BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 30 - British backpacker Jeremy Parks' South American
holiday ended with his life just hours after Colombian rebels pulled him off
a bus traveling on a dangerous road in the middle of the night, police said
on Tuesday.
Parks, from Bromley in the southern English county of Kent, was killed
during a skirmish between Colombian troops and guerrillas from the
Cuban-inspired ELN, as dawn broke over the jungle in the western province of
Choco on Sunday.
Just hours earlier, the 28-year-old graphic designer had bought a $12 bus
ticket in the town of Quibdo for an overnight 80-mile (130-km) journey to
the industrial city of Medellin, a Colombian police officer told Reuters.
''They ran into a guerrilla roadblock, where they made several people,
including Parks, get off the bus. Then they let the other people go but said
that he was staying with them,'' the officer said, adding that the rebels
had apparently promised to let the Briton go.
An autopsy had yet to establish whether Parks was killed by army or rebel
gunfire. Earlier reports that his head had been severed during the battle
were false, the officer said.
Soldiers found a backpack filled with snapshots from Parks' holiday, which
had taken him to Cuba, Peru and Ecuador before he arrived in Colombia on
Sept. 15. Among his possessions were a pocket Spanish dictionary and a
Colombian novel about Medellin's violent street gangs.
The ELN -- the Spanish acronym for National Liberation Army -- kidnaps
hundreds of people every year to obtain ransom money to fund its 37-year war
which has killed 40,000 mainly civilians in the past decade.
COLOMBIAN HIGHWAYS A NO-GO AREA
The rebel tactic of kidnapping people at roadblocks has made many of
Colombia's highways a no-go area. One foreigner a week is kidnapped in the
country on average, and, with 4,000 abductions in 2000, Colombia has by far
the highest incidence of the crime in the world.
Colombia's military first identified Parks on Sunday as a 40-year-old
Irishman, and an army general said the same day he may have joined the
rebels.
Sensitivities about the presence of foreigners in Colombia's conflict zones
have heightened since the arrest in August of three suspected members of the
Irish Republican Army, now under arrest in the capital Bogota, charged with
teaching Marxist rebels advanced bomb-making techniques.
Parks was found dressed in camouflage trousers and a khaki T-shirt but
police said the clothes appeared to be civilian and not rebel or military
uniform.
A friend of Parks', speaking from Britain, told Reuters he did not
sympathize with extremist groups and had started to learn Spanish to prepare
for the trip. Two weeks ago Parks sent friends an e-mail describing his
experiences in South America.
A British Embassy spokesman said Parks' family had been informed of his
death, the circumstances of which were still not clear.
''All the indications we have are that Jeremy Parks was here as a tourist,
as a backpacker,'' the spokesman said.
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Tuesday October 30 8:53 PM ET
Backpacker Died in Colombia Kidnap
By SUSANNAH A. NESMITH, Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - After four months of trekking through Latin America,
a British backpacker took a late-night bus in one of the most dangerous
regions of Colombia.
It was a risky move, and one that proved fatal.
Details emerged Tuesday about the death of 28-year-old Jeremy Parks in a
remote, war-ravaged corner of Colombia. Last Saturday, rebels pulled him off
the bus as it wound its way from a remote provincial capital to Colombia's
second-largest city, Medellin.
By Sunday, the graphic artist from London was lying dead on the roadside
next to a guerrilla fighter in a jungle region near Medellin. Both died
during a firefight between rebels and the army. Exactly how Parks was killed
remained unclear.
``He was kidnapped by the National Liberation Army,'' said Carolina Sanchez,
spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office. ``It appears he was just an
adventurer.''
A British Embassy spokesman said there was no reason to believe Parks was
involved with the guerrillas - a possibility Colombia's military said it was
investigating.
``We do not yet know the actual details of his death and we may never know
because he was traveling alone at the time,'' said Parks's father, Reg
Parks, who was preparing to fly to Bogota Wednesday to take his son's body
home.
Parks had been traveling in Latin America since June and was expected to be
back in England on Nov. 18. He had traveled through Peru, Cuba and Ecuador,
and entered Colombia on Sept. 15, visiting Bogota, Medellin and the
Caribbean coast before heading into the jungle of Choco state.
``He had put a lot of planning into his trip. It was one of the things he
had always wanted to do,'' Reg Parks said. ``He sent us a postcard from
Colombia and said that the people were friendly, there had been no sign of
trouble and that it was a lovely country.''
The army initially reported that his corpse was clad in a rebel uniform, but
authorities on Tuesday said he had been wearing civilian clothes when he was
killed.
The British Foreign Office warns travelers about kidnappings in Colombia.
The advisory, posted on the office's Web site, notes that Choco province
``should be avoided at all costs.''
``He absolutely adored the country and the people,'' said Parks's mother,
Monica Parks, from the family's London home. ``It's so awful to think that
he died on the 28th in his 28th year.''
Colombia is embroiled in a civil war, now in its 37th year, and has the
highest kidnapping rate in the world with 3,000 abductions a year. Armed
groups - most of them leftist rebels - seize hostages for political gain or
for ransom.
--------------------------------
Adam Isacson
Senior Associate, Demilitarization Program
Center for International Policy
1755 Massachusetts Ave NW, Suite 312
Washington DC 20036
+202-232-3317 fax 232-3440
isacson@ciponline.org
http://www.ciponline.org/demilita.htm