In a press statement, the Ombudsman’s Office said that government employees and international observers retrieved 48 bodies from a rural part of San Jose del Guaviare, the capital of the Guaviare province.

At the site, “armed clashes broke out between members” of the FARC dissident groups EMC and EMBF on Tuesday, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.

With the help of locals, government officials were able to reach the location of the battle and retrieve the presumed FARC dissidents who were killed in the area.

As part of a humanitarian mission carried out in coordination with the Fire Department, the MAPP-OAS, the UN Verification Mission, the ICRC, the Guaviare Governor’s Office, and the San José de Guaviare Mayor’s Office, the bodies of 48 individuals—believed to be combatants—were recovered and handled with dignity in the area where the clashes took place.

Ombudsman’s Office

Locals from the region “were the first to respond to this situation and, despite the difficulties arising from the armed conflict, they helped recover and secure the bodies until the authorities arrived,” said the Ombudsman’s Office.

The provinces of Guaivare, Caqueta and Amazonas have seen a major uptick in violence after peace talks spurred a rift among EMC fronts and the group’s second-in command, “Calarca,” formed the EMBF.

In January, clashes between the two groups in another jungle area of La Guaviare killed at least 26 suspected guerrillas.

The violence is mainly due to the groups’ efforts to control the regional economy, which includes illegal activities like drug trafficking.

The government ha maintained peace talks with the EMBF and has ordered an intensification of operations against the EMC and its leader, “Ivan Mordisco.”

The post 48 killed in clashes between FARC dissidents: Colombia’s ombudsman appeared first on Colombia News.

The National Registry, which organizes the elections, for weeks has been running ads on social media to convince voters that the electoral system is fraud-proof.

The campaign seeks to dispel ongoing allegations that the software that sends tallies from tens of thousands of voting booths to the central computer can be tampered with.

Petro on multiple occasions said that the National Registry failed to comply with a 2018 court order that ordered the nationalization of the software and shield it from fraud.

The software continues to be the property of the controversial company Thomas Greg & Sons, which is owned by two convicted fraudsters.

Because this company has claimed that its software is a trade secret, IT experts of the Historic Pact have not been allowed to conduct audits that would allow them to confirm the software’s code can’t be altered.

“Without a proper audit of the election software, there can be no full confidence in the process,” said the political party in a statement earlier this month.

The Historic Pact sued the National Registry on Thursday in a last-minute attempt to force the election organizer to guarantee the tracking of tally sheets as they are integrated in the total vote count.

The party additionally claimed that hundreds of its witnesses appeared registered as the witnesses of far-right parties.

“The usurpation of our election observers constitutes fraud and involves criminal offenses that must be investigated by the prosecution, said party activist and former National Electoral Council magistrate Luis Guillermo Perez.

The party has mobilized its base to prevent situations in the congressional elections of 2022 when an alleged error erased hundreds of thousands of votes for the party.

The post National Registry fails to dispel repeated fraud concerns of Colombia’s left appeared first on Colombia News.

The attack on the compound of the local infantry battalion in Riohacha, the capital of La Guajira, was initially reported by the National Army.

In a brief press statement, the army condemned the mortar attack that injured the soldiers and destroyed much of the entry of the base.

The army said that it informed “the competent authorities to carry out the corresponding investigations” and vowed that they were working “in coordination with the National Police and other authorities to ensure the safety of citizens and identify those responsible for the attack.”

In an interview with Caracol Radio, La Guajira Government Secretary Misael Velasquez said that the mortars that damaged the base and injured the soldiers were launched from a vehicle that had been parked between 350 and 400 meters from the base.

According to Velasquez, “reports we received” suggest that the ELN carried out the attack in retaliation of the arrest of several guerrilla suspects in Riohacha and Maicao, a city on the border with Venezuela.

Velasquez said none of the wounded soldiers were injured seriously and received treatment at the base and in the local hospital.

There are some injuries caused by shrapnel from the explosives and also due to where they were stationed on guard duty, but none are serious. The injured are being treated by doctors at the battalion and here at the Riohacha hospital, where they received care, but thank God there are no serious injuries.

