From: Sandra Alvarez (sandra@globalexchange.org)
Date: Thu Apr 18 2002 - 14:48:59 EDT
Dear Friends,
This month is about organizing, speaking outand being heard. Express your
demand for peace in Colombia by letting your elected representatives know
that you will not stand for any more US military aid for Colombia.
Below you will find the latest updates on important organizing events and
action opportunities on Colombia
1) April 19th 22 REMINDER: Colombia Mobilization in DC. The when, where
and NOWS of being there.
2) April 22nd Phone or Fax Congressional Offices on Monday. Express
Opposition to US Aid in Colombia. Show solidarity with those marching in
DC!!
3) Latest News: Andres Pastrana, The President of Colombia in DC this
week, meeting with Bush at White House on Thursday.
1) April 19-22. Colombia Mobilization in DC!
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As the Peace Talks in Colombia have crumbled and violence continues to
escalate, the U.S. government's actions are making things worse not better!
Join the Colombia Mobilization in Washington DC April 19th-22nd as we gather
to reframe the national debate and our nation's policy about Colombia. We
will meet and share, protest and lobby, reflect and march.
Be part of a four day convergence in Washington DC to transform U.S. policy
toward Colombia and the Andean region.
4/19: SOA Watch Vigil & Lobby Action at the Capitol
4/20: Colombia Teach-In: Workshops, Strategy Caucuses,
Skills & Nonviolence Training
4/21: (11am-5pm at the Washington Monument), Action
Planning, Nonviolence Training
4/22: Colombia Solidarity March & Nonviolent Direct
Action
See www.colombiamobilization.com <http://www.colombiamobilization.com/> for
more information and to get there NOW!.
Meet with Representative - While you are in town for the Colombia
Mobilization, meet with your congressperson on these vital issues. Be sure
to follow-up on any information your congressperson requests.
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2) April 22nd Phone or Fax Congressional Offices on Monday. Express
Opposition to US Aid in Colombia!!
Not many people from the Nation can travel to Washington DC for these
events. But we can do something very concrete in support. We can PHONE OR
FAX CONGRESSIONAL OFFICES ON MONDAY, APRIL 22 to express our opposition to
U.S. military involvement in Colombia.
The capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121. Ask for your senator and
state representativešs numbers or leave a message.
Short phone message: "I want the senator to vote against military aid to
Colombia."
The mission statement pasted below, especially points 1 and 2, can be
helpful in composing a longer message.
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MISSION STATEMENT OF COLOMBIA MOBILIZATION:
The Colombia Mobilization is a national coalition of organizations and
individuals working to transform U.S. policy toward Colombia and the
Andean region. We share the following principles.
1. We call for an end to U.S.. military aid to Colombia and the Andean
region. Current U.S. military aid to Colombia, including military
training and private contracting, is a failed policy. As part of the
"War on Drugs," U.S. military assistance is inflaming a violent conflict
and contributing to increased human rights abuses and displacement.
Afro-Colombians, indigenous groups, trade unionists, the rural poor,
human rights defenders, social organizations, and others working for
peace and justice in Colombia are suffering disproportionately from
these human
rights violations.
2. We call for an end to U.S.. funding of counter-narcotic aerial
eradication in Colombia and the Andean region. We recognize that
U.S.-funded aerial eradication, or fumigation, of coca and poppy crops
is damaging critical biodiversity throughout the Amazon region and is
creating health and food-security crises among the local populations.
Aerial eradication is a destructive tool that largely fails to achieve
U.S. policy goals and does not address the real development needs that
drive people to cultivate coca leaf and poppy.
3. We call for dramatic expansion of drug treatment and prevention in
the United States. Any sincere effort to curb illegal drug use in the
United States must seriously address the issue of demand, and must
de-emphasize the destructive and ineffective supply-side policies,
including punitive and racist mandatory minimum drug sentencing.
4. We call for the United States to support comprehensive sustainable
economic development alternatives throughout the Andean region, as well
as efforts for peace that include the full participation of civil
society.
U.S.-supported international financial institutions, such as the World
Bank and IMF, have promoted development and trade policies in the Andean
region that have failed to address the region's growing poverty and
need for long-term social investment. Proposed U.S.-led free trade
agreements will further contribute to economic injustice if they favor
large corporations over the needs of the general population. For the
United States to make a positive contribution in Colombia, the
development and human rights needs of Colombian people and an emphasis
on the peace process must be incorporated into the policy-making
process.
5. We call for the United States to help alleviate the conditions of
refugees and those people internally displaced because of the conflict.
With over 300,000 Colombians internally displaced in 2000, and thousands
of refugees spilling into neighboring countries, US policy is
aggravating a staggering humanitarian crisis that is militarizing
borders and threatening regional stability. The United States should
increase humanitarian assistance, prevent further displacement by
safeguarding communities' human rights, and provide temporary protected
status (TPS) to Colombians living in the United States whose lives are
in danger because of the conflict.
6. We are committed to nonviolence in our own actions as well as
supporting exclusively nonviolent, negotiated political solutions to the
conflict in Colombia. We do not support or endorse any armed actor in
the Colombian conflict.
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3) Colombian Aid Limits Reviewed; Pastrana, Bush Ask a Skeptical Congress to
Lift Restrictions
The Washington Post
April 16, 2002, Tuesday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A16
Karen Delong, Washington Post Staff Writer
Another difficult and controversial foreign policy issue is about to crowd
onto President Bush's already overflowing plate, as Congress takes up his
plan for a major expansion of U.S. involvement in Colombia's guerrilla war.
Hearings scheduled to stretch into next month began last week on the
proposal to stop restricting U.S. military aid to Colombia's fight against
cocaine and heroin production and export.
