By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov 26 (Reuters) - A member of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's congressional coalition has admitted to supporting illegal right-wing militias, deepening the worst political crisis to hit this Andean country in years. In a newspaper interview published on Sunday, Senator Miguel De la Espriella became the first member of Congress to admit to dealing with the militias, fueling a scandal over long-suspected links between cocaine-smuggling paramilitaries and public officials. "In Cordoba you couldn't practice politics without getting the nod from the self-defense forces," De la Espriella told leading Colombian daily El Tiempo, referring to his home province in northern Colombia. "There were no exceptions," said De la Espriella, who is a member of the Uribe-friendly Democratic Colombia party. Three other congressmen from Uribe's coalition were jailed earlier this month on charges of financing and organizing the paramilitaries, which have committed some of the worst atrocities of Colombia's four-decade-old guerrilla war. One of the arrested lawmakers is charged with being involved in a paramilitary massacre of peasants. The crises has hurt Uribe's ability to drive through economic reforms seen by Wall Street as essential to the country's long-term solvency, analysts and lawmakers say. Thousands are killed every year in Colombia's guerrilla war, a conflict that dates to the birth of Marxist rebel groups in the 1960s. The paramilitaries were organized in the 1980s to counter the left-wing rebels and the two sides now battle over control of the world's largest cocaine trade. Asked if Uribe has any direct links to the paramilitaries, De la Espriella responded: "Uribe, like all human beings, can make mistakes ... What I can be sure of is that he is an honest president." The scandal could be getting closer to the president, said political commentator and paramilitary expert Mauricio Romero. "If not, why did the senator not give a straight answer to the question about Uribe?" Romero said. De la Espriella told El Tiempo about a meeting he attended in 2001 with other members of Congress, governors and mayors from around the country. Top paramilitary leaders also were present. "They proposed the creation of a political movement that would support the point of view of the self-defense forces and encourage a peace process with them," De la Espriella said. More than 30,000 paramilitary fighters have turned in their guns over the last three years as part of a peace deal with the government. Human rights groups say the deal offers overly generous benefits, included reduced jail terms, while not forcing the paramilitaries to dismantle their criminal gangs. De la Espriella said he and the other officials at the meeting ended up signing a letter in support of the paramilitaries. Asked why he did not refuse to sign, he told El Tiempo: "I'm sure you understand that arriving at a meeting that the self-defense forces demanded you attend and then finding yourself in the middle of a lot of armed men, it's intimidating."
