Archbishop Murdered
On Mar. 16 two hired killers on motorcycles shot to death Isaias Duarte Cancino, Catholic archbishop of the Colombian city of Cali, as he left the Buen Pastor church in Cali's Aguablanca neighborhood after presiding over a marriage ceremony for 70 couples. Duarte was named archbishop of Cali in 1995 after serving for seven years as bishop of Apartado, in the banana- growing region of Uraba [see Update #291]. He was an outspoken opponent of violence and a strong supporter of the peace process. He had received threats recently but chose not to have bodyguards. [CNN en Espanol 3/16/02; Clarin (Buenos Aires) website 3/17/02, some from EFE, AP; La Jornada (Mexico) 3/17/02 from DPA, AFP, Prensa Latina, Reuters]
Interior Minister Accuses Drug Traffickers
Colombian interior minister Armando Estrada said on Mar. 17 that the first hypothesis being pursued in the investigation of Duarte's murder is that it was carried out by drug traffickers - although he added that no other possibilities are being ruled out. [Clarin website 3/17/02] This past Feb. 9 Duarte had warned publicly that many candidates for Colombia's Mar. 10 legislative elections were being financed by drug traffickers; he urged Catholic voters not to vote for any such candidates. His widely reported comments set off a controversy; annoyed, President Andres Pastrana Arango said on Feb. 11 that if Duarte had evidence of such financing, he should reveal it to authorities. Duarte snapped back that it is the responsibility of Colombian authorities - not the Church - to investigate such cases. Duarte referred the press to a Feb. 7 statement by the bishops of Valle del Cauca (the department of which Cali is capital), on which his original comments were based. [El Colombiano (Medellin) 2/10/02; El Pais (Cali) 2/12/02; Clarin website 3/17/02 from EFE, AP]
From the
Weekly News Update on the Americas (ISSN 1084-922X), published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012, 212-674-9499,
wnu@igc.org.
Colombia Mobilization Press Release
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