Dems urge tougher stance on Colombia

With top Democratic lawmakers threatening to reduce the $700 million a year in aid that Colombia receives, former President Bill Clinton appeared with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Friday and urged Congress to consider that the country has made strides to overcome violence.

The appearance came hours after the circulation of a letter that Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month urging Colombia to reverse the "infiltration" of murderous paramilitary groups at high government levels.

"We need to remember that we are friends," Clinton said at a ceremony to accept an award from Uribe. "We need to remember that we want to share a common future. We need to remember that for the first time in over three decades there is a law enforcement presence representing the elected government of Colombia."

Clinton was honored for his efforts to reverse Colombia's image of violence and drugs. The ceremony coincided with Colombian lobbying to Washington to counter Democrats' intense scrutiny of the country's human rights record.

Since gaining control of Congress in November, Democrats have refused to pass a trade deal with Colombia and are threatening to cut military assistance as a scandal linking government allies to right-wing militias creeps closer to Uribe.

Clinton acknowledged that he was at the Manhattan event in part because of debate in Congress over free trade and aid to Colombia. Other Democrats have avoided appearing with Uribe in recent months. In April, former Vice President Al Gore backed out of an environmental conference in Miami where Uribe was scheduled to appear.

In the letter to Rice, a copy of which was released by Sen. Dodd's office hours before the event, eight senators expressed "grave concern regarding the infiltration of important Colombian state institutions by terrorists and drug traffickers."

Dodd's office said the letter was made public in a May 22 news release, a day after it was sent, but most Colombians _ including Uribe himself _ learned about its existence only Friday, when a copy was published in a front-page story by Colombia's main daily, El Tiempo.

The lawmakers said they were "particularly troubled" by the case of former intelligence chief Jorge Noguera, who is under investigation for allegedly providing the militias with names of trade unionists who were later killed.

Noguera, who was hand-picked for the spy job by Uribe after running his 2002 campaign along the Caribbean coast, was jailed for a month and then released March 23 because of a procedural error by prosecutors. Another 13 congressmen, all but one Uribe allies, have been arrested as part of the widening scandal.

The Democrats' letter called on Colombia to take "vigorous measures" to hold the right-wing militias accountable, including the removal of mobile phones and Internet access for jailed warlords and the extradition to the United States of those who continue to traffic in narcotics.

It also wants the government to confiscate stolen land holdings and combat 22 new or rearmed paramilitary groups identified by an Organization of American States peace mission.

"Without such concrete actions and results, maintaining current levels of assistance will be difficult to justify," the senators wrote.

Uribe is Washington's staunchest ally in Latin America and the United States' caretaker in the war on drugs, for which the Andean nation receives more U.S. aid than any country outside the Middle East and Afghanistan.

At a news conference Friday in Washington, Uribe said he had no knowledge of the letter, also signed by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who froze $55 million in aid to Colombia's military in April as head of the subcommittee overseeing foreign aid.

"(Thursday) I met with Sen. Leahy for about an hour and he didn't tell me anything about this," Uribe said before departing for New York.

Leahy, in an e-mailed statement Friday, said "for several years, U.S. aid to Colombia has been on autopilot. I fully expect the Congress to continue support, because our countries share many interests. But the Congress is not going to be a rubber stamp. Those days are over."

While the guest list for the event honoring Clinton included hip-shaking Colombian pop star Shakira and former Clinton Cabinet member Madeleine Albright, neither attended. Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was traveling to Iowa, according to her schedule.

The event included a video extolling Clinton as a national hero, thanking him for "never believing the bad things" about Colombia.

"Colombians are proud of your friendship, Mr. President," Uribe said.

Clinton wears a bracelet honoring a Colombian culture minister, Consuelo Araujo, who was kidnapped by leftist rebels and killed during a botched military rescue attempt shortly after they met at the White House in 2000.

Angela Montoya, organizer of the event for the "Colombia is passion" branding campaign, said the idea to honor Bill Clinton came last year, "before President Uribe was re-elected and all of Colombia thought the free trade agreement was a fact, not an issue."

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.