From: US/Colombia Coordinating Office <agiffen@igc.org>

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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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PLEASE PASS ON THIS ALERT OR POST IT WHERE APPROPRIATE,
BUT PLEASE DO NOT EDIT ITS CONTENT IN ANY WAY OR REMOVE IDENTIFYING
MATERIAL WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE LAWG
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END

Alison Giffen
Director
U.S./Colombia Coordinating Office
Phone: 202-232-8090
Fax: 202-232-8092
Suite 200 1630 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington D.C. 20009
http://www.igc.org/colhrnet/

************************************************************
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tel (202)785-3334
fax (202)785-3335
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indígenas y tradicionales de la Amazonía y grupos e individuos que
comparten sus preocupaciones por el futuro de la Amazonía y sus pueblos.
Las ochenta organizaciones del norte y del sur activas en la Alianza
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The Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the Amazon
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their concerns for the future of the Amazon and its peoples. The eighty
non-governmental organizations from the North and South active in the
Alliance believe that the future of the Amazon depends on its peoples and
the state of their environment.