Political Violence

Gunmen kidnapped a local opposition candidate in the latest violence to hit Haiti's election campaign, a party official said Wednesday. Four men in a pickup truck abducted Claudy Myrthil in front of his home in a Port-au-Prince suburb Tuesday, said Mischa Gaillard, spokesman for the five-party opposition coalition, known as Space for Concord. "The atmosphere is one of terror," Gaillard said. "We need security for candidates and voters to have a free and fair election." Myrthil is running for a seat on a city government advisory board.

At least 27 people died in the latest outbreak of political violence across Colombia, including 20 peasants who were shot and hacked to death by members of a right-wing paramilitary death squad, authorities said Friday. News of the killings came a day after the government, which is engaged in year-old peace talks with the country's leading Marxist guerrilla force, said it was preparing to launch negotiations with Colombia's second-largest leftist rebel group as well.

In the midst of Mexico's celebrated transition to democracy, a state election was held here recently. The result: 15,000 protesters took to the streets. A campaign worker was assassinated. And guerrillas are warning of "war" if the new governor takes office Thursday. Bullets or ballots? It's not even a question in most of Mexico, which is enjoying a new era of clean elections.

After surviving the worst political violence since the overthrow of a kleptocratic dictator 10 years ago, Paraguay's new government Monday hailed the heroes of a weeklong national drama and promised to bring the villains to justice. New President Luis Gonzalez Macchi said the heroes were students who dodged sniper fire to defend democracy in a vigil outside the National Congress. Many Paraguayans saw the villains as the thuggish forces of former Gen.

There is an old adage that the traffic light doesn't go up on the corner until someone is killed. We have a potential tragedy waiting to happen at our airports. Despite denials and stonewalling by the Federal Aviation Administration, it is increasingly clear that security at American airports is woefully inadequate. A 1996 FAA report of violations by just one major U.S.

At least 25 people died in the latest round of political violence across Colombia, including six people killed by soldiers in a bloody shootout on a discotheque dance floor, authorities said. The violence, involving gunmen of the left and right as well as security forces, came over the weekend after Friday's celebration of "Love and Friendship Day"--the national equivalent of Valentine's Day.

At least 10 people were killed Saturday in battles between security forces and gunmen during a protest strike in the Pakistani port city of Karachi and nearby Hyderabad, police said. They said nine people, including three police officers and a 12-year-old boy, were killed in Karachi, the country's commercial hub and capital of the southern province of Sindh.

Trying to quell ethnic violence that left nine bodies in the streets, riot police took up positions around mosques Friday while gangs of youths set fires, smashed windows and blocked roads. Three days after the death of the country's most prominent political prisoner, Moshood Abiola--a southern ethnic Yoruba--waves of rioting and violence appear to be pitting Yorubas against Nigeria's northern Hausa Muslims.

Violence has been a fixture of Latin America history: the brutal pre-Columbian civilizations, the Conquest, the chaotic nation-forming and state-building in the 19th century, the revolutionary violence of the 20th century and the bloody response from ruthless elites and finally, the current violence of poverty, inequality and exploitation.

The Algerian government Monday rejected a proposal for a U.N. inquiry into the political violence that has claimed more than 65,000 lives in this North African country. Bill Richardson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called Thursday for U.N. experts to be allowed into Algeria to conduct an inquiry into the violence. "The No. 1 problem in Algeria is terrorism," said Abdelaziz Sebaa, a spokesman for the Algerian Foreign Ministry. "The allegations that have been put forward . . .