Bogota, Colombia – President Alvaro Uribe, a key U.S. ally, kicked off his re-election effort Wednesday as leftist rebels stepped up an offensive aimed at disrupting the campaign.
In response to the new wave of attacks, Uribe ordered the police and armed forces to increase patrols ahead of the May 28 presidential vote.
“All members of the police and soldiers of all ranks will be on the streets and in the countryside of Colombia to confront this terrorist onslaught,” said Uribe in a speech formally announcing his candidacy.
Uribe’s supporters in Congress passed a constitutional amendment last year lifting a long-standing ban on presidents seeking a second consecutive term. Colombia has not seen a president re-elected to consecutive terms since the 1800s.
Guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, this week expanded a “travel ban,” threatening to destroy any vehicle intercepted driving in eight of Colombia’s 32 provinces.
The president of the Colombian Truckers Association estimated that the ban, which applies to both commercial and private travel, has cost transporters $3.6 million since it began two weeks ago.
Since Tuesday, rebels have burned four vehicles and dynamited an electricity pylon, leaving 11 municipalities without power. So far this year, authorities say the rebels have killed nearly 40 people, including 9 town councilors massacred Monday in a bold, midday assault.
The FARC has largely been contained to Colombia’s least populated regions during Uribe’s four-year tenure.
Colombia’s civil war has raged for more than four decades, pitting the rebels against the government and right-wing paramilitary forces that have in the past operated with the tacit support of the armed forces.
Uribe, a former lawyer, is a law-and-order conservative in a sea of left-leaning Latin American leaders, and has been the region’s most enthusiastic backer of President Bush.
Regularly polling over 60 percent in approval ratings, the 53-year-old Uribe seems set to win re-election easily. Most Colombians support his hard-line anti-crime policies, which have slashed the number of kidnappings and brought the murder rate to an 18-year low.
