US President George W. Bush was to host Colombia's leader at his Texas ranch yesterday for a visit he hopes will bolster Alvaro Uribe as his country fights rebels and drug lords.
The meeting is also a chance for Bush to push for better trade relations with the Latin American ally.
For Uribe, the trek to Texas comes at a critical moment in Colombia where rebels, funded by narcotics trade, kidnapping and extortion, have been struggling topple the government and establish a Marxist-style state.
Outlawed right-wing paramilitary forces also have been battling the rebels. The 40-year-old conflict kills more than 3,000 people every year, mostly civilians, with allegations that human rights abuses are being committed on all sides.
Uribe is meeting with Bush after recently signing the "justice and peace" law, which aims to dismantle paramilitary forces that also are heavily involved in drug trafficking and reintegrate them into the legal side of Colombian society. Critics say the new law goes too easy on criminals.
If official visits are evidence of the closeness of US-Colombia relations, then it's clear the two nations are fast friends. Bush visited Colombia in November 2004, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Bogota in April, the department's third-ranking official was in Colombia last week and now Uribe's visit.
Uribe is hoping the US will continue sending money to help train and equip Colombian police and armed forces to fight guerillas and paramilitary groups.
Their meeting comes just a day after the State Department announced that Colombia's government and armed forces have met human rights standards needed to qualify for full funding of US assistance programs. Colombia has received more than US$3 billion in US aid during the past five years as part of an effort to wipe out cocaine and heroin production and crush the long-running leftist insurgency.
Congress imposed conditions on US assistance to push Colombia to curb human rights abuses. Failing to meet the standards would have meant a cut of about US$70 million, according to a State Department estimate.
Amnesty International USA quickly challenged the certification made by Rice.
"This decision is a major blow to the promotion of human rights in Colombia and is based on only the narrowest reading of the law and the thinnest of evidence," said William Schulz, executive director of the group.
The State Department insists that Colombia is making progress on the human rights front, although a spokesman, Tom Casey, acknowledged that "more needs to be done."
On Wednesday, Uribe visited Houston and sought to assure foreign investors at a conference there that his country is stable and brimming with economic opportunity despite the ongoing civil war.
He told investors from the US, Canada and Puerto Rico that his country has made great strides in battling internal strife.
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