Blasts kill 14 as Colombian president sworn in

Suspected rebels rained mortar shells onto downtown Bogota and the presidential palace as hard-liner Alvaro Uribe was sworn in as president of Colombia.

At least 14 people were killed and 69 wounded, officials said.

Three blasts went off several blocks from parliament yesterday as Uribe entered the building to take the oath of office from Senate leader Luis Alfredo Ramos. Uribe has vowed to crack down on the rebels.

Two mortar rounds also went off adjacent to the nearby presidential palace, wounding a policeman, who staggered bloodied from the scene. The blast chipped the stone wall of the palace and blew out windows.

Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus said intercepted messages among members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, showed the rebels were behind the attack.

Mockus said 14 people died - 11 of them in an explosion in the poor Cartucho neighbourhood blocks from parliament and three in a separate explosion nearby.

The pathologist’s office earlier said 16 people died but then retracted the report. Of the wounded, 29 had serious injuries and 40 were slightly injured, Mockus said.

Uribe did not mention the explosions in his inaugural address, but said: ‘‘The world must understand that this conflict needs unconventional, transparent and imaginative solutions.’’

Ramos said Uribe was ‘‘serene’’ when informed of the attacks.

The attacks sparked outrage among a population battered by 38 years of war.

‘‘The FARC did this, but Uribe is going to make them sorry. They will pay,’’ said Maria Luz Valenzuela, whose home was rattled by the blasts.

Concerned about a rebel assassination attempt, Uribe had forgone the traditional outdoor ceremony in Bogota’s colonial central plaza and moved the swearing-in to the parliament building.

Troops quickly sealed off the Cartucho neighbourhood and government warplanes streaked above the capital after the blasts.

The government has been tearing down shanties in Cartucho in recent months as part of an urban renewal programme, and resentment against authorities has been running high. Some residents threw rocks at the soldiers, while others wept.

‘‘There’s no escaping poverty or violence,’’ said a man who identified himself only as Jose. A woman standing next to him sobbed, saying her husband had died in the blasts.

Troops had patrolled the streets and combat helicopters thundered overhead during the inauguration. But the extraordinary security was unable to prevent the attacks. Authorities said the mortars that hit near the palace and Cartucho were launched from a house about a mile away.

Hours earlier, suspected rebels also fired mortars in northern Bogota at a military installation, wounding three people. Several small bombs were also set off, wounding three other people and blowing out windows and chunks of sidewalk.

In Cali, Colombia’s third largest city, one person died trying to set off a car bomb last night, and seven people were injured in two other explosions, police General Luis Alfredo Rodriguez told reporters.

In the countryside, suspected rebels fired homemade mortars at a military base, but instead hit 20 houses and a school, which were heavily damaged, the army said. There was no immediate word of casualties in the attack near Yopal, 130 miles north-east of Bogota.

Amid unconfirmed police reports that rebels had planned to crash a plane into parliament, Bogota’s airspace was closed and an American P3 plane staffed with US Customs Service and Colombian air force personnel patrolled overhead.

The White House had no immediate comment on the explosions, but spokesman Sean McCormack said members of the US delegation at the inauguration were not harmed.

The presidents of Panama, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador and Honduras also attended and were not hurt, officials said.

Hopes were high that Uribe can end the war that has sapped the potential of Colombia, a gateway between Central and South America that is a three-hour flight from Miami.

At 50, Uribe has worked in government for half his life. A lawyer with degrees from Harvard and Oxford, he served two terms in the Senate, was mayor of his native Medellin, director of Colombia’s civil aviation authority and governor of violence-ravaged Antioquia state.

Uribe inherits the decades-old war with rebels, violence that kills some 3,500 people every year.

The war pits the leftist FARC against an outlawed right-wing paramilitary group and the government.