Miguel Uribe, leader of Colombia's far-right opposition, shot in Bogota
by Adriaan Alsema | Jun 7, 2025
The congressional leader of Colombia’s far-right Democratic Center party was the victim of an assassination attempt in the capital Bogota on Saturday.
Images of the incident showed bystanders holding Uribe, who was apparently shot in the head at a political rally.
The opposition leader, a protégé of former President Alvaro Uribe and the grandson of former President Julio Cesar Turbay, was taken to hospital for treatment.
The alleged assassin was arrested, said Bogota Mayor Carlos Fernando Galan.
Local media showed a video of a suspect who had been detained in the Fontibon district where the assassination attack took place around five in the afternoon. The director of the National Police, General Carlos Fernando Triana, said the detainee is a minor.
At the time of the assassination attempt, Uribe was campaigning to become the Democratic Center’s candidate in the 2026 presidential elections.
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The Democratic Center Senate leader has been one of the most vociferous opponents of President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president in history.
https://colombiareports.com/miguel-uribe-leader-of-colombias-far-right-opposition-shot-in-bogota/
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Colombian Presidential Candidates Are Killed
The topic of violence against Colombian presidential candidates is rooted in the country's complex socio-political history characterized by conflict between varying political factions, drug trafficking, and guerrilla warfare. Over the years, Colombia has witnessed a significant number of assassinations of political figures, notably during the late 20th century. A prominent example is the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán in 1989, who was a leading presidential candidate advocating for tough measures against drug lords. His murder highlighted the extent to which drug cartels influenced political processes and the dangers faced by those opposed to their power.
Subsequent murders of other candidates, like Bernardo Jaramillo and Carlos Pizarro in 1990, underscored the pervasive threat posed by both drug traffickers and guerrilla groups to political stability. These events catalyzed government responses that sought to combat the violence and address the growing influence of organized crime in Colombian politics. The legacy of these assassinations continues to impact Colombia's political landscape, reflecting ongoing challenges related to security, governance, and human rights. Despite this turbulent history, Colombia has shown resilience with improvements in economic and social indicators over the decades, though political violence remains a pressing issue.
Published in: 2023
By: Brungardt, Maurice P.
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/colombian-presidential-candidates-are-killed
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La Violencia
La Violencia (Spanish pronunciation: [la βjoˈlensja], The Violence) was a ten-year civil war in Colombia from 1948 to 1958, between the Colombian Conservative Party and the Colombian Liberal Party, mainly fought in the countryside.[1][2][3]
La Violencia is considered to have begun with the assassination on 9 April 1948 of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a Liberal Party presidential candidate and frontrunner for the 1949 November election.[4] His murder provoked the Bogotazo rioting, which lasted ten hours and resulted in around 5,000 casualties.[4] An alternative historiography proposes the Conservative Party's return to power following the election of 1946 to be the cause.[4] Rural town police and political leaders encouraged Conservative-supporting peasants to seize the agricultural lands of Liberal-supporting peasants, which provoked peasant-to-peasant violence throughout Colombia.[4]
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Humanitarian
Due to incomplete or non-existent statistical records, exact measurement of La Violencia's humanitarian consequences is impossible. Scholars, however, estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 people died; 600,000 to 800,000 were injured; and almost one million people were displaced. La Violencia directly or indirectly affected 20 percent of the population.[17]
Graphic.
La Violencia did not acquire its name simply because of the number of people it affected; it was the manner in which many of the killings, maimings, and dismemberings were done. Certain death and torture techniques became so commonplace that they were given names—for example, picar para tamal, which involved slowly cutting up a living person's body; or bocachiquiar, where hundreds of small punctures were made until the victim slowly bled to death. Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs for the United States National Security Council and current President of the Institute for Global Economic Growth, Norman A. Bailey describes the atrocities succinctly: "Ingenious forms of quartering and beheading were invented and given such names as the 'corte de mica', 'corte de corbata' (aka Colombian necktie), and so on. Crucifixions and hangings were commonplace, political 'prisoners' were thrown from airplanes in flight, infants were bayoneted, schoolgirls, some as young as eight years old, were raped en masse, unborn infants were removed by crude Caesarian section and replaced by roosters, ears were cut off, scalps removed, and so on."[17] While scholars, historians, and analysts have all debated the source of this era of unrest, they have yet to formulate a widely accepted explanation for why it escalated to the notable level it did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Violencia
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