BOGOTA, Jan 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The Colombian government on Friday blamed
leftist ELN rebels for the bombing of a police academy in Bogota that killed
20 people as well as the attacker, and dealt a body blow to the peace
process.
Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, speaking from the presidential palace,
described Thursday’s car bombing as a long-planned “terrorist attack
committed by the ELN.”
The attack is a major setback to two years of peace talks with the National
Liberation Army (ELN) — first hosted by Ecuador and currently by Cuba —
that failed to go beyond the exploratory stage before stalling when hard-
right President Ivan Duque took power in August 2018.
In the wake of the attack, Duque announced that he was reinstating arrest
warrants for 10 ELN members who are part of the group’s delegation to the
Cuba talks and said he was revoking “the resolution creating the conditions
that allow their stay in that country.”
“The national government knows and understands that the ELN has no will for
peace,” Colombia’s peace commissioner Miguel Ceballos told reporters earlier.
Botero told the same press conference he had “full evidence” that the
bomber — earlier identified as Jose Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, 56 — has been
a member of the ELN for more than 25 years.
Police said Rojas drove his explosives-packed Nissan pick-up into the cadet
school compound, slewing around a vehicle checkpoint, and crashing it into a
dormitory building before it detonated.
Some 80 kilos (around 175 pounds) of explosives was used to set off a
massive blast that also wounded 68 people. Ten were still being treated in
hospital on Friday.
Botero said that at this stage of the investigation police had no evidence
to suggest the attacker wanted to commit suicide, and may have intended to
set off the bomb with “an electronic device.”
According to Botero, Rojas was known by his nickname “One-hand Kiko” for
losing his left hand in a blast and was an intelligence chief in an ELN unit
operating in the department of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela.
“This was an operation that has been planned for the past 10 months,”
Botero said, stating that the guerrilla group — Colombia’s last active rebel
force — were the “intellectual authors” of the attack.
The ELN has not responded to the allegations.
Attorney General Nestor Humberto said another suspect also connected to the
ELN, named as Ricardo Carvajal, was arrested overnight in Bogota.
Soon after the attack authorities said they had identified the bomber, but
added that he had no known links to armed guerrilla groups.
The General Francisco de Paula Santander Officer’s School in the south of
Bogota is the country’s largest police academy and was hosting a graduation
ceremony for cadets at the time of the attack.
– Hardliner Duque –
Rocked by decades of armed conflict involving guerrillas, paramilitaries,
state forces and drug traffickers, Colombia has experienced several years of
relative calm since the 2016 peace accord signed by then-president Juan
Manuel Santos and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.
With the landmark agreement turning the former rebels into a political
party, the smaller ELN is considered the last active rebel group in the
country.
True to his election promises, Duque has taken a hard line against the ELN,
including his demand they release all hostages as a prerequisite to kick-
starting the peace process. The group is believed to be currently holding 17
hostages, some of them for several years.
“It’s highly likely that President Duque will decide in the coming days to
break off peace negotiations with the ELN, negotiations which were already
deadlocked,” according to analyst Frederic Masse.
The ELN, which numbers around 1,800 fighters, has rejected those demands as
“unacceptable.”
Since the FARC demobilized, the ELN has occupied territory it left vacant
and strengthened militarily in many parts of the country.
“The (peace) process was practically concluded,” said Ariel Avila, an
expert from Colombia’s Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation, adding that
the bombing amounted to “a declaration of war.”
“The attack could be the work of the most radical elements of the ELN,
acting with the aim of provoking a rupture in peace negotiations,” said
Masse.
Masse said the bombing could change the political landscape of Colombia
over the coming years, with “an increasingly radicalized and divided ELN
guerrilla, a strengthened security policy and the government taking on the
ELN in a frontal struggle, plunging the country into a situation of neither
war nor peace.”
Thursday’s bombing was widely condemned. UN Secretary General Antonio
Guterres said he stood in solidarity with the people of Colombia and that
“the perpetrators must be brought to justice.”
Pope Francis, about to embark on a visit to neighboring Panama, condemned
the “cruel terrorist attack” in a telegram of condolence to Bogota archbishop
Ruben Salazar Gomez.