Laht.com: The slaying of two Venezuelan guards near the Colombian border is part of a "destabilization plan" linked to the military bases that the US will be using in Colombia, Venezuela's Vice President said on Tuesday.

Ramon Carrizalez told a press conference in the border city of San Antonio that Monday's attack was perpetrated by paramilitaries who were the "spearhead" of the threat to Venezuela and other South American countries represented by the "installation of Yankee bases on Colombian territory."

"Bases that are clearly aimed at threatening Venezuelan territory and Venezuela's revolutionary process because of the effect it has had on Latin America," the Vice President said.

The plan for a bigger US military presence in Colombia has raised alarm in Venezuela, where leftist President Hugo Chavez was in 2002 the target of an attempted coup that former US President Jimmy Carter says was carried out with Washington's foreknowledge, if not active complicity.

As for the killing of the two National Guard members, Carrizalez said police have arrested a Venezuelan man and seized several guns, including one that was used in the fatal shootings. Three other people are being sought in connection with the crime. He also said that as a result of the attack, "measures of control have been stepped up, but we haven't officially closed the border."

Carrizalez' speech concentrated on relating the basing agreement signed by Colombia and the US to the actions of Colombian right-wing paramilitaries and the growing violence on the border. In that regard he recalled a series of recent incidents including the killing in that area of 11 people, mostly Colombians, and the arrest of another 10 on charges of paramilitary activity. Telephone messages intercepted following the guardsmen's murder reveal that there is "a direct connection" with last month's massacre.

Restrictions on border traffic began Monday afternoon after four individuals riding motorcycles gunned down two Venezuelan guardsmen at the mobile checkpoint in El Palotal, a few meters from the border between Venezuela and Colombia.

National Guard General Franklin Marquez, the area's military commander, said that a suspect has been detained in connection with the killings, Venezuela's official ABN news agency reported. For its part, the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office said in a communique that suspect Johan Manuel Mora Rodriguez, 20, would be arraigned Tuesday. The note said that Mora was captured on Monday, shortly after the incident occurred, at a National Guard checkpoint in the town of Urena. Marquez also said that details of the killings are under investigation and that it has not been ruled out that they were a reprisal by the "mafias that control the smuggling of gasoline and food to Colombia."

The General suggested that measures adopted in recent weeks to minimize smuggling are having their effect and have significantly cut into the smugglers' business.

The border region is known for high levels of violence from the operations of leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers, smugglers, kidnappers and killers-for-hire.

In a recent statement to Efe, political scientist Carlos Romero warned that the situation along the border is "explosive" because of the lack of cooperation between the governments of Venezuela and Colombia.

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