After fake rumors of an alleged call to the Colombian military reserves, LatinAmerican Post reviews the international 'enmity'

A few days ago, there was concern in Colombian society thanks to a post on Facebook that said: "If you served military service or, even if you did not, you are part of the reserve of the army ranks because this is an obligation with Colombia and from this Thursday the institution will begin to call through different media, letters, emails or calls to Colombians under 50 to form the so-called reserve battalions", Kienyke Portal reported.

Leer en español: Tensiones entre Colombia y Venezuela generan desinformación y confusión

Fortunately and soon after, the public force through the National Army denied that information and published in its social media account a statement denying the rumor, which generated anxiety due to the growing boom of a conflict with Venezuela. According to Kienyke, the Army requested to break the fake information chain and clarified the danger of sharing fake news, adding in its statement: "The National Army uses its institutional channels to disseminate information, not other accounts."

Considering this alarming situation, LatinAmerican Post reviews 3 factors that have strengthened the tension between Colombia and Venezuela.

1. There is contraband in the border

The Sputnik agency recalls some key points of the conflict; one of them is border contraband. This agency emphasizes that on September 10, political movements opposed to the Venezuelan government executed an operation called "Arria Formula", a way of exerting pressure on the Security Council. However, it was dismissed by Ambassador Claudia Salerno.

The leader seems to be clear on the fact that the Colombian army is not capable of sustaining a war of more than a month because it is an "army for guerrilla warfare, but not for long- term conflicts".

Also read: Should Venezuela's neighbors fear an armed confrontation?  

The same agency refers to the commercial aspect, because of the presence of smuggling mafias that operate in the border. A conflict between the two nations would not be beneficial for these organizations.

However, the problematic could grow since the Venezuelan government imposed controls on the sale of gasoline through a card called "Carnet de la Patria", which also controls the international price of oil.

2. Venezuelans in the ELN

The agency France 24 highlights the recent participation of Venezuelans in the National Liberation Army (ELN, in Spanish), which further aggravated a diplomatic relationship between the two nations.

According to the Minister of Defense of Colombia, Luis Carlos Villegas, in February 2018, "the number of Venezuelans who have participated in actions of the ELN is growing. We had, for example, two Venezuelan nationals who were installing an explosive charge on a highway near Pamplona, ​​and that charge was activated causing the death of those two terrorists". This information became public after following intelligence analyzes that established the participation of Venezuelans in the events that took place in January in Barranquilla.

The answer from Venezuela arrived very soon. Nicolás Maduro reiterated the denunciation of his Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, who would have assured that from Colombia there is a plan of invasion to Venezuela. "We have information, from an extremely reliable source in Colombia, with physical evidence of this plan to activate a false positive against Venezuela", claimed Saab.

According to El Pais, Venezuela and Colombia are approaching a kind of 'Cold War', after Maduro denounced that his murder was ordered from Bogotá, especially after the arrival of Iván Duque to the Colombian government.

¡Atención! Ejercito Colombiano: “No difunda o comparta información sin confirmar su veracidad y fuente”, dice la institución.https://t.co/1XBjUugL99

— RCN Radio (@rcnradio) 30 de septiembre de 2018

3. Venezuelan massive migration

The serious crisis that Venezuela is going through has produced a massive exodus of Venezuelans to different Latin American nations and worldwide. The nation that has received the most Venezuelan migrants has been Colombia, due to its proximity to Venezuela.

For this reason, for France 24, another point that affected the bilateral relations between both countries, was the measure of former President Juan Manuel Santos to regularize the migration of Venezuelans to Colombia, by sending troops to protect 2 thousand 200 kilometers of border.

LatinAmerican Post | Onofre Zambrano
Translated from “Tensiones entre Colombia y Venezuela generan desinformación y confusión”

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