by René Lavanchy
COLOMBIAN President Alvaro Uribe was maintaining his silence this week after being accused of taking money from a paramilitary drugs baron to finance his presidential election campaign. Diego Murillo, alias Don Berna, alleged last week that he and the right-wing terrorist group the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia had contributed “large sums of money” to Mr Uribe’s campaign in 2002. The allegation came in a statement from his lawyer in a New York courtroom last week, just before he was jailed for drug trafficking.
The president’s then campaign manager denies the allegation. But Mr Murillo’s lawyers told a Colombian victims’ rights group that he has further revelations, and that he would be willing to appear before magistrates in
Colombia.
The allegations, which have prompted calls in Colombia for an inquiry, come just two months after a former American ambassador to Bogotá said US officials were “not satisfied” that the president did not have links to drugs barons.
Mr Murillo told the court that he was a patriot and that funding Uribe was “the only way to hold back the advance of communist guerrillas” in Colombia.
Gloria Florez of the human rights group Minga told the IPS news agency: “The Colombian state is obliged to begin a process of investigation into Don Berna’s statement, and it must clearly reveal the financing of the president’s campaign.”
Fabio Echeverri, Mr Uribe’s then campaign manager, said Mr Murillo was a “liar” and that all campaign funds had been rigorously audited.
