U.S. MUST HALT MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA

The Western New York Peace Center demands a suspension of all U.S. military
aid to Colombia, because the failed war on drugs is actually a pretext to
intervene in a conflict to protect U.S. business interests. Colombia's
conflict is an unwinnable 40-year-old war involving a military
establishment aligned with various paramilitary groups.

The civilian population is the victim, targeted as rebel sympathizers.
About 70 percent of Colombia's politically motivated homicides are
committed by paramilitaries. Yet the government has not prosecuted any
military or paramilitary leaders, in spite of its promises to improve the
country's human-rights record.

The European Union has refused to support Plan Colombia for these reasons.
The EU supports only economic and humanitarian aid, especially to help
peasant farmers in establishing alternatives to coca production, the raw
material for cocaine.

This aid would ultimately facilitate the faltering peace process by
attacking the root of the problem, the unjust distribution of the country's
wealth.

A 500-mile pipeline in Northern Colombia is owned jointly by Los
Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and the state-owned Colombian Oil
Company, Ecopetrol. Since 1986, it has been bombed by FARC and other rebel
groups.

In February, the Bush administration began pressuring Congress to broaden
its $1.3 billion Colombia aid package to include pipeline protection with
military training and equipment.

The proposal follows news of the failure of aerial fumigation of coca
plants. Plan Colombia's crop substitution program has not worked due to a
lack of funding and support from the Colombian government.

We must tell our representatives in Congress to say no to fumigation and to
$100 million for oil pipeline protection. The United States should
discontinue Plan Colombia and divert "drug war" money to drug treatment and
counseling, a much more effective method of lowering drug use.

Carol Sundberg

Buffalo