"Dangerous" Colombia Part II

We’re returning to a theme we first touched on a couple of months back (see http://bit.ly/Je5pxC) – happenings here in Bogotá last week being the reason for this. 

Firstly, for those of you in the English-speaking world, a brief synopsis of these events is probably required considering the lack of coverage this story received there (a point we’ll touch on later). 

We’re referring to the deadly bomb blast of Tuesday 15 May, which left two people dead and injured dozens more. The attack was, it is believed in some quarters, carried out by Colombia’s proscribed left-wing paramilitary group Farc. 

The apparent intended target was the country’s former Interior Minister Fernando Londoño, an outspoken conservative. He managed to escape with minor injuries. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of his bodyguards.

Police State? Nope, just your regular blockade at the local supermarket.

So that’s what happened. For many, it just reinforces the preconceptions they have about Colombia. Maybe that’s why, as alluded to above, the Western media gave this story a wide berth – ‘sure this kind of thing happens all the time there’ type of attitude. But, thankfully we can state, it does not. 

Indeed it is, we’ve been told, the first bombing like this in three years. That the story did seem to escape international attention could be seen as a good thing in the state’s efforts to project a more positive image abroad.

However, judging by the comments of some journalists based here, both foreign and local, that the world wasn’t talking about this was shocking. These will be the first guys, though, to go on the offensive if Colombia’s reputation is tarnished in other areas. There’s just no pleasing some.

In relative terms, the international English speaking press’ scant coverage of the story was probably justified. The body count was low and, while any loss of life is terrible, the two men who were killed, the bodyguards, did knowingly sign up to work that wasn’t exactly low-risk stuff. For Farc, Londoño, was and still is a ‘legitimate’ target.

Now, while we don’t condone any act of terrorism, this wasn’t a random bomb in a busy city centre where hundreds of innocent lives would have been put in jeopardy - á la the IRA in its heyday – or some crazed gunman going on a murderous rampage. 

OK, it was far from what you might call a clinical assassination attempt, but it seems Farc (or whoever the perpetrators were) did at least think about minimising civilian casualties. There’s a small bit of comfort in that.

What’s more, contrary to what some of our journalist friends here apparently experienced, we didn’t get a sense whatsoever that ‘Bogotanos’ felt ‘under attack’ after the blast. In fact, it was business as usual from the people we encountered – almost as if nothing untoward had just happened. 

 

Some might say that’s a sign that they’re used to this kind of thing but, as we mentioned above, considering the rarity of such incidents these days, that’s not the case. It just seems that the locals’ mindset is not to dwell on these events – worrying about such things, or anything for that matter, doesn’t get you anywhere.

At your service - Colombia sends for outside help to deal with Farc.

For those few who think this might be the start of a renewed Farc campaign in Colombia’s major cities, such a nightmare scenario seems highly unlikely. 

 

For one, its strength has been on the wane for some time now. 

Moreover, the organisation is positioning itself for ‘peace’ talks with the government – its recent release of long-held hostages and a pledge to end kidnappings, signs that it is, perhaps finally, changing course. 

The Bogotá bomb was possibly just a little reminder to the country’s administration that, to use an old IRA line, 'we haven’t gone away' and that, if not taken seriously, it can still cause bloodshed.

It must also be pointed out, again, that it's not certain that it was in fact Farc that carried out this attack. That's something we'll address at a later stage.

It’s certainly not time, though, for the US State Department to start warning its citizens against travelling to Colombia (although, on second thoughts, we could always do with fewer Yanks visiting). 

In fact, we wager you are more likely to get attacked in any of the USA’s big cities than you are here – that is, of course, if they let you into the country in the first place. 

But that might not be a concern for Colombians in the near future – the way things are going, it may be just a matter of time before the country officially becomes the ‘51^st State’. The perfect cure that for Hugo Chávez’s cancer.