Colombia mourns 21 dead in bomb attack
Colombia on Monday was in mourning for the 21 victims of the country’s deadliest bomb attack on civilians in decades, coming in the run-up to key elections.
Saturday’s bomb attack on a highway in southwestern Cauca department comes amid a sharp uptick in violence ahead of May 31 presidential elections.
It was the biggest single loss of life since the now-defunct rebel army FARC blew up a Bogota nightclub in 2003, killing 36 people.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists saw dismembered bodies and a dozen wrecked vehicles next to a massive crater in the middle of the road, in scenes reminiscent of the darkest days of Colombia’s armed conflict in the 1980s.
The government of left-wing President Gustavo Petro has blamed a group of cocaine-smuggling guerrillas, with whom the state briefly held peace talks, for the attack.
The group, Central General Command, known by its Spanish acronym EMC, is led by Ivan Mordisco, Colombia’s most-wanted criminal.
A dozen of the victims were from a village near the town of Cajibio, where hundreds of mourners held a vigil on Monday.
The mourners were dressed in white and waved white sheets or balloons as a sign of peace.
“Please, no more death, no more violence,” said Joao Valencia, 42, a relative of a woman killed in the attack, told AFP, holding up her picture.
“These kinds of women should die of old age, not have their lives taken from them in such a tragic way,” he added.
Intense pressure
Insecurity is one of the top themes in the race to pick a successor to Petro, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term.
At least 31 guerrilla attacks were recorded in southwest Colombia since Friday, a military spokesperson told AFP.
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said the guerrillas were lashing out due to intense pressure from the military in recent months.
“Terrorism, when employed in this way… is because the pressure is so intense… that the only option is to attack the most defenseless,” Sanchez told Blu Radio.
Petro, Colombia’s first-ever left-wing leader, came to power promising to pursue “total peace” by launching talks with all the armed factions that stayed out of a landmark 2016 peace deal with FARC.
But the peace process backfired.
Analysts say the guerrillas used ceasefires to regroup and expand the areas under their control.
The number of fighters doubled in 10 years to 27,000 combatants, Gerson Arias, a researcher at the Ideas for Peace Foundation, estimated.
Election front-runner
Right-wing candidates have vowed to crack down hard.
“This government has allowed violence to grow,” right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia, a native of Cauca, charged.
The election front-runner, left-wing Sen. Ivan Cepeda, said Saturday’s attack favored the far-right by seeking to “generate a climate of fear.”
The campaign has so far been marked by several acts of political violence.
Last year, a young conservative candidate, Miguel Uribe Turbay, was shot in broad daylight while campaigning at a park in Bogota.
He died two months later.
In February, Cepeda’s Indigenous running mate, Sen. Aida Quilcue, was abducted for several hours by armed men in Cauca.
******
Get real-time news updates: inqnews.net/inqviber
