Instability Worse Than Ever After Candidate's Murder
Less than a month before elections, the assassination of a third presidential candidate has pushed Colombia to the brink of political chaos. After the shooting of candidate Carlos Pizarro in a jetliner Thursday, the country's largest newspaper implored the government to ``do something, for the love of God.'' Addressing President Virgilio Barco, the El Tiempo editorial said: ``In your hands, and only in your hands, is the power to avoid the country's dissolution.'' ``The gravest aspect of Colombia's bloodletting is that the government has no idea how to even slow it,'' said a member of a regional human rights committee based in Medellin, the cocaine capital. He declined to be identified because he was afraid someone might be angered by his statements and kill him. Four of his predecessors have been assassinated. In recent interviews, Pizarro, the candidate for the leftist April 19 Movement, or M-19, admitted he was afraid. But he said his desire to lead Colombia was greater than his fear of assassins' bullets. A gunman on a suicide mission shot Pizarro aboard a Colombian jetliner after it took off from Bogota's airport. Pizarro's bodyguards shot and killed the assassin. Two other presidential candidates had already been assassinated during the campaign for May 27 elections. Sen. Luis Carlos Galan of the ruling Liberal Party was gunned down last August at a political rally in Bogota, and Bernardo Jaramillo of the leftist Patriotic Union Party was killed last month at the Bogota airport. Authorities blamed the assassinations on drug traffickers. The media, citing security sources, reported that traffickers were the main suspects in Pizarro's killing as well. But the Medellin cartel denied involvement, and no government official has yet said who was responsible for Pizarro's assassination. On Saturday Antonio Navarro, a longtime guerrilla leader of the April 19 Movement, announced he would take Pizarro's place as candidate for president. Traffickers have carried out a terrorist campaign that has killed nearly 300 Colombians in the past nine months in an effort to halt the government's campaign to capture and extradite drug barons to the United States. Bombings by the Medellin cartel have caused millions of dollars in property damage, led to the militarization of Medellin and other cities and shattered the nerves of citizens. Pizarro's death appears to have pushed the country to its limit. For the first time, leading politicians suggested the government itself might be compromised by the killing. Several politicians and analysts said an armed assassin could not have been aboard a jetliner without the complicity of government and airport security personnel. Former president Alfonso Lopez said the assassinations of three candidates indicated that Colombia's armed forces must be reorganized. Lopez, of the Liberal Party, was president from 1974 to 1978. Official investigations have shown that certain members of the armed forces are allied with drug traffickers and the country's right-wing death squads. One of the country's presidential candidates, Alvaro Gomez, said Friday that Barco should name a three-man council to run Colombia's security forces to avoid a military coup. He suggested that Barco had lost control over the armed forces. Gomez made the proposal in a written statement given to the press. ``Never has there been such a great and pathetic image of anarchy,'' said Gomez, a presidential candidate of the Conservative Party. Barco, of the Liberal Party, rejected Gomez's suggestion of a triumvirate, saying the armed forces would be reorganized only if necessary. Continuing to focus on a military solution to Colombia's problems, Barco said late Friday he would double the size of a 3,000-man anti-terrorist police unit. The unit achieved its greatest success against drug traffickers when it killed a Medellin cartel leader, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, in a gunfight last December. Both Barco and his party's presidential candidate, Cesar Gaviria, have linked Colombia's salvation to constitutional reform. Through such reforms they hope to reform the corrupted Congress, strengthen the judicial system and provide more political representation for minority parties. According to recent polls, Gaviria is heavily favored to win the presidential elections.
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