Oppose U.S. military aid to Colombia

CTA is urging members to oppose the Clinton Administration's $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia as a wrong-headed way to fight the war on drugs. About 80 percent of this money will go to the Colombian army, the most abusive military in the hemisphere. Colombia has sent more troops to train at School of the Americas than any other Latin American country. The new funds will make the U.S. a major actor in Colombia's counterinsurgency war - a human rights disaster where 10 people a day die in political violence, and 1.5 million have been made refugees since 1985. Yet the appropriation is moving swiftly through Congress.

Msgr. Hector Fabio Henao of Caritas, the Catholic relief agency in Colombia, gave a moving witness to the USCC Social Ministry Gathering Feb. 29 in Washington, opposing military aid to his country. The priest emphasized that, while Colombian people are often vilified by the U.S culture, it is actually the Colombians who are victims of the drug cartel, trapped in a life of illegal drug trafficking by the lack of alternative means of income.

Calls to Congress should oppose military aid on human rights grounds, especially army links to brutal paramilitary forces. Instead, support a positive aid package for Colombia: 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.

Stay abreast of this situation through:

Colombia Support Network, 608 257-8753. www.igc.apc.org/csn
Latin America Working Group: 202 546-7010
SOA Watch: 202 234-3440 www.soaw.org