The restrictions were designed to keep the United States from becoming
directly involved in South America's oldest guerrilla conflict. But the Bush
administration maintains that left- and right-wing insurgents fighting the
Colombian government and each other are both drug traffickers and terrorists
whose activities threaten not only Colombia but the stability and security
of Latin America and the United States. Colombian President Andres Pastrana
arrives in Washington today for a four-day visit to help lobby for the plan,
which would also waive a number of human rights provisions and other
restrictions Congress has attached to Colombia aid.
With little to show for nearly $ 2 billion already spent fighting Colombia's
drug war since 2000, however, Bush and Pastrana face an uphill task.
Skeptical legislators have indicated they want a better explanation of past
failures and a far more detailed description of the new policy than has been
provided.
"You're asking for an unprecedented level of decision-making power over
policy in Colombia -- with no specifics," Rep.Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) told
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman at a House appropriations subcommittee
hearing last week. "I don't feel I know any more about what U.S. policy in
Colombia is than I did before."
Language authorizing the policy change is contained in one sentence, deep
inside the voluminous White House request for $27 billion in emergency
anti-terrorism aid sent to Congress last month. Superseding all existing
restrictions, it says that all previously approved and future aid "shall be
available to support a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking,
terrorist activities, and other threats to [Colombia's] national security."
[Emphasis added: GX]
The administration has said it will not send U.S. combat troops to
Colombia, nor extend the U.S. military mission beyond training and supplying
military equipment. But there would be no restrictions on Colombia's use of
U.S. equipment and U.S.-trained troops.
The new request explicitly retains Congress's 400-person cap on the number
of U.S. military personnel in Colombia, and observance of a worldwide
requirement for human rights vetting of any foreign troops trained by U.S.
forces.
Grossman explained that the "new authority would allow us to address the
problem of terrorism in Colombia as vigorously as we currently address
narcotics, and help the government of Colombia address the heightened
terrorist risk that resulted" from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The
change, he said, would also help Colombia deal with the collapse of peace
talks last month between Pastrana and the largest rebel group, the leftist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The State Department lists both FARC and the United Self-Defense Forces, a
paramilitary group of equal size and viciousness, as "foreign terrorist
organizations," along with a smaller leftist guerrilla group. All are
financed principally by the illegal drug business that supplies nearly all
of the cocaine that enters the United States, and much of the heroin. The
three groups regularly attack civilians in addition to their battles with
the Colombian army and each other. FARC, in particular, has escalated
attacks against Colombia's national infrastructure since February, when
Pastrana ended three years of sputtering peace talks following a spate of
kidnappings of public officials.
The proposed change in ground rules for Colombian aid marks the first time
since Sept. 11 that the administration has suggested that domestic
insurgents in another country pose a terrorist threat even if they have not
directly targeted the United States and have no known connection to any
group that has. With virtually no progress in the drug fight, some in
Congress have suggested the administration is creating a terrorist danger in
Colombia to justify throwing good money after bad, and in the process
risking a Vietnam-type quagmire. [Emphasis added]
Worse than a "slippery slope . . .. I think we're approaching a cliff,"
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) told Assistant Secretary of State Otto J. Reich at a
House International Relations subcommittee hearing last week.
Administration officials say that the infusion of drug money into FARC and
AUC has led to their rapid growth and inserted a new element into the long
history of Colombian insurgency. The drug and terror wars are now so
intertwined, they argue, that neither can be won without U.S. involvement in
both.
Beyond the firewall restricting the use of U.S.-trained troops and
U.S-provided equipment to counter-narcotics missions, more specific limits
on Colombia assistance would also be waived under the new policy. Congress
has refused to release any military-related funds in a $ 300 million
Colombia aid package it appropriated for 2002 until the administration can
certify that the Colombian army has ended collusion with the AUC, suspended
and prosecuted senior officers credibly alleged to have been involved in
human rights violations and moved to arrest AUC leaders. The leftist FARC
and the right wing AUC are officially equal enemies, but both the Colombian
and U.S. governments display far more interest in combating the former than
the latter. [Emphasis added]
Money to continue a U.S.-paid aerial fumigation program has been withheld
pending proof that the herbicide being sprayed on drug crops is nontoxic and
safely used. Neither the military certification nor the herbicide
information has been provided. In February, the Senate prohibited spending
any of the new 2002 money for any purpose, until the administration provides
a more detailed outline of its strategy.
According to senior Colombian and U.S. officials, the cutoff is beginning
to pinch. "We're scraping bits and pieces" left in accounts from earlier
years to keep the military and spraying programs going, an administration
official said. But "we're at a precipice in terms of where there begins to
be an impact."
While arguing there has been modest progress in all areas of U.S. effort in
Colombia, the administration agrees it has been insufficient. Army collusion
with AUC, which the State Department's human rights reporting holds
responsible for civilian massacres and brutality as well as drug
trafficking, has continued, while there have been few advances in the war
that both are fighting against FARC.
Members of Congress also have asked why the administration proposes spending
more money to defend Colombia, including more than $ 500 million requested
for 2003, when Colombia itself is spending less.
Although Pastrana increased defense spending in 1998, his first year in
office, it has declined as a percentage of gross domestic product every year
since then. Colombia now spends slightly less than 2 percent of its GDP on
the army, and 3.3 percent for all security forces combined. "I'm not at all
satisfied with the commitments" Colombia has made, Rep. Sonny Callahan
(R-Ala.) told administration officials. "We're talking about a lot of money
going into a very small area that can show me zero progress." [emphasis
added]
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Colombia Program
Global Exchange
2017 Mission Street #303
San Francisco, CA 94110
colombia@globalexchange.org
415.255.7296 or
800.497.1994
415.255.7498 fax
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