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.
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