Colombia a battleground of U.S.-Venezuelan rivalry

BOGOTA24 (Reuters) - They were the Andean odd couple: a Colombian White House favorite and a Venezuelan anti-U.S. revolutionary who managed to work together by putting pragmatism and commerce above ideology.

But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez are now at each other's throats, with relations at their worst point in years, and Colombia has become a battleground in the struggle between Washington and Caracas for influence in Latin America.

The United States has rallied behind Uribe against Chavez in a dispute that erupted over the Venezuelan president's mediation with Marxist Colombian rebels and his calls for them to be recognized as insurgents, not terrorists.

In a show of support, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Uribe Friday to underline backing for a free trade deal that U.S. officials say could help counter Chavez's influence.

Uribe will host Rice after touring Europe this week where he found allies in his campaign against Chavez's attempts to have Colombia's FARC rebels removed from the EU's list of terrorist groups.

His fight with Chavez illustrates the increasingly delicate task Uribe faces in balancing his roles as a Bush administration partner and a neighbor to U.S. adversary Venezuela, where Colombia sends $4 billion in exports a year.

Chavez has recalled his Bogota ambassador, branded Uribe a "U.S. pawn" and sent more troops to the Colombian frontier to control contraband.

But Chavez's call for recognition of the FARC has bolstered Uribe's popularity at home and hurt his own project to build an alliance against U.S. "imperialism" after European leaders and even some of his South American allies rejected the idea.

"Though Chavez wants to make this about the U.S. by triangulating it and making it look like Uribe is merely a puppet of the US ... this is a net loss for Chavez," said Frank Mora, a Latin America expert at the U.S. National War College.

France, Spain and Switzerland have backed Uribe's attempts to broker a deal to free FARC hostages, who include French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans who have been held for more than four years.

MILITARY AID

With the largest U.S. military and anti-drugs aid package outside the Middle East, Uribe has forced the FARC on the retreat. Violence from the conflict has ebbed, but the rebels are still fighting, funded in part by the cocaine trade.

Rice flies into the northwestern city of Medellin Thursday night with a group of Democrats as the U.S. government lobbies them to back the U.S. free trade deal for Colombia, saying it would give vital support for a key ally.

"Colombia is a strategic partner of ours in a tough region, said Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Democrats are resisting the Colombia deal because they say Uribe has failed to curb the influence of right-wing paramilitary groups or stop the murders of labor leaders.

Washington sees Chavez as a menace undermining democracy in Latin America by using his OPEC nation's oil wealth to build a socialist state and support leftist allies in Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

Some Chavez critics believe he is seeking a foothold in Colombia to promote a leftist candidate at the 2010 presidential election.

But even opposition leaders inside Colombia have rallied against what they see as Chavez's meddling, and a poll released this week showed Uribe's popularity had reached 80 percent.

"It's the sum of everything, the FARC, Chavez, the hostages, all supported by a strong economy," Gallup Colombia pollster Jorge Londono said. "Right now the Colombian people are standing firmly behind their institutions." (Editing by Saul Hudson and Kieran Murray)