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Uribe denies links to paramilitaries

"I deplore the cancelation of the presence of Al Gore at this meeting."

Alvaro Uribe, Colombian president

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe defended himself against new allegations that a ranch owned by his family was used by right-wing militias in the 1990s to plot killings, a charge that led former US vice president Al Gore to withdraw from a joint appearance.

Uribe promised to respond to concerns from Gore, who backed out of an environmental forum in Miami on Friday. Gore's spokeswoman said he did not want to appear at an event with Uribe until "this very serious chapter in history is brought to a close."

"I deplore the cancelation of the presence of Al Gore at this meeting," Uribe said at a news conference, adding that he was confident that if Gore looked closely at the events, he would conclude that the Colombian government was doing its best to fight drug traffickers and move the country away from its history of civil war.

"We are doing our best to explain to him and to all Americans the changes in our country," Uribe told reporters in Miami before attending the forum organized by the Miami-based Poder magazine.

The trip marked Uribe's first visit to the US since the allegations of paramilitary links have reached his inner circle.

In a nationally televised congressional debate on Tuesday, opposition Senator Gustavo Petro alleged that paramilitaries used a ranch belonging to Uribe's family for meetings and killings while he was governor of Antioquia State in the mid-1990s.

Petro, citing government records and testimony by members of the security forces, also revealed that a civilian self-defense program known as Convivir -- and which was championed by Uribe while governor -- was infiltrated by members of the death squads. Convivir has since been shut down.

Considered terrorist groups by the US government, the paramilitaries are responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's long-running civil conflict. Many of the group's commanders are wanted in the US on charges of exporting hundreds of tonnes of cocaine.

"I have never had links to the paramilitary," an angry Uribe reiterated on Friday.

He stressed that the property in question belonged to relatives, not to him, but did not directly answer whether the paramilitaries had held meetings there.

Uribe said on Friday that victims were coming forward now because his government was creating a more open environment.

He portrayed his critics as enemies of the state, saying many "travel [to the US] to slander the government" and "live frustrated because this government avoided the triumph of the guerrillas."

During a previous news conference called to refute the allegations, Uribe disclosed that a prosecutor had once questioned him about killings at a farm his family owned but said the property had been abandoned because of lawlessness in the region.

The US Senate froze US$55 million worth of US military aid to Colombia earlier this week on allegations that the head of Colombia's armed forces -- who has also worked closely with Washington in its multibillion dollar anti-narcotics and anti-insurgent strategy -- collaborated with the death squads.

Vice President Francisco Santos on Friday said Gore's rebuff of Uribe played into a Democrat-led campaign on Capitol Hill to challenge the Bush administration's hard line on the drug war and support for free trade, keystones of Uribe's conservative agenda.

"If what they want to do is finish off Plan Colombia, then they should say so once and for all," Santos told reporters, referring to the US-backed counter-insurgent and anti-narcotic program which has cost US taxpayers more than US$4 billion since 2000.
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