Colombia minister, officials probed in funds scandal
By Stabroek staff | December 10, 2009 in World News
BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s agriculture minister and 17 other officials are under investigation over improper handouts of state funds in a scandal that is denting President Alvaro Uribe’s popularity, an investigator said yesterday.
The scandal broke as Uribe’s backers push for a third term for the staunch U.S. ally by amending the constitution, a move his critics say could undermine the Andean country’s democratic institutions.
The public advocate is probing whether Agriculture Minister Andres Fernandez, a former minister and other officials inappropriately approved about $4 million in subsidies for rich families, businessmen and even a local beauty queen.
“We are examining presumed irregularities to determine whether we bring charges against these officials and ex-officials,” said deputy public advocate Marta Castaneda.
The disciplinary probe includes ex-minister Andres Felipe Arias, a close Uribe ally and presidential candidate.
“One thing is to open an investigation, another is to accuse someone. We are ready to cooperate,” Fernandez said.
Opposition leaders say the funds, meant for agricultural development projects, were handed to close Uribe supporters, including those who backed the president’s first reelection in 2006. The government denies any wrongdoing though Uribe has asked recipients to hand back the money.
But Uribe is already feeling the political cost. A poll last month showed his usually armor-plated popularity slipped to 64 percent — his lowest rating since he came to office in 2002 promising to smash the country’s guerrilla insurgency.
The conservative leader remains the country’s most popular president ever thanks, in part, to his tough stance against FARC rebels who once controlled large swaths of Colombia in a four-decade conflict against the state.
Uribe has already brushed off scandals over some of his lawmaker allies getting jailed for ties to militia death squads and investigations into soldiers who murdered civilians and presented them as rebels killed in combat.
More:
http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/world/12/10/colombia-minister-officials-probed-in-funds-scandal/~~~~~~~~Uribe's cousin seeks asylum over Colombia probe
Patrick Markey
BOGOTA
Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:31pm EDT
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's cousin sought asylum in Costa Rica on Tuesday after prosecutors ordered him arrested for suspected ties to paramilitary squads in a deepening scandal for the U.S. ally.
World
The investigation of Mario Uribe, a long-time senator and presidential confidant, is expected to fuel concerns among U.S. Democrats who strongly oppose a Colombian trade deal because of human rights abuses and lingering influence of ex-paramilitary commanders.
The arrest order brings the "para-political" scandal closer to President Uribe as he fends off worries about congressional stability with more than 60 lawmakers under investigation and at least half of those behind bars while prosecutors probe their ties to militias.
"We are in the headquarters of the Costa Rican Embassy in Bogota and we have held talks with the people concerned," one of Mario Uribe's attorneys, Jose del Carmen Ortega, told Caracol radio. "This is in process."
Alvaro Uribe, a close U.S. partner, has reduced violence from Colombia's four-decades-long conflict by driving back rebels and negotiating the surrender of illegal paramilitaries who massacred peasants and dealt in cocaine in the name of counter-insurgency.
Foreign investment is up and the economy is growing. But the president has struggled recently to convince U.S. Democrats to back a free trade deal as U.S. lawmakers and rights groups worry over paramilitary violence and trade union murders.
A second cousin to the president and a former congressional leader, Mario Uribe was ordered detained after testimony from paramilitary warlords that he asked them to back his senate campaign and help him secure cheap farmland.
"Uribe is being investigated for a meeting he had with former paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso before the elections of March 10, 2002, and with Jairo Castillo Peralta, alias 'Pitirri,' in November 1998," it said.
The former lawmaker, who has previously denied any wrongdoing, would be arrested if he does not surrender to the chief prosecutor's office in Bogota.
Alvaro Uribe, who has received billions in U.S. aid to fight against Latin America's oldest insurgency, says the investigations show Colombia's institutions are working. But he clashed with the Supreme Court over its probes.
"This will have an impact," said Rafael Nieto, a former deputy justice minister who is now a political analyst. "For one he is the president's relative and secondly he was for years a partner in Uribe's political fight."
More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2229946220080422
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