La Guajira Government Secretary Misael Velasquez

The ELN did not immediately take responsibility for the attack, which took place well outside their strongholds in the Cesar and Norte de Santander provinces.

The guerrilla group vowed to cease fire unilaterally between May 30 and June 2 to prevent interference with the presidential elections that will be held on Sunday.

The post ELN accused of attacking military barracks in northern Colombia appeared first on Colombia News.

The post Colombia suspends campaigns until after elections’ first round appeared first on Colombia News.

The post The Bernie Moreno threat appeared first on Colombia News.

According to the poll conducted by Invamer, Cepeda can count of the support of 44.6% of voters, which is only 0.3 points higher than the support measured in late April.

De la Espriella rose more than 10 points to 31.6%, mainly because of a collapse of support for his immediate rival on the far-right, Senator Paloma Valencia.

Support for the far-right senator dropped a staggering 5.8 points to 14%, making her appearance in the second round unlikely.

The support of liberal candidates like Sergio Fajardo and Claudia Lopez dropped to below 2.5% amid an apparent polarization of Colombians’ electoral preferences.

Second round projection favors Cepeda

A 52.4% majority of Colombian voters will vote for Cepeda in an eventual run-off with De La Espriella, who could count on 45.6% if votes were counted today, according to Invamer.

In the April poll, the far-right lawyer was 12 points behind on his leftist opponent, whose support is partly due to the relative popularity of outgoing President Gustavo Petro.

De La Espriella became the increasingly likely second-round contestant amid increasingly hostile relations with news media over their reporting on the far-right candidate’s ties to the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC and drug traffickers.

Valencia lost support despite significant support from liberal and conservative political machineries, and major corporate institutions.

Campaigns suspended until after first round

In accordance with electoral law, all campaign events and polling exercises have been suspended until after the first round on May 31.

If this initial voting round does not produce a winner who obtains more than 50% of the votes, a second round will be held on June 21.

The newly elected president will take office on August 7.

The post Final poll before Colombia’s first round vote – Cepeda: 44.6%, De la Espriella: 31.6% appeared first on Colombia News.

Following a meeting, the CNE said that the decision to suspend the activities of pollster AtlasIntel and its publications in weekly Semana was taken solely by magistrate Fabiola Marquez, the representative of the ruling Pacto Historico party.

A video from the meeting that was made public by Caracol Radio showed Marquez in a heated dispute over her ruling with the far-right representative in the CNE, magistrate Alvaro Hernan Prada.

The CNE said that Marquez, Prada, and liberal representatives Altus Baquero and Maritza Martinez would form a committee to decide on where or not to suspend AtlastIntel.

The suspension was recommended by a commission of expert statisticians, which seeks to promote accuracy and prevent the inflation of candidates’ popularity through skewed polling.

AtlasIntel CEO Andrei Roman rejected the suspension and stressed his company’s track records abroad and ahead of primaries that were held in March of this year.

If our polls at Atlas Intel weren’t high-quality, robust, and scientifically sound, we wouldn’t have built the track record that has allowed us to be the most accurate polling firm in two consecutive election cycles in the United States, in three cycles in Argentina, and in this year’s primaries in Colombia.

AtlasIntel CEO Andrei Roman

The ban on AtlasIntel comes a week after GAD3, a Spanish pollster, suspended its activities amid fears that a ban on their polls would harm the reputation of the company and its publisher, television network RCN.

Invamer, which does polling for television network Caracol, is also being investigated for failing to uphold industry standards.

The increased scrutiny is part of the implementation of a new electoral law that seeks to guarantee the accuracy of polls that claim to be representative of Colombian society.

The law was adopted unanimously by Congress last year, despite objections by the pollsters that claimed the law infringed on their freedom of speech.

The post Colombia’s election authority walks back suspension of controversial pollster appeared first on Colombia News.

In a conversation with the Atlantic Council think tank, Moreno said that “I want to encourage the government, the CNE specifically, to consider voter intimidation as a disqualifying event for some of the ballot results in some parts of the country that are not secure.”

