By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, April 19 (Reuters) - A visibly irate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, facing accusations of supporting paramilitary death squads, on Thursday began an international campaign to clear his name and keep U.S. aid on track.

The move came after a key U.S. senator froze $55 million in military funding over charges that Uribe's government colluded with right-wing "paras" who have massacred thousands of peasants in the name of fighting Marxist insurgents.

"These accusations are doing damage to us overseas and we are going to confront them," Uribe told a panel of correspondents in the first of what he said will be a series of conferences to address a widening scandal in which eight of his congressional allies are jailed on accusations of supporting paramilitaries.

The news conference was broadcast on all Colombian television channels and Uribe said he will meet with U.S. journalists in Miami on Friday.

He denied opposition charges that militia members used one of his family farms to plan the murder of suspected leftists in the 1990s and challenged his critics to show proof of wrongdoing.

Uribe also announced the opening of a telephone hotline that will allow people to record questions related to the "para-political" scandal. He said he will answer them via state television.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, froze the U.S. aid as chairman of the subcommittee that oversees foreign programs and assistance. He is pushing for a tougher line on Colombia, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid to fight drug-running leftist rebels.

More politicians, in out of the president's governing coalition, are being questioned as part of the probe.

Uribe, whose father was killed by the rebels more than 20 years ago, was governor of Antioquia in the 1990s when the paramilitaries were consolidating power in the northern province.

DAMAGE CONTROL

Colombia's opposition this week accused him of supporting civilian anti-crime groups while governor that became part of a paramilitary empire funded by extortion and this Andean country's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.

Uribe responded by calling Sen. Gustavo Petro, who made the accusation on behalf of his leftist Polo Democratico party, an "armchair guerrilla."

Political commentator Daniel Coronell said "The combination of Petro's accusations and Leahy's decision to freeze the money has Uribe in full damage-control mode."

No one has presented concrete evidence of illegal activity by Uribe, who was elected president in 2002 and re-elected in a 2006 landslide after cutting crime as part of his U.S.-backed crackdown on the rebels.

More than 31,000 "paras" have handed in their guns as part of a peace deal, while Colombia's biggest rebel army, known as the FARC, continues its 43-year-old fight against the state.

Thousands are killed in Colombia's conflict every year while tens of thousands are forced from their homes by violence.

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