News on the violence in Venezuela’s Apure state is coming in dribs and drabs, with murky details emerging in contradictory reports from the Venezuelan authorities and human rights organisations. A clear picture can be discerned through the haze, however. Mounting reports of dead soldiers point to a government struggling to prise territorial control from the grip of a guerrilla group whose presence it long tolerated in the region. Meanwhile, relentless accusations that the Colombia government is behind the violence, as well as the security forces’ alleged extra-judicial execution of civilians to frame them as felled combatants, indicate that the authorities are as much engaged in a propaganda war as a physical conflict. That propaganda campaign is likely to continue for as long as the army remains on the back foot.End of preview - This article contains approximately 1003 words.
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