Colombia’s vice minister on Wednesday vehemently denied the country’s defense minister was gawking at the butt of US presidential adviser Ivanka Trump during a visit to Bogota the day before.
Defense Minister Guillermo Botero became the target of ridicule after he was photographed while apparently staring at the backside of the US President’s daughter at a ceremony to commemorate victims of a terrorist attack that killed 21 police cadets in January.
The photo was initially published by an editor of newspaper El Tiempo. The original image was subsequently removed, but too late; the internet had taken over.
Botero’s apparently morbid interest in Trump’s butt became yet a major embarrassment for the administration of President Ivan Duque, which has been marred by scandals from ministers forgetting the president’s name to Duque’s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, being taken to court on fraud and bribery charges.
To add insult to injury, the daughter of the US president was in Colombia to promote the empowerment of women, an agenda carefully planned by Vice-President Marta Lucia Ramirez.
“This bad faith is not right!!! A visit of this important to empower Colombian women is being trivialized by the defense minister’s look,” Ramirez said on Twitter.
“The minister was looking at the lines on the floor indicating where to stand,” she added before she too became the target of ridicule.
“Receiving the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner was equally if not more important for women and you wouldn’t receive him,” one Twitter responded.
The tweet painfully reminded Ramirez that her government refused to receive Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege, who visited Colombia last month to support victims of sexual violence.
The government’s minority coalition is a fierce opponent of the peace process Mukwege came to support and has avoided acknowledging the existence of victims other than those of leftist guerrilla groups like the FARC and the ELN.