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March 18, 2002
Colombia's 'peace bishop' is gunned down
ONLY days after denouncing the influence of drug money on Colombia’s national elections, the Archbishop of Cali was shot dead on the steps of a church as he was leaving a mass wedding. Mgr Isaías Duarte Cancino, 69, known to parishioners as “the peace bishop” for his courageous stand against political violence and drug-money corruption, was one of the country’s most respected champions of peace and social justice.
The Pope condemned the killing and said that Mgr Duarte Cancino had paid a high price for his opposition to violence. The archbishop’s death stunned Colombian church leaders, politicians and laypeople, who paid homage to his long career spent in some of the country’s poorest and most violent communities. “This is disgusting, the dirtiest ignominy. This country has no future,” John Maro Rodríguez, the Mayor of Cali, said. Mgr Alberto Giraldo, a spokesman for the Colombian Roman Catholic Church, said: “One is left speechless, knowing what his commitment to the country was and the fondness and appreciation we had for him.” Shortly after 8.30pm on Saturday, Mgr Duarte Cancino was leaving the Church of the Good Shepherd in the Aguablanca suburb of Cali, Colombia’s second-largest city, where he had blessed the marriages of 104 couples. Witnesses said that he was about to get into his car when he was approached by two men who opened fire before escaping on a motorbike. The archbishop was hit by at least five bullets in the head, neck and chest. A priest was wounded in the arm. An amateur cameraman who was filming the church ceremony told the Cali newspaper El País: “The gunfire was tremendous. Everyone threw themselves on the ground. We did not know what was going on.” The Rev Gersain Paz, the archbishop’s press secretary, blamed the archbishop’s death in part on a lack of police security, despite an appeal for added protection made several hours before the ceremony. “The Church of the Good Shepherd saw several suspicious people at four o’clock in the afternoon. They called the police and asked for extra security,” he said, adding that none arrived. No one claimed has responsibility for the killing. Colombian analysts said that it could have been the work of a number of different groups, including left-wing guerrillas or right-wing paramilitaries involved in the country’s conflict over drugs. Cali was notorious in the 1990s as the headquarters of one of the country’s most powerful drug cartels. After the arrest of one of its leaders, the cocaine trade fell into the hands of a number of gangs, which have fought a series of bloody turf wars. The region around Cali has also been a stronghold of the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN), which is engaged in peace talks with the Government. But the area has also come under the influence of the largest left-wing rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which recently began an offensive after the Government called off peace talks with it last month. Mgr Duarte Cancino excommunicated the ELN leadership after guerrillas kidnapped more than 100 members of a Cali church congregation in the middle of a service and held them for months in a mountain hideout. Last month he denounced the influence of money from drug-trafficking in national elections. His accusations prompted a government investigation. Ordained a priest in 1963, Mgr Duarte Cancino gained national prominence in the 1980s when, as Bishop of Uraba, in the north, he spoke out against a series of massacres by guerrillas and paramilitaries. He became Archbishop of Cali in 1995. His murder will draw further attention to recent statements by the US that it will increase military aid to Colombia. The Bush Administration plans to ask Congress to loosen restrictions on military aid, which until now has been limited to counter-narcotics operations. The change would allow US military trainers, weapons and equipment to be used directly against left-wing guerrillas. Despite spending more that £900 million on a joint effort with Bogotá to intensify the eradication of coca crops, the plant used to process cocaine, the US admits that its policy has failed. Coca production there rose last year by 25 per cent.
Click here: Times Online
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