Rightist Political Figure Slain in Colombia

In what observers fear is the start of this country’s traditional pre-electoral violence, retired Gen. Fernando Landazabal Reyes, a key supporter of a right-wing presidential candidate, was shot to death Tuesday in this capital city.

Landazabal, 75, had been actively campaigning for Harold Bedoya, another retired general, who is running on a platform of achieving peace by defeating Marxist guerrillas. Landazabal himself scuttled peace talks in 1985, when he was defense minister, by accusing the insurgents of continuing to fight as they negotiated.

“This is part of an escalation of violence meant to destabilize the election process,” Colombian President Ernesto Samper told reporters.

The first round of presidential elections is scheduled for May 31. Although Bedoya is running a distant fourth in the polls, the killing of his mentor still sent shudders through a country that has suffered a history of election mayhem.

From 1948 until 1965, Colombia’s two major political parties waged a civil war that left 200,000 dead and more than 1 million refugees. The era is known simply as La Violencia (The Violence). Ever since, Colombian elections have raised fears of renewed fighting, especially when assassinations occur, as they have in most campaigns for the past decade. In the campaign for the 1990 election, three presidential candidates were slain.

“All of the presidential candidates have reported death threats in the last week,” Gen. Luis Enrique Montenegro, head of Colombia’s secret police, told reporters recently. “That’s normal.”

Human rights groups estimate that there are 1,000 political killings and disappearances each year in Colombia, even in nonelection years. The overwhelming majority of the slaying victims have been leftists. But as Landazabal’s death shows, the far right and the mainstream parties have provided their share of political martyrs.

Landazabal was shot three times in the head with a 9-millimeter pistol at point-blank range as he walked from his house to his nearby office about 7:30 a.m., police said. The three assassins escaped in a car, which they abandoned.

Landazabal was best known for the phrase “The country should get used to listening to the generals.” That observation, combined with his tough stance against negotiating with the guerrillas, cost him the Defense Ministry. He then ran unsuccessfully for the Senate and served on the national committee of the Conservative Party. In the coming elections, he supported Bedoya’s bid as an independent candidate.

During elections, 17,957 soldiers--nearly one-fourth of Colombia’s combat troops--are stationed in major population centers to guard against outbreaks of fighting, said Gen. Jose Manuel Bonett, chief of the armed forces. Montenegro said that his office had supplied bulletproof vests for all of the major candidates as well as armored cars; his men are escorting candidates clandestinely, sometimes disguised as waiters or barmen.

Samper called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and military high command to address the problems of public order in relation to the killing and other preelection violence.

“It shows to what extent Samper has lost control of events,” said Robin Kirk, an investigator for Washington-based Human Rights Watch.

Special correspondent Lawrence reported from Bogota, and Darling, The Times’ Central America bureau chief, reported from San Salvador.