Venezuela’s Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega said Sunday that Colombia’s evidence of guerrilla presence in Venezuela, presented to the Organization of American States (OAS), lacks legal validity.
“You can’t go to [to the OAS] with uncertain facts, with preconstituted, prefabricated evidence,” which has “no value from a legal point of view,” said Ortega.
Ortega criticized Colombia’s Ambassador to the OAS Luis Alfonso Hoyos for presenting “not very serious evidence” to the international body on July 22, an event which led Venezuela to break all ties with its neighbor.
Ortega claimed that the photos that Hoyos presented to the OAS of guerrilla leaders allegedly on Venezuelan soil form part of a “media matrix” created to portray Venezuela badly on the international stage.
According to Venezuela’s Ambassador to the OAS Roy Chaderton, the photos could have been taken in Colombia, while President Hugo Chavez said that the areas in which Hoyos claimed there was a guerrilla presence have been inspected and no guerrillas found.
Ortega compared the Colombian armed forces to those of the U.S., saying “they have also used false evidence to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Bogota denied Saturday that Colombia plans to attack Venezuela, after Chavez dispatched troops to the border, claiming that Colombia had threatened its neighbor with war.
An emergency summit of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) convened last Thursday to address the dispute between the Latin neighbor failed to resolve the feud.
In a bid to smooth ruffled feathers, both UNASUR Secretary General Nestor Kirchner and Brazilian President Lula da Silva will meet with Chavez and both the incoming and outgoing presidents of Colombia prior to the inauguration of Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos on August 7.