Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Wednesday that allegations his brother has paramilitary ties are made by those who seek to “discredit the democratic security” in Colombia.
“They want to kill democratic security. Since they have found no reason, they have come up with moral allegations that are immoral … because they do not correspond to legality nor the truth,” the president said in response to the claim made by former police Major Juan Carlos Meneses that his brother, Santiago Uribe, led a paramilitary death squad in the early 1990s.
Colombia’s Defense Minister Gabriel Silva last Tuesday attributed the accusations, which were denied by the president’s brother, to a Venezuelan plot to discredit the Colombian head of State.
“What this amounts to is an assault on President Uribe and his brother… All these accusations against the president have come from Venezuela,” said the minister.
Colombia has a history of rocky relations with Venezuela and diplomatic relations between the two nations are currently frozen. Most recently Colombia has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of trying to interfere in the Colombian electoral process.