Following last week’s Colombia military rescue of hostages held by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), Venezuela strongman Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe agreed to meet this Friday ^[1] in Caracas. Earlier this year at a presidential summit in Brazil Chavez told ^[1] Uribe: “We haven’t been giving money to the FARC.”

But a laptop found by the Colombian military earlier this year, whose contents have been confirmed authentic by Interpol ^[2], suggests otherwise.The documents showed:

• Venezuela appears to be making concrete offers to help arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled grenades and ground-to-air missiles.
• According to one document, Venezuela’s interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacin, last November asked the FARC to train Venezuela’s military in nuts-and-bolts guerrilla tactics — including “operational tactics, explosives, … jungle camps, ambushes, logistics, mobility” — so that soldiers would be prepared to fight a guerrilla war if the U.S. were to invade Venezuela.
• The documents suggest Chavez is personally involved in helping the guerrillas. In a September 2007 message to the FARC’s ruling body, a commander wrote: “Chavez is studying our documents and has said that just like Fidel [Castro] has decided to delegate his other responsibilities to concentrate on the Venezuelan situation, he [Chavez] is ready to do the same to dedicate more time to Colombia.”