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A C T I O N A L E R T : C O L O M B I A, JANUARY 2000
CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS NOW!
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+PRODUCED BY: LATIN AMERICA WORKING GROUP+
+TIMEOUT DATE: FEBRUARY 10, 2000+
STOP U.S. MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA NOW!
SUPPORT PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN COLOMBIA
The Clinton Administration has just proposed a $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia. This new aid combined with funds already directed toward Colombia will amount to $1.6 billion over the next two years. The majority of aid will go to the most abusive military in the Western Hemisphere and pull the United States into an un-winnable counterinsurgency war. Act now to oppose military assistance and support funds that strengthen democracy and encourage peace.
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C L I N T O N ' S A I D P A C K A G E,
A D I S A S T R O U S A P P R O A C H
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Major components of Clinton's aid package include:
· helping the Colombian government push into the coca-growing regions of southern Colombia, the very same areas where Colombia is battling the counter-insurgency war;
· training new special counter-narcotics battalions to clear the Southern area of insurgency;
· purchasing 30 Blackhawk and 33 Huey helicopters;
· upgrading Colombian capability to aggressively interdict cocaine and cocaine traffickers as well as support radar, aircraft and airfield upgrades, and improved anti-narcotics intelligence gathering;
· increasing coca crop eradication through questionable aerial fumigation tactics that have failed to reduce the amount of coca production in the past and damage the environment.
Every day, at least 250 to 300 U.S. military personnel and advisors
counsel, train, and share intelligence with Colombia's security forces in ways that support counterinsurgency efforts. Our government has already funded the creation of a 950-troop counternarcotics battalion that is being trained to operate in Southern Colombia in a territory under dispute between Colombia's leftwing guerrillas and rightwing paramilitaries. Two more battalions are in the works. After many years during which the United States focused on police aid due to concerns over the Colombian army's human rights record, this marks a growing collaboration with the Colombian army.
Clinton's proposed aid increase will make the United States a major actor in Colombia's three-decade old internal conflict. The Clinton
Administration claims that this aid package is directed at
counter-narcotics operations and won't mean further involvement in
Colombia's dirty counter-insurgency war. They claim increased assistance will only support positive investment in Colombia's economic development and future. However, if Congress and the Administration don't hear from you, the vast majority of the aid package will go to support the Colombian military and police, not economic development or peace.
Only a small portion of Clinton's aid package provides for non-military aid in an attempt to support peace, human rights, and economic assistance. The White House says it will propose $145 million over the next two years to provide economic alternatives for Colombian farmers who now grow coca and poppy plants and $93 million for new programs that will help the judicial system, crack down on money laundering and drug kingpins, increase protection of human rights, expand the rule of law, and promote the peace process. Your call to encourage policy makers to increase these positive alternatives and oppose military assistance may tip the balance between war and peace in Colombia.
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A C T N O W!
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Contact your representative and senators and oppose military aid to
Colombia. The United States can and should help Colombians in their hour of need, with long-term, peaceful solutions to civil conflict and drug violence.
1. Find out who your representative and senators are and how to contact them on the web:
Locate your congressional representative at: http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Locate your Senator at: http://www.senate.gov/
2. Call your Congressional representative and senators in three easy
steps: A. Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected with your member B. once you are connected ask to speak with the foreign policy aide C. tell them to oppose military aid (see talking points below). If the aide is not there, leave a voice-mail message expressing your opinion and try back later.
3. Write to your members of Congress:
Name of representative, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515
Name of Senator, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510
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T E L L Y O U R R E P R E S E N T A T I V E
A N D S E N A T O R S
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AS MY REPRESENTATIVE/ SENATOR YOU SHOULD KNOW:
· Colombia's military is the most abusive in the Western Hemisphere.
Colombian security forces continue to passively and actively support
paramilitary forces that participate in the drug trade and commit over 70%of the horrendous human rights abuses in Colombia.
· The aid will further destabilize fragile peace negotiations and undermine support of a negotiated settlement.
· Although there are conditions that help prevent U.S. military assistance from going directly to individual human rights abusers (the Leahy Amendment), the conditions are not sufficient to prevent aid from supporting corrupt and abusive security forces.
· The package does not adequately address Colombia's massive human rights and humanitarian crisis.
· Despite a 17-fold increase in US drug war spending since 1980, illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent and more easily available than two decades ago. The drug war at home and abroad not only has harmful side effects: it doesn't work. In the United States, we should focus on reducing demand through treatment and prevention programs.
I ASK YOU AS MY REPRESENTATIVE/ SENATOR TO:
T oppose aid to the Colombian army due to human rights concerns, especially army links at a regional and local level to brutal paramilitary forces.T support a substantial positive aid package for Colombia, including:
humanitarian relief for people displaced by violence; crop substitution programs for small farmers to switch from coca to legal crops; economic assistance; programs to strengthen Colombian government investigations into human rights violations and drug trafficking; aid for civil society efforts for human rights and peace.
T increase funding for drug treatment and prevention programs at home.
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
IN COLOMBIA AT THIS CRITICAL TIME!
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT THE LATIN AMERICA WORKING GROUP
TEL: 202-546-7010 FAX: 202-543-7647 WEBSITE: http://www/lawg.org
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