[1587] in peace2
Fwd: Plan Columbia
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Wed Mar 20 13:59:56 2002
Message-Id: <200203201858.NAA08067@gold.mit.edu>
To: peace-announce@mit.edu, greens-announce@mit.edu
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Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:58:48 -0500
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
Please consider making three short calls today:
1 to each of your senators, and one to your rep.
It may not make a huge difference, but it is an
easy enough, no-risk thing to try to let them know we
care and we are watching.
The WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!!! as we export death and
carnage to Colombia. And you can trash Monsanto's roundup
for good measure. All in a day's fun...
In hope,
Aimee
------- Forwarded Message
- -------- Original Message --------
Subject: Plan Columbia
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 09:03:17 -0500
From: Alok Pinto <pintoal@bc.edu>
To: 4boston@listserv.bc.edu
It's still kind of early for me in the morning (I woke up literally 3
minutes ago) so I'll make this quick. If you've been keeping your ear
to the ground, you know about the U.S.'s recent involvement in
Columbia. Hopefully, something about the whole mess irks you. If you
don't know, read on! This is a letter to the general public, which
includes you.
Everyone have a fantabulous day....and remember, think outside the box.
~Alok
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Friends,
As recent events in Washington unfold, we face the strong possibility
that the conditions that had been added to all U.S. aid to Colombia,
restrictions related to the protection of human rights, the
environment and human health, could now be lifted. It took a lot of
pressure on Congress to get these conditions put in in the first
place, so we don't want to let them evaporate under pressure from the
Bush Administration, the State Department and certain Members of
Congress.
This is an important time to contact your Members of Congress.
Letters are always appropriate, so write if you prefer. However, in
response to this call for national CALL-IN DAYS, phone calls would be
quite helpful. If you are Rep. McGovern's district, you can thank
him for his courageous stand last week in support of human rights in
Colombia, and tell him he has your support. He is also circulating a
Dear Colleague Letter that you can urge the other Representatives to
sign.
We thank you for your support in these uncertain times. Let us know
if you call and get a response.
Below the action alert, an article about the proposed changes.
Martha
Colombia Vive, Boston
PHONE NUMBERS:
Senator Edward Kennedy: (617) 565-3170
Senator John Kerry: (617) 565-8519
Michael E. Capuano (202)225-5111, (617)621-6208
William Delahunt (202) 225-3111 , (617) 770-3700
Barney Frank (202) 225-5931, (617) 332-3920
Stephen F. Lynch 202-225-8273, 617-428-2000
James McGovern (202) 225-6101, (508) 831-7356
Edward Markey 202-225-2836, 781-396-2900
Marty Meehan (202) 225-3411, (978) 459-0101
Richard E. Neal (202) 225-5601 , (413) 785-0325
John Olver 202-225-5335, 413-532-7010
John F. Tierney (202) 225-8020, (978) 531-1669
MAJOR SHIFT IN US POLICY TOWARD COLOMBIA PROPOSED!!!
COLOMBIA MOBILIZATION EMERGENCY NATIONAL CALL-IN DAYS: March 19-21st
What we have feared is now becoming reality. We must all participate in
a major, national response against the Bush administration's new
proposal to lift restrictions on US aid to Colombia and allow for
US-sponsored counter-insurgency in Colombia (details and talking points
below).
ACTION
Tuesday, March 19- Thursday, March 21 have been designated EMERGENCY
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAYS by Witness for Peace and the Colombia
Mobilization. Every single Senator and Representative must be flooded
with calls and faxes: saying NO to Bush's proposal to lift restrictions
and YES to the McGovern Dear Colleague letter (talking points below).
1. Send this alert to everyone you know.
2. Call your Senators and Representative on Tuesday (or as soon as
you receive this). Even if your Senators/Reps are strong on this issue,
they need your support right now!
