Gunmen shot and killed a mayoral candidate in a central Colombian town, police said Saturday, bringing to 16 the number of political candidates killed in the run-up to elections later this month.
Jorge Roa was attacked on Friday while driving in a rural area outside of Chivor in Boyaca state, police Colonel Alvaro Miranda said. One of Roa's companions was also killed and two other passengers injured, he said.
Roa, a candidate with the Conservative Party, had not reported any death threats, and it was unclear who the assailants were, Miranda said. However, the newspaper El Tiempo reported that Roa's relatives received a phone call shortly after the attack from people claiming to be rebels and claiming responsibility.
Roa was the seventh mayoral candidate to be killed during the election campaign. Eight people running for city councils and one candidate for governor have also died. Authorities have blamed the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, for most of the attacks in the campaign.
However, police said Saturday that criminals unconnected to any rebel group were behind the killing of another mayoral candidate gunned down last week in the Caribbean coast city of Soledad.
A smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, pledged last month to cease fire during the Oct. 26 election, during which Colombians will vote for 30 state governors, 914 mayors, 398 state legislators and 9,000 city council members.
Colombians will also vote on Oct. 25 in a referendum on President Alvaro Uribe's proposals to reduce government spending.
In more than 100 towns, both main rebel groups and right-wing paramilitary fighters have threatened candidates they suspect are not sympathetic to their respective groups. In a dozen other municipalities with open seats for mayor or city council, no candidates have registered, fearing attacks.
Nearly 160 candidates have pulled out of the race, a third of them citing death threats, El Tiempo reported on Saturday.
Uribe has ordered army troops and police to protect candidates who receive threats. On election weekend, 300,000 troops will secure roads so voters can travel to polling sites.
The US Ambassador to Colombia, meanwhile, reprimanded Colombia's illegal armed groups, marking his toughest comments against the insurgents since coming to his post in August.
Speaking at a forum in the city of Cartagena, William Wood said the rebels and paramilitary fighters are "antidemocratic narcoterrorists whose only ideology is greed, whose only interest is power, and whose only political program is destruction."
The two rebel groups have been waging war against the Colombian government for nearly 40 years, and against the outlawed right-wing paramilitary forces since the 1980s. About 3,500 people, mainly civilians, die in the fighting each year.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese