Early morning explosions at Spanish Embassy and Colombian Consulate

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 By: Roy S. Carson

Security services report two explosions in the early hours of Tuesday morning ... one at the Spanish Embassy in La Castellana and a second at the Colombian Consulate in Chacaito.  First reports say 4 people have been injured and there has been "significant destruction" to both diplomatic missions as well as to neighboring buildings.

The bombings took place at approximately 2:00 a.m. local time.  A security guard at the Spanish Embassy was injured and three buildings and two homes in the neighborhood suffered severe material damage.

Globovision Channel 33 TV news has been showing this picture of one of the pamphlets

Chacao Mayor Leopoldo Lopez arrived at the scene outside the Spanish Embassy soon afterwards and told reporters that pamphlets, ascribed to the Bolivarian Liberation Front (BLF) urban militia, had been recovered claiming Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez to be part of "a fascist oligarchy" and that "the Bolivarian revolution does not need the interest or the intervention of" OAS secretary general Cesar Gaviria or US ex-President Jimmy Carter.

• Government officials have unhesitatingly denounced the attacks as cowardly and have promised a full investigation.

The explosion at the Colombian Consulate took place some fifteen minutes after the original explosion at the Spanish Embassy, injuring a security guard, his wife and young daughter ... the building's glass-frontage has been entirely shattered and there has been substantial damage to buildings close by.  A Colombian diplomat was quickly at the scene but said she would not make any statement to the media until later.

Meanwhile, State Security DISIP police and CICPC detectives are working with fire department officials to sift through the wreckage and the rubble to determine what happened.  Traces of C4 Semtex have been discovered and immediate arrangements have been made for heightened security at other embassies and diplomatic residences.

Theories abound as diplomats and security executives attempt to piece the events together.  Early suspicions have been raised that the explosions are part of an opposition counter-offensive attempting to discredit the government using the BLF urban militia as a pretext.

"Just because BLF pamphlets were discovered at the scene does not necessarily mean that they were behind the bombings," a DISIP source has told VHeadline.com.  "In the weird scenario that is Caracas these days, it could just as easily have been some opposition hot-heads trying to deflect attention away from the general manhunt for CTV leader Carlos Ortega ... we are keeping an open mind!"