Colombia Gunmen Seize 190

Suspected paramilitary gunmen went on a kidnapping rampage through the tropical lowlands of eastern Colombia, plucking nearly 200 people from buses, bicycles and farmhouses, the armed forces said Wednesday.

Most of the victims worked on plantations near the hamlet of Villanueva and were heading home from work Tuesday afternoon when men wearing fatigues intercepted their caravan. Locals said that the gunmen numbered about 40 and that they focused their attention on youths. Gen. Fernando Tapias, the head of the armed forces, said the hostages included 53 minors and at least one woman.

“This is a collective kidnapping with characteristics that we’ve never seen in this country,” Tapias said.

Colombia has long been dubbed the kidnapping capital of the world, and leftist rebels have pulled off several spectacular mass abductions in the last two years. But Tuesday’s kidnapping involved more victims and is being attributed to the rebels’ right-wing paramilitary foes.

Colombian media reported late Wednesday that the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia faxed a statement claiming responsibility. The statement said that most of the hostages would be freed but that 26 men would be kept for questioning. The group is known for massacres of suspected rebel sympathizers operating in the region.

There was confusion over the total number of victims, but Tapias put the figure at 190. “There were 190 people kidnapped in total, some of whom were traveling in buses, some on bicycles, others by foot,” he said.

Some of the victims were reportedly also taken from the plantations.

If militias were indeed involved, Tuesday’s kidnapping will mark a new chapter in terrorist violence in Colombia. Until now, Colombia’s second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, has been the principal actor in such high-profile attacks. For example, it was the ELN that apprehended more than 140 churchgoers in the city of Cali in 1999, herding them off to a mountain hide-out in broad daylight.

Villanueva, with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, is 80 miles east of Bogota, the capital, but access is hampered by poor roads and faulty telephone connections. As a result, news of the kidnapping was slow to reach the national media.

Initial reports Tuesday evening put the kidnapping figure at 27. But by the next morning, the Villanueva mayor’s office was handling nearly 200 missing persons reports from frantic family members.

Colombia’s armed forces have been fighting Marxist rebels for decades, but in the late 1980s, paramilitary groups emerged as a third actor in the nation’s complicated conflict.