Bolsonaro Accuses Venezuela of Harboring ‘ELN Terrorists’
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, accuses Venezuela of giving a lair to the ELN guerrilla, which Colombia blames for the car bomb attack in Bogota.
“We would like Venezuela not to give a den, protection, to those ELN terrorists,” the Brazilian president said Friday through a video message on his Twitter account.
Bolsonaro has commented that he had a conversation with the president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, to show solidarity after the “terrorist attack” of the National Liberation Army (ELN).
“We would like that group to lay down their arms and release the countless hostages they have,” added the Brazilian president.
Bolsonaro’s accusations came a day after the Venezuelan government condemned the terrorist act in Colombia, expressing its solidarity with the families of the victims. For his part, the president of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela (ANC), Diosdado Cabello, has rejected the accusations about the supposed link between Venezuela and the attack in Bogotá.
“Today the bourgeoisie and the Colombian oligarchy go along with the Venezuelan lackeys trying to link Venezuela with terrorist acts in Colombia (…) we have nothing to do with that war, we condemn any act of terrorism and we raise the flag of peace,” Cabello has indicated during a political event in Sucre state (Venezuela).
Colombia’s defense minister, Guillermo Botero, has reported that the car bomb attack on the Santander General Police Cadet School in Bogota, capital of Colombia, in which 21 students aged between 17 and 22 died, was perpetrated by an expert in explosives linked to the ELN, identified as José Aldemar Rojas Rodríguez, 56 years old.
The Brazilian government has experienced an escalation of tension with Venezuela after Nicolás Maduro took office on January 10, his second term after winning the elections last May.
Bolsonaro has expressed that he does not recognize, like several right-wing governments in the region, the new presidential term of Maduro.
jrd / ctl / snz / mjs
Translated by JRE/AR
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