Condemning terrorism.

• Author: Conaway, Janelle
• Position: OAS - Bogota, Colombia

RESPONDING TO A "despicable" car-bomb explosion in Bogota, the OAS Permanent Council condemned the "numerous terrorist acts perpetrated by armed groups in Colombia operating outside the law."

Meeting in special session last February, the Council expressed its support for the government of President Alvaro Uribe and its cooperation "in pursuing, capturing, prosecuting, punishing, and, when appropriate, expediting the extradition of the perpetrators, organizers, and sponsors" of the February 7 attack.

Vice President Francisco Santos Calderon told the Permanent Council that the bomb that went off at a private club in the capital killed 35 people, including 6 children, and injured 160. He said both the Colombian and U.S. governments had "irrefutable evidence" that the attack had been carried out by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC.

"No country in the world suffers as severely from the horrors of terrorism and violence as Colombia," Santos said, adding that last year alone 834 civilians were killed by the FARC. In the last five years, he said, Colombians have been victims of more than eight thousand acts of destruction--directed at public transportation vehicles...