Fed Up With Troubled National Effort, 15 Mayors Sign Own Deal With Guerrillas

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service

EL PENOL, Colombia -- This town has seen its share of strife over the years. A government-sponsored dam project submerged El Penol 30 years ago, forcing
18,000 residents into a concrete replacement on higher ground. Today, it is Colombia's civil war that washes over El Penol and its neighbors.

So Alidio Hoyos Galeano, El Penol's mayor, has joined 14 angry colleagues in a rebellion of their own. Tired of war and frustrated with the central government's
failure to stop it, the mayors have signed a cease-fire agreement with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second-largest guerrilla insurgency, that calls
on the National Police to leave their towns.

The deal runs counter to federal law, and it may become more of a symbol than a valid agreement if the mayors cannot force the police to leave. But it reflects a deep
national ambivalence toward President Andres Pastrana's languishing three-year peace effort, which has failed to bring significant agreements or reduce violence, and
it points to a potentially destructive avenue for disgruntled regional officials who appear increasingly eager to go it alone. Pastrana is scheduled to meet President
Bush on Sunday, in part to discuss efforts to end Colombia's four-decade civil war.

"We are not seeing any results here," Hoyos said, referring to Pastrana's peace effort with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest
guerrilla insurgency in the country. "They have moved us to the margins. This is a call to the [central] government to help us. We, too, are a government."

News of the agreement, negotiated secretly for weeks and finalized Oct. 26, has yet to reach El Penol's empty streets. To weary residents, though, the concept
sounds good, particularly to those gazing up at the blown-out facade of the El Escorial apartment building.

The apartments were rented by police officers. At 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 20, a bomb packed with 60 pounds of explosives went off, killing six people and severely
damaging many of the houses clustered nearby. Although the foreman overseeing reconstruction of El Escorial said the mayors' deal would "leave us in the hands of
the guerrillas," Gilberto Alzate, an unemployed construction worker who lives three doors down from the apartments, welcomed the idea.

"Before, I felt safe because I was close to the police," he said. "But as bad as all this has gotten, I feel even more unprotected."

The explosion sprayed broken glass over Luz Marina's children, ages 3 and 6. Marina and her husband own a shop across from El Escorial that sells candy, drinks
and food. The bomb cracked their walls, shattered windows and broke water pipes, causing about $6,500 of damage that will be difficult to pay for.

"It would be much better if the police were a little farther away," said Rose Angelica Gallo, 77, Marina's mother-in-law, who lives behind the shop.

How much authority the central government should exert over provinces and villages, which are isolated by rugged geography and poor rural infrastructure, is at the
crux of a centuries-old debate in Colombia. But the issue has never been fresher, as three armed groups -- two Marxist-inspired guerrilla forces fighting the
government and a counter-guerrilla paramilitary group that often cooperates with the army -- expand their influence throughout Colombia without much resistance
from government security forces stretched thin by the expanding war.

These towns live daily with the presence of guerrillas and paramilitary groups. So far this year, 107 people have been killed in incidents linked to the war. The law
that prohibits local officials from meeting with the guerrillas and their paramilitary enemies has long been interpreted here as unfair, out of touch and dangerous.

Pastrana confined negotiations to the national level to avoid a patchwork of regional accords that, while bringing a measure of peace to some places, could also
strengthen guerrilla influence in those areas. As a result, officials from the interior minister to the national police chief have condemned the mayors' move, saying it will
undermine the president's peace efforts while strengthening the guerrilla foothold in an important region.

National police officials will likely have the last word on whether the federal police force leaves these towns, even though mayors are legally considered the local
chiefs of police.

The mayors have largely ignored the criticism, and say they will proceed with talks to reach similar cease-fire agreements with the FARC and the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC as the paramilitary group is known. They hope to meet with the AUC leader, Carlos Castano, by the end of the month
and have received support from other mayors as well as from six southern governors who have been highly critical of Pastrana's peace efforts and the U.S. anti-drug
strategy in Colombia.

"How can they tell us not to do something with the number of deaths we have had here this year?" said Nevardo Garcia, El Penol's government secretary. "We have
been waiting for them to do something."

In this string of towns in eastern Antioquia province about 150 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota, it is easy to see why the mayors would choose to evict what
they describe as a heavily armed yet ineffective police presence for a six-month moratorium on guerrilla attacks.

All told, the towns are home to about 200,000 residents. The region is coveted by each of the armed groups because of its location, stretching between a key
highway to the coast and the country's largest river. A third of Colombia's hydroelectric power is generated in eastern Antioquia.

In San Luis, a hillside town about 20 miles from El Penol, a FARC attack two years ago destroyed the town hall and police post. Eight police officers died, and the
Colombian government withdrew all police soon after. The mayor of Sonson has been kidnapped twice this year by the ELN. The mayor of Cocorna works from an
office in Medellin, unable to stay in the town that elected him because of death threats.

"All we got from the government was a condolence card," said Andrea Cardona, the secretary of government in Marinilla, which has filed written complaints with
government human rights agencies about rising violence in the town. In August, a bomb exploded in front of the police station that sits a block from three schools,
killing a woman and injuring more than a dozen other people.

"I don't think the government has the moral authority to tell these mayors not to do this," Cardona said.

An address next to the town police station, usually lodged among a jumble of government offices, businesses and homes, is among the most dangerous in town.
Typically fortified by sandbags and covered in wire mesh to prevent grenade attacks, the posts are prime guerrilla targets, particularly as the National Police has
become a more heavily armed presence thanks in part to a U.S. military aid package that is sending it helicopters and weapons.

In San Rafael, a regional police official said he believes the mayors are negotiating in good faith. But he said moving his post, now situated behind the town hall and
next door to a pizza parlor, a betting parlor and a pool hall topped by apartments, would jeopardize his 20 men and the town.

"They may want us up there," he said, pointing to a tree-covered hill behind the town. "But it would be much more complicated for us to protect this town."

The mayors' agreement does not call for the removal of army troops and only requires police stations to be moved outside town. The ELN has also proposed that
the National Police return to a more community-style method by putting down its machine guns and grenades and instead carrying only handguns and batons, an idea
the mayors are hoping to implement. In return, the guerrilla group would no longer label police "military objectives."

National Police officials suggest that the ELN is hoping to use the accord to achieve something it was unable to earlier this year: control of its own demilitarized zone
as a venue for peace talks.

Pastrana turned over a large stretch of southern Colombia to the FARC to begin peace talks three years ago. He planned to withdraw security forces from a Rhode
Island-size area of southern Bolivar province this year to begin negotiations with the ELN as well. But paramilitary forces, unchecked by the Colombian army,
confounded those efforts.

                                               © 2001