TOP US DEMOCRATS URGE TOUGHER STANCE TOWARD COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Top Democratic lawmakers, including presidential
hopefuls Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, have urged Colombia to reverse
the "infiltration" of murderous paramilitary groups at high government
levels or risk losing $700 million a year in aid.

In a strongly worded letter sent last month to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, eight senators expressed "grave concern regarding
the infiltration of important Colombian state institutions by
terrorists and drug traffickers."

A copy of the letter was released by Sen. Dodd's office on Friday,
just before President Alvaro Uribe was to appear in New York for a
dinner honoring former President Clinton, part of a lobbying campaign
by Colombia to counter Democrats' intense scrutiny of its human rights
record.

Dodd's office said the letter was made public in a May 22 press
release, a day after it was sent, but most Colombians - including
Uribe himself - only learned about its existence on Friday, when a
copy was published in a front-page story by Colombia's main daily, El
Tiempo.

Since gaining control of Congress in November, Democrats have refused
to pass a trade deal with Colombia and are threatening to cut military
assistance as a scandal linking government allies to right-wing
militias creeps closer to the president.

The lawmakers said they were "particularly troubled" by the case of
former intelligence chief Jorge Noguera, who is under investigation
for allegedly providing the militias with names of trade unionists who
were later murdered.

Noguera, who was hand-picked for the spy job by Uribe after running
his 2002 campaign along the Caribbean coast, was jailed for a month
and then released March 23 because of a procedural error by
prosecutors. Another 13 congressmen, all but one Uribe allies, have
been arrested as part of the widening scandal.

The Democrats' letter called on Colombia to take "vigorous measures"
to hold the right-wing militias accountable, including the removal of
mobile phones and Internet access for jailed warlords and their
extradition to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.

It also wants the government to confiscate stolen land holdings and
combat 22 new or rearmed paramilitary groups identified by an
Organization of American States peace mission.

"Without such concrete actions and results, maintaining current levels
of assistance will be difficult to justify," the senators wrote.

Uribe is Washington's staunchest ally in Latin America and United
States' caretaker in the war on drugs, for which the Andean nation
receives more U.S. aid than any country outside the Middle East and
Afghanistan.

At a news conference Friday in Washington, Uribe said he had no
knowledge of the letter, also signed by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont,
who froze $55 million in aid to Colombia's military in April as head
of the subcommittee overseeing foreign aid.

"(Thursday) I met with Sen. Leahy for about an hour and he didn't tell
me anything about this," Uribe said before departing for New York.

Leahy, in an e-mailed statement Friday, said "for several years, U.S.
aid to Colombia has been on autopilot. I fully expect the Congress to
continue support, because our countries share many interests. But the
Congress is not going to be a rubber stamp. Those days are over."

Uribe is expected to present Clinton with the "Colombia is Passion"
award for his solidarity with the violence-wracked country at an event
to which hip-shaking Colombian pop star Shakira has been invited.

Colombia is spending more than $100,000 on lobbying Democrats in a bid
to rescue the trade pact.

In April, former Vice President Al Gore backed out of an environmental
conference in Miami to avoid appearing alongside Uribe.

Around the same time, Colombia hired The Glover Park Group and public
relations giant Burson-Marsteller to counter growing criticism of
Colombia on Capitol Hill.