[David]

AP


BOGOTA, Colombia - Venezuelan troops mobilized for the Colombian border on Tuesday after President Hugo Chavez ordered 10 battalions to the frontier.

Hundreds of Venezuelan troops were seen boarding four buses and eight trucks at the Paramaracay base in the central city of Valencia on Tuesday morning. A helicopter flew overhead.

A base official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were heading for the Colombian border, though she didn't specify the location.

Elsewhere, in the northern state of Lara, pro-Chavez Gov. Luis Reyes said Tuesday that battalions in his state were heading for the border.

"There are mobilizations in Lara state toward the border zone," Reyes said.

Chavez in court?
Also Tuesday, Colombia President Alvaro Uribe said his government would ask the International Criminal Court to try Venezuelan leader Chavez for financing and supporting Colombia's main rebel group.

The Uribe government claims documents found in the laptop of a slain commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia indicate Chavez's government recently gave $300 million to the group known as the FARC.

The United States and the European Union classify the FARC as an international terrorist organization.

"Colombia is proposing that the International Criminal Court charge Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, for the support and financing of genocide," Uribe told journalists after meeting with an ex-congresswoman who was recently freed by the FARC after more than six years as a hostage.

Uribe did not explain what arguments against Chavez would be presented to the Netherlands-based court.

The Colombian government says documents found in the laptop of Raul Reyes, a senior FARC leader killed Saturday in a raid on a guerrilla camp just inside Ecuador, show Chavez's ties with the rebels date back more than a decade.

The documents indicate, Colombia alleges, that the FARC even sent Chavez money when he was in jail from 1992-94 for leading a failed coup.

Venezuela says Colombia is lying about the documents.