Washington Office on Latin America

February 15, 2000
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY ON COLOMBIA
Eyes Wide Shut: U.S. Aid Package to Abusive Army

BACKGROUND
Despite President Clinton's claims that ". . . we're going into this with
our eyes wide open," the Administration's $1.3 billion aid package to
Colombia is a disastrous approach to stemming the drug trade and ending the
South American nation's brutal armed conflict. This new aid, combined with
funds already directed toward Colombia, will amount to $1.6 billion over
the next two years. About 80% of this package is assistance to the
Colombian army, widely-recognized as the most abusive military in the
Western hemisphere.

Even though at least 250 U.S. military personnel and advisors counsel,
train, and share intelligence with Colombia's security forces everyday, the
Clinton Administration aims to expand this relationship by:
· helping the Colombian government push into the coca-growing regions of
southern Colombia, the areas where the Colombian army is waging a
counter-insurgency war;
· training additional special counter-narcotics battalions in the troubled
Southern region;
· purchasing 30 Blackhawk and 33 Huey helicopters;
· supporting radar, aircraft and airfield upgrades, and improved
anti-narcotics intelligence gathering;
· increasing coca crop eradication through aerial fumigation that has
proven toxic and ineffective;
· providing other questionable aid.

Only a small portion of Clinton's aid package calls for important
non-military aid, including: $145 million over the next two years to
provide economic alternatives for Colombian farmers who now grow coca and
poppy plants and $93 million to cover judicial reform, anti-corruption,
human rights porotection, rule of law, and 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.

ACTION
Call your representative and Senators ask them to oppose military aid to
Colombia and to support positive alternatives for peace in that country.

U.S. Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121

TALKING POINTS
· This aid package will not only pour hundreds of millions of dollars into
the most abusive military in the Western Hemisphere, but it will almost
certainly destabilize fragile peace negotiations and undermine support of a
negotiated settlement.
· To avoid getting the United States more deeply involved with Colombia's
infamous armed forces, I ask you to oppose aid to the Colombian army due to
human rights concerns, especially army links at a regional and local level
to brutal paramilitary forces.
· Instead, I urge you to 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.
· Finally, because the United States's "war on Drugs" is one that must be
fought at home, I ask you to increase funding for drug treatment and
prevention programs here in our own country.

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