A recently declassified US intelligence report from 1991 says that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, now a staunch ally in Washington's war against drug trafficking, was at that time a close associate of Colombia's most powerful drug lord and an ardent ally of the cocaine traffickers then engulfing this country.
A spokesman for Uribe denounced the findings in the Defense Intelligence Agency's 13-year-old report on Colombia's biggest drug traffickers as "the same information" presented in a smear campaign by political opponents in the 2002 presidential election. And senior US intelligence officials and diplomats cautioned that such reports might not be accurate. However, the statement issued by the presidential spokesman did not directly address the report's most damaging assertion: That Uribe was linked to the top drug kingpin of the era, Pablo Escobar.
The report, dated Sept. 23, 1991, and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archives, a private, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, says that Uribe, then a senator from the northern state of Antioquia, was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels."
The report, which the archives made public yesterday, called Uribe a "close personal friend" of the cartel's leader, Escobar, and says Uribe took part in the drug lord's successful efforts to secure a seat as an auxiliary congressman. It said Uribe was linked to an unidentified business involved in narcotics activities in the US, that as a senator he opposed extraditing traffickers to the US and that his father, Alberto Uribe, was killed because of his drug ties.
In response to inquiries by The New York Times, Ricardo Galan, a spokesman for Alvaro Uribe, issued an eight-point response on Friday that said the Defense Intelligence Agency report had been of a preliminary nature. The statement said that in 1991 Uribe was studying at Harvard and that he had never had business dealings in the US.
The statement also said Uribe's father had been killed while trying to resist Marxist rebels who aimed to kidnap him. It affirmed Uribe's commitment to extradition, though only loosely explained Uribe's opposition as a senator to a proposed referendum on extradition. It did not address the report's allegation that Uribe participated in the campaign that took Escobar to Congress.
Robert Zimmerman, a State Department spokesman, was more emphatic in denying the report's findings. "We completely disavow these allegations about President Uribe," he said, adding, "We have no credible information that substantiates or corroborates the allegations in an unevaluated 1991 report."
Still, the report is sure to raise new questions about allegations made in 2001 and 2002, when Uribe was campaigning for the presidency, about possible ties to drug dealers, including the powerful Ochoa clan in Medellin, Colombia's drug-trafficking center. Solid evidence was never presented, though, and Uribe won in a landslide based on his pledge that he would fight Marxist rebels and drug traffickers.
The US has strongly supported Uribe since then, and he is considered among the Bush administration's closest allies in its effort to curb drug trafficking.
During his two years in office, much of Colombia's vast drug fields have been eradicated in Washington-financed fumigation efforts. About 150 Colombians accused of drug trafficking have been extradited to the US, more than double the number extradited by Uribe's predecessor during his four-year term.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in