HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
June 21, 2008 If anyone tells you that Colombia is not as dangerous as they say, that President Alvaro Uribe has pacified the country, or that the war is over, don't believe it. It's not true. At least this is the feeling I got on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 in the city of Barranquilla, in Colombia's northeast. There I witnessed a wicked double murder, right on the street in broad daylight, at 9 AM. I had left my room at Hotel Tintan on Calle 39 in Barranquilla five minutes earlier, and had begun to walk north on Carrera 27 towards Calle 45, where there is an Ixito. Ixito is a chain of department stores like K-Mart that operate in Barranquilla and Colombia generally. I was going to buy food, as I did every day. I had proceeded less than 100 feet along Carrera 27 when I heard 5 or 6 loud reports, which at first I thought were firecrackers. When I looked up though, I saw five or six men in their twenties mounted on motorcycles and brandishing pistols. They had surrounded a white compact car, a couple on either side and a couple out in front, and they were shooting towards the driver's seat. I didn't actually see the driver because by the time I looked around, the driver had slumped in the front seat of the car already dead apparently. Each of the youths fired five or six shots, mostly through the open windows of the car. There must have been 20 to 30 shots all told. I was within 20 feet of the nearest assailant, who could easily have shot me intentionally or unintentionally, but none of the assassins seemed even to notice me or to care whether there was a witness. There was no other witness in the immediate vicinity, but there may have been half a dozen people within 100 feet or so. The attack lasted less than one minute. Then all of the attackers simply continued north along Carrera 27, disappearing from sight in a few seconds. A crowd of 50 or so gathered around the car almost immediately. I did not go to the car to peer in, but rather just kept walking towards Ixito, where I bought my food. Returning 30 minutes later, I found Carrera 27 cordoned off between Calles 39 and 40, with 200 people on the block inside the police lines. I went around the block to get home. The next day, the murder made the headlines on the front page of the local newspaper, La Libertad de Barranquilla: ASESINADOS DOS EX POLICMAS (Two former policeman slain.) I didn't realize there had been two men in the car. They were Bladimir Geraldino Lora and Jhonny (sic) Jiminez Garcis. both retired policemen. They had been on an errand to buy whey, which, apparently, they sold to grocery stores in the vicinity. However, according to La Libertad, the men had no money on their persons, which led the paper to speculate that the attack had been a robbery. But as far as I could see, none of the assailants laid hands on the victims or reached into the car. One of the victims suffered ten wounds from 35-caliber bullets, the other at least five. The photographs in the paper were bloody as can be. But I found no traces of blood on the street the next day. The men, 41 and 35, each left a wife and four children. And that's the real tragedy. As for the absence of money, a possibility is that the first people to rush up after the attack took the money from the dead men, or perhaps the policemen investigating the crime embezzled it. Neither the police nor anyone else seemed to appreciate the fact that I had been a witness. I didn't volunteer anything either, as, frankly, I don't know what I could have told them that would have done them any good. The newspaper article was in error as regards the number of motorcycles and assailants, but they must have been relying on the account of a witness who didn't have a clear view. My clarification of that point would not have led to a solution of the crime however. Friday, I posted an account of the killing on my website, where I included the victims' names: www.mecnita.com/events.htm. I thought this might bring inquiries not necessarily pleasant, but to date no one other the editor of Useless-Knowledge.com, has contacted me about it. On June 19, I arrived by bus in Cali, Colombia's third city, where I'll remain a month or more. My downscale neighborhood in Cali is even scarier than my downscale neighborhood in Barranquilla, but I'll probably survive it. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Visit my website here. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