3. Have all your friends and family call on Wednesday.
4. Make sure all their friends and family call on Thursday.
5. Anything else you can think of! e.g. take some cell phones to
the local grocery store or mall, set up a table, and ask people walking
by to make calls or sign letters that you then fax in. e.g. Can your
church, civic association, or town council pass an emergency resolution
against this and send it in?
Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121. Find out your Rep:
<http://www.house.gov/writerep> www.house.gov/ writerep
<http://www.house.gov/writerep> and Senators <http://www.senate.gov/>
www.senate. gov <http://www.senate.gov/> .
BACKGROUND
The Bush administration plans to ask Congress sometime the week of March
18 to remove restrictions on US military aid to Colombia. This would
mean: no more constraints that military aid must only be used for
counter-narcotics, no more human rights conditions for the Colombian
military, and no more limits on the number of US military personnel
allowed in the country. This proposal would allow US money and
intelligence to be used for counter-insurgency. See today's Washington
Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29575-2002Mar14.html
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29575-2002Mar14.html>
This language will be included in a larger bill that the administration
expects to submit to Congress next week asking for additional funds for
global and domestic anti-terrorism efforts. This bill will go first to
the appropriations committees in the House and Senate and then to the
full House and Senate.
TALKING POINTS
Many members of Congress have good intentions, and want to support an
end to violence in Colombia. But adding more military aid is not the
way to do it. Tell your Senators and Representative that you and
members of your community are against US military involvement in
Colombia and are particularly against this expansion.
1. Representative Jim McGovern will be circulating a Dear Colleague
against the new Bush proposal to lift restrictions. Ask your
Representative to sign on to that Dear Colleague ASAP.
2. Sending more military aid to Colombia is not going to help protect
civilians. The Colombian military still maintains close ties with
paramilitary groups, who are on the US terrorist list and who commit
upwards of 70% of civilian killings in Colombia. Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International, and the Washington Office on Latin America
released a report in February proving the human rights situation in
Colombia is EVEN WORSE than a year ago.
3. Sending military aid to Colombia brings the US into another Vietnam
quagmire. Colombia is the size of 53 El Salvadors, and the amount of
money necessary to defeat the FARC militarily will be tremendous, and
perhaps incalculable. This civil war has been going on for over
40-years and a political solution is the only way out.
4. Real solutions. US support for a negotiated peace process with the
FARC and the ELN, and real pressure on the Colombian government to break
ties with the paramilitaries, will go much further at protecting
civilians than increased military aid will. Violent actions on the part
of the FARC have a tremendous human cost, but supporting a military that
collaborates with the paramilitaries has a huge human cost as well.
*** GET READY!!! The Colombia Mobilization starts in one month and is
obviously more important than ever! This is our best chance to really
show Washington that we oppose continued and increased military aid to
Colombia. Start getting ready by checking out
<http://www.colombiamobilization.org/> www.colombiamobilization. org
<http://www.colombiamobilization.org/> .
Janet M. Hostetler
Advocacy and Campaigns Coordinator
Witness for Peace
1229 15th St, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 588-1471
fax (202) 588-1472
The Latin American Solidarity Conference website can be found at
www.americas.org/LASC
_____________________________________________________
U.S. May End Curbs On Aid to Colombia
White House Spurred By Support on Hill
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 15, 2002; Page A01
The Bush administration plans to ask Congress next week to remove all
restrictions on U.S. military aid to Colombia, including those that
limit
assistance to counter-narcotics efforts, impose human rights standards
on
the Colombian military and cap the number of U.S. military personnel in
the
country, administration and congressional sources said.
The plan, which also seeks to ward off restrictions on any future aid,
is
included in legislation that the administration expects to submit to
Congress asking for additional funds for global and domestic
anti-terrorism
efforts this year.
The White House put aside a similar Colombia proposal barely two weeks
ago
on grounds that Congress might not support a significant broadening of
the
U.S. military mission there to assist the government of President Andres
Pastrana in its fight against leftist guerrillas. The Pentagon, backed
by
some officials in other departments, had proposed including Colombia in
the
global war on terrorism.
