Colombian Elections Marked by Threats

MAGANGUE, Colombia
You need permission to run for Congress in this steamy northern Colombian town where right-wing militias hold sway _ that is, if you value your life.

Juan David Diaz canceled a campaign stop ahead of Sunday's national elections after receiving a warning that he would be assassinated if he set foot in this town of 160,000.

The opposition candidate says he is under threat for helping expose ties between outlawed paramilitary groups and a powerful businesswoman who is a powerbroker in Magangue. Earlier this month, one of his campaigners was found decapitated.

"Every day I receive death threats for running my campaign, but it's when they don't threaten you that you know they're going to do it," said Diaz, the son of a mayor killed three years ago.

Sunday's elections come amid mounting concerns that paramilitaries are trying to convert military gains into political power.

In January, President Alvaro Uribe ordered an investigation into allegations that paramilitary groups have infiltrated congressional campaigns using illegal drug money. The decision came a month after U.S. Ambassador William Wood said paramilitaries may be corrupting the elections through bribery, threats and possibly even murder.

Under a peace deal with Uribe's government, some 24,000 fighters have agreed to demobilize in exchange for reduced sentences against paramilitary leaders who admit to their crimes. But paramilitary cadres, which arose a quarter century ago to protect landowners from guerrilla extortion, are widely believed to be intact and as powerful as ever.

In the last decade, the paramilitaries amassed power throughout Colombia's Caribbean coast and other key regions through an offensive against leftist rebels, who have fought government troops for four decades.

Diaz, a 27-year-old doctor, says he ran afoul of Magangue's matriarch, Enilce Lopez, who was jailed last month on allegations of stealing public funds and arms trafficking. Lopez, who controls lotteries and other gaming interests in the Atlantic coast region, is also being investigated for helping finance the paramilitaries.

"Lopez runs all of this part of Colombia and she decides who is allowed to campaign and who isn't," Diaz said. "When one person decides who can and can't campaign, this is not democracy."

Known as "The Cat," Lopez' influence seems to have reached the top.

After her arrest, Uribe disclosed that his 2002 campaign had received a check for around $35,000 from a company she runs. The president said "the regulated gaming business contributed money" to his campaign and the check from Lopez was registered openly.

In Magangue, signs of her power are everywhere. Her eldest son is the mayor and another son, Hector Julio Lopez, is the leading candidate for Congress. A public park is named after her niece.

Regional politicians sought an audience with her at the maximum security jail where she is held in Colombia's capital, Bogota. Her supporters said she is the victim of a smear campaign by Colombia's traditional elites who disapprove of her humble roots.

In its annual human rights report this week, the U.S. State Department said "paramilitaries committed numerous political and unlawful killings" in 2005. The victims included "journalists, local politicians, human rights activists, indigenous leaders, labor leaders, and others who threatened to interfere with their criminal activities," the report said.

Leftist rebels are also threatening Colombia's elections. In the south, they have imposed travel bans and have promised to intensify attacks through May 28 presidential elections, in which Uribe has huge lead in opinion polls.

But the rebels are political outsiders compared to their paramilitary foes. Particularly along the Caribbean coast and the industrial heartland surrounding the city of Medellin, the right-wing militias work closely with local politicians.

In January, several political parties, including one led by the president's cousin, expelled seven candidates accused of plotting election strategies with paramilitary leaders. All seven quickly found homes in other political parties, however.

Besides profiting by dipping into local education and health budgets, the paramilitaries have wider goal: making sure they don't get extradited to the United States, where many have warrants for cocaine trafficking.

"Through their supporters in Congress, the paramilitaries want to make sure there is an exception to extradition orders that cover them," said Claudia Lopez, an independent political analyst who specializes in the subject.

Diaz worries that even if he is elected to Congress, he will not be safe.

His father, Edualdo Diaz, the mayor of nearby El Roble, made headlines in 2003 when he took the floor in one of Uribe's townhall meetings and claimed plans were afoot for his murder. He named those he suspected in the plot and begged the president for help.

Two months later, he was killed.