COLOMBIA:ECUADOR AND Venezuela have begun to move thousands of troops to Colombia's borders, a day after Colombian forces killed a left-wing rebel leader in Ecuadorian territory.
Bogota later alleged that senior officials in Ecuador recently met the slain rebel, Raul Reyes, to accommodate the guerrillas' presence there.
The developments raised tensions in a region that has been on edge in the several months since Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez had a bitter falling out.
Reyes, the nom de guerre of Luis Edgar Devia Silva, was the second-ranking commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).
At a news conference on Sunday, Colombian national police director Oscar Naranjo said that files in three laptop computers recovered in a jungle camp one mile inside Ecuador, where Reyes's body was found, showed that on January 18th and 28th he had met Ecuadorian interior minister Gustavo Larrea to discuss several issues, including stationing army and police officers "who were not hostile to the Farc".
Mr Naranjo also said documents showed that Mr Larrea and Mr Reyes discussed a meeting between the guerrilla leader and Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, in which the former's "secure transport" would be guaranteed.
"The questions posed by these documents merit a response from the Ecuadorian government," Mr Naranjo said .
In a nationwide address late on Sunday, Mr Correa rejected Colombia's apology for the incursion and said Mr Uribe lied when he told him on Saturday that the rebel leader and 16 other Farc members were killed in hot pursuit. "They were massacred," Mr Correa told viewers.
The Farc, Colombia's largest rebel group, has been locked in a 40-year war with that nation's government. It holds 700 kidnapped hostages, a source of public outrage in Colombia.
Earlier Ecuador said it was moving additional troops to defend its northeastern border with Colombia, it expelled Colombia's ambassador and recalled its own ambassador to Bogota. Saturday's killing of Mr Reyes was a "violation of territorial integrity and legal system of Ecuador", a foreign ministry statement said.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez said he was sending 10 tank divisions and 10,000 troops to his country's border with Colombia and mobilising fighter jets to defend against a possible incursion.
"God save us from war," Mr Chavez said in his weekly television address on Sunday, after observing a moment of silence for Mr Reyes. He said Colombia would not be allowed to "violate our sovereignty".
The Farc has always used the lightly patrolled jungle border areas of Ecuador and Venezuela to regroup and resupply. However aggressive military action ordered by Mr Uribe in recent years has driven rebels over the borders in greater numbers, analysts say.
The Colombian army killed Mr Reyes in a mission that Colombia's defence ministry said began on its side of the Putumayo River but ended about a mile inside Ecuador.
Experts in Venezuela and Colombia believe Mr Chávez to be tolerant, even accommodating, of the Marxist Farc rebels, for whom he frequently expresses admiration. The Farc this year has released six of the hundreds of hostages it holds to Chávez representatives in Colombia.
Mr Correa, however, is said by Colombian and US officials to be concerned about the growing presence of rebels and the violence and drug trafficking they have brought with them.
Mr Reyes was thought to have lived in a semi-permanent camp on the Ecuadorian side of the border to escape the Colombian military's reach.
On Saturday, Mr Correa's response to the Colombian incursion was muted. He lamented the loss of life and acknowledged that Farc rebels often "infiltrate" Ecuador, but said nothing critical of Colombia.
On Sunday, however, his government took a harder line, demanding an explanation and apology.