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Explosions capital { August 8 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/08/international/americas/08COLO.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/08/international/americas/08COLO.html
August 8, 2002
Explosions Rattle Colombian Capital Before Inaugural
By JUAN FORERO
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Aug. 7 — At least 14 people were killed and 40 wounded today by mortar shells in the center of this capital as Álvaro Uribe Vélez was sworn in as president. He was elected on a pledge to crack down on Colombia's leftist guerrillas.
Two shells landed near the presidential palace, which is next to the Congress where Mr. Uribe's inauguration was held, police officials and witnesses said. One policeman, his head bleeding, staggered away as security personnel raced to secure the parking area of the palace.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the police said they suspected urban commandos of the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Mr. Uribe has promised to defeat the rebels, who have been waging war on the government for 38 years, and they have mounted more attacks in recent days as his inauguration approached.
Mr. Uribe and others in the congressional chambers heard the blasts, witnesses said, but were unaware that they stemmed from an attack.
Two of the shells, which appeared to be homemade, landed in a slum, killing at least 11 people, many of whom were sleeping in a crude shelter, according to Bogotá's mayor, Antanas Mockus, and several witnesses. The police said another shell landed on a house in a working-class neighborhood, killing three girls.
Perhaps as many as five of the shells were fired from a home located about a mile from the presidential palace, said a police intelligence official who briefed reporters. The police raided the residence and found 40 unused rockets, he said.
"I saw people running all over the place, yelling and screaming," said Carlos Castro, 25, one of the thousands of homeless people in the slum, called El Cartucho. "Some people had lost legs. Others were headless. Everything was destroyed."
Antonio Navarro Wolff, a senator who was in the congressional chamber for the inaugural, said: "We thought it was cannon shots that were part of the ceremony. It was an hour later when we understood that it was an attack and there were many dead and wounded."
The ceremony was not interrupted, and Mr. Uribe made no mention of the attacks in his 20-minute nationally televised speech that began about half an hour after the first shells were fired.
"This conflict either ends or it has the potential to destabilize the region," Mr. Uribe said in his address.
Mr. Uribe, 50, a former state governor who was educated at Harvard and Oxford, was swept into office on May 26 after campaigning as a no-nonsense candidate who would double the size of the armed forces to take control of territory lost to the FARC, as the rebel group is known.
Mr. Uribe is expected to forge a closer relationship with the United States. Last Friday, President Bush signed legislation that expands American military assistance so Colombia can better combat the rebel movement, which is financed in part by profits from the narcotics trade.
The FARC nearly succeeded in assassinating Mr. Uribe with a bomb during the campaign. In recent weeks, the rebels have threatened hundreds of town mayors, trying to force them to abandon their posts, and they set off bombs in urban areas, apparently aimed at sowing terror.
But today, shortly after 3 p.m., with much of the country watching the inauguration on television, the mortar shells were set off in the area of the Congress. Aside from Colombian lawmakers, foreign dignitaries were in attendance, including a delegation from the United States that included Robert B. Zoellick, the trade representative, Ambassador Anne Patterson and John Walters, the White House antidrug chief.
The rebels have often used homemade mortar shells or other projectiles fired from empty natural gas cylinders. The missiles are notoriously inaccurate, often striking homes or other buildings housing civilians. In May, 119 people were killed in a church in northern Colombia when a missile fired by the FARC in the midst of a battle struck the roof of the building.
Today's attacks struck one of Bogotá's most misery-ridden neighborhoods, a slum of muddy streets and battered homes that house drug addicts and criminals. El Cartucho is a neighborhood so dangerous that the police rarely enter.
The city has recently started to raze many of its condemned buildings, with the goal of creating a large park and moving many of the slum's residences into drug treatment centers.
Though the swearing-in and other events continued as planned, the police and soldiers closed off streets throughout much of the center of the city. Air force jets streaked overhead, and helicopters hovered above the neighborhoods that were hit.
Mr. Uribe, whose father was killed by guerrillas in 1983, had abandoned plans for a festive outdoor ceremony because of concerns that the guerrillas might try to assassinate him. Commercial air traffic was canceled, with only an American surveillance plane and Colombian military aircraft allowed in the skies above the capital.
"We are offering democracy, so that arms can be replaced by argument," Mr. Uribe said in his speech. But he also said, "The world must understand that this conflict needs unconventional, transparent and imaginative solutions."
Today, after he was inaugurated, Mr. Uribe, as expected, presented a referendum proposal to Congress that would reduce the legislative body to 150 lawmakers from 268.
One of the shells landed on a shack said to be used by drug users, several of whom were smoking a potent byproduct of cocaine called bazuco when the small, one-story building exploded.
"You heard a shrieking sound, whoosh and then bam," said Henry Baron, a young man who said he was sleeping on the floor when a corner of the building caved in. "The impact was huge and then the people just started to run."
Puddles of blood covered the floor, as several homeless people milled around inside what was left of the building after the authorities had cleared away the bodies.
"It is terrible," said a vendor, Estela Sánchez, 26, who was nearby when the mortar struck. "There are children who go there, too. It is a place where people go for a little bread and drink and try to get some sleep."
Mr. Uribe, who will serve a single, four-year term as prescribed by Colombian law, differs sharply from the departing president, Andrés Pastrana. Mr. Pastrana, a former television anchorman and the son of a former president, won office in 1998 pledging to bring peace to Colombia through negotiations with two rebel groups.
But his decision to grant the FARC a vast demilitarized zone while the talks were under way backfired as the rebels used the safe haven to build up their forces and hide kidnap victims. The peace process collapsed earlier this year, and the economy is in its worst state in decades.
The Bush administration supports Mr. Uribe's goals of weakening the rebels while cutting Colombia's export of cocaine.
"We look forward to working with him on these shared goals," said a State Department official.
On Friday, Mr. Bush signed a $29 billion antiterrorism package that contains a provision allowing all American military aid Colombia has received up to this year to be used for counterguerrilla operations. Under previous guidelines, American-supplied helicopters, intelligence and three Colombian battalions trained by the United States Special Forces could only be used in counterdrug operations.
"It will give us more mobility, much more capacity, much more firepower," Francisco Santos, Mr. Uribe's vice president, said by telephone this morning. "This means a lot. It helps to change the military balance, and it helps to contain the violent people."
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