By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - More than a dozen Colombian politicians agreed in 2001 to cooperate with right-wing paramilitary criminals, says a document revealed on Friday, fueling the country's worst political scandal in years.
Three members President Alvaro Uribe's congressional coalition have been sent to prison for their links with the drug-running militias, and more lawmakers were under investigation before paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso turned the document over as part of his court case.
Signed by militia bosses including Mancuso, who this week admitted he ordered massacres and 336 assassinations in the name of fighting left-wing rebels, the document also carries the signature of 11 members of Congress, two provincial governors and five mayors from the Atlantic coast region.
It calls for the reinforcement of the rule of law in Colombia, which has suffered waves of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations over 42 years of guerrilla war.
The document was signed by politicians from across this Andean country's political spectrum, with the exception of the main opposition party, called the Polo Democratico.
"We are beginning to see the extent of what had long been an open secret, that many politicians in northern Colombia were under the influence of the paramilitaries. Willingly or unwillingly, they followed their instructions," said political commentator Ricardo Avila.
SIGN OR ELSE
Several politicians told reporters they were told to sign the document or risk being killed by the militias, which were organized in the 1980s to help landowners protect their property against the rebels.
Both illegal groups, branded "terrorists" by Washington, fund their operations with Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.
More than 31,000 "paras" including Mancuso have turned over their guns in exchange for benefits including reduced prison terms. Peace talks with the rebels remain elusive.
Thousands of people are killed and displaced every year in the conflict as a mosaic of armed groups vie for control of lucrative cocaine-producing land and smuggling routes.
Opposition parties are meanwhile seeking to use the "para-political" scandal to their advantage.
"There is concrete evidence not that the president is a Mafioso, but that his closest collaborators are," Gustavo Petro, whose left-leaning Polo Democratico calls itself the "anti-mafia" party, told Reuters last week.
But Uribe, who won re-election last year based on his popular U.S.-backed crackdown on the rebels, ended 2006 with 63 percent popularity, a level that is likely to hold, according to local pollster Napoleon Franco.
"The polls show voters continue to have a high level of tolerance with Uribe," he said.
Uribe, a conservative whose father was killed by the rebels more than 20 years ago, says his government supports the Attorney General's probe into the scandal.
