 |
| Home | | |
Analyses | | |
Aid | | |
| |
| |
News | | |
| |
| |
| |
| Last
Updated:4/18/02 |
| Letter
to Congress from 38 U.S. non-governmental organizations regarding 2002
supplemental appropriations request, April 16, 2002 April 16, 2002
We urge you to reject the far-reaching changes in US policy toward Colombia contained in the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. We believe the change in mission proposed by the supplemental takes the United States well down the road to deeper involvement in Colombia's complex, four-decades-old conflict. There is no rapid military solution to Colombia's crisis. Moreover, the Colombian armed forces' refusal to take steps to break pervasive links between its members and brutal paramilitary forces, the AUC, makes it an unsuitable partner for the United States. The United States must not through its aid become implicated in the massacres and assassinations of innocent civilians that are the hallmark of the AUC. Congress has placed carefully considered safeguards on the controversial Colombia program; the supplemental treats these like a hindrance. The main Colombia provision in the supplemental removes safeguards retroactively as well as in FY2002-2003. It strips out any requirement that past aid to Colombia be limited to counternarcotics operations, as Congress had specified in previous legislation. The Clinton and Bush administrations repeatedly promised the Congress and the American public that the intention of Plan Colombia was to control drug production and would not involve the United States in a wider war. Moreover, the provision removes the Colombia-specific human rights conditions placed on the aid by Congress. These conditions require progress in breaking ties between the Colombian armed forces and paramilitary forces. During the past year, the Colombian government has moved backwards, not forwards, in complying with the human rights conditions, as carefully documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Washington Office on Latin America, as well as by major Colombian human rights groups. Colombia's new attorney general has shelved prosecutions and investigations of army officials linked to paramilitary violence. Army tolerance of and collusion with paramilitary violence continues, and paramilitary activity has increased. In addition, the provision removes the fumigation conditions, sensible precautions that Congress designed to encourage a balanced aid package and to ensure that the aerial spraying program did not violate fundamental rights to health. The conditions relate to the health and environmental consequences of fumigation, the existence of an effective mechanism for compensation for farmers whose food crops are destroyed by fumigation, and the adequate provision of alternative development assistance. The administration has not taken the necessary steps to meet the fumigation conditions, such as providing a thorough study of the health impact of spraying, while the Colombian government has no effective mechanism for compensation, and alternative development programs lag woefully behind accelerated fumigation. The emergency supplemental also contains funding for a new program that could escalate US involvement. Six million dollars would provide advance funding for the $98 million in training and equipment in the administration's FY2003 proposal to train the Colombian army guarding the Cano-Limon oil pipeline. Once the United States becomes committed to guarding Colombian infrastructure, it will be difficult to know where to draw the line. The Cano-Limon pipeline crosses a geographic area where indigenous groups, including the U'wa, are engaged in a bitter dispute over oil exploration and indigenous rights. The administration and the Colombian government have suggested that increased US military support makes sense in the post-September 11th anti-terrorism context. It is important to recognize that the paramilitaries, the AUC, are on the US terrorist list, along with the FARC and ELN guerrilla groups. While guerrilla violence has escalated intolerably, the majority of the extrajudicial killings of civilians today continue to be committed by the AUC. As long as the Colombian armed forces remain linked to the AUC, there can be no anti-terrorist rationale for aid to the Colombian army. We do, however, support substantial assistance to Colombia. In particular, we support aid for alternative development, to help farmers switch to legal crops; aid to strengthen Colombian law enforcement, directed at investigating and prosecuting drug trafficking, money laundering, crime and human rights abuses, and the interception of precursor chemicals; and humanitarian assistance for Colombia's displaced, totaling 342,000 people in 2001 alone. Moreover, we believe the United States can play a constructive role by more vigorously advocating a negotiated settlement that addresses the root causes of Colombia's conflict. We urge you to retain all existing safeguards on US aid to Colombia, to reject proposals to expand the US mission at this time, and to renew US commitment to humanitarian, judicial and alternative development assistance to Colombia. The Colombian conflict is very complex, and US assistance should be measured and balanced. Congress should take the time necessary, through the normal appropriations process, to decide how it can best help Colombia while ensuring that the United States does not find itself in a long-term military entanglement from which it cannot retreat. Rev. Bob Edgar Rev. Elenora Giddings
Ivory Kimberly Stanton,
Ph.D. Bill Spencer Adam Isacson Patricia Forner Kathryn Wolford Peter J. Davies Robert K. Musil,
Ph.D. Tamar Gabelnick Marie Dennis Terry Collingsworth Bob Schwartz Rev. Ron Stief J. Daryl Byler Darryl Fagin Fred Rosen Barbara Gerlach and
Cristina Espinel Greg Davidson Laszakovits Martha Honey Cathy Crumbley Debra Preusch Gail Taylor Margaret Swedish Neil Jeffery Kevin Zeese Sandra Alvarez Kathy Ogle Patrick Bonner Steve Coats Mary Lord Rita A. Clark Gary L. Cozette Dan Kovalik Jena Matzen, J.D. J.E. McNeil Chris Peters Kevin Koenig |
|
|
| Asia | | |
Colombia | | |
| |
Financial Flows | | |
National Security | | |
| Center
for International Policy |