Far-Right Opposition Calls for Colombian President to Resign

The far-right political opposition is calling for Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to resign as part of the fallout over the arrest of Santiago Uribe, the former senator recently detained for alleged ties to paramilitary groups.

Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, a leading figure in the Democratic Center party of former President Alvaro Uribe, led a small protest Tuesday in front of the Presidential Palace calling for Santos to step down and for the criminal charges against Uribe to be dropped.

Zuluaga accused the president of using Colombia's justice system to persecute members of the Democratic Center.

“In many cases (opponents) have turned to the courts to subdue the Democratic Center. It is a clear alliance between the government and the (office of the) attorney general,” Zuluaga wrote Tuesday on his Twitter account.

That tweet was followed by a series of others listing the reasons why his party believes President Santos must step down.

Santiago Uribe, the brother of Alvaro Uribe, was detained Monday in the city of Medellin. Uribe is accused of forming and developing the paramilitary group known as “Los Doce Apostoles” (The Twelve Apostles) in the 1990s.

Politicians from the Democratic Center who accompanied Zuluaga during the protest said they were the victims of “political persecution.”

President Santos has called on the office of the attorney general, as well as Prosecutor General Alejandro Ordoñez, himself a sympathizer of the Democratic Center, to “accompany” the case against Santiago Uribe in order to help eliminate any notions of improprieties in the case.

Alvaro Uribe and members of his party have been regularly accused of also having ties to paramilitary groups and Uribe himself is under investigation for allegedly allowing a group of paramilitaries to use a helicopter in order to assassinate 15 peasants in the province of Antioquia October 22, 1997 while he was governor of Antioquia.

IN DEPTH: The Colombia Peace Process Explained

A number of politicians, who were close to Uribe during his tenure, have also been investigated or detained for ties to paramilitaries.

The former president, normally quick to respond to these kinds of accusations, has not yet made any public comments regarding the detention of his brother.

The politicians from the far-right Democratic Center have been the most vocal opponents of the ongoing peace process between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which is set to conclude in the coming weeks.

The party was the only one with representation in the Congress to abstain from joining the “Great Peace Pact” announced last month.

The Democratic Center has called for a demonstration on April 2 to protest any eventual peace deal.

Supporters of the peace process, including the FARC themselves, accused Uribe and his ilk of being “warmongers” for opposing the peace process.

The arrest of Santiago Uribe is likely to undermine the message of the far right who claim they oppose the peace process in principle.