Peace Posses

In some backwoods areas of Colombia, arguments usually end in a draw--of guns or machetes. During election campaigns, such bloody incidents have been used by politicos to incite violence on a national scale. As their hottest congressional campaign in years moved into high gear last week, sober Colombians were dismayed to see the vicious old cycle repeating itself. In three months, the number of murders attributed to politics had risen to 40. Warned staid El Tiempo: "[Such] violence is the worst thing that can happen in a democratic country."

As the Conservative head of a coalition government made up mostly of Liberals, good grey President Mariano Ospina Perez had more than personal reasons to want the violence stopped. To keep the epidemic from spreading into Bogota, Ospina last week banned all public meetings from April 8 to 18. That took care of the first anniversary of the assassination of Liberal Leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan (TIME, April 19), an occasion which some Liberals had planned to exploit to its riotous limit. Then Ospina summoned the bosses of both major parties to see what could be done about the backwoods.

As they gathered in the Carrera Palace, the atmosphere was anything but chummy. Lacking a hero like Gaitan to unite their motley middle-to-far-left elements, the Liberals knew that the loss of eight seats would give the Conservatives a majority in the Chamber of Representatives and virtual control of the government.

But President Ospina was more worried about the state of his nation than the chances of his party. While the parties' jefes (leaders) averted their eyes, he sternly gave them an ultimatum: unless they took it upon themselves to quiet things down, the government would declare a state of siege--which could mean a postponement of the June election.

After mulling over this prospect for two days, the bitter rivals got together. Emerging from the Palacio like a couple of spanked schoolboys, Jefes Carlos Lleras Restrepo of the Liberals and Guillermo Leon Valencia of the Conservatives pledged support to the government's peace program. As a starter, they sent bipartisan posses out to convince troublemakers that the killing off of each other's voters was no way to win an election.

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