Colombia's ELN Rebels Claim Police Academy Attack
Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published January 21, 2019 | 02:53 PM
Colombia's leftist ELN rebels claimed responsibility on Monday for the bombing of a police academy in Bogota that killed 20 people as well as the attacker, and derailed peace talks being held in Havana
Havana, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2019 ) :Colombia's leftist ELN rebels claimed responsibility on Monday for the bombing of a police academy in Bogota that killed 20 people as well as the attacker, and derailed peace talks being held in Havana.
The National Liberation Army said Thursday's car bombing, which sparked nationwide protests, was a reprisal attack after the government of President Ivan Duque failed to respect a unilateral ceasefire declared by the rebels over Christmas.
"The operation carried out against these installations and troops is lawful within the law of war, there were no non-combatant victims," the ELN said in a statement on its website.
It added the academy was a military installation where cadets received training to become intelligence operatives and conduct military operations.
"The president did not respect the gesture of peace" and "his response was to carry out military attacks against us," it said.
Specifically, the ELN said Colombian troops bombed a camp on December 25, affecting a family of peasants who were nearby.
"It is then very disproportionate that, while the government is attacking us, we cannot respond in self-defense," the statement added.
The attack was a major setback to two years of peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) -- first hosted by Ecuador and currently by Cuba -- that failed to go beyond the exploratory stage before stalling when Duque took power in August 2018.
In its wake, Duque announced that he was reinstating arrest warrants for 10 ELN members who are part of the group's delegation to the Cuba talks and said he was revoking "the resolution creating the conditions that allow their stay in that country."
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