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Colombia's Uribe plots course after winning second term
REUTERS/Jose Miguel Gomez
Alvaro Uribe waves as he celebrates his victory in Colombia's Presidential elections in a Bogota hotel May 28, 2006. Uribe, a key U.S. ally in Latin America, swept to a landslide victory in an election in Colombia on Sunday.By Patrick Moser
AFP
BOGOTA
Petroleumworld.com 05 29 06Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch US ally in the war on drugs, plotted his future course Monday after winning a second term in office by a landslide.
"With the heroism of our soldiers, we will move forward to have a more secure Colombia," said Uribe, who has stepped up military operations against armed groups since he came to office in 2002.
Uribe, a US- and British-educated lawyer, won reelection late Sunday with 62 percent of the votes and a 40-point lead over his closest rival, leftist senator Carlos Gaviria.
His reelection bucks the political trend in a region dominated by leftist leaders whose relationship with Washington is often lukewarm.
Uribe is credited with reopening roads once controlled by bandits or insurgents, reducing crime rates, stepping up the offensive against leftist rebels, and reaching a pact that demobilized right-wing paramilitary fighters.
"Democratic security has started to regain the liberties that terrorism had taken from us," he told jubilant supporters gathered at a Bogota hotel after Sunday's voting.
An austere, yoga-practicing workaholic, Uribe said he would continue his crackdown against violence and drug trafficking in the South American country that ranks as the region's most violent, and the world's top producer of cocaine.
He said he would mark his electoral triumph at a mass on Monday in the Medellin church where his father was buried after being assassinated in 1983 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC,) Colombia's main leftist insurgency, which now has 17,000 armed guerrillas.
A law-and-order conservative called "authoritarian" by his critics and some supporters, Uribe, 53, is the staunchest ally of US President George W. Bush in Latin America, and recently reached an extended trade pact with Washington.
He has helped maintain steady economic growth and has enjoyed popularity levels of around 70 percent since he took office in 2002, despite perceptions he has failed to do enough to alleviate poverty that affects almost half the country's 41 million population.
Uribe has dismissed claims he favors a military solution to the country's armed conflict, insisting he is willing to talk peace with the FARC if the insurgents are ready to halt their attacks, but pledging to defeat them if they are not.
"We remain determined to show total firmness in combatting terrorism and total generosity in negotiating peace," Uribe said on the eve of his reelection.
But the FARC says it will not negotiate with Uribe, claiming he is a warmonger.
"I believe I am the president most hated by the guerrillas and the one who fought (them) the most," said Uribe.
He ordered unprecedented security measures for the vote, deploying 220,000 police and soldiers to protect the 26.7 million eligible voters in a country where four decades of political violence have claimed an estimated 200,000 lives.
But government figures show a sharp drop in violence, with murders down from 36,000 in 2002 to 15,000 last year, and kidnappings down from 3,000 to 1,000.
And, for the first time since 1998, the FARC had pledged it would not seek to sabotage the election.
Authorities on Sunday said security forces killed five insurgents who were preparing to carry out explosives attacks in areas where both the FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) have a presence.
In Bogota's Ciudad Bolivar slum, social workers said right-wing paramilitary gangs had run a campaign of intimidation to pressure the two million residents to vote for Uribe.
AFP 29 0740 GMT 05 06
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