Colombia’s President Ivan Duque on Thursday misinformed the United Nations about ELN activity in Venezuela, local media reported.
Duque presented a report about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s alleged ties to Colombian guerrillas, but this report contained false information, according to newspaper El Colombiano.
The government claimed that a photo of ELN guerrillas playing with children was taken in Venezuela in 2018, but the newspaper said that military intelligence sources provided the photo to the newspaper in 2015, claiming it was taken in the southwestern Cauca province.
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The misinformation given to the United Nations adds to alleged misinformation provided to the Organization of American States (OAS) by Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo.
The minister was forced to retract his unsubstantiated claim made at the OAS that a reintegrating FARC rebel leader took part in alleged activity of dissident FARC leader “Ivan Marquez” in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan authorities and local media have released evidence that confirm claims Duque colluded with drug traffickers in a failed February operation to force American aid trucks across the border.
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While Duque focuses on Venezuela, violence in Colombia surges
Duque’s latest blunder triggered a wave of ridicule on social media in Colombia where the president is already suffering abysmal approval ratings.
While the government has been focusing on Venezuela, the Duque administration is failing to attend an alarming rise in political violence and armed conflict inside Colombia.
The mass killing of social leaders and the assassinations of candidates ahead of local elections have created major tensions between Congress and the government and within the president’s minority coalition.
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The security forces were already failing to maintain security after the FARC’s demobilization in 2018, but have been in utter chaos since Duque changed the military command.