Posted on 10/13/2003 2:21:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
BOGOTA - (AP) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Sunday urged candidates not to yield to violence and pull out of upcoming state and mayoral elections as the number of assassinations and kidnappings of politicians mounts.
But Uribe also told contenders that under no circumstances should they try to make a deal with illegal armed groups that would guarantee their safety but compromise their ability to govern freely should they be elected.
At least 25 candidates have been killed in the run-up to the Oct. 26 elections, while another 160 have pulled out, a third of them citing death threats, according to official figures.
''Every Colombian democrat must close ranks to defend the constitution and our democratic rights,'' Uribe said on Sunday in the northwestern city of Manizales. ``No candidate should be prepared to accept threats from armed groups.''
Uribe said intelligence indicated that Colombia's largest rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has ordered its fighters to assassinate any candidate who does not reach an agreement with the group to safeguard its interests.
The president denounced the threat as a ''an affront to our democracy'' and warned that agreeing to such deals would destroy the country's electoral process.
The FARC is bent on disrupting the elections as part of its nearly four-decade battle to overthrow the government and establish a Marxist state in Colombia. Last week, the group described the vote as a farce and called for a nationwide boycott.
Uribe's appeal came a day after police announced that another three candidates were killed in separate attacks across the country. On Sunday, police said a mayoral contender in the southeastern town of Yancuanquer, Jorge Emilio Suárez, had disappeared, likely kidnapped by leftist guerrillas.
The spiraling killings are an embarrassment to the Uribe administration, which came to power just over a year ago on pledges of crushing the leftist insurgency and restoring state authority to the nation's lawless provinces.
But authorities have instead been forced to issue ''self-protection guides'' to nearly 80,000 candidates nationwide, outlining steps they should take to protect themselves. Voters are due to elect 30 state governors, 914 mayors, 398 members of state legislatures and 9,000 city council members.
The FARC has been blamed for about half the assassinations. Outlawed right-wing paramilitary fighters and common criminals are believed to be responsible for the rest.
FARC: Dropout candidates running from death threats as election nears*** So many people were forced under threat of death to drop out that for the first time there are cities around the nation with no candidates at all.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia may be getting beaten on the battlefield, but the 17,000-strong leftist insurgency known as the FARC has proven once again that it is capable of something perhaps more serious: creating a power vacuum in largely rural areas far from the federal government's reach.
''This is worse for democracy,'' Benítez said. 'They are in a hurry to show their power, to say, `There won't be elections here.' And they've done it.''
From 1998 to 2000, Benítez was the mayor of Támara, a town of 9,000 people in the northeastern state of Casanare. At the townspeople's urging, he signed up to run again. At a recent campaign event, he was summoned to see Commander Antonio, a regional leader of the FARC.
Surrounded by five armed men dressed in camouflage, Antonio politely but firmly told Benítez to withdraw from the race. Benítez did. ''It was an order. I thought, `Well, if it's like that, I'm leaving,'' he said Tuesday over coffee in the nation's capital, where he fled. ''I don't need this.'' Concerned over why the other candidate was not forced to quit, more than 100 people, including the police lieutenant, urged Benítez to reconsider in the past week. They told him he couldn't ``leave the town to the bandits.''***
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Da Silva also put Trotskyites, Communist Party officials, and open radicals in power in high places as Cabinet ministers, government officials and advisors, and throughout the government, intelligence, and military. His foreign policy chief, Marco Aurelio Garcia (also a Communist) is a founder of the Sao Paulo Forum (as we'll discuss below, supports terrorism) and is the executive director of the Forum. Each year he meets with the leader of the FARC terrorist group, Manuel Marulanda Velez.
Prior to the Iraq War, Brazilian hostility was still high, as the nation's government joined Russia, China, Cuba and Saddam Hussein in trying to get UN sanctions on Iraq lifted. Brazil also strongly opposed the US role in the war in Colombia fighting the Marxist narco-terrorists and rebels. Just like Chavez, Da Silva had also already begun putting Marxist ideology into the education system and police forces. In fact, Brazil took advantage of the Iraq War to justify a sudden surge in the research of advanced nuclear technology, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, although they denied any plans to do so. A senior official said that the issues in Iraq and North Korea also justified Brazil's nuclear research, but did not specifically point out that nuclear weapons would be built. Brazil also began a joint rocket program with China, which is often a cover for, or a program to assist in, ballistic missile programs.[viii] Brazil, a former nuclear power with the retained ability to enrich uranium, has the capabilities to build nuclear weapons at a near moment's notice.
Even after our success in the war in Iraq, Brazil's nature did not change. When the US began condemning Cuba for human rights violations and a recent brutal crackdown on the dissidents, Brazil openly condemned the United States' policy towards Fidel Castro as "aggressive". The moment was then seized to declare the foreign policy of Brazil as moving "independent" (hinting at moving away from a common position with America); focusing on "integration" with Argentina and the continent as a whole; trying to build a "multi-polar world" with Russia taking a lead role; and the promotion of reforming the UN Security Council to include Latin American representation.[ix]***
It's sad, really. If Uribe wins this fight his only thanks will be to be pilloried a decade hence by the "human rights" crowd. Witness Fujimori in Peru. In that case softness and moral ambiguity has even emboldened the Shining Path to the point of creating a resurgence.
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