An attempt to influence Ecuadorian elections with a fake video that allegedly showed leftist guerrillas endorsing one of the candidates was thwarted by a land bird and a sharp-eared ornithologist.
In the video, shared on social media before the first round of the election on Sunday, three masked and armed men stood before the red and black ELN flag – Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla force – and expressed their support for leftist candidate Andrés Arauz.
A caption at the foot of the screen described the scene as the “Colombian jungle”, but a shrill whistle from somewhere in the bush gave the game.
“I recognized the whistle instantly and knew that the video could not have been shot in Colombia,” said Manuel Sánchez, ornithologist and bird guide. He had identified the avian whistleblower as a flicker of light eyebrows – who is not a native of Colombia.
“Tinamous are very primitive birds. They live on the forest floor and do not sing; they have short, inflated whistles, ”said Sánchez. “It was just lucky that this particular species lives in a very small and rare dry forest ecosystem in western Ecuador and northwestern Peru.” Although ELN has already operated in northern Ecuador, there is no record of activity in these areas of the ecosystem.
Spelling errors, strange accents and improbable weaponry further undermined the video’s authenticity, which came after Colombian weekly magazine Semana claimed to have discovered documents showing ELN’s support for Arauz. ELN denies the claim and rejects the video.
In recent years, organizations like Bellingcat have mobilized citizen journalists and volunteer experts to check or refute online videos. Although the Colombian military has used ornithologists to help locate hostages of audio recordings, this is the first time that such a process has been used to cut the wings of fake guerrillas.
Sánchez hopes that the attention his own tweets attracted will draw international attention to the plight of the tinouou habitat with clear eyebrows. “The dry Tumbesian forest that we share with Peru is one of the most threatened ecosystems in the Americas, due to the growth of the shrimp, agriculture and road industry,” he said.
Ecuador will hold a second round in April.