COLOMBIA'S HARD RIGHT

The thin-skinned politician apparently hasn't mellowed with time. Uribe personally phoned the Bogota correspondent, Gonzalo Guillen, of Miami's Spanish-language newspaper El Nuevo Herald, two weeks ago to complain about his investigation of Uribe's past ties to the notorious Ochoa clan. The Ochoas were major players in Escobar's Medellin cartel during its heyday, and Uribe has acknowledged his father's long friendship with the recently deceased patriarch Fabio Ochoa, but Uribe maintains he parted ways with Fabio's sons many years ago. Nevertheless, Uribe didn't appreciate Guillen's inquiries and made his displeasure known by pointedly asking whether the journalist lived in Bogota or Miami.

Of far greater concern to some Uribe critics is the candidate's close ties to the military and how they will shape his four-year term. He kicked off his quest for the presidency by delivering the keynote speech at a 1999 gala dinner honoring two former Army generals. But the featured guests weren't exactly run-of-the-mill career soldiers heading into their golden years. Both Fernando Millan and Rito Alejo del Rio had been cashiered by Pastrana for having collaborated with vigilante groups and right-wing paramilitary units charged with committing massacres and other atrocities in 1996 and 1997. As a result, the State Department rescinded the generals' U.S. visas, but that didn't stop Uribe from singing their praises in public. He is particularly chummy with Alejo del Rio, a rotund native of Boyaca whom Uribe met as governor when the general was commander of the 17th Army Brigade in northwestern Colombia. The candidate characterizes Alejo del Rio as an "honorable" man and denies he ever violated anyone's human rights.

Uribe's opponents have also taken aim at his proposal to involve civilians more directly in antisubversion operations to supplement the country's embattled security forces. For some Colombians, the notion evokes memories of the sometimes ruthless peasant militias created in Peru to neutralize the Shining Path guerrilla movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. Uribe says he has no plans to arm the civilian population. But skeptics recall his role in promoting dozens of neighborhood security organizations called Convivir, some of which evolved into armed vigilante groups that work closely with right-wing militias.

Uribe's alleged links to the country's 8,000-strong right-wing militias are harder to document. The so-called United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia flourished in the rural areas of Antioquia when Uribe was governor, and according to one respected Colombian human-rights group, CODHES (the Human Rights and Displaced Information Bureau), most of the nearly 200,000 people who fled Antioquia during his term were driven out by paramilitary forces and Convivir groups. Uribe also allegedly ignored warnings of an imminent paramilitary massacre in the village of El Aro that left 14 people dead in 1997. He vehemently denies any relationship to paramilitary warlord Carlos Castano and says his government will treat the country's right-wing militias just like the communist guerrillas. But the paramilitary forces have been keeping a relatively low profile since Uribe started to climb in the polls, and their umbrella group issued a statement hailing the results of last week's congressional elections that brought victory to dozens of pro-Uribe candidates.

Will Uribe's tough tactics bring Colombia peace, even at the expense of democracy? He has paid lip service to resuming negotiations with the FARC, but only under conditions that guerrilla leaders have called unacceptable, such as an unconditional ceasefire. The fighting will go on, and could escalate if a President Uribe gives the armed forces carte blanche to do whatever it takes to defeat the rebels. Given the current mood of the country, that would meet with the approval of most Colombians. "They've suddenly realized the FARC has pocketed all the compromises made in the last 40 years," says one U.S. official in Bogota. Now most Colombians are ready to try a radically different approach--even if, in the short term, it's guaranteed to bring more blood.