U.S. Links 3 Chávez Aides to Guerrillas

Colombians became particularly incensed with Rodríguez Chacín when Venezuela brokered the FARC's release of two hostages in January. The liberation was taped by Venezuelan state television. As the hostages were handed over, Rodríguez Chacín told the rebels: "We are very aware of your struggle. You are the ones that have to maintain this effort."

The Treasury Department said Venezuela's military intelligence director, Hugo Carvajal, protected FARC drug shipments from seizure by honest Venezuelan authorities, provided weaponry and helped the rebels maintain their stronghold along Colombia's eastern border with Venezuela. American officials also said Carvajal provided FARC members with identification documents that allowed them to travel inside Venezuela.

Henry de Jesus Silva, director of the Venezuelan government's intelligence and prevention services, is accused of assisting the FARC in drug trafficking while advocating closer ties between the Venezuelan state and the rebel group.

American officials, speaking to reporters on the condition that their names not be used, said that much of the case against the Venezuelans came from computer hard drives that Colombian commandos recovered after their air force bombed a rebel camp inside Ecuador in March. The hard drives belonged to a senior rebel commander, Luis Edgar Devia, alias Raúl Reyes, who was killed.

"What has been striking for us about how President Chávez has managed the relationship is that he has developed a small coterie of officials who have gone beyond traditional corruption and sought to build a political and strategic relationship with the FARC," one senior Bush administration official said. He said the relationship was designed both to attack Colombia, which Chávez views as an obstacle to his international ambitions of building an alliance in South America, and to promote Chávez's image.

In May, Colombian officials provided The Washington Post with documents showing how Venezuelan officials appeared to have provided light arms, thousands of rounds of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades to the FARC. The officials said that Venezuela also offered to help the guerrillas obtain surface-to-air missiles but that there was no evidence the guerrillas obtained such weapons. Interpol, the international police agency, studied the Reyes computer hard drives and concluded that the files containing the incriminating evidence had not been modified or falsified.

American officials said that in addition to the three Chávez aides who were named Friday, they know of other figures close to the Venezuelan leader who have helped the FARC. Colombian authorities have identified two of them as Gen. Cliver Alcalá and Amilcar Figueroa, who has had a role in organizing Venezuelan civilian militias.

"It's actually a fairly small group of people, but it's larger than three," said the senior American official. "We know who those people are, and we're watching them very closely."

The revelations in the Reyes computer have hurt Chávez's international reputation. With the FARC's own image in tatters in the wake of publicity about the group's violation of international humanitarian law, Chávez announced in June that the armed struggle was a relic of the past and called on the FARC to release the hostages it holds.

Uribe and Chávez met and announced they would patch up their relationship. But senior Colombian officials have said they believe that Chávez and other Venezuelan officials remain close to the FARC. "We don't believe a word he says," one official said recently.