EPL TOP COMMANDER KILLED IN ACTION
Date Reported: Tuesday, February 01, 2000
Incident Type: SECURITY
Country: SANTANDER DEPARTMENT, COLOMBIA Incident: The Bogota weekly news magazine Semana reported that Hugo 'El Nene' Alberto Carvajal Aguilar, commander of the Popular Liberation Army, was killed during the weekend of January 28, 2000. According to the report, Aguilar was killed in a skirmish with the 'Los Guanes' 5th Counter-guerrilla Battalion of the Colombian Army near the municipality of El Libano, Santander Department. The article, entitled "The Beginning of the End" notes that the EPL, which fields an estimated 300 combatants (down from an estimated 3,000 at its height in 1990), is not likely to survive Aguilar's death. "This is some of the best news for the country," Brigadier General Eduardo Quinones, Commander of the Colombian Army's 2nd Division, told reporters. "It is a forceful blow, signifying the practical disarticulation and total dismemberment of the EPL," he added. Colombian Armed Forces Commander General Fernando Tapias stated that "[Aguilar] was one of the people most responsible for kidnapping in Colombia." Several high profile abductions, including popular folk singer Jorge Velosa and the repeated kidnapping of Bishop Jose de Jesus Quintero were attributed to Aguilar. Aguilar was responsible for implementing the practice of "miraculous fishing" in Santander, whereby people were taken from roadblocks set up on the region's highways, leading to the abduction of an estimated 120 people. Aguilar was also believed responsible for the assassination of Leon Camacho, a priest gunned down during a church service in Cachira. The group was also responsible for killing several ex-EPL guerrillas who had demobilized to form the Esperanza, Paz and Libertad political party as part of a peace accord with the Colombian government in the 1990s.
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