COLOMBIA: Colombians clean up after car bomb explodes outside main radio station in Bogota and hunts for those responsible

Record ID: 356163

  • Title: COLOMBIA: Colombians clean up after car bomb explodes outside main radio station in Bogota and hunts for those responsible
  • Date: 14th August 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) RESIDENT OF BOGOTA FRANCISCO DIAZ SAYING: "It's a situation that generates uncertainty among Colombian citizens. We hope that those who would have done this or made this kind of decision would reconsider." PEOPLE WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ANOTHER RESIDENT OF BOGOTA, MAGDALENA ABENDANO SAYING: "I don't know, it may be because of the new presiden
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Colombia
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAE28SV769Z802OQ30DM9YJKMYQ
  • Story Text: Colombians continued with their daily routine on Friday (August 13) one day after a car bomb exploded outside one of the country's main radio stations in Bogota.
    A car bomb exploded on Thursday outside Caracol Radio, wounding nine people and blowing out windows in the first major attack since President Juan Manuel Santos took office last weekend.
    Police released the latest images from a security camera that shows the moment when an unidentified person abandoned the vehicle outside the building.
    Bogota's Mayor Samuel Moreno called on residents of the capital to gather outside the radio station and reject violence.
    "The message that people from Bogota want to give is that we reject violence, we reject those factions who use violence and we have the responsibility to continue our march for this city," Moreno told reporters. "These terrorist acts will not intimidate us."
    Santos, a former defense minister, took office on Saturday promising to keep up former President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed war on FARC guerrillas. The bombing on Thursday underscored the security challenges he still faces.
    Residents of Bogota said the attacks caused concern and hoped it did not mark a return to more violent times.
    Bombings and attacks on Colombian cities dropped sharply after Uribe took office in 2002. Violence from the country's war ebbed as Uribe's security campaign sent troops out to battle leftist rebels, militia gangs and cocaine kingpins.
    A FARC bomb killed nine people in the coastal town of Buenaventura last March. A bombing at a Blockbuster store in Bogota killed two people in 2009 in an attack authorities said was linked to extortion by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
    The government was cautious in attributing the latest attack to the FARC or cocaine traffickers who have at times used car bombs as an intimidation tactic.
    Windows as high as 30 stories were blasted out in buildings along Bogota's main 7th Avenue, leaving tattered curtains fluttering out of empty frames.
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