1. Cut military assistance.  The Colombian armed forces get hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars each year, despite their documented collaboration with illegal paramilitary groups,  which are on the U.S. terrorist list,  traffic drugs, and assassinate civilians.

2. End U.S.-sponsored aerial fumigation. These spraying programs destroy food crops, damage the environment, threaten human health and drive rural families from their homes.  Cocaine on U.S. streets has not decreased.  This is a failed policy!

3. Strengthen democracy; support judicial reform and civil rights.

4. Help people displaced war and aerial fumigation.

5. Allocate more monies for alternative economic development. 

6. Hold Colombia and the U.S. State Department to accountability.  If Colombia does not meet human rights conditions, US law forbids releasing more aid.   

7. Urge the Colombian government to conduct full, transparent investigations into army and paramilitary assassinations.

Northern Ohio Congresspersons and Senators

WHAT IS THE WAR ABOUT?  According to human rights & church leaders in Colombia, globalization is behind the war.  Thousands are displaced, “disappeared” and killed so corporate interests can take over resource-rich lands.

WHO IS HURT?  Ten people are killed in political violence each day. 3 million are internally-displaced refugees. The indigenous & Afro-Colombians are most affected.

HOW ARE DRUGS INVOLVED?  Food crops, water supplies and people are poisoned when the US sprays coca plantations with Monsanto's Round-Up herbicide. To survive, peasants grow coca leaves (cocaine) because prices for legitimate crops are so low.

How IS OIL INVOLVED?  Colombia has vast oil reserves that international companies drill and export. US ''aid'' has a line-item to guard the pipeline belonging to Los Angeles-based Occidental Oil.

How IS THE US INVOLVED? Billions of US dollars go for police and military. In 2002, Congress expanded the US role from counter-narcotics to counter-insurgency; a green light for more US troops on the ground. In 2004, Congress doubled US troops from 400 to 800, and expanded “advisors” to 600.

1) CUTS IN MILITARY ASSISTANCE   

2) A HALT TO US-SPONSORED AERIAL FUMIGATION

    3) JUDICIAL REFORM 

 4) AID TO DISPLACED REFUGEES  

5) ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT  

6) NEGOTIATE A PEACEFUL END TO THE WAR

RECENT BACKGROUND OF U.S. POLICY IN COLOMBIA

The armed conflict dates back to the late 1950s.  It has escalated since President Clinton initiated “Plan Colombia” in 2000.

The Bush Administration endorses hard-line President Alvaro Uribe.  After taking office in 2002, Uribe installed a state of emergency, allowing security forces to tap phones, search houses, detentain without warrants and establish military control in some areas.  The Colombian army has a poor human rights record—there are strong links between the Colombian army and brutal rightwing paramilitary forces  (“terrorist organizations”), documented by the US State Department.  These hard-line measures are used against human rights groups & ordinary Colombian citizens, not just against the guerrillas rebels. 

In 2002, the US Congress officially expanded the US mission in Colombia from counter-drugs to counter-insurgency.  This is a green light for the US to fight.  The first major expansion was training troops to guard the Occidental oil pipeline in Arauca province, one of the areas under military control.  (Occidental Oil is a privately owned company in Los Angeles, CA.)

In 2004, Congress doubled the cap on U.S. troops in Colombia, now raised to 800 troops + 600 “advisors.”

The Bush Administration supports expansion of aerial fumigation in the “war on drugs.” Small farmers and indigenous communities are suffering from the negative health effects. 

Human rights and church leaders in Colombia maintain that globalization is behind the war— thousands killed and displaced so that corporate interests can take over resource-rich lands. 

U.S. School of Americas-trained soldiers commit human rights abuses.  In November 1995, SOA graduate Gen. Luis Zapata’s 17^th Army Brigade threw grenades at civilians and killed one member of the Peace Community of San José de Apartado.  In February 2005, 8 Peace Community members were massacred (including 3 children) by the 17^th Brigade.   Another SOA grad killed Archbishop Duarte in 2002.

Current U.S. aid to Colombia is 80% for military/police and 20% for economic/social development.  The people of Colombia want that reversed!   (Requested by Bush Administration for 2006: $640 military/police and $138 economic social)

Since 2000, the US has funded “Plan Colombia” with more than $3 billion, 80% for the military, accelerating the war.  As documented by the US State Department and human rights groups, the Colombian military collaborates with the AUC, the largest right-wing paramilitary group.  The AUC, responsible for the majority of civilian massacres, is designated as a "terrorist organization" by the US government.  

RAPID RESPONSE NETWORK protests intimidation, threats and harassment of women’s and labor groups, church and human rights leaders. In 2005, RRN letters protested the killing of 16 civilians.

HUMAN RIGHTS PROMOTERS such as Zulia Mena, the first Afro-Colombian congresswoman in Colombia, come to Cleveland through IRTF, speaking to schools, congregations, & members of Congress.

CLEVELANDERS TO COLOMBIA. IRTF members have gone to Colombia to see and hear from the people themselves. (If you want to learn the impacts of US military training, don’t go to the School of the Americas. Go to Colombia and ask the people there about the violence they face daily.)

PARTNER COMMUNITIES. IRTF networks small communities and church groups to establish direct ties between the people of Northeast Ohio and the people of Colombia.

SUPPORT DISPLACED COMMUNITIES by selling hand-crafts and sharing stories from women’s cooperatives.

STOP KILLER COKE. IRTF promotes the campaign to stop Coca-Cola from killing union leaders at its Colombian bottling plants. IRTF hosted political refugee Luis Cardona, who escaped assassination by Coke’s for-hire thugs after they killed his co-worker. A case is pending in U.S. federal court.

ADVOCACY FOR POLICY CHANGE. Each spring, IRTF takes students and others to Washington, DC, to meet with their U.S. senators and representatives to advocate for an end to harmful aerial spraying, less military aid and more economic and judicial reform.

 

Monday, February 13, 2006, IRTF attended a Phoenix Coffee event. This coffee workshop introduced coffee beans from Colombia (the Bucaramanga region) and highlighted six  different brewing methods. The InterReligious Task Force provided information on the culture and socio-political climate of Colombia.   See pictures from event: