Colombian election held under veil of intimidation

Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia Despite a climate of fear, Colombians voted for state
and municipal offices Sunday in an election marred by a rebel sabotage
campaign that killed dozens of candidates and scared hundreds into
withdrawing.

Obeying leftist guerrilla orders to boycott the ballot and stay off
highways, tens of thousands of Colombians in the vast rural areas beyond
state control were expected to stay away from polls, rather than risk rebel
retribution.

More than 200,000 police and soldiers were out, but rebels clashed with
authorities, seized and burned ballots in several villages, blew up
electrical towers and kidnapped 10 election officials in one northern town,
authorities said.

Nationwide, police said traffic was down 80 percent a clear sign that
people are heeding the rebel "armed strike" advertised in leaflets and by
wordofmouth. Some roads were dynamited, apparently by guerrillas.

In their stiffest challenge to the government in more than 30 years of
fighting, the rebels have badly embarrassed President Ernesto Samper's
scandalplagued administration.

More than 100 candidates and elected officials have been slain this year,
most by guerrillas but some by the rebels' paramilitary foes. At least
2,000 candidates withdrew under death threats. More than 300 withdrew
aftsome by the rebels'

In Cartagena del Chaira, a small river town in the rebel dominated
southern state of Caqueta, where 9,200 people are registered voters,
businesses were shuttered Sunday and the streets were full of soldiers.

"They brought an election official, there are some tables, but nobody went
to vote," resident Guillermo Enciso said by telephone. "We're afraid to.
The order is not to vote, the order of the guerrillas."

Samper, who released a dove on Bogota's main square in a symbolic gesture,
predicted that Colombians would vote in 95 percent of municipalities.
However, election officials expected no balloting in more than 100 of the
country's 1,072 municipalities.

In major cities, where rebels are not a serious threat, a relatively high
turnout was expected.

Even before voter turnout figures were out, Interior Minister Carlos Holmes
Trujillo claimed that a "massive voter participation that demonstrates
Colombians' total and overwhelming rejection of the violent."

After voting in Bogota, the president said, "Ballots are the guns of
democracy and votes are the bullets."

The army said its soldiers killed three guerrillas in clashes in Gutierrez,
25 miles south of Bogota, and in Mistrato, 125 miles west of the capital.

In El Penon, 90 miles north of the capital, 10 election officials
including five police officers were kidnapped by rebels, the army said.
And in two nearby towns, Betania and Pino, rebels broke into election
offices and burned ballots.

Many hold Samper directly responsible for the country's resurgent
rebellion. The president was elected in 1994 with $6 million in
contributions from the Cali drug cartel, and the ensuing scandal created a
power vacuum in Colombian politics. Samper has denied that he knew the
money was from drug traffickers.

Colombia's two main rebel groups have refused even to consider negotiating
peace until Samper leaves office next year.

Sunday's vote has limited political implications. There are no major
differences between Colombia's two major parties, the governing Liberals
and the Conservatives. Election results are expected Monday.

It is the rebels' revitalized insurgency rather than any talk of political
platforms that has captured attention in the runup to the vote.

On Saturday, a Catholic priest was killed in San Francisco, a remote
farming town northwest of Bogota. He was shot minutes after meeting with
Antioquia state's lawandorder governor, Alvaro Uribe Velez, who escaped
uninjured from what his aides called a bungled assassination attempt.

Authorities blamed the attack on the National Liberation Army, the
country's No. 2 rebel group. The same group seized two election observers
from the Organization of American States on Thursday.

The OAS sent 35 officials to monitor the election in violent regions. One
of them, Leonel Escobar of Guatemala, was touring towns Sunday in the
northern state of Cesar, a battleground between paramilitaries and rebels
where more than 147 candidates have resigned.

The leader of a 35member team of the OAS election monitors, Santiago
Murray of Argentina, said he was pleasantly surprised by the relatively
high turnout in three towns he visited in turbulent Antioquia state.

"Despite the armed strike, people were arriving on horseback and that's
worth noting," Murray said.

In La Paz, two long lines of voters waiting to cast ballots snaked through
the main plaza.

Alberto Pacheco, a 59yearold truck driver, said he would not be
intimidated by guerrillas "standing in the way of democracy."

"I've never missed a vote and I'm not going to start now," he said.