Gee, Thanks !

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday May 01, 2003 17:37 by joe ranii

The Colombian gangster group, ELN, have said they are sorry for murdering a woman because her father had refused to murder someone else. Muchisimas gracias, amigos !

From BBC

Colombian rebels 'regret' killing teacher

Left-wing guerrillas in Colombia have said it was a mistake to kill a young teacher and pledged to punish those responsible.

The teacher, Ana Cecilia Duque, was kidnapped last week and killed two days later, after her father refused to carry out an assassination of a right-wing paramilitary.

The teacher's body was found on Saturday near the small north-western town of Cocorna, with a bullet wound in the back of the head.

The killed provoked outrage in a country hardened to violence after four decades of civil conflict.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) has now said it will order an internal inquiry.

"The ELN recognises its mistake and assures listeners that it will make the necessary amends according to the codes of justice and war," said a spokesman for the group, Francisco Galan, speaking from prison on RCN television.

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Bogota says what little sympathy the rebels had in Cocorna - once an ELN stronghold - seems to have evaporated.

By the victim's body was a farewell letter she had written to her 10-year-old daughter.

"I miss you and I need you more than ever. I want to be by your side and for us never to be separated because you're my reason for living," the letter read.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe condemned the killing as "madness".

The rebels of the ELN and the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been fighting for 39 years to overthrow the government and install a Marxist-Leninist regime.

But they have become deeply involved in the drugs trade and kidnapping, and have less than 5% public support.

Thousands of people, mainly civilians, are killed each year.