To the administration's surprise, however, a number of key congressional
figures subsequently said that they would support expanded U.S. aid in
response to the changed circumstances in Colombia, where Pastrana last
month
abruptly ended three years of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC. A senior administration official said the
new
plan was developed in response to a "strong recommendation" from
Congress to
lay its Colombia cards on the table and allow an open debate.
"Everybody said, 'Look, you've got a supplemental coming up. Do it the
honest and right way, and put in [that] legislation that you're going to
do
counter-terrorism' " in Colombia, the official said. "We're not trying
to
slip anything by or do this in the dead of night," he added.
Although the "words on the paper say it [current restrictions] should
all be
eliminated," he said, the administration plans to "make explicit" to
Congress in some other fashion that it will continue to respect the
400-person cap on U.S. military personnel in Colombia as well as the
congressional insistence that the Colombian military clean up its human
rights record.
The multibillion-dollar appropriations package, including the new
Colombia
policy, is now awaiting final sign-off at the Office of Management and
Budget.
The administration has long insisted that it has no intention of
directly
involving U.S. forces in the Colombian war. In essence, the proposal
would
authorize the deployment of U.S.-trained Colombian troops and
U.S.-provided
military equipment for government actions against groups that the United
States has designated as terrorists.
"All we are trying to do is to add the words 'counter-terrorism' to what
the
U.S. can do in helping Colombia," the official said.
President Bush is also likely to sign a new presidential directive on
Colombia, replacing a Clinton administration document that restricts
U.S.
intelligence-sharing and other military assistance to counter-narcotics
efforts, officials said.
Three Colombian groups -- the 16,500-member FARC, the smaller guerrilla
National Liberation Army (ELN) and the 10,000-strong right-wing
paramilitary
umbrella group known as the Colombian Self-Defense Force (AUC) -- are on
the
administration's list of global terrorist organizations. But the
Colombian
military rarely confronts the paramilitary forces and is in negotiations
with the ELN. The strong likelihood is that U.S. assistance would be
used
most often against the FARC.
The aid proposal is a direct offshoot of the administration's new
anti-terrorism focus. But it also conforms to a longstanding view of
some
senior Bush officials -- particularly those who worked on Latin American
issues in earlier, Cold War administrations -- that the United States
ought
to help Colombia's democratic government fend off a threat from
guerrillas
who espouse a Marxist ideology.
The latter view has been consistently rejected by Congress, where there
has
been bipartisan agreement on aid limits since the passage of a $1.3
billion
anti-narcotics assistance package in early 2000. Congress feared U.S.
involvement in a Latin American counterinsurgency against groups that
posed
little threat to the United States. And it rejected deeper U.S. ties to
a
Colombian military accused of human rights abuses and, through its close
association with paramilitary forces, of the most vicious rights
violations.
Since both the guerrillas and the paramilitary forces finance their
activities largely through involvement in the drug trade, Congress
authorized U.S. aid to be used against them only when such use overlaps
with
the anti-narcotics offensives in the southern part of the country where
most
Colombian coca is grown. Colombia supplies nearly all of the cocaine
entering the United States, and a major portion of the heroin.
But many legislators appear to have reconsidered the issue in the wake
of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the administration's repeated public
reference to the FARC as a dangerous terrorist organization and the
escalating violence of the FARC itself. The House last week passed a
nonbinding resolution supporting more flexibility in aid to Colombia,
although Democrats went along with the measure only after they were
assured
it would make clear that Congress would weigh in on any policy changes.
Initial administration briefings on the new proposal provoked some
negative
responses on Capitol Hill this week. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.),
chairman
of the Appropriations Committee's foreign operations panel, which is
responsible for appropriations for Colombia, said the administration is
looking for "easy answers" to "Latin America's oldest and bloodiest
civil
war."
------- End of Forwarded Message
