COLOMBIA

I am writing to express strong concern about current U.S. policy toward Colombia, South America. It is important for the U.S. to promote human rights and responsible environmental policies in our foreign policies; unfortunately, in Colombia, as well as the Middle East, we seem to be doing the opposite. I encourage you to make efforts to change this destructive, ineffective, and immoral policy.

The Colombian military, which is receiving most of the U.S. aid, is widely documented as one of the most abusive militaries in all of the Americas. By the way, many of their officers have been trained at the School of Americas, the immoral U.S. TERRORIST school located in Columbus, Georgia. Paramilitary forces (with strong links to the Colombian Army and U.S. SOA) are responsible for the large majority of human rights abuses. On September 10, 2001, the day before we were attacked, these same paramilitaries were categorized by the U.S. government as a “TERRORIST” group, yet our U.S. government continues to militarily aid the Colombian military, who in turn continues its ties to the paramilitaries. This year alone, thousands of innocent Colombians will be killed by the paramilitaries and other illegal armed actors financed by billions of U.S. taxpayers dollars!

This conflict has already created a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions. At least two million people have already lost their homes and livelihoods. Relief agencies estimate that thousands could be displaced as a direct result of the U.S. military aid package.

Plan Colombia is also causing ecological destruction in the Amazon basin. The herbicide glyphosate (known in the U.S. as Roundup) is being widely used to eradicate opium poppy and coca plants with untested additives and surfactants such as CosmoFlux. This year, tens of thousands of gallons of toxic herbicides will be sprayed on coca plants, family farms, bean fields, banana plantations, community wells, and the Amazon rainforest. This has disastrous effects on Amazon bio-diversity and legal crops. In addition to affecting the livelihood of legal farmers and leading innocent families to starvation, there is evidence that glyphosate is making people and animals sick and dying. Most of all, fumigation does not stop production of coca, it merely moves it to another area. Once again, the U.S. government is directly killing people!!!

Colombia has been fighting a brutal civil war for over four decades. Military aid will only continue to escalate rather than diminish the bloodshed. The Colombian conflict has a complicated history and real progress has been made in the past through negotiation, not guns and bombs. Adding arms to a complicated and dangerous situation will only increase the problems and the immoral death of precious life from God.

There are three armed actors in Colombia that have been designated as TERRORISTS by the U.S. government. These groups are in the midst of a brutal civil war. Of the three groups, the paramilitaries are responsible for significantly more violent human rights abuses, including the murder and massacre of unarmed civilians. Furthermore, the paramilitaries have strong, documented links to the Colombian military, who we are currently supplying with aid, as well as the Israelis. Both military aid packages to these two countries are not in our best interest or our God’s interest!!! Shame on you, the U.S. government.

U.S. military aid to Colombia will not help the United States’ so-called “war on drugs” either. A 1994 RAND Corporation study found that it was 23 times more cost effective and moral to fund treatment programs in the U.S. than coca crop eradication in other countries, and murdering thousands of innocent human life. U.S. aid to Colombia has not and will not decrease the amount of cocaine sent to the U.S. or consumed by our citizens.

So, rather than supporting an immoral and deadly war, we should be supporting strategic and constructive plans to build Peace Colombia. Our resources could go a long way for sustainable development, judiciary reform, and peace building in Colombia, not to mention drug prevention and treatment in the U.S.

Together, as united, moral Americans, we must say NO more military aid to Colombia and Israel; NO more funding for fumigation, and YES to domestic drug treatment and prevention. Let us end the U.S. funded TERROR in Colombia and Palestine NOW!!!

God Bless the World!