Colombian president pleads for US aid

Facing some skeptics in the US Congress, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe pleaded with the US public to continue a $700 million annual aid package that he credits for making his violence-plagued nation more peaceful and less corrupt. "I ask the world, I ask the United States, to support us. We haven't yet won but we are winning. And we will persist," Uribe said in an interview with The Associated Press on Mar. 8, three days before his friend and close ally President Bush arrived for a six-hour visit. The Colombian president is besieged by a political scandal in which eight close allies in Congress and his hand-picked former domestic intelligence chief have been jailed for allegedly colluding with right-wing militias in a reign of terror. The scandal also prompted Uribe's foreign minister to resign last month when her brother–a senator–and father–a regional power broker–were implicated for alleged participation in the kidnapping of a political rival. The Bush administration wants the Colombia aid package, which helped Uribe boost his security forces by a third, to continue in its present form. There is scant evidence that the assistance has diminished drug trafficking: Colombia remains the source of more than 90 percent of the world's cocaine despite record aerial fumigation of coca crops. And the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has not been defeated.