In Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe is facing a potential political crisis amid renewed charges over his alleged dealings with paramilitary groups. The new allegations have come from a former senior official at Colombia’s executive intelligence agency, the DAS. The official, Rafael Garcia, has told journalists and prosecutors the DAS provided the paramilitary groups with the names of union leaders and academics, many of whom were subsequently threatened or killed. According to Garcia, the paramilitaries also helped Uribe win an extra 300,000 fraudulent votes during the 2002 presidential elections. And Garcia also says he has proof the DAS worked with paramilitaries on a plot to assassinate several key Venezuelan leaders, including President Hugo Chavez. After initial denials, Jorge Noguera, the former director of the DAS, admitted he met with a leading paramilitary commander known as Jorge 40. Uribe himself admitted to holding direct meetings with another paramilitary commander, but blasted the media for pursuing the story. José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said: “President Uribe’s aggressive response raises suspicion about whether he actually wants the truth known, and has a chilling effect on the exercise of freedom of expression.”