“We’ll have that conversation with them,” said the senator, who was born in Colombia and will be in the South American country during the May 31 first round of elections as an observer.

Moreno added that the US Government may not recognize the results if observers find that some results “are clearly part of an intimidation campaign.”

Look, if you’re going to count votes that were the result of clear intimidation, you’re not going to have an election which the international community or certainly the United States of America considers to be a free and fair election.

US Senator Bernie Moreno

President Gustavo Petro took offense to Moreno’s latest attempt to meddle in Colombian affairs and stressed that “the free will of the Colombian people must be respected. This is a democracy, not a serfdom.”

Moreno’s family has long had ties to Colombia’s conservative and far-right elites, and found itself linked to major corruption scandals when one of the clan’s allies, Andres Pastrana, was president.

Petro has additionally accused the senator’s older brother of being involved in money laundering activities of paramilitaries linked to the now-defunct Bogota Cartel.

The post US Senator calls on Colombia’s election authority to disqualify votes from violent regions appeared first on Colombia News.

In a press statement, Bolivia’s Foreign Ministry said it ordered the ambassador to leave “to uphold the principles of sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, and mutual respect among states.”

The country’s foreign minister, Fernando Aramayo, reportedly said the decision was due to to Petro’s online commentary on an ongoing general strike and alleged plans by the United States to kidnap Evo Morales, Bolivia’s former president.

The Foreign Ministry said that the expulsion of the president did not affect the “historic Ties of friendship, cooperation and respect” between La Paz and Bogota.

For a week, the government of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz has been facing a general strike by miners, farm workers and indigenous communities demanding his resignation.

On Sunday, Paz’s Colombian counterpart called the general strike “a people’s insurrection” and said his government “is willing, if invited, to seek peaceful solutions to the political crisis in Bolivia.”

On Tuesday, Petro asked the US Government “not to attack [Bolivia’s] ex-President Evo Morales” and “not to confuse the social struggle of coca-growing farm workers with drug trafficking.”

An attack on a legitimate former president and indigenous leader like Evo Morales will only lead to bloodshed throughout Latin America. As the motto on the original U.S. flag states, it is through respect for diversity and dialogue that democracy and freedom will flourish in the Americas.

President Gustavo Petro

In an interview with US news website Grayzone, Morales claimed that the CIA tried to abduct him in October of 2024.

The former president is one of the most prominent supporters of the general strike in his country.

The post Bolivia expels Colombia’s ambassador to La Paz appeared first on Colombia News.

In a ruling, decreed the “immediate suspension and temporary ban on the publication, broadcast, and dissemination of election polls by the polling firm AtlasIntel and the media outlet Semana magazine.”

The ban followed the publication of multiple polls that were criticized because they allegedly failed to uphold industry standards in regards to the accurate representation of society’s different sectors.

Consequently, the AtlasIntel polling results showed major discrepancies compared to those of rival polling firms.

The suspension was recommended by a commission of expert statisticians, which seeks to promote accuracy and prevent the inflation of candidates’ popularity through skewed polling.

AtlasIntel CEO Andrei Roman rejected the suspension and stressed his company’s track records abroad and ahead of primaries that were held in March of this year.

If our polls at Atlas Intel weren’t high-quality, robust, and scientifically sound, we wouldn’t have built the track record that has allowed us to be the most accurate polling firm in two consecutive election cycles in the United States, in three cycles in Argentina, and in this year’s primaries in Colombia.

AtlasIntel CEO Andrei Roman

The ban on AtlasIntel comes a week after GAD3, a Spanish pollster, suspended its activities amid fears that a ban on their polls would harm the reputation of the company and its publisher, television network RCN.

Invamer, which does polling for television network Caracol, is also being investigated for failing to uphold industry standards.

The increased scrutiny is part of the implementation of a new electoral law that seeks to guarantee the accuracy of polls that claim to be representative of Colombian society.

The law was adopted unanimously by Congress last year, despite objections by the pollsters that claimed the law infringed on their freedom of speech.

The post Colombia suspends election poll amid inaccuracy concerns appeared first on Colombia News.