U.S. SHARES SHAME OF COLOMBIA'S DEPLORABLE HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD

Occasionally the U.S. media report about the violence in the South American
country of Colombia, and when it is reported it is usually because a
high-profile person is the victim. Such an event occurred last month with
the assassination of an archbishop in that country.

Most of the victims, however, are poor campesinos (rural dwellers or
peasants). Their sufferings, deaths and displacements go largely
unreported. The poor there simply have no voice in that long, bitter struggle.

Colombia is a country that has endured almost four decades of brutal armed
conflict between the national army, leftist guerrilla movements and
right-wing paramilitary forces. Last year there were 35,000 violent deaths,
530 massacres, 342,000 campesinos displaced and 172 labor leaders killed.

In March we visited Colombia as part of a 20-member Witness for Peace and
Minnesota Veterans for Peace delegation in order to better understand the
violence in that country and to evaluate U.S. policies there. During our
10-day visit we met with a number of organizations representing a wide
range of views. As part of this visit we traveled to the rural department
of Arauca that is one of Colombia's major oil producing regions.

There we met with community leaders who talked of their daily struggle just
to survive. We listened as the leaders talked about the escalating violence
and that nobody was being held accountable. The people talked about how
money was more important to the multinational corporations than were the
people in the community. The leaders emphasized the need for international
solidarity.

Plan Colombia was launched by the United States in 1999 primarily to fight
the "war on drugs." This program, which has increased to $1.3 billion now,
consists largely of military aid. The root causes of violence in Colombia
run much deeper than recent problems with drug trafficking. It appears that
the war on drugs has become only a pretense for the increasing U.S.
involvement in order to assist multinationals such as the Los Angeles-based
Occidental Oil. So far U.S. military aid has been linked to strict human
rights conditions. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have
concluded that the Colombian government has not satisfied the strict human
rights conditions in order to receive military aid. Even with this
deplorable record, however, there is currently an effort by the Bush
administration and some members of Congress to expand the role of the U.S.
government militarily and to push for unconditional military aid.

Members of our delegation believe that military aid will only contribute
further to the cycles of violence. To the community leaders we met with in
Arauca we pledged our solidarity and our commitment to change U.S. policy
upon returning home.

On our last day in Colombia we contacted our senators and representatives
to urge them not to support further military aid for Colombia. Our hope is
that many of you will do the same in an effort to stop the war against the
poor in Colombia.