Associated Foreign Press
October 25, 2000

BOGOTÁ, Oct 25 (AFP) -- Three legislators were kidnapped in northern Colombia, authorities said Wednesday, marking the latest in a series of violent incidents ahead of municipal elections that right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels seek to influence.

Deputies Anibal Monterrosa and Felipe Villegas, as well as Senator Antonio Guerra, all of the opposition Liberal party were captured in a rural area some 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) north of Bogota, authorities said.

A driver and a relative of the senator were also kidnapped, according to Oscar Herrera, the people's ombudsman in the northern department of Sucre.

Relatives said the officials were canvassing for Liberal party candidates in Sunday's elections when they were seized.

"These incidents are very worrying and affect the electoral process," said Herrera, demanding the release of the hostages.

Local radio said authorities were investigating whether the far right-wing United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC) was responsible for the kidnapping. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) -- both leftist armed groups -- are also active in Sucre province.

Authorities said that AUC last week kidnapped two Liberal Party deputies and a candidate in the municipal elections in the neighboring department of Cordoba.

Among those seized last week is Zulema Jattin, who has promoted a "humanitarian exchange" in which the FARC would release security forces and the government would free rebels. The AUC opposes the proposal.

Authorities were also trying to establish whether another two legislators and a candidate to the Choco state assembly were also kidnapped, after relatives said they were missing since Sunday.

Both the FARC and the AUC have tried to force candidates to accept their terms. The armed groups have asked numerous candidates to outline their programs and told how they should alter them, said Gilberto Toro, who heads the Colombian Federation of Municipalities.

"They give the candidates appointments to assess their programs. If they don't show up, they are kidnapped, if they refuse the terms, they are killed," Toro told AFP.

He said that 20 candidates have been killed, 200 were forced to resign, and many more feared for their lives.

Some 20 million registered voters are called to cast their ballots on Sunday to elect 32 governors and 1,096 mayors as well as more than 12,000 municipal councillors and some 500 local deputies.

Sunday's elections will be held against the backdrop of an escalation of the armed conflict that has claimed an estimated 130,000 lives since 1964.

But they also come at a time when the government has agreed to resume talks with the FARC that were interrupted a month ago when a member of the leftist insurgency escaped from prison and hijacked a plane into a rebel safe haven.

And, the FARC announced on Wednesday that its leader, Manuel Marulanda, better known as "Tirofijo" -- Spanish for "sureshot" -- wanted to meet the commander of the colombian Armed Forces, General Fernando Tapias, in a bid to "give a new and definitive impulse to the peace process."