Shun Colombia.

• Position: Comment - On Alvaro Uribe

George Bush was in full hypocrisy mode when he rolled out the red carpet for Colombian President Âlvaro Uribe, who came to Washington in May.

Uribe didn't deserve the welcome.

This rightwing Colombian has intimate ties with the paramilitaries, who have killed thousands of trade unionists, human rights activists, scholars, and leftists over the last couple of decades.

Paramilitaries murdered dozens of labor leaders last year alone.

"Colombia is currently the murder capital of the world for trade unionists," testified Maria McFarland Sßnchez-Moreno, Human Rights Watch's specialist on Colombia, at a House Foreign Affairs hearing on April 24. "Those who are not killed are often threatened, attacked, or kidnapped." Less than 2 percent of the 400 murders of labor organizers since Uribe took office have led to convictions.

Sßnchez-Moreno underscored the magnitude of the problems in Colombia. "Today," she testified, "Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere." And Uribe's ties with "drug-running paramilitary groups" threaten democracy itself, she said.

But none of this stopped Bush from heaping praise upon Uribe.

"It's been my honor to welcome a true democrat, a strong leader, and a friend," Bush said in a joint appearance with Uribe on the South Lawn of the White House.

Bush even referred to Colombia as a democracy that protects "human rights and human dignity" and upholds the rule of law.

Nine legislators close to Uribe have been arrested for their alleged links to the paramilitaries. Uribe's foreign minister had to resign. And in November, Colombia's chief prosecutor alleged that Uribe's former domestic intelligence chief, who helped run Uribe's 2002 presidential effort, also had such ties. He is "accused of supplying the militias with details on academics and union officials who were chosen for assassination," The New York Times reported on April 30. One leftist Colombian senator also says that "paramilitaries held meetings on ranches owned by Mr. Uribe and his brother in the late 1980s," the paper added.

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In March, the Los Angeles Times revealed that "the CIA has obtained new intelligence alleging that the head of Colombia's U.S.-backed army collaborated extensively with rightwing militias that Washington considers terrorist organizations, including a militia headed by one of the country's leading drug traffickers." One joint operation, which occurred in 2002, resulted in...