Colombian leader faces tough sell to US Congress

President Álvaro Uribe will fight for a trade deal and continued US aid when he arrives in Washington Wednesday amid a growing scandal back home.

By Sibylla Brodzinsky | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 2, 2007 edition

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BOGOTÁ, Colombia - Just six short months ago, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe would have had a relatively easy time convincing the US Congress to approve a free-trade agreement and to continue providing millions of dollars in military aid to the conflict-ridden country.

But that was before the outbreak of a widening scandal linking some of his closest allies to right-wing death squads. And it was before Democrats won control of the House and Senate.

Now Mr. Uribe will face skeptical Democrats in Congress as he embarks Wednesday on one of the most difficult trips to Washington of his six-year presidency.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont, chairman of the subcommittee overseeing foreign funds, recently froze $55 million in military aid to Colombia, and former vice president Al Gore shunned Uribe last month because of the scandal known here as "para-politics."

Yet despite the unease in Washington, Uribe's popularity at home, already high, has risen even as the allegations creep closer to him. The war-weary Colombian public – long aware of politicians' ties to paramilitaries – seems content with Uribe's success in lowering the violent crime rate and his no-nonsense approach to tackling the country's problems.

Uribe will be certain to point this out as US lawmakers decide whether Colombia's egregious human rights record and the scandal surrounding his administration trump fears of alienating a key US ally in a region increasingly hostile to US interests.

"The president has a big job in front of him when he gets here, [but] if he can launch a good clear explanation [of what's happening in Colombia] I think he can carry the day," says Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere program at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies in Washington.

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