MESSAGE TO BUSH - FIGHT DRUGS WITH AID, NOT GUNS

This week, leaders of 34 nations will gather in Quebec City for the third
Summit of the Americas. On behalf of a powerful and growing movement in
Latin America, I'm coming to Canada to deliver a message: "Plan Colombia,"
the U.S.-backed anti-drug aid package, must be stopped -- for the good of
Colombia and the hemisphere.

Last year, the U.S. Congress approved a $1.3-billion contribution toward
Plan Colombia to combat the supply of drugs at their source. The Bush
administration recently asked Congress to approve an additional $700-million
to expand counter-narcotics assistance for Colombia and neighbouring Andean
countries. The efforts aim to eradicate coca, the raw material used to
produce cocaine, by destroying crops and bolstering the army's effort to
retake areas now controlled by leftist guerillas.

As a Bolivian, I can offer a perspective about the impact of the United
States' flawed supply-side drug-control programs. In my country,
U.S.-sponsored militarized eradication campaigns have succeeded in
drastically reducing coca cultivation in recent years. But the failure of
such programs to address the poverty and inequality at the root of drug
production has exacerbated Bolivia's economic crisis, and sparked massive
social unrest. In the end, the Bolivian eradication campaign has simply
produced a corresponding increase in coca production in Colombia, with
violent consequences.

Bolivians, as well as our neighbours in Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil,
are understandably concerned about the spillover of refugees, illicit drug
cultivation and drug traffickers that a "successful" Plan Colombia will
generate. A growing movement of leaders throughout Europe and Latin America
are voicing concern about the long-term consequences for Colombia and the
region and are calling for an alternative approach.

This week, 100 Latin American civic and political leaders, including Nobel
laureates Rigoberta Mench Tum and Adolfo Perez Esquivel, former Bolivian
president Lydia Gueiler Tejada and former Colombian foreign minister Rodrigo
Pardo, joined me in sending a letter to George W. Bush urging him to use the
Quebec City summit as an opportunity to take Plan Colombia back to the
drawing board.

We wrote: "We . . . know there are no easy answers or quick fixes to
Colombia's tragic dilemma of warfare and drug-related violence.

And we believe the United States has a legitimate interest in reducing the
damage done by illegal drug use. But we are gravely concerned that current
policy will cause more harm than good in Colombia and in the region at large
- -- while having little or no effect on the drug problems of the consumer
countries."

Latin American nations share a desire to curb the violence and corruption
caused by the illicit drug trade. But history shows that forced
crop-eradication campaigns in Latin America have consistently failed to stop
the flow of drugs north; more than a decade of such efforts has resulted in
no significant decrease in total drug production and trafficking. New
sources of supply inevitably arise to satisfy demand. In the United States,
drugs are as readily available as ever.

U.S. support for Plan Colombia's military strategy was conceived without
consulting state governments in southern Colombia or with civil society
leaders in neighbouring countries. It wasn't approved by the Colombian
congress. In fact, after the European Union's rejection of Plan Colombia in
its current form, the United States is the only nation willing to finance
the Colombian military. Most of the world recognizes that the plan's
military emphasis will intensify the internal conflict, undermine the
ongoing peace process, and drive many more poor farmers off of their land.

It's time to forge a new path; effective and humane, it must promote
democracy, human rights and economic development. Instead of expanding
misguided, harmful policies, the United States, along with the international
community, should offer resources to address the root social causes of
Colombia's drug problems, and help to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the
hemisphere's longest-running conflict.