June 1, 1999
Web posted at: 2:13 a.m. EDT (0613 GMT)

In this story: Massive manhunt, no breakthroughs Government freezes contacts with ELN Kidnappers used mines to slow pursuers Church threatens excommunication RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- The abduction of parishioners from a church continued to reverberate in Colombia Tuesday, with security forces combing the rugged Andes mountains and the government ruling out further peace contacts with a leftist rebel group until the captives are freed.

The Catholic Church, calling the crime an unprecedented act of "barbarity," said it would announce Tuesday whether the kidnappers would be excommunicated.

About 60 people, out of more than 150 forced at gunpoint Sunday from a church in Cali, remained captive, military officials said.

Massive manhunt, no breakthroughs

Despite a combined force of about 3,000 soldiers and members of elite police counterinsurgency units scouring the mountains of southwestern Colombia, and the use of helicopter gunships, the search produced no fresh leads Monday, security sources said.

"The mission so far hasn't yielded any positive results," said a source close to armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias, who spoke on condition he was not identified. "There haven't been any more people rescued or freed," he told Reuters.

Government freezes contacts with ELN

While no group has taken responsibility for the abductions, authorities said the leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, was responsible for the attack. The action appeared designed to persuade President Andres Pastrana to take the ELN more seriously in negotiations to end its 35-year insurgency.

However, the government made clear that there would be no further peace contacts until the captives snatched Sunday, as well as 25 other hostages the ELN abducted when it hijacked an airliner last month, were set free.

Pastrana, on a state visit to Canada, decried the attack.

"It is a crime against humanity and it is a crime at the international human rights level," he said.

Kidnappers used mines to slow pursuers

On Sunday, about 30 gunmen barged into the La Maria church and tricked the worshippers into their trucks by claiming they were soldiers and that a bomb had been placed in the building.

Eighty-four of the men, women and children seized were freed hours after the attack in the southwestern city, according to army commander Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel, who said rebels released hostages to lighten their load as they fled from advancing troops.

At least 40 men and 20 women remained in guerrillas' hands on Monday, said Mora.

Capt. Arnulfo Traslavina, who led the military pursuit Sunday, told The Associated Press in Cali that his men caught up to a truck carrying six rebels, and killed two in a firefight. No hostages were in that truck. Traslavina said homemade mines laid on the rebels' escape route hindered the pursuit as his troops were forced to stop and disarm them.

An injured soldier was carried into a hospital Sunday after army units clashed with rebels

As helicopter gunships and troops combed the area Monday, they were careful not to place the hostages at risk, Mora said.

Although the 5,000-member rebel group hasn't claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, it's not unusual for days to pass before Colombian rebels acknowledge such actions.

For many observers, Sunday's mass abduction in one of Cali's wealthier neighborhoods only undermines the ELN's quest for respect. Francisco Santos, news editor at El Tiempo newspaper, called it a sign of "enormous military and political weakness" and a disaster for the ELN's image in this devoutly religious nation.

"They are messing with the Catholic church," he said in a telephone interview. "That's a tough bull to fight."

Church threatens excommunication

A senior Vatican official, Paul Cardinal Poupard, condemned the rebel attack in a letter to Cali's archbishop on Monday, calling the profanation of a Mass something "without precedent anywhere around our world."

"The authors of such barbarity can no longer cry out for the defense of human rights, when they are the first ones to violate them," Poupard said.

Colombia's Roman Catholic prelate, Msgr. Alberto Giraldo, said Monday that church doctrine allows for the excommunication of people who "profane the Eucharist." He said the decision on whether to excommunicate the rebels would be up to Cali Archbishop Isaias Duarte.

Duarte said Monday that he would announce Tuesday what action the church would take over the kidnappings. Earlier in the day, however, he had strongly criticized the crime.

"The guerrillas who kidnapped these people, ... and who profaned the Eucharist, will be removed from the life of the church, from the grace and blessings of God," he told reporters.

Colombia has what police and officials routinely describe as the highest abduction rate anywhere in the world, with more than 2,600 cases reported last year alone, according to the National Police.

Most of the kidnappings were blamed on the ELN and the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which both use ransoms to help finance their war effort in a conflict that has taken more than 35,000 lives in the last decade alone.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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