Word: samper
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...conversation, recorded sometime during the run-up to last week's presidential election in Colombia, moves on to a casual discussion of providing candidate Ernesto Samper Pizano with 3 billion pesos, or $3.7 million, in campaign funds. "We've already talked to Medina," Rodriguez says, apparently referring to Samper's campaign manager, Santiago Medina. "We'll send around some money on Wednesday, and then the rest about Monday of next week...
...Samper, the candidate of the ruling Liberal Party, went on to win the election by a bare 2.2% margin over the Conservative Party's Andres Pastrana. The day after the vote, three audiotapes containing the Giraldo-Rodriguez conversations surfaced in Bogota, casting doubt on the legitimacy of Samper's victory and throwing Colombia into political turmoil. "If it is proved that the President-elect's campaign received drug-trafficking money," said Pastrana, "he should resign because his mandate would be invalid...
...Samper, 43, a former economics minister in the government of President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, quickly denied that he had taken money from drug lords. His contention was supported by Giraldo, a longtime go-between for the Cali cartel, who said the Cali bosses had offered funds to both the Samper and Pastrana campaigns but were turned down. Colombians were not only skeptical, but angry that the tapes, which had come into President Gaviria's hands several days before the election, were not released earlier...
...Samper said he would welcome a federal investigation. "These charges will not stand up," he said, asserting that he is a victim, not a collaborator, of the drug lords. In 1989 he was shot 14 times by hitmen for drug lords in a Bogota airport ambush, but miraculously survived. For all that, allegations he and his party were accepting money from the narco-barons were so persistent that last October Gelbard traveled to Bogota to warn Samper to stay clear of their money or risk damaging U.S.-Colombia relations should he be elected...
Colombia was roiling today over allegations that President-elect Ernesto Samper won last Sunday's election with the help of drug money. But in a bizarre twist to the tale, TIME Daily reports, the evidence seems to exonerate Samper. Local TV stations buzzed over what appeared to be the biggest political scandal in the South American nation's history, set off by a "smoking gun" audiotape of leaders of the world's largest drug cartel discussing putative campaign contributions to Samper and the loser, Andres Pastrana. But TIME Latin America bureau chief Laura Lopez says a source close...