The armed revolutionary has no place in modern Latin America, the Venezuelan President has declared. Catching his critics off guard, Hugo Chavez called on the Marxist rebel army in neighbouring Colombia to lay down its arms and release its hostages, declaring that guerrilla armies are now “out of place”.

Adopting the mantle of international statesman, the Venezuelan President appeared to be stepping forward finally to turn a page of history for a continent that for decades has been blighted by eruptions of insurgent violence, not just in Colombia but also Nicaragua and El Salvador. As most of those conflicts have come to an end, Colombia has been alone in failing to end its own internal strife.

In his statement, Mr Chavez offered a reason of his own to bring Farc’s campaign to an end, pointing to the US. “You in the Farc should know something,” he offered. “You have become an excuse for the empire to threaten all of us.” He often uses the term “empire” to refer to the United States. Washington has made no secret of its desire to isolate Mr Chavez from other governments in Latin America.