Statement
of U.S. non-governmental organizations on President Andrés Pastrana's
visit to the United States, November 9, 2001
November 9, 2001
The undersigned organizations
welcome the president of Colombia, Andrés Pastrana, on his visit to Washington
and New York from November 7 to 11.
This visit, which
includes meetings with members of Congress and President Bush, is one
of the last for Pastrana, whose term ends next August. But it is certain
to be one of his most important. Two months after the September 11 terrorist
attacks, U.S. policy toward Colombia is in transition. This visit offers
an opportunity to take stock and lay the groundwork for U.S.-Colombian
relations in a post-September 11, post-Pastrana period.
- At this key moment,
we are concerned by the possibility that the global “war on terrorism”
may include U.S. support for military operations against Colombia’s
armed groups. While Colombia hosts three groups on the State Department’s
list of foreign terrorist organizations, we note that the FARC and ELN
guerrillas and the AUC paramilitary group resemble armies more than
shadowy terrorist cells. Combating them in the name of counter-terrorism
would in fact require an enormous counter-insurgency effort. In a country
fifty-three times larger than El Salvador, such an effort would cost
many billions of dollars and carry a nightmarish human cost, dramatically
escalating a conflict that killed 4,000 people in 2000. A U.S.-funded
counter-insurgency campaign in Colombia was a bad idea before September
11, and it still is today.
- We applaud President
Pastrana’s persistent effort to negotiate a peaceful solution to its
conflict with the FARC guerrillas. We note that the talks are making
little progress at the moment: the FARC appears content to occupy its
zone and continue the war, while the government appears unwilling to
negotiate structural changes or commit wholeheartedly to stopping the
paramilitaries. We call on both sides to heed Colombians’ pleas to negotiate
a cessation of hostilities, so that future talks can take place outside
a climate of violence. We call on both to invite an international third
party, perhaps a United Nations representative, to mediate future talks.
- We are gravely
concerned with indications that the Colombian government’s commitment
to human rights protection is wavering:
- Two generals
accused of helping the paramilitaries, by omission or commission,
have been released from state custody within the last five months.
- Several other
officers who face serious accusations were recently promoted.
- In a report
last month, Human Rights Watch documented continuing close ties
with paramilitaries in several of the country’s most conflictive
regions, including Putumayo department, the destination of most
U.S. military assistance.
- By several
accounts, the section of the Chief Prosecutor’s office charged with
investigating official human rights abuses has been greatly weakened
in recent months.
- We are very concerned
by continuing threats and attacks on human rights defenders, labor leaders,
activists, journalists and members of Colombia’s Congress. The pace
of these threats and attacks appears to be increasing this year, and
perpetrators remain at large in virtually all cases.
- We applaud President
Pastrana’s recent calls for a global summit to re-evaluate global drug
policy. We recognize that the United States continues to place insufficient
emphasis on its own demand for illegal drugs, though most studies find
treatment of addicts at home to be the most effective way to take drugs
off the market. We call for stronger worldwide curbs on money-laundering,
a crucial element in curbing both the drug trade and international terrorism.
- We also recognize
that after nine years, the U.S.-imposed policy of aerial herbicide fumigation
has fallen far short of its objectives. It has done little more than
move drug-crop cultivations from place to place, while net acreage of
coca and heroin poppy continues to increase and street prices for drugs
continue to fall. It has increased the misery of peasant cultivators
who lack other viable economic choices. And it has produced claims of
health and environmental damage that our organizations find to be credible.
- We are concerned
about the slow pace with which the economic and social component of
the U.S. assistance program is being implemented. We are concerned by
reports that key human rights and judicial reform programs are barely
underway, and that signers of “social pacts” for alternative development
in drug-producing areas are very dissatisfied with what has been done
so far. Without these programs in place, we fear that drug cultivation
will continue to spread across Colombia’s neglected rural areas. We
urge the U.S. and Colombian governments to speed these programs’ implementation,
to increase recipient communities’ participation in their design, and
to dedicate more resources to these needs. We recommend that these additional
resources be drawn from reductions in military assistance.
- Finally, we applaud
the U.S. Senate’s inclusion of several important provisions in its 2002
aid bill. The Senate bill includes human rights conditions on military
aid to Colombia, based on Colombia’s compliance with its own laws regarding
impunity and collaboration with paramilitaries. The Senate bill would
also condition future fumigations on certifications that they pose no
undue risk to human health and the environment, and on the existence
of working alternative development programs in zones where herbicide
spraying is to occur. We strongly urge the House-Senate conference committee
to retain these protections when it meets to reconcile both houses’
versions of the bills.
Kevin Koenig
Oil Campaigner
Amazon Watch
Topanga, California
Mary Ellen McNish
General Secretary
American Friends Service Committee
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
Adam Isacson
Senior Associate
Center for
International Policy
Washington,
DC
David Alper
Co-chair
Chicago Colombia Committee
Chicago, Illinois
Barbara Gerlach and
Cristina Espinel
Co-Chairs
Colombia Human
Rights Committee
Washington,
DC
Marjorie Childress
Colombia Solidarity Committee of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Maria Hope
Colombia Special Interest Group
Iowa City, Iowa
John Laun
President
Colombia Support Network
Madison, Wisconsin
Cathy Crumbley
Father Gerry Kelly
Co-Chairs
Colombia Vive
Boston, Massachusetts
Philip McManus
Chair
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
Nyack, New York
Kathy Thornton, RSM
NETWORK National Coordinator
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Washington, DC
Grahame Russell
Co-Director
Rights Action
Washington,
DC
School of the Americas
Watch
Washington, DC
Wes Callender
Director
Voices on the Border
Washington, DC
Gina Amatangelo
Colombia Fellow
Washington Office
on Latin America
Washington, DC
Steven Bennett
Executive Director
Witness for Peace
Washington, DC
