Uribe has even managed, despite being a US ally, to get the support of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who appears to have abandoned his support for armed revolutionary struggle in Latin America, instead viewing success at the ballot box – the PAD in Colombia, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and Evo Morales in Bolivia – as the way forward. Castro is mediating between Uribe’s government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), a smaller ex-Maoist and Catholic left-wing terrorist group.