[rolls eyes]

Local law enforcement officers assist U.S. Secret Service in guarding the entrance to La Corte Restaurant after President Bush and first lady Laura Bush made an unannounced stop to have dinner Saturday in Montevideo, Uruguay.
PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS: AP

After a relaxing day of boating and barbecue in the Uruguayan countryside, President Bush flies to Colombia today for a much more difficult chore: shoring up U.S. support for President Alvaro Uribe, a longtime ally whose government has been tainted by ties to paramilitary death squads.

"As a matter of fact, I've been very impressed by how he's handled this latest issue. President Uribe is a very strong leader; he's committed to justice; he believes in fairness; and he's a man who has proven he can get things done," Bush told a Colombian TV station in a pre-trip interview at the White House. "My confidence in the president is very high."

Bush said he is looking forward to expressing that sentiment, not only to Colombians "but also to the people in my Congress."

The paramilitary groups, private armies that formed in the 1980s to fight Marxist guerrillas, killed thousands of Colombian civilians and became deeply involved in drug trafficking.

Clear evidence of their ties to Colombian politicians began emerging late last year when 31,000 fighters disarmed under a government-sponsored peace plan. Eight members of Colombia's Congress, all belonging to Uribe's governing coalition, have been jailed. More than 60 former and current legislators, governors, mayors and town council members are under investigation.

And Uribe's foreign minister resigned last month after several members of her family were implicated in the scandal.

Many politicians swept up in the investigation are accused of accepting campaign donations from the gunmen, who sometimes bullied voters at gunpoint into supporting these candidates. Some are thought to have helped paramilitaries plan massacres and assassinations.

Others allegedly funneled government funds to the paramilitaries or supported initiatives in Congress benefiting their militias — such as a law mandating short prison terms for demobilized warlords.

Scandal may hurt aid to ally
Uribe is Washington's closest ally in Latin America, and Colombia is by far the biggest beneficiary of U.S. aid to the region, receiving $5 billion since 2000 — mostly to combat drug trafficking.

U.S. lawmakers have said that nearly $600 million in aid planned for 2008, as well as a pending trade pact between the two countries, could be jeopardized by the scandal.
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