Colombia: Petro's Caravan 'Sabotaged' as Uribe Critics Riot

The caravan of Colombian presidential candidate Gustavo Petro has come under violent attack in Cucuta, on the Venezuelan border, at the same time that riots marred a rally by supporters of former President Alvaro Uribe in Cauca.

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Petro took to social media to dispel rumors that several gunshots had been fired at the vehicle in which he was traveling, but he confirmed that an act of "violent sabotage" had been orchestrated against him.

"There's no shooting on the car I'm in," Petro, who currently features on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, posted on Twitter late Friday afternoon.

"They organized a violent sabotage against the demonstration with a command centre: the jail and Ramiro Suarez, the former mayor whom I denounced as a murderer and a paramilitary. The sabotage came with people on seven buses."

Police attended the scene, which Petro relayed on Twitter while calling for justice and appealing for peace: "What dispersed the demonstration were not the aggressors who arrived on the buses, but the (tear) gases of the same police.

"I was taken to the weakest and most vulnerable point and not to the site of the demonstration, so it was easy to attack the vehicle.

"The answer to violence is not violence, it is the peace and the politics of love. Never will we respond to a stone with another stone." 

A video posted on Twitter by Noticias Uno shows the windscreen of Petro's car being partially shattered as unidentified projectiles strike the glass in several places. 

In the aftermath of the incident, Petro addressed the crowds which had gathered outside the Casino Internacional de Cucuta. 

Petro's official candidacy, representing a left-wing coalition of parties and movements, will be confirmed following an electoral consultation on March 11 ahead of the May 27 elections.

Meanwhile, in Cauca, a rally held by supporters of former President Uribe turned violent when protesters, who outnumbered Uribe's network, shouted "Murderer!" and "Rapist!" at the right-wing candidate, according to Colombia Reports.

Uribe said on Twitter that the protesters were students from the local university who had assaulted a policemen, but this has yet to be confirmed by the authorities.