Bush congratulates Uribe on re-election

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) President George W Bush congratulated Colombian President Alvaro Uribe today for his sweeping re-election victory.

Uribe, Washington's chief ally in a left-tilting region where the Bush administration is not popular, won a second four years in office with 62 per cent of the vote yesterday in Colombia's most peaceful election in years.

A White House spokeswoman, Eryn Witcher, said Bush called Uribe ''to congratulate him on his re-election and commend the Colombian people for their very strong commitment to democracy.'' ''The president spoke of the strong friendship between our countries. The president reaffirmed his strong support for Colombia in its continued battle against narco-terrorism in moving forward on our free-trade agreement and in helping our democratic friends in the region,'' she said.

The key to Uribe's success was a crackdown on right-wing militias and leftist FARC rebels, who use the profits from supplying cocaine and heroin to US consumers to sustain an insurgency in which thousands of people are killed or driven from their homes every year in the South American nation of 41 million people.

REUTERS SHB PM1937