In strategic shift, guerrilla group tells Colombians to vote

BOGOTÁ -- The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's most feared guerrilla group, has announced it will not seek to sabotage upcoming presidential elections, calling instead for people to vote out the popular conservative incumbent, Álvaro Uribe.

The surprise shift in tactics by the 17,000-strong Marxist group, known as FARC, occurred two weeks ahead of the May 28 vote and after the rebels' violent campaign during recent congressional elections backfired.

Public disgust over two FARC massacres that killed 18 civilians and an armed blockade in three provinces that prevented some voters from going to the polls helped propel Uribe allies to a majority in both houses of congress in March.

Analysts say the unexpected change in strategy by the FARC -- assuming a low profile in what has been the least violent electoral season in 12 years -- suggests that the group that has been fighting to overthrow the state since 1964 is either too weak to mount an effective military challenge or is trying to test the political waters instead.

Calling Uribe a ''Judas" who had betrayed the nation's interests, Iván Márquez, a member of the FARC Secretariat, wrote on the guerrilla group's website in an article dated May 11 that ''it is necessary to vote for a candidate for whom the nation comes first, and who has the most coherent proposal for peace." The article garnered national attention following a report yesterday in El Tiempo, Colombia's leading daily.

By consistently rejecting peace talks on the guerrillas' terms and ratcheting up military pressure, Uribe has been a thorn in the side of the rebels for four years.

As the Bush administration's principal ally in South America, the conservative president has benefited from billions of dollars in US aid for the war on drugs and the war on terrorist groups. The FARC, like other illegal armies in Colombia, finances arms purchases and operations from drug money. Washington, which lists FARC as a terrorist organization, recently indicted 50 of its leaders on charges of cocaine trafficking. Uribe has scoffed at the group's claim to be fighting to erase inequities between rich and poor by branding them ''narcoterrorists."

In an interview with the Colombian news agency Anncol, Raúl Reyes, a senior leader of the FARC, justified using ''different forms of struggle" to prevent Uribe from continuing in power.

It would be wrong to interpret the FARC's call to polling stations as a repudiation of armed struggle, analysts said yesterday. ''They're not saying they're renouncing violence, but rather that violence is not having the effect they want," said Alfredo Rangel, director of the Foundation for Security and Democracy, a private think tank in Bogotá.

On Monday, the president, who was leading recent polls with 56 percent support, said if reelected he would open a demilitarized zone for negotiations and a hostage-for-prisoners swap with the FARC if they agreed to a cease-fire first -- a condition the guerrillas have never accepted. The FARC currently holds some 2,500 Colombians and a handful of foreigners hostage, including three US government contractors.

''If there is a generous gesture from the FARC, they will find infinite generosity from me," Uribe said in an interview with Caracol Radio.

During Uribe's first term, a smaller leftist militia, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, has entered preliminary discussions to broker a peace. And some 30,000 members of right-wing death squads that were fighting guerrillas turned in their weapons in a peace process that has been controversial for its favorable terms, but has substantially dampened violence.

Perhaps most significant about the FARC's declaration that members will not interfere in upcoming elections is that it underscores how slight an influence they are wielding in this campaign, analysts say.

After an assault during the 1998 campaign that left 30 soldiers dead and 60 captive, an unprecedented meeting between candidate Andrés Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda convinced voters that Pastrana was the only candidate who could broker peace and propelled him to power.

In 2002, the FARC's continued kidnapping and violence, in violation of the terms of peace negotiations with Pastrana, helped seal victory for Uribe, who promised to crush the insurgency.

For the first time, said Andrés Villamizar, a security specialist at University of the Andes in Bogotá, ''the population perceives FARC not as a big threat as they did four years ago, and the FARC has kept a lower profile. . . . If the FARC campaigned for voter abstention, it would probably have the opposite effect."

Typically, the FARC has launched ''armed stoppages" that block roads in their stronghold areas, preventing voters from reaching polling stations, and have seized voting boxes in areas they control, destroying ballots.

León Valencia, a former activist with a leftist rebel group who now runs a think tank in Bogotá, called the declarations by the FARC ''a change in attitude." But he suspects the FARC has resorted to testing the political waters out of an inability to launch an effective military campaign ''and not be left as a spent force."

Rafael Nieto, a security consultant to the United Nations, said he interprets the FARC's latest comments as proof that ''they are very weak, worse than we think. . . .They don't have the means to execute a violent attack and want to avoid being seen as weak."