In Colombia, the Associated Press is reporting President Alvaro Uribe is waging a secret campaign to silence UN human rights monitors who have documented thousands of abuses. Foreign diplomats and rights groups say the government wants to stop the monitors from voicing criticism and publishing their findings. The monitors’ investigations have recently forced the government to arrest more than a dozen soldiers in the killings of nearly thirty civilians, including children and pregnant women. The government had previously claimed the victims were rebels. The Bush administration has been a key ally of the Uribe government. In March, a letter signed by more than sixty foreign and Colombian rights and development groups urged the White House to back renewing the mandate for the Colombian office of the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Bush administration has refused.