A photo of the report on Venezuela that the president of Colombia delivered to the UN unleashes a political storm

[KEPY™]

A handful of guerrillas and a group of children play in a circle. It is one of the images contained in the report that Colombian President Iván Duque delivered on Thursday to the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, with the purpose of demonstrating the protection of the Venezuelan Government to illegal armed groups. "Penetration of the ELN in rural schools of the Táchira State for indoctrination purposes - April 2018". This is how the photograph is titled, presented as proof of the presence of the National Liberation Army, the last guerrilla in Colombia, on the other side of the border.

Hours later, however, came the first denial. The newspaper El Colombiano said that the snapshot was not taken in the neighboring country but in the department of Cauca, on the Pacific coast. "The president is wrong, because this image does not correspond to that place or date," writes the Medellín newspaper. The photo was leaked to a journalist in 2015 by Military Intelligence and published to illustrate a report on child recruitment. The statement unleashed a new political storm and triggered criticism from the opposition by sowing doubts about the large 128-page dossier, delivered on the occasion of the UN General Assembly in New York. These observations, however, do not diminish the substance of the matter, since almost no one in the Colombian political spectrum questions the presence of these groups in Venezuelan territory.

The president spoke on Friday from Miami and explained that it is a scene included in a report published by the Venezuelan NGO Fundaredes in April 2018. "Why is it there? Because it is a context photo. And the dossier has so much context photographs as photographs of Colombian intelligence, "he said. Asked during an interview with the journalist Andrés Oppenheimer if he is in a position to affirm that the image corresponds to Venezuela, he added: "This is what the foundation from which the photograph that was contextually included in the report is derived. It is important that it be clarified. But beyond the photo I think is anecdotal within the dossier, what is really showing with information is the location of the [ELN] leaders in Venezuela. "
Our documentation team on the performance of Colombian irregular armed groups in Venezuela received in June 2013 photographs about the presence of the guerrillas in schools in the Táchira state, "said a statement from the director of the Foundation, Javier Tarazona Sánchez. He adds that the image in question it is one of the "evidence" contributed from that year in a complaint to the Prosecutor's Office. According to Duke, "between January and September 158 minors have been captured in military operations, were recruited by these groups "and have been made available to the Colombian Family Welfare Institute.

The controversy, in any case, gave arguments to Duque's adversaries to recriminate a kind of instrumentalization of the very serious crisis that Venezuela is suffering, which has forced millions of people to flee in search of opportunities, from which around one million and Medium have been established in Colombia. "For not facing the discussion of national problems, they try desperately to replace the role of the FARC in their speech with Venezuela," opposition leader Gustavo Petro launched on social media. "It was not enough to lie at the UN about his commitment to the protection of the environment (when he wants fracking and glyphosate in Colombia), but now he presented false and outdated information to Secretary Guterres," said Antonio Sanguino, senator and spokesman for the Green Alliance The Government of Duque has always remained faithful to an open-door policy and the president took advantage of his trip in the United States to try to redouble the diplomatic siege to Chavism in alliance, mainly with the Donald Trump Administration.