Colombians have reacted angrily to the murder by left-wing guerrillas of a 31-year-old teacher who was kidnapped as she went to school last week.
The guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) did not demand a ransom for the teacher, Ana Cecilia Duque. Instead, they told her father that if he wanted to see her again, he would have to kill a right-wing paramilitary who lived in the same town – Cocorna in north-western Colombia. He refused – and after a two-day deadline had elapsed, his daughter’s body was found with gunshot wounds outside the town. The news has provoked outrage in a country hardened to violence after 39 years of civil conflict. President Alvaro Uribe called the killing “madness”. Colombia’s human rights ombudsman, Eduardo Cifuentes, said it showed how far the guerrillas and their cause had degenerated. “We demand the National Liberation Army make amends and that it hand the teacher’s murderers over to the authorities as well as anyone else behind this act,” he said. Full Story
