Paramilarities' control of candidates is feared

by Steven Dudley
In typical Colombian fashion, legislative elections this month mix blood with votes.
MONTERIA, Colombia
Colombia has the curious historical burden of being both the oldest democracy in South America and the stage for the region's oldest civil war. So it's not surprising when the two mix at election time.

As Colombians gear up to elect a new Congress on Sunday and a president on May 28, one leftist guerrilla group has attacked and killed lawmakers, blocked roads, burned vehicles and dynamited an oil pipeline and electrical towers in an attempt to sabotage the vote. Another leftist rebel group, which is negotiating with the government, has urged voters to take part in the elections.

But the major theme of the current election campaign has been the possible participation of illegal right-wing paramilitaries as candidates in the elections -- and alleged U.S. efforts to thwart their participation.

The paramilitaries were created by ranchers, businessmen and drug traffickers two decades ago to protect them from the guerrillas, and often have massacred civilians suspected of aiding the rebels. Their peace talks with the government since 2004 have led to the demobilization of some 23,000 fighters, under a promise they will not participate in elections.

But Colombian media have reported meetings between paramilitary leaders and politicians. And parties linked to President Alvaro Uribe, who is seeking reelection, have dismissed several candidates with suspected links to the paramilitaries, allegedly at the behest of U.S. officials monitoring the peace talks closely because many paramilitary leaders are wanted on U.S. drug trafficking charges.

Eleonora Pineda, a 39-year old congresswoman seeking a second term in the coastal region of northern Colombia, said the president of the Democratic Colombia party, Mario Uribe, dropped her and a candidate for the Senate, Rocío Arias, after Mario Uribe met with U.S. Ambassador William Wood.

''He said I couldn't be [a candidate] . . . because he had met with the ambassador and, more or less, he had felt that they were threatening to take away his [U.S.] visa,'' she told The Miami Herald between campaign stops in the city of Monteria. Arias told The Miami Herald the same story.

Mario Uribe, who is President Uribe's cousin, did not respond to Miami Herald attempts for an interview, but in statements to the local media he denied being pressed by U.S. officials to drop the two candidates. Other parties connected to President Uribe also have dropped candidates suspected of links to the paramilitaries.

CONTROVERSY

The allegations stirred a controversy in Colombia. Editorials abound, talk radio is buzzing and a recent cover of the Semana newsweekly showed Pineda and Arias near Wood under the headline And the Gringo Over There?

''What happens makes me want to cry,'' said Pineda, who like Arias denied any links to the paramilitaries. ``I feel like a piece of garbage.''

The U.S. Embassy has been silent on the dispute, but State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a recent briefing in Washington that the department had not instructed the embassy to intervene in the selection of candidates.

Paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas have long exerted influence over politics and politicians in Colombia, sometimes by participating, sometimes with violence designed to undermine the vote.

Last week, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest leftist guerrilla force, killed nine city councilmen in southern Colombia in a clear message against the elections. This week, they blew up an oil pipeline, toppled electricity lines and set off a bomb that killed three people.

Over the past couple of weeks they also have blocked roads, burned vehicles, and shot and killed nine civilians as part of a so-called ''armed strike'' -- essentially a transportation strike enforced at the point of guns -- to thwart free elections in their areas of influence.

But the paramilitaries have attempted to push their agenda by embracing the elections, as have the smaller leftist rebel group the National Liberation Army, which is negotiating a peace pact with the government and called on people to vote on Sunday.

Paramilitary leader Ivan Duque told The Miami Herald in an interview in 2004 that he was giving workshops to help transform the paramilitaries into a ``political movement of the masses.''

''Twenty-two years in politics has slowly built for us an undeniable power in the local and regional structures of this country,'' he said. ``I hope to lead the transformation of the [paramilitary] . . . groups into politicians.''

Some paramilitary leaders have even bragged that they already control upward of 35 percent of the national legislature. Pineda and Arias, considered tops on that list, come from predominantly rural areas where the paramilitaries exert enormous political and economic influence.

''I don't understand why we have to hide before the country and the world a reality that is evident: that there are illegally armed actors who we've had to succumb to,'' Pineda, who is campaigning with the slogan ''With my head held high,'' said. ``That doesn't mean I have contact with them.''

HOW THEY'RE VIEWED

Still, Pineda and Arias have been viewed as ad-hoc representatives of the paramilitaries for years.

The two were the most vocal supporters of a controversial amnesty law that paves the way for paramilitary commanders to spend minimal time in jail for any crimes they committed, and they are adamantly against extraditing paramilitaries suspected of drug trafficking to the United States.

Pineda's home is in Santa Fe de Ralito, the small town where the government created a safe haven for paramilitary leaders while the peace talks go on.

Leftist guerrillas, she says, killed her grandfather, father and brother.

Part of Arias' political movement included a former high-level paramilitary commander who had demobilized. The revelation in the media forced that candidate, Jovani Marín, to withdraw from the race.

`A CLOSE RELATION'

''It's a close relation,'' said National University political scientist Mauricio Romero of Pineda and Arias' links with the paramilitaries. ``In the regions, where they had the votes, they are regions in which they were the only ones who could campaign.''

The rest of the possible candidates would not dare challenge the two women in their stongholds, he added.

Despite the purges of candidates and any possible U.S. pressures, the same candidates will be in the running Sunday.

All the candidates bounced by their parties for suspected links to the paramilitaries, including Pineda and Arias, joined other political parties and continue campaigning for themselves as well as President Uribe.

''The supposed purification of the pro-Uribe candidates is a farce,'' Semana columnist Daniel Coronell wrote recently.

``There are no real expulsions for connections with paramilitaries and drug traffickers, [there are] simply transfers.''