IN COLOMBIA, POLITICS OF INTIMIDATION

ATACO, Colombia - Armed groups have intruded into an important local
election season with a violent campaign of their own, hoping to control
hundreds of municipal offices that will play vital roles in carrying out
Colombia's anti-drug program.

Over the last three-year term, 34 mayors have been assassinated by leftist
guerrillas or the privately funded paramilitary forces that oppose them.
More than 100 other mayors, about 10 percent of the total in the country,
have been kidnapped, alarming human rights groups and in some states
frightening off prospective candidates for Sunday's elections.

Running for office in Colombia has always been a risky venture, but the
imminent implementation of Plan Colombia, with its large component of U.S.
military aid, has increased the violence in several strategic states. The
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest
left-wing guerrilla insurgency, is fielding stealth candidates as part of
its underground Bolivarian Movement and vetting others from mainstream
political parties in an attempt to take control of select local
governments, according to local officials.

The strategy is a departure from the FARC's traditional election-year
tactic of frightening off candidates through kidnappings and killings to
undermine the democratic process, according to leaders of the Colombian
Federation of Municipalities, which represents more than 1,000 cities and
towns. But it has also prompted paramilitary groups to field their own
candidates, making all those running for office potential targets of
political violence.

Plan Colombia, the government's three-year, $7.5 billion program to destroy
the coca and poppy crops that provide the raw ingredients for cocaine and
heroin--and which help finance armed groups--relies heavily on municipal
officials to carry out its crucial social development component. The fight
for control of those offices before the plan is implemented, particularly
in zones of military importance, has significantly increased the rate of
kidnappings and killings since the last election period, local officials say.

This year alone, 11 mayors have been killed, among them Julio Hernandez
Rodriguez Rovelo, who was shot Sept. 26 in nearby Rovira. Twenty mayoral
candidates have also been killed, almost double the number from the
previous election. In the adjacent state of Huila, three candidates dropped
out of a mayoral race in the town of La Argentina this month, citing
threats from the FARC. The municipalities federation estimates that more
than 300 candidates for mayor and town council have quit out of fear.

"Normally, the participation in these local elections is very good," said
Gilberto Toro, the federation's executive director. "But the government's
failure to guarantee the legitimacy and transparency of these elections is
going to restrict that participation."

Though the U.S. military aid has come to characterize Plan Colombia,
President Andres Pastrana's advisers say the long-term success of the
strategy will depend on whether the government can win over rural
populations with new roads, schools and health clinics, among other social
programs. Of the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package, the majority of which will
pay for military hardware, more than $200 million is destined for social
projects, human rights programs and judicial reform measures.

According to the plan, municipal officials will "play a vital role in
ensuring that these programs reach their intended destinations," that is,
supervising the projects that the government considers the key incentives
for farmers to turn against armed groups and the lucrative drug industry.

"The mayor is supposed to be the head of the town police force. But is he?
We need to make sure he is again," said Jaime Ruiz, Pastrana's point man
for Plan Colombia. "This is about institution building. If you don't have
them at that level, you have nothing."

Nevio Fernando Serna, who ran the town of Ataco, which sits among the gold
mines, coffee farms and poppy fields of central Colombia, became the first
of two mayors in the state of Tolima to die this year at the hands of armed
groups. The 28-year-old civil engineer was abducted May 17, two weeks after
attending a seminar in Washington on democracy. Serna, who was educated in
Bogota, the capital, 125 miles to the northeast, had returned to help his
hometown. He was shot three times in the head and neck and left by the side
of a pitted highway.

Neither the guerrillas nor the paramilitary groups that have fought over
this town of 7,000 residents has claimed responsibility, and a state
investigation into his death has not concluded. Town officials and the
three mayoral candidates hoping to succeed Serna remain menaced by his memory.

"The question everybody here is asking is 'Why?' " said Eleuterio Yossa,
who replaced Serna. "No one knows, but it seems they are trying to show the
population the power of their guns. They are telling people here: 'Arm
yourselves, the war is coming.' "

Here in southern Tolima, the state where the leftist insurgency was born
four decades ago, guerrillas and paramilitary groups have recently
escalated their historic confrontation. This town, and most of southern
Tolima, are part of a key FARC supply corridor linking the group's
southeastern base in San Vicente del Caguan to the port of Buenaventura.
Control of the country's largest river, the Magdalena, is also at stake,
and the fight to keep those routes open--coca and poppy moving to ports,
guns and food moving inland--has turned the region into one of the
country's most dangerous.

The fighting has led to a large migration from Ataco and surrounding towns,
with some people settling in shanty camps in Ibague, the state capital,
about 50 miles north. In the midst of the fighting, which destroyed the
police station and two schoolhouses last year, Serna was trying to build a
new electric plant, raise money for the almost impassable highway and
improve the town's 11-bed hospital.

"He was an excellent person, but no one could do the things he wanted to in
this place," said Francisco Obando, 43, a farmer who fled a nearby town
with his wife and three children and now lives in a displacement camp in
Ibague. "In all these places around here, this is the problem in
politics--they kill people who try to do anything on behalf of the people.
But he was right."

Carmen Ines Cruz, the outgoing mayor of Ibague, said she believes part of
the problem affecting candidates is that many are suspected of being part
of clandestine guerrilla or paramilitary political movements. Cruz added
that she believes at least a few are aligned with one group.

"I don't know their names," said Cruz, a former university director in
Ibague. "But in these parts of the state where there is conflict, each
group has its own set of candidates. It confuses things for everyone else."

In Ataco, however, there is no shortage of candidates despite the present
threat. Three are seeking the mayor's seat, and 32 are competing for 13
seats on the municipal council. In a town where unemployment affects nearly
half the working-age population, most residents ascribe the full slate less
to a passion for politics than a chance for a job.

But local officials also say mayors and council candidates would not be
frequent targets if the Bogota government would allow them more freedom to
negotiate with the armed groups.

As it seeks a comprehensive national peace agreement with leftist
guerrillas, Pastrana's government has prohibited local officials from
making their own accommodations with the FARC and the National Liberation
Army, a smaller insurgency group. But municipal officials say the rule has
made violence the only means of communication.

"It would save a lot of lives having regional peace meetings at the same
time," said Jorge Angizar Cabrera, Tolima's interior secretary. "If the
mayor could talk to the guerrillas, we could stop a lot of this."

In the mountain town of Planadas, a six-hour drive through steep coffee
hills from here, the town government has ignored the prohibition and made
its own peace with the FARC for the past three years. The informal pact
appears to be based on mutual interests. The police do not move against a
nearby FARC camp known as Marquetalia or its poppy crops, and the
guerrillas leave the town alone.

Last November, the guerrillas even intervened on the town's behalf,
kidnapping a corrupt mayor and holding him for eight months. He was
released in June after agreeing to return the equivalent of about $50,000
to the town treasury and stay out of politics for eight years.