The El Nogal social club, the site of last Friday’s deadly bomb blast, may have been specifically targeted because of its suspected role in Colombia’s fledgling peace process. Since December, left-wing rebels claim, the government has been conducting peace talks at the tony club with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group. The paramilitaries, headed by Carlos Casta@ntilde;o, wanted in the United States on charges of drug trafficking and terrorism, had implemented a unilateral cease-fire. But on a website friendly to the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which President Alvaro Uribe Vélez blamed for Friday’s car bomb, a message read: “The luxurious club was the frequent site of meetings between political and business sectors with spokesmen for paramilitaries,” the Resistance Network site said. “The current process of legalizing paramilitaries is the product of meetings held in different luxury locales in exclusive northern BogotÁ.” Full Story
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