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Colombia laid to rest assassinated presidential candidate Miguel Uribe on Wednesday, with his widow emotionally urging the nation to break free from its long-standing and harrowing tradition of political violence.
The 39-year-old conservative senator suffered gunshot wounds while campaigning in Bogota last June, ultimately succumbing to his injuries this week.
“Our nation is enduring the most devastating, saddest, and most painful times,” Maria Claudia Tarazona expressed at a crowded funeral service, as she prepared to say goodbye to her husband.
Authorities have attributed Uribe’s assassination to leftist guerrillas who rejected the 2016 peace accords, leading to the arrest of six individuals linked to the suspected conspiracy.
Many Colombians view the assassination as an alarming resurgence of political violence, contrasting sharply with the years of relative peace experienced previously.
The 1980s and 1990s saw the killings of four presidential candidates amid the terror inflicted by drug cartels and various armed factions. Uribe’s mother, journalist Diana Turbay, lost her life in a failed 1991 police attempt to rescue her from the Medellin cartel led by drug lord Pablo Escobar.
On Wednesday, Uribe’s father, Miguel Uribe Londono, recalled the painful moment when he had to inform his four-year-old son about his mother’s tragic death. “With immense sorrow in my heart, I had to tell a tiny boy about his mother’s horrific murder,” he shared at the service.
“In this very holy cathedral, I carried Miguel in one arm and his mother’s coffin in the other.”
“Today, after 34 years, this senseless violence has taken away that same little boy from me,” he lamented. In the wake of the assassination, conservative lawmaker Julio Cesar Triana narrowly avoided an attack when his vehicle was fired upon in the Huila region, an area with lingering dissident factions of the now-defunct FARC guerrillas.
Miguel Uribe’s wife pledged during the funeral that her husband’s death, at the hands of an alleged 15-year-old assassin, would not be in vain, committing to ensure that their son and stepdaughters lead lives filled with love.
“Miguel, I will cherish you every day of my life until I reunite with you in heaven,” she vowed. “I promise to provide Alejandro and the girls with a life brimming with love and joy, free from hatred and resentment.”
Colombia is set to conduct elections in 2026 to replace the current leftist leader Gustavo Petro, who cannot run for re-election due to legal constraints.
President Petro, a former guerrilla himself, opted not to attend the funeral upon the family’s request, stating on social media, “We are not going, not out of unwillingness, but out of respect for the family and to prevent Senator Miguel Uribe’s funeral from being dominated by hate.”
It was anticipated that some who came to pay their respects might boo the president, given his conciliatory approach toward armed groups, a stance that has faced severe criticism from right-wing politicians.
Former presidents Juan Manuel Santos, Ernesto Samper, and Cesar Gaviria were present at the funeral.
