Global Economy

Colombian Rebel Group Claims Responsibility for Police Bombing



BOGOTÁ, Colombia—The National Liberation Army, a Colombian rebel group, took responsibility for the car bomb that killed 20 cadets last week at a police academy, the worst terrorist attack to hit this South American country in 15 years.

The ELN, in a statement posted on its official website Monday, said the attack was part of its decadeslong conflict with the government after 17 months of peace talks between both sides had fizzled. The guerrilla group said it was still open to dialogue with the government.

President Ivan Duque’s government, promising to bring rebel leaders to justice, said that it would use the ELN’s statement to heighten pressure on foreign countries such as Cuba and neighboring Venezuela to extradite ELN leaders that have taken haven there.

“The ELN committed an act that the international community unanimously condemns,” said Miguel Ceballos, the government’s top peace negotiator with the ELN. “The ELN had a grand opportunity to show its will for peace and it did not do that.”

Both Havana and Caracas have supported the ELN’s leftist cause but have denied that terrorist attacks in Colombia are being planned out of their territories.

Founded in 1964 by Cuban-inspired Marxists and Catholic priests, the ELN operates out of rural areas between Colombia and Venezuela. Colombian authorities accuse the group of profiting off kidnappings, drug-trafficking and illegal mining while carrying out attacks against Colombian security forces as well as frequent bombings of oil pipelines.

With about 2,000 members, the ELN has become Colombia’s largest insurgency since the country’s other Marxist guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, demobilized under a 2016 peace pact and converted into a political party.

Efforts at negotiating a deal with the ELN had started under Mr. Duque’s predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, but have made little progress with the rebels and the government accusing each other of instigating violence. Mr. Duque’s government says it won’t continue talks until the ELN halts all criminal activities and releases 16 hostages that it is accused of holding.

Calling the attack an act of self-defense, the ELN said it targeted the General Santander National Police Academy in Bogotá because it is where 900 cadets train for anti-insurgent military and intelligence operations.

“That’s why the operation realized against these facilities and troops is legal, within the rules of war,” said the statement signed by the ELN’s leaders. “There were no noncombatant victims.”

Colombian officials dismissed the ELN’s argument. “This was an act of terrorism against unarmed people, students, families, children,” said Mr. Ceballos.

Authorities say the bombing was carried out by a 56-year-old man identified as José Aldemar Rojas, who had lost an arm manipulating explosives as a bombs expert and ELN member dating back at least to 1994.

At about 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Mr. Rojas drove a 4×4 truck carrying nearly 180 pounds of explosives into a side entrance of the academy typically reserved for heavy cargoes and rushed through a gate that had been opened to let out departing vehicles, Colombian officials said.

Mr. Rojas’s vehicle exploded near a women’s dormitory, killing him, 20 cadets between the ages of 18 and 23 and leaving dozens more injured. Officials said it was unclear whether the act was planned as a suicide bombing, an unusual tactic in the decades of bloody, drug-fueled conflict that had once plagued Colombia, but which has declined drastically in recent years.

Thousands of Colombians on Sunday took to the streets in cities across the nation in a march calling for unity against the ELN attack.

“We are all Colombia when terrorism tries to rip away our hopes,” Mr. Duque said at a church ceremony honoring the fallen. “And we will all be Colombia in order to defeat it.”

Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com



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