Would Ecuador really confront the much larger and militarily well-equipped (thanks to the US) Colombia over the shooting of some guy? Unlikely. Would Venezuela really let itself be drawn into this whole thing? If they had become involved on the Ecuadorian side, there would have been good reason for the US to stand behind their closest (and only) ally in the Andean region. The whole thing would probably have been blown completely out of proportion. Would Venezuela really want that? Also unlikely.
• So what was it all about? - Ecuador had to let Colombia know that the next time they were planning to visit, they should phone ahead for permission. Colombia had to play innocent and justify its actions. Venezuela, with its pretense to regional leadership, had to step in, preferably on the side of its ally Ecuador. Besides, the opportunity to bond with another country against Colombia is a welcome one to Chávez at the moment.

With hindsight: Much sabre-rattling, little actual danger. Still, it’s quite nice that it’s over and everyone can go back to minding their own business. And it certainly did not do the already fragmented region any good. As Simon Romero puts it in an excellent New York Times article, everybody lost something in this stand-off: Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and the FARC. And the Andean regional project is left that little bit hollower.