Posted on 06/17/2002 3:43:25 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
GIGANTE, Colombia -- The gears of government have ground to a halt in this and other Colombian towns, where leftist guerrillas have threatened to kill public servants ranging from mayors to janitors unless they stop working.
One of more than 30 mayors forced by the rebels to resign, Gigante's chief executive has fled to the provincial capital of Neiva, where he moves about with a bodyguard armed with an Uzi submachine gun.
Municipal workers report to Gigante's City Hall each working day at 7:30 a.m., as usual, in hopes of eventually collecting paychecks. But because of the guerrilla order to stay off their jobs, many settle into plastic chairs in the lobby to play poker or daydream.
Garbage is piling up, and street-paving projects have been abandoned.
"No one can go to their offices. We just stay here in the lobby," said Fenivar Aros, the tax collector for the town of 10,000 people. "I'm getting tired of playing cards, but I don't want to risk my life."
A campaign of intimidation by the nation's largest guerrilla group has shut down local governments in many towns of southern Colombia.
Since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, started issuing its quit-or-die edicts to local officials in Caqueta, Cauca, Huila and Putumayo states in late May, 32 mayors have either stepped down or announced plans to resign, said Gilberto Toro, director of the Colombian Federation of Municipalities.
About 500 municipal workers -- including town council members, judges, police inspectors and secretaries -- have also quit, Toro said.
Ignoring the rebel order can be lethal. When Luis Caro, mayor of the town of Solita, missed a FARC-imposed deadline to bow out earlier this month, he was shot dead by the guerrillas.
Many analysts believe the FARC wants to erase all traces of government from hundreds of towns in order to create a power vacuum, then move in and take control. With more territory under its domain, experts say, the rebel group would be in a stronger position should the Colombian government reopen peace negotiations.
"It's a very sophisticated strategy," said Vicente Torrijos, who teaches political science at Rosario University in Bogota, the nation's capital. "What's at stake are the conditions under which a new round of peace talks will be held."
President Andres Pastrana's government is pleading with mayors to stay put, offering them flak jackets, escorts and armored cars. His administration says it cannot accept resignations of public officials coerced by guerrillas at gunpoint.
Even so, a domino effect appears to be taking hold. The rebel strategy has proved so effective in the south that the FARC last week extended decrees to parts of Arauca, Cesar and Bolivar states in northern Colombia.
At the Huila state government building in Neiva, an official said she has received letters of resignation from seven of that state's 37 mayors. Moments after she spoke, a nervous mayor burst into the room to announce that he, too, intends to abandon his post.
"I have to," said Gentil Bahamon, mayor of the village of Suaza. "Besides, all my employees have resigned, so how can I work?"
Ever since the popular election of local officials began in Colombia in the early 1990s, small-town mayors have come under pressure from the guerrillas, who often outnumber police and army troops in isolated regions.
During the electoral campaign two years ago, for example, the FARC met with scores of mayoral candidates to recommend rebel collaborators for city jobs and to demand payoffs from municipal budgets. Over the past 18 months, 14 mayors have been killed and 16 others kidnapped.
Last month, the guerrillas abruptly switched tactics when they began to issue expulsion orders. In some towns, they ordered only mayors to quit. Elsewhere, they told all civil servants to either resign or to simply stop working.
"The mayors are bowing to the rebel warnings, because they know that these people are capable of killing them," Toro said. "This could generate an unprecedented institutional crisis, which is what the FARC wants."
Some observers believe the FARC may be flexing its muscles in the run-up to the Aug. 7 inauguration of President-elect Alvaro Uribe. Although he was elected last month on a hard-line, anti-guerrilla platform, Uribe said he would consider opening peace talks with the FARC.
The rebels responded by saying that Uribe must first withdraw all government troops from Caqueta and Putumayo states to create a vast demilitarized zone in which to hold the talks.
Negotiations "would have to take place in Colombian territory. Second, we insist that there be demilitarized zones," Alfonso Cano, a member of the FARC's ruling secretariat, told the Bogota daily El Tiempo in an interview published last week.
Critics say a demilitarized zone would simply open the door for FARC mischief and point out that Caqueta and Putumayo contain thousands of acres of coca, the raw material for cocaine. The FARC earns millions of dollars annually from the illegal narcotics trade.
What's more, the scheme has been tried before.
President Pastrana granted the FARC a 16,000-square mile haven in southern Colombia in exchange for starting peace talks there in 1999. But the talks were called off in February and government troops moved back into the zone amid accusations that the FARC had used its haven to grow coca, hide kidnapping victims and launch attacks on nearby towns.
The FARC "wants these southern states," Toro said. "It's a strategic zone for negotiations, and it provides them with a corridor for trafficking arms and drugs."
Now, by squeezing out local officials, the FARC appears to be unilaterally carving out a haven by force, Toro said.
The Bogota government could opt to replace some mayors with military officers, who may be better equipped than civilians to deal with guerrilla threats, said Col. Paulino Coronado, an army spokesman. In Arauca state, he said, a few municipal officials have already transferred their offices to nearby military bases.
"You have to take drastic measures, because democracy is being asphyxiated," said Adolfo Clavijo, a retired army general who briefly served as military ruler of the war-torn Uraba region in northern Colombia in 1990. "In some places, military mayors would be a good idea."
But Torrijos, the university professor, said a declaration of martial law in small towns would play into the FARC's hands by making the Colombian military appear more like an occupying army than an ally of the people. So far, the Pastrana government has resisted the idea.
Either way, authority must be restored to Colombia's towns soon, said Libardo Peña, the ousted mayor of Gigante.
"The worst thing about it is that no one is working," he said. "The whole town is paralyzed."
TThe Pastrana government, unfortunately, didn't resist very many of FARC's bright ideas. I don't know exactly when Uribe takes office, but it won't be a minute too soon. After years of the (Clinton inspired) "peace process," Colombia is in terrible shape and Colombians are living in greater fear than ever before.
It does, doesn't it?
Bump!
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