Bombings Kill 4 in Colombia as Terror Spreads

Two bombs exploded minutes apart near Colombia’s National University on Friday, killing four and plunging the capital into a wave of urban terrorism that has shaken the country’s major cities in recent months.

Terror has returned to Colombia’s urban centers, virtually free from such violence since the early 1990s, when drug kingpin Pablo Escobar planted a succession of car bombs targeting government officials.

Since January, more than a dozen people have been killed and nearly 200 injured in a series of explosions that have ripped through upscale and middle-class neighborhoods in Colombia’s urban centers.

Although the blasts seem unrelated, they threaten to undermine the government’s peace talks with guerrilla groups and to heighten pressure for tougher action against subversives by a populace seeking relief from violence that has plagued this country for nearly 40 years.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s blasts, and although authorities said they had detained several suspects, they had yet to identify a motive. “We are asking Colombians to pull together in the face of these acts,” said Gen. Ismael Trujillo, head of the federal prosecutor’s investigative force. “We must remain together.”

The first of Friday’s bombs blew up at 8 a.m. under a pedestrian overpass, shortly after the peak of the morning rush hour. Three people were killed. There were conflicting reports that one of the dead was responsible for planting the devices.

About 10 minutes later, as police and journalists rushed to the scene, a second bomb exploded at a bus stop on the opposite side of the street. That blast killed an investigator with the federal prosecutor’s office and wounded two police officers.

Carlos Andres Espejo, an editor at El Espectador, one of the country’s leading newspapers, was getting ready for work at his apartment a few blocks away when he heard the first blast.

He arrived at the scene just in time for percussion waves from the second blast to knock him backward.

“Everything was total panic,” he said. “This is a student area. It’s absurd that something like this has happened here.”

The blasts, which wounded 23, shattered apartment building windows a block away and crumpled parts of the bus stop and pedestrian overpass.

The bombings left residents of the middle-class neighborhood of student homes and government offices in shock. And they have already changed daily life in Bogota.

A nearby grocery store immediately implemented special bomb-checking measures, with security guards peering beneath each shopper’s car with a mirror and checking under the hood for explosive devices before allowing entry to the store’s parking garage.

Angela Cardenas, 22, lives in a first-floor apartment next to the blast site. She was packing up her books before taking finals at Free University when her building shook.

“The windows all shattered, and the door blew open,” Cardenas said. “You never expect something like this to happen to you.”

Friday’s blasts follow at least nine other urban bombing attempts this year, including two this month. On May 4, a car bomb exploded in front of a luxury hotel in Cali, leaving four dead. Another car bomb blasted an upscale shopping district in Medellin on May 17, leaving seven dead.

In two recent incidents, police have managed to disarm bombs before they exploded, including one Monday in which a U.S.-made explosive device was found beneath a heap of plantains in front of the offices of a Communist Party newspaper.

President Andres Pastrana canceled a scheduled trip to Europe to hold an emergency national security meeting Friday. Afterward, he promised to step up the police presence in cities and along major highways. He also said police would begin initiating random stops to check automobiles.

Interior Minister Armando Estrada said authorities had no firm suspects. But he noted that a member of the National Liberation Army, a Cuban-inspired leftist guerrilla group, had recently sent letters to the government announcing its intention to bring the war to Bogota, the capital.

Estrada also said the government has recently stepped up its attacks against right-wing paramilitary groups, which have waged a vicious shadow war against the guerrillas. On Wednesday, federal prosecutor’s investigators raided the homes of a series of wealthy cattle ranchers suspected of giving financial support to paramilitary fighters.

Some believe that the bombing was a deliberate attempt to disrupt negotiations with guerrillas. A key meeting was scheduled to take place Friday between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country’s largest rebel group, over a possible prisoner exchange. Also, the National Liberation Army is angling for a military-free zone as a site to hold talks.

Another theory is that someone wants to embarrass the country by persuading soccer officials to cancel--for security reasons--the Western Hemisphere championship in Colombia this year.

The motives in the other recent bombings also remain murky.

In Medellin, police believe that the two bombings this year stem from an ongoing dispute between right-wing paramilitary groups and La Teraza, a gang of assassins once under the command of the late Escobar who continue to operate in the city.

In Cali, one theory is that the hotel was bombed by members of the National Liberation Army for failure to pay protection money.

Whatever the causes, the violence in the cities has raised fears that the peace process may be further impeded by calls for a crackdown on leftist guerrillas or right-wing paramilitary groups.

Already this year, Congress has considered a law that would broaden the state’s investigative powers to confront terrorism.

“All these things are going to affect the peace process,” said Ana Teresa Bernal, head of Redepaz, one of the country’s leading peace groups. “People are going to demand an iron fist to deal with these problems.”