Death Toll Climbs to 21 After Car Bombing at Colombian Police Academy that is Being Blamed on the National Liberation Army, a Marxist Guerrilla Group
By Jim Wyss
Miami Herald
January 18, 2018
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia is blaming the National Liberation Army, a leftist guerrilla group, for Thursday’s deadly car bombing that left 21 dead and 68 injured – one of the worst terrorist attacks in the capital in a decade.
In a press conference Friday, Defense Minister Guillermo Botero said the driver of the vehicle, José Aldemar Rojas Rodriguez, had a long history with the ELN.
Authorities said Rojas, 56, had been a member of the guerrilla group since 1994 and had been an explosives instructor and had previously lost his right hand. The police recovered his left arm at the site of the blast, at the Escuela General Santander police academy, and were able to identify him by his fingerprints.
The attack comes as the government had been considering restarting peace talks with the ELN in Cuba, but the administration had been demanding that the group release all of the 16 hostages it’s thought to be holding.
Colombian Peace Commissioner Miguel Ceballos said President Iván Duque would have to make the determination if those talks are still viable. “The ELN has not made a single gesture that suggests it wants peace,” Ceballos said.
If the talks do fall apart it could put Cuba in a bind. The ELN has a delegation of guerrilla commanders on the island and Colombia will undoubtedly ask for their extradition.
Authorities said they had also detained a man in Bogotá they identified as Ricardo Andrés Carvajal Salgar through an intercepted phone call and that he would be charged as a co-conspirator. But they asked for the public’s help in identifying other suspects.
On Thursday, at about 9:30 a.m., a Nissan Patrol carrying more than 150 pounds of pentolite explosives ran through a check point at the police academy. When the driver was questioned he began to back up the vehicle when it exploded near barracks that housed female cadets.
Authorities initially reported that nine people had died but that number spiked overnight to 21, including the driver. Nine of the 68 injured are still in the hospital, three in intensive care.
Botero said there was no proof that the driver knowingly committed suicide, and there were indications that the charge could have been detonated by remote control. If Rojas had been a suicide bomber, as some initially suspected, it would be an unprecedented tactic in Colombia’s half-century civil conflict.
The brazen daytime attack shines a spotlight on the ELN, which has been stepping up attacks and expanding its presence since the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace deal in 2016 and became a political party.
Along with consolidating its presence along Colombia’s eastern border, the group is thought to be making inroads into Venezuela, and some of the ELN’s high command is thought to be based in the neighboring country.
Botero said that the driver, Rojas, had at one time provided explosives training inside Venezuela, but he said there were no indications that the neighboring country knew about or had any relation to Thursday’s attack. Venezuela and Colombia have been at odds for years, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has often accused the leadership in Bogotá of trying to topple his socialist administration.
Rojas had tried to enlist with the FARC on at least three occasions but had been rebuffed by the larger group, Botero said. The FARC political party has condemned the attack.
The police academy is well known throughout the region and trains international cadets. Among the dead was an Ecuadorean woman and two Panamanian officials were injured.
Former President Juan Manuel Santos had tried to bring the ELN to the negotiating table, in hopes of building on his successful talks with the FARC. But those efforts were upended by the ELN’s decentralized command structure. As one faction pursued a negotiated solution, other members stepped up attacks and kidnappings.
When he took office Aug. 7, Duque put the talks on ice, but there was always the hope they might be revived. Now that process is likely dead, said Sandra Borda, a political science professor at Andes University.
“The government’s ability to maneuver has been shut down,” she said, as members from within the president’s own party demand more confrontation and less negotiation. “I think now we see the ELN become the government’s primary military target.”
Thursday’s blast was a grim reminder of Colombia’s troubled history. In the 1990sd and 2000s deadly bombing were carried out regularly by the FARC and Pablo Escobar’s Medellin drug cartel. In 2003, the bombing of El Nogal country club, attributed to Escobar’s men, killed at least three dozen people.
While there have been dozens of minor explosions in recent years, the last major bombings in the capital took place in 2017. In February, an explosive device near the city’s bull ring killed two people, and in June a blast at the upscale Andino shopping center killed three, including a French national. That attack was attributed to the People’s Revolutionary Movement (MRP), which is thought to have ties to the ELN.
Founded in 1964, the ELN initially combined Marxist-Leninist ideology with liberation theology. Some of its initial recruits came from the Catholic Church, including Camilo Torres, a charismatic priest who died in 1966 during his first battle.
But in recent years authorities say the ELN has become just one more criminal organization, fueled by drug and ransom money. The group is thought to have about 1,500 armed members.
President Iván Duque declared three days of national mourning and vowed that the “demented act of terrorism” would not go unpunished.
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