Gaviria Heads Cocaine Traffickers’ List of Enemies--and Targets : Colombia: He and his family live much like prisoners in their Bogota apartment.

Cesar Gaviria works in an office suite in the same red-brick apartment building where he and his family live. The street out front is cordoned and heavily guarded, and his visitors are frisked twice on their way in. Gaviria goes out only when necessary, and then in an armed convoy of vehicles with an ambulance at the rear.

Even before his victory in Sunday’s presidential election became evident, candidate Gaviria (pronounced SAY-sahr gah-VEE-ree-ah) was a marked man, a prime potential target for assassination by Colombia’s powerful and violent cocaine traffickers.

A major theme of his campaign was to fight the “narco-terrorists,” making no concessions. In an interview on the eve of the elections, he vowed that terrorist pressure would not soften his stance.

“I feel some fear, but it is not a fear that conditions my opinions or limits me in my decisions,” he said. “I am not going to change my policy because of terrorism.”

Gaviria, 43, is a career politician with a soft-spoken, sober style and a reputation as a hard worker with little patience for idle conversation.

“He doesn’t sit and talk about broad subjects or philosophize,” an aide said. “He is very pragmatic. He talks about concrete things.”

A member of the ruling Liberal Party, Gaviria has been mayor of his hometown, a national congressman and a minister of finance and of government in President Virgilio Barco Vargas’ Cabinet.

He quit his job last year as minister of government, the chief Cabinet position, to manage the presidential campaign of Luis Carlos Galan, another young Liberal. A gunman, reportedly hired by narco-terrorists, assassinated Galan at a campaign rally Aug. 18.

Since Galan’s death, two leftist presidential candidates have also been assassinated. As a result, Gaviria, his wife and their two children live much like prisoners in their apartment on the north side of Bogota.

“With all the restrictions, it is very hard to have a personal life outside the house,” Gaviria said.

The security measures do not alter Gaviria’s rigorous work routine. He rises at 5:30, listens to radio news and reads Colombian papers before descending to his office at 7. He works into the night and on weekends.

When he is not working, he and his wife, Ana, like to listen to rock music. Among his favorite groups are the Beatles.

Gaviria was born March 31, 1947, in Pereira, capital of Risaralda department west of Bogota. His father was a coffee grower and Liberal Party leader who served in the national Congress.

He received his degree in economics at the University of the Andes in Bogota. At 23, he became a Pereira city councilman, and at 27 he was elected to Congress.

As a young Liberal politician in Risaralda department, he challenged the old party machine in the department and installed a new generation of leadership.

Gaviria joined Galan’s campaign for the Liberal presidential nomination last year despite his own presidential ambitions.

“I had the idea that it was very difficult to renovate the politics of the country and the Liberal Party if all of us young people competed,” Gaviria said.

Gaviria won the Liberal nomination in March congressional elections that served as a primary election for his party.

Rodrigo Lloreda, the losing Social Conservative Party candidate in Sunday’s elections, has accused Gaviria of using patronage to rise in politics. Rodrigo Losada, a political analyst with a private research institute, said there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Gaviria but that he does know the importance of party machinery.

“Gaviria did build his own organization, probably using government jobs to help people of his group, as politicians do,” Losada said. But he predicted that Gaviria will seek broad support outside his party and will work for political and social reforms.

“He wants deep changes without being radical,” Losada said. Gaviria said his success as a presidential candidate derives not only from a longtime Liberal supremacy over the rival Conservatives in numbers of voters, but also from his strong stand against terrorism and his “clear commitment to renovation, a clear commitment to institutional change.”