Tragedy in Venezuela ...... President Chavez, this should be clarified!
15 Killed in Venezuela young athletes
By GONZALO GUILLEN
gguillen@herald.com
A group of 15 teenage athletes humble, including 13 Colombians, one Peruvian and Venezuelan, were found dead on Saturday in different parts of southern Venezuelan state of Tachira, bordering with Colombia.
Twelve of the victims belonged to a football team to 25 men armed Colombian guerrillas reportedly kidnapped on October 11 during a game in the same area where the bodies appeared.
In a press conference in the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, capital of Tachira, Leomagno Flores, Secretary of Government, revealed that a 17 year old boy identified as Manuel Cortez Jr. survived playing dead when unidentified individuals shot with rifles but only wounded him in a collarbone.
Florez said that murderers are allegedly members of the National Liberation Army (ELN). "This group is acting like hyenas, like animals, marking the territory in a sort of Bermuda Triangle, which is activated in Táchira,''he said.
According to the secretary, the group has long criminal taps Tachira territory and is run by a man dubbed the Clown.
The survivor was in the hospital's Town Crier.
The football game that some 25 suspected Colombian guerrillas on 11 October suspended for abducting young people played in Chururá, 850 kilometers west of Caracas.
"We are confident that this is the same football team because the complaint of the hostages appeared the name of Manuel Cortez Jr., a Colombian national, 18, the survivor who is recounting the facts,''said Secretary Flores.
For Flores, the slaughter is "the testimony that there are irregular groups [Colombia], irregular camps here in Tachira. What the governor, César Alejandro Perez Vivas, has reported on numerous occasions.
The bodies of the youths were found in areas surrounding the municipalities of Uribante and The Liberator.
The survivor has told authorities that during the 12 days of captivity were chained under a bridge.
Then, starting Friday at 5 pm, they brought separately saying that they would be free, Flores said the secretary, adding, "Lies, that journey to freedom was like the Nazis made him the Jews.''
The kidnapping took place when suspected guerrillas arrived in several cars to the field with rifles. They stopped the party and asked the umpire the list of team members The Peanut Vendor, so called because they were selling peanuts in paper cones of state highways.
offenders were called in the order of the list, "formed them and brought them to an unknown place,''the secretary said Flores.
Bucaramanga, Colombia city relatively close to the border point where the slaughter occurred, Ariel Vega confirmed on Saturday the killing of his brother Gerardo Vega and Vega Amaya Giorgi nephew. Both died from gun wounds and were found two miles of each other.
