Colombia-Massacre
8-13-1995
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) _ Unidentified gunmen opened fire in a dance hall in a strife-ridden region of northwest Colombia, methodically killing at least 14 people, some as they tried to run out the door to escape.
Authorities said they had no clues as to who was responsible for the massacre Saturday night in Chigorodo, a town in the banana-growing Uraba district. But they said it was likely connected to the political violence that has plagued the region.
As young men and women, many of them workers in the banana fields surrounding the town, drank and danced at the Aracatazzo bar, assailants armed with assault rifles walked inside and opened fire.
"They didn't say a word. They just began shooting. Even the bar owner was killed," Army Col. Manuel Perez told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the army's 17th Brigade, which is investigating the massacre.
Gunmen were reportedly posted on streets outside to kill anyone trying to escape. There was at least one survivor, a man who was wounded, according to radio reports. The man refused to talk to reporters. Perez said investigators were having trouble getting information because witnesses were afraid to talk.
Perez denied radio reports that said the gunmen had a list of names of their intended victims.
"It's a horrible thing, to see all the bodies strewn about the floor," a local priest, Luis Carlos Sanchez, told RCN Radio.
A police officer reached by telephone in Chigorodo said 18 people were killed in the bar and on the street outside. But Perez said four of those deaths appeared to be unrelated.
Authorities suspected that either right-wing paramilitary groups, which target suspected guerrilla sympathizers, or leftist rebels were responsible for the killings, army officials said.
Leftist rebels have been fighting the government in Colombia for more than three decades. Paramilitary groups began forming in the early 1980s in many rural areas to protect landowners from leftists pushing for more equal distribution of the nation's resources.
In a report last year, the Andean Commission of Jurists, a human rights group, identified the Uraba district, near the Panamanian border, as one of the most violent in Colombia, with an average of three politically motivated killings per day.
In January 1994, gunmen believed to be leftist guerrillas killed 35 people in Apartado, 15 miles north of Chigorodo. The victims had been attending a street party in a neighborhood that supported a political group _ the Hope, Peace and Freedom Party _ composed of demobilized rebels.
^By ANDREW SELSKY=
^Associated Press Writer=
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) _ Unidentified gunmen opened fire in a dance hall in a strife-ridden region of northwest Colombia, methodically killing at least 14 people, some as they tried to run out the door to escape.
Authorities said they had no clues as to who was responsible for the massacre Saturday night in Chigorodo, a town in the banana-growing Uraba district. But they said it was likely connected to the political violence that has plagued the region.
As young men and women, many of them workers in the banana fields surrounding the town, drank and danced at the Aracatazzo bar, assailants armed with assault rifles walked inside and opened fire.
"They didn't say a word. They just began shooting. Even the bar owner was killed," Army Col. Manuel Perez told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the army's 17th Brigade, which is investigating the massacre.
Gunmen were reportedly posted on streets outside to kill anyone trying to escape. There was at least one survivor, a man who was wounded, according to radio reports. The man refused to talk to reporters. Perez said investigators were having trouble getting information because witnesses were afraid to talk.
Perez denied radio reports that said the gunmen had a list of names of their intended victims.
"It's a horrible thing, to see all the bodies strewn about the floor," a local priest, Luis Carlos Sanchez, told RCN Radio.
A police officer reached by telephone in Chigorodo said 18 people were killed in the bar and on the street outside. But Perez said four of those deaths appeared to be unrelated.
Authorities suspected that either right-wing paramilitary groups, which target suspected guerrilla sympathizers, or leftist rebels were responsible for the killings, army officials said.
Leftist rebels have been fighting the government in Colombia for more than three decades. Paramilitary groups began forming in the early 1980s in many rural areas to protect landowners from leftists pushing for more equal distribution of the nation's resources.
In a report last year, the Andean Commission of Jurists, a human rights group, identified the Uraba district, near the Panamanian border, as one of the most violent in Colombia, with an average of three politically motivated killings per day.
In January 1994, gunmen believed to be leftist guerrillas killed 35 people in Apartado, 15 miles north of Chigorodo. The victims had been attending a street party in a neighborhood that supported a political group _ the Hope, Peace and Freedom Party _ composed of demobilized rebels.
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