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Message: Correa: Video linking him to rebels 'a sham'

Correa: Video linking him to rebels 'a sham'

posted on Jul 18, 2009 06:44PM
Correa: Video linking him to rebels 'a sham'
July 18th, 2009 @ 1:06pm

By GABRIELA MOLINA
Associated Press Writer

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador's President Rafael Correa on Saturday dismissed as a "sham" a newly released video in which a Colombian rebel commander discusses contributing dollars to Correa's 2006 election campaign.

The video, whose existence was revealed by The Associated Press on Friday, appears to dispel any doubts that the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia contributed to the Correa campaign.

It does not, however, prove that Correa himself knew about such aid.

In his weekly Saturday radio program, Correa said he "nothing to do with the FARC" and he said the video's release was part of a campaign by the political right "with all its instruments and arms, among them the news media, to destabilize the region's progressive governments."

"It's all a sham to damage the image of the country and the image of the government," he said.

But he later seemed to leave open some chance the video might be genuine: "First it has to be seen if the video is true. According to the FARC it is a crude sham."

Correa said that a government-backed commission probing Colombia's March 2008 attack on a FARC camp just inside Ecuador should also analyze what he termed "the idiocy" of supposed rebel contributions to his 2006 presidential campaign.

He said the commission, which includes academics and religious leaders, could report "if we have ever had any contact with the FARC."

"I personally don't know anyone in the FARC,": Correa said.

The AP obtained the video exclusively Thursday from a Colombian government official on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity. A senior Colombian prosecutor, Hermes Ardila, said it was found in one of three computers in the possession of Adela Perez, an alleged rebel operative arrested in Bogota on May 30 and decrypted on July 10.

The video shows the FARC's No. 2 commander, Jorge Briceno, reading from the deathbed manifesto of the rebels' founding leader, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, who died on March 26, 2008.

The manifesto laments that Colombian troops had seized electronic documents that badly compromised the rebels and their foreign friends _ namely, Correa and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Correa has accused Colombia of fabricating the documents, though an investigation by the global police agency Interpol determined they were not altered.

Briceno's extensive mention of the documents in the video supports Interpol's conclusion.

Among those secrets is "assistance in dollars to Correa's campaign and subsequent conversations with his emissaries," the letter said. It mentions "some agreements, according to documents in the possession of all of us, that are very compromising regarding our ties with friends."

On Saturday, former Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez demanded that Correa resign over the video.

Ecuador broke diplomatic ties with Colombia over the raid, in which the FARC's foreign minister, Raul Reyes, was slain along with 24 other people.

Despite the revelations, Correa was re-elected in April by a comfortable margin.

___

Associated Press Writer Frank Bajak in Bogota contributed to this report.

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