Letter
to Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R-Florida) circulated
by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), Tom Campbell (R-California), Jerrold
Nadler (D-New York) and Janice Schakowsky (D-Illinois), and signed by
sixteen others, March 8, 2000
March
8, 2000
The Honorable C.W. Bill Young
Chairman
Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
Dear Chairman Young:
The instability in Colombia
and the flow of drugs into the United States requires urgent action. While
we support the elements of the Clinton Administration's proposed $1.6
billion package for Colombia which will be used for alternative crop production,
democracy building programs, and prosecution of human rights abuses, we
are nonetheless urging you not to appropriate any money for military aid.
This degree of military funding
risks drawing the United States from the drug war into Colombia's brutal,
forty-year-old conflict that most observers agree neither side can win.
According to the "push into southern Colombia" foreseen in the
Administration's aid proposal, U.S.-created army battalions are to secure
an area the size of Florida that has been a stronghold of FARC guerrillas
for decades. For the first time in Colombia, U.S.-aided units will be
engaged in offensive counter-guerrilla operations. To achieve this, they
are being trained in "counter-drug" techniques that closely
resemble counterinsurgency skills taught in the past. We do not believe
the American people are prepared to endorse increased involvement in a
counterinsurgency war, which has the potential to cost American lives,
and further destabilize the rural and indigenous communities in Colombia.
We are concerned about attempting to "pacify" the countryside
by military means -- an approach that did not succeed in Vietnam.
As you are aware, the Colombian
military has a troubled human rights record, and continues to be linked
on the local level to paramilitary groups implicated in human rights atrocities
throughout the country. Routinely, opposition politicians are assassinated,
and those suspected of being guerrillas or guerrilla sympathizers are
executed. Colombia's Attorney General's Office, which has been among the
most effective government institution combating paramilitaries, arresting
161 persons in 1999, has been a target of violence. In 1998 and 1999,
more than a dozen officials from the Technical Investigations Unit were
murdered or forced to resign because of death threats. In this atmosphere
of violence, innocent civilians are often targets. For example, in January
of 1999, paramilitaries dragged twenty-seven worshipers out of a church
in Playon de Orozco, Magdalena, and riddled their bodies with bullets.
A recent report from the Bogota office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights states that the Colombian government has failed to act
consistently to break ties with paramilitaries and pursue those responsible
for human rights violations.
The situation in Colombia
is a volatile one, which merits our attention. As you work to prepare
an appropriations package, we respectfully request that you not support
additional U.S. military aid to Colombia. Thank you for considering our
request. Sincerely,
Tammy Baldwin
Member of Congress
Tom Campbell
Member of Congress
Jan Schakowsky
Member of Congress
Jerrold Nadler
Member of Congress
CC:
Speaker Dennis Hastert
Minority Leader Richard Gephardt
Congressman David Obey
Congressman Sonny Callahan
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
Congressman Ben Gilman
Congressman Sam Gejdenson
Maxine Waters
Member of Congress
James McGovern
Member of Congress
Patsy Mink
Member of Congress
Joe Moakley
Member of Congress
John Conyers
Member of Congress
Lane Evans
Member of Congress
Cynthia McKinney
Member of Congress
Peter DeFazio
Member of Congress
Neil Abercrombie
Member of Congress
George Miller
Member of Congress
Bernard Sanders
Member of Congress
David Minge
Member of Congress
Darlene Hooley
Member of Congress
William Coyne
Member of Congress
Carolyn Maloney
Member of Congress
Debbie Stabenow
Member of Congress