An attack against an air base attributed by the authorities to the National Liberation Army (ELN) rocked the beginning of the new year in Colombia. One soldier was wounded the morning of this Friday in the projectile attack craft against the installations of the Colombian Air Force in the city of Yopal, capital of Casanare department, in the north-east. The president Iván Duque blamed for what he described as a “cowardly act, and miserable,” to the last guerrillas active in the country.
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The attack, at 2.20 am (local time), had as target to the Air Group Casanare, a military unit located within the airport Yopal, and was perpetrated “with improvised explosive devices shooting parabolic” that broke out in the interior of the base, as reported by the Air Force in a statement. A non-commissioned officer, the only person who was injured, “is stable and does not present serious injury,” added the institution.
“All the signs are aimed at that the ELN is behind this attack,” said Duke early in a statement from the military airport of CATAM, in Bogota, together with the minister of Defense, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, and the general Ramses Rueda, commander of the Air Force. “It’s an attack of a coward, a reaction to the pressure that has been exerting the Force to the Public. They always try in these times of the year affect military units,” the president added.
#Bogota The attack this morning at the base of the @FuerzaAereaCol in Yopal is an attack cowardly, carried out by the pressure of our Public Force against the criminal organizations. All the evidence points to as being responsible to the Eln. Our response will be blunt. pic.twitter.com/sFF7BMg9vD
— Ivan Duke (@IvanDuque) January 10, 2020
a year Ago, the ELN carried out a car bomb attack against a school of cadets of the police in the south of Bogotá with a balance of 22 dead. That attack ended with the difficult negotiations that the guerrillas guevara had started with the previous Government and were languishing since the arrival of Duke power in August of 2018. Two years ago, the ELN was also attacked in January a police station in Barranquilla, the main city of the colombian caribbean. At a time when some sectors are asked to resume the path of dialogue, the president considered the bombing of this Friday as “a demonstration of the ELN does not have any desire of peace with Colombia”.
Wheel, the commander of the Air Force, explained that the bullets were fired from a truck parked some 800 meters away from the base. The attackers tried to shed 25 artifacts, three of which fell inside the base, in accordance with the general. “One of them detonated very close to one of the barracks,” he said, and the shrapnel wounded to the non-commissioned officer, who was operated upon and “is out of danger.”
The ELN, founded in 1964, is considered the last guerrillas active in Colombia after the peace agreement reached between the Government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) and the once-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), now disarmed and converted into a political party. The group guevara, from religious roots, with some 2,300 fighters distributed in several regions of the country, including several border departments. The Executive of Duke has consistently accused the ELN found refuge on the other side of the boundary line with Venezuela.
