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Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 13:17:19 -0700
From: Amazon Alliance <amazoncoal@igc.org> Add to Address Book Add To Spam Block List
Subject: Colombia: URGENT! Protest Legislation for Colombian MilitaryAid
To: amazoncoal@igc.org
Reply To: amazoncoal@igc.org

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TO COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK MEMBERS, FRIENDS, ALLIES AND SUPPORTERS

The Colombia Support Network calls upon its members, friends, allies
and supporters to communicate to their members of Congress their
opposition to the proposed so-called Alianza Act of 1999 introduced
by Republican Senators Michael DeWine of Ohio and Paul Coverdell
of Georgia on October 20, 1999.

This $ 1.635 billion proposed legislation would provide hundreds
of millions of dollars to the Colombian military for training and
equipping new "counterdrug" battallions which, given the bill's
identification of drug traffickers with guerrillas (using the name
"narcoguerrillas) and almost totally overlooking of the very extensive
links between drug-trafficking paramilitaries and Colombian army
units, means counterinsurgency aid. Thus the U.S. government would
shower funds upon military officers and units which work in tandem
with cuthroat, drug trafficking paramilitaries.

Included among the equipment proposed to be sent to the Colombian
armed forces are 15 Blackhawk or comparable helicopters, Huey upgrade
kits, forward-look infrared radar systems, 6 patrol planes and 14
excess U.S. patrol boats. While the proposed legislation speaks
of support for human rights, it provides a maximum of just 1% of
total security assistance to the Colombian military for maintaining
the use of U.S. assistance by the Colombian armed forces.

Refusing to acknowledge the fact that Colombian security forces are
permeated by collaboration with paramilitaries who are responsible for over
70% of all human rights violations and are lead drug traffickers, Senator
DeWine suggested that the proposed legislation would help Colombia reduce
the flow of illicit drugs to the United States though U.S. Embassy
officials admit cocaine production in Colombia increased (by 26% it has
been reported) in 1998 despite millions of dollars provided to Colombia
last year for the so-called "War on Drugs". And Senator DeWine suggested
that without the U.S. aid package "one of our largest export markets in the
Western Hemisphere will continue to falter, and a neighboring democratic
government will further erode". DeWine has shown no connection between the
Colombian economy's difficulties and the $1.6 billion aid package, nor has
he recognized that Colombia is a democracy in name only, an exclusionary
society where 70% of the wealth is controlled by less than 1/3 of the
population and where alternative political movements are not tolerated, as
the killing of over 4,000 Patriotic Union Party members in the 1980's and
1990's vividly attests.

Please express your disapproval of the proposed aid package, which will
further militarize Colombia, results in thousands of additional deaths and
many more displaced persons (Colombia already has 2 million internal
refugees), by contacting your Senators and Representatives to urge them to
oppose the legislation sponsored in the Senate by Senators DeWine and
Coverdell and by Iowa Republican Charles Grassley

JOHN I. LAUN
President CSN

 

 

Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI 53701
(608) 257-8753 fax (608) 255-6621
csn@igc.apc.org http://www.igc.apc.org/csn/

 

 

 

******************************************************
Distribuido por: Distributed by:
'AMAZON ALLIANCE' FOR INDIGENOUS AND
TRADITIONAL PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON BASIN
1367 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036-1860
tel (202)785-3334
fax (202)785-3335
amazoncoal@igc.org
http://www.amazoncoalition.org

Disclaimer: All copyrights belong to original publisher.
The Amazon Alliance has not verified the accuracy of the forwarded
message. Forwarding this message does not necessarily connote agreement
with the positions stated there-in.

Todos los derechos de autor pertenecen al autor originario.
La Alianza Amazonica no ha verificado la veracidad de este
mensaje. Enviar este mensaje no necesariamente significa que
la Alianza Amazonica este de acuerdo con el contenido.

La 'Alianza Amazonica' para los Pueblos Indigenas y Tradicionales
de la Cuenca Amazonica es una iniciativa nacida de la alianza entre
las organizaciones ambientales y de derechos humanos de la Coalicion
para los Pueblos Amazonicos y su Medio Ambiente y los pueblos indigenas
y tradicionales de la Amazonia. Las ochenta organizaciones del norte
y del sur activas en la Alianza Amazonica creen que el futuro de la
Amazonia depende de sus pueblos y el estado de su medio ambiente.

The 'Amazon Alliance' for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the
Amazon Basin is an initiative born out of the partnership between
the human rights and environmental organizations of the Coalition
for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment and the indigenous and
traditional peoples of the Amazon. The eighty organizations from the
North and the South active in the Amazon Alliance believe that the
future of the Amazon depends on its peoples and the state of their
environment.