Rebels Threaten Colombia Elections

By The Associated Press

CABRERA, Colombia (AP) Mayor Josue Cruz taps his desk nervously. The
government told him to hold municipal elections Sunday in this isolated
town, but all seven election officials and everyone running for office
have resigned.

Besides, almost no one is expected to venture into Cabrera and vote the
case in dozens of Colombian towns from the Andean steppes to southern
jungles as leftist rebels pose their most serious threat to Colombian
democracy in more than 30 years of insurgency.

``I don't think anyone's going to be disposed to leave their homes,'' said
Cruz. ``I don't think people are going to vote.''

With President Ernesto Samper's government seriously weakened by scandal,
the country's two main guerrilla groups have called an ``armed strike''
throughout much of the country in efforts to impede Sunday's vote.

In recent months, at least 53 candidates have been killed and more than
2,000 have withdrawn after receiving death threats or being kidnapped by
rebels. Landownerbacked paramilitaries also threaten the vote.

In Cabrera, 90 miles south of the capital of Bogota, all the candidates for
mayor and town council resigned under rebel death threat. Days ago, the
elections officers followed suit.

Cruz still has to set up some kind of ballot box for those who dare vote
for governor and state assembly. But on election eve, he wasn't sure how he
would pull that off.

The temperate hills where Cabrera's farming population grows coffee,
potatoes, beans and corn are controlled by fighters from Colombia's largest
and oldest rebel group. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, has ordered the 4,500 townsfolk to stay off the roads through Monday.

On Friday, schools were closed. Someone brought a few truckloads of
potatoes into town, but Saturday's weekly farmer's market was canceled.

About 60 soldiers patrol the town, but they are to leave next week.

``The guerrillas told all the bus operators who drive the routes in and out
of town that anyone they find on the roads this weekend will be considered
a military target,'' said Cruz, of the communist Patriotic Union.

The government has put 200,000 troops on alert across Colombia for what it
calls ``Operation Democracy,'' and voting is expected to proceed normally
in nearly all major cities. But about 40 percent of the country is outside
government control.

The Organization of American States, which normally monitors elections for
fraud, sent 35 observers to witness voting in towns where the balloting has
been threatened. The hope was that their presence would encourage
participation.

But two of the monitors, a Chilean and a Guatemalan, were kidnapped
Thursday at a roadblock by rebels of the National Liberation Army,
Colombia's No. 2 guerrilla movement. The guerrillas vowed not to free them
until after the vote.

The two were seized in Antioquia state, where 51 municipalities are in
situations similar to Cabrera.

Samper, whom the United States has accused of accepting millions of dollars
in drug money for his presidential campaign, said Friday that elections
would proceed normally in 95 percent of the country. But analysts do not
expect people to vote in more than 100 of Colombia's 1,072 municipalities.

The tension proved too much for Interior Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo.
After an election security meeting Friday in the presidential palace,
Holmes fainted from stress and had to be hospitalized.

On Aug. 20, FARC rebels stormed Cabrera with grenades, rockets and smaller
arms, attacking the police station, town hall and two banks. A 33yearold
peasant was killed by a boobytrap the following morning and Cabrera's 26
police officers fled.

Until this week, there has been only a sporadic military presence, said
Cruz. And several times, with soldiers absent, guerrilla columns numbering
several hundred fighters have come through town for food and a rest,
lingering hours at a time, he said.