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The United States Government repeatedly suspected Alvaro Uribe Velez during his presidential term (2002-2010), of his alleged links with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), according to documents declassified by intelligence and disclosed this Monday.
Among the documents published by the independent center “National Security Archives” (NSA), a memorandum shows that the senior Pentagon official Peter Rodman alerted the then US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, that it was “almost certain” that Uribe Vélez had dealings with the paramilitaries while he was governor of Antioquia.
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Despite these doubts, Rodman also clarified that he had not seen “Reports suggesting drugs were part of the picture”, according to the aforementioned report.
Documents released today by the nonprofit research center, do not contain any specific description of the alleged direct interactions between the former president and the paramilitaries, and there is little to show whether the US tried to determine whether or how deeply there were links.
The article published by the NSA, however, recalls that other documents declassified by the State Department in 2018 pointed out that US diplomats in Colombia had “serious concerns” about Uribe’s alleged ties to drug traffickers.
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One of the examples is a cable in which it is related that someone close to Uribe told the US embassy that the Ochoa Vásquez brothers, co-founders of the ‘Medellín Cartel’, had “financed” Uribe’s campaign for the Senate.
In other information highlighted by the National Security Archives, former United States Ambassador to Colombia Morris Busby, who coordinated efforts to help end Pablo Escobar, assured that he believed there was “substance in the rumors” that Uribe and other politicians had ties to drug trafficking interests.
In 2001, the George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) included the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations of the United States, along with the rebel groups of the FARC and the ELN, citing “at least 75 massacres that resulted in the death of hundreds of civilians.”.
