DEATH THREATS DON'T DETER COLOMBIA'S MAYORELECTS [sic]

By Dudley Althaus Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle

MEDELLIN, Colombia On the day before Margarita Martinez was elected
mayor of the small town of San Francisco last month, someone shot and
killed the parish priest.

Martinez says the gunman may have been aiming at her, because the fatal
shot rang out at a rally where she made her final campaign pitch.

In the town of El Pe¤ol, just up the road from San Francisco, Luz Marina
Salazar was elected mayor after another mayoral hopeful was assassinated.

Like municipal candidates in small towns across Colombia, Martinez and
Salazar had been threatened with death or kidnapping unless they quit their
races. Guerrillas intent on scuttling the Oct. 26 elections had threatened
harm to anyone who dared vote.

Martinez, 58, a retired schoolteacher, and Salazar, a 33 yearold mother
of two, now know the possible consequences of taking office after receiving
more death threats.

Both women, however, say they are determined to take their oaths as mayors
on New Year's Day.

"People were brave enough to go out and vote," says Salazar, looking at the
floor. "How can we say no? We have to respond for the people who voted."

Such resolve, officials say, has kept Colombia's fragile democracy
functioning as the country's civil war has worsened.

In all, more than 2,000 candidates were forced to quit races in about a
quarter of the country's municipalities in the months leading up to the
October elections. Some 40 candidates were assassinated, according to
government figures.

Now, the victors in last month's vote face the dangerous task of actually
trying to rule.

In the past three years, scores of Colombian mayors have been assassinated.
Most have been killed by leftist guerrillas, but others have died at the
hands of the private, rightwing paramilitary groups who have declared war
on the left. Many mayors and city council members have been kidnapped or
forced to resign.

Martinez and Salazar say they are terrified.

"We are constantly threatened," says Salazar, who served four years as
treasurer of El Pe¤ol before being elected mayor. "We can be killed at any
time."

Hoping to ease new municipal officials into their jobs, the Antioquia
provincial government held a workshop in Medellin earlier this month to
allow mayorselect to meet top military and police officials. The incoming
mayors received lessons in municipal finance and attended lectures on how
to resolve conflicts peacefully.

Mayors have been directly elected in Colombia only since 1988. Before then,
they were appointed by the national government in Bogota.

The Constitution of 1991 gave municipal governments greater financial
resources, allocating as much as a quarter of the national budget to them
for such services as education and health care.

"Now, the most important government official (in Colombia) is the mayor,"
says Gilberto Toro, president of the Colombian Federation of Municipalities.

For that reason, mayors have become easy prey in a nation torn by a civil
war that has lasted more than three decades. Armed groups of various
persuasions have pressured mayors and city council members to finance
projects to their liking. An untold number of municipal officials are
believed beholden to one armed group or the other.

Perhaps nowhere has the pressure on mayors been worse than in Antioquia
province, where San Francisco and El Pe¤ol are located. A mountainous,
coffeeproducing region infamous for the cocainesmuggling gangs of
Medellin, its capital city, Antioquia has long been a guerrilla stronghold.

In the town of Murindo in the province's north, threats from armed groups
prevented every voter except one from casting ballots last month. The lone
voter elected himself mayor.

Martinez and Salazar tried to pull out of their campaigns for mayor. But
the provincial government insisted they stay in the race.

The two women won their mayoral posts with only slivers of the possible
vote. Of the more than 2,000 people eligible to vote in Martinez's village,
only 18 cast ballots. In Salazar's town, 6,000 people could have voted.
Only 120 did.

This month, rebels killed the mayor of one Antioquia town and the
mayorelect of another.

Since the election, almost 40 of the province's mayorselect have received
threats from armed groups. But so far, no mayorelect has decided not to
take office.

"They do this because they believe in the country, because they believe in
democracy,'' says Luis Alberto Gomez, executive director of Antioquia's
economic development agency.

Political fervor, however, did not spur Martinez to run for mayor. She
sought office she says, because friends and former students pressured her
to do so.

"They insisted that the town needed me to run, that it was my duty," she says.

Martinez will replace a military officer appointed as San Francisco's
interim mayor after the elected mayor was kidnapped. The abducted official
was later released, but Martinez says she heard the kidnappers' message.

"I didn't move from the house on election day. I was afraid to go out, she
says."

Antioquia's governor has blamed guerrillas for the killing of the San
Francisco priest the day before the elections. Rebels have denied the
charge, and Martinez says townspeople do not know who is responsible.

Despite the violence and the threats of violence, October's elections went
more smoothly than many had predicted.

Though few people voted in towns like San Francisco and El Pe¤ol, the
abstention rate throughout Colombia matched that of past elections.
Balloting was scuttled in only about 30 towns, far short of the hundreds
that had been feared, says the municipal federation's Toro.

"This massive participation of society (in the elections) has a strong
message for both the guerrillas and the paramilitaries," Toro says. "`After
this election, I think they are less of a threat."

That rosy outlook might surprise mayorselect like Salazar and Martinez.

"The situation is so difficult in all the country," Salazar says. "Still,
we want to push forward. We want people to start believing in institutions.
We have to train the children to be citizens."