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Colombia held a memorial service for assassinated presidential contender Miguel Uribe on Wednesday, with his widow warning that the nation must overcome its troubling and lengthy legacy of political violence.
The 39-year-old conservative senator was fatally shot in June while on the campaign trail in the capital, Bogota, and succumbed to his injuries this week. Authorities link Uribe’s killing to dissident leftist guerrillas. For many Colombians, the assassination marked a startling return to political violence after a period of relative peace.
“Our country is going through the darkest, saddest, and most painful days,” Maria Claudia Tarazona told a packed cathedral funeral service as she prepared to bury her husband.
During the 1980s and 1990s, four presidential hopefuls were murdered as cocaine cartels and various militant groups instilled fear across the nation.
Uribe’s mother, journalist Diana Turbay, lost her life in a failed 1991 police operation aimed at rescuing her from the clutches of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel.
On Wednesday, Uribe’s father, Miguel Uribe Londono, recalled the tragic day 34 years ago when she was killed.
“With all the pain in my soul, I had to tell a little boy of barely four years old the horrendous news of his mother’s murder,” he said at the service.
“In this same holy cathedral, I carried Miguel in one arm and the coffin of his mother, Diana, in the other.”
“Today, 34 years later, this senseless violence also takes from me that same little boy,” he said.
Uribe’s wife promised that his death at the hands of a suspected 15-year-old assassin would not be in vain, and that their young son and stepdaughters would grow up surrounded by love.
Colombia is scheduled to conduct elections in 2026 to find a successor for the current leftist leader, Gustavo Petro, who is constitutionally unable to run again.
Petro, who previously was a member of a guerrilla group, decided not to be present at Wednesday’s funeral due to the family’s wishes. It was anticipated that some attendees might have booed the president, who has adopted a conciliatory stance toward armed groups.
Former presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Cesar Gaviria were present at the memorial.
