COLOMBIA CRUSADE

I am deeply concerned about the escalating U.S. military involvement in
Colombia's decades-old civil war. I hope our elected representatives will
oppose efforts to further involve the U.S. in this quagmire.

In the upcoming FY2002 supplemental spending bill, President Bush is
expected to ask Congress to approve a shift in U.S. policy toward Colombia.
Under the guise of fighting the global war on terrorism, he will request
that Congress lift current restrictions on the use of U.S.-trained
counter-narcotics battalions and weapons.

They could then be deployed to fight the escalating civil war against the
left-wing FARC guerrillas. Congress should maintain the restrictions in
current law that prohibit U.S. counter-narcotics aid to be used for the
counter-insurgency war.

President Bush, reportedly, will also seek to lift current human rights
restrictions on U.S. military aid to Colombia.

He may also request funds to begin training Colombian troops to protect a
pipeline carrying oil owned by U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum. This is a
dangerous "mission creep" that would pull the U.S. military more deeply
into Colombia's civil war.

I oppose all military aid and training for Colombia or for the war on drugs
throughout the region. U.S.-trained military battalions and weapons have
not brought an end to drug production in Colombia; more battalions and
weapons are not the answer.

Since 2000, when the U.S. significantly increased its military and
counter-narcotics assistance to Colombia, drug production has increased.
After more than a billion dollars in military aid, the U.S.-sponsored coca
fumigation campaign has left people ill, food and alternative cash crops
wilted, drinking water supplies contaminated, and aquatic life destroyed.
Violent acts, committed by all of Colombia's armed groups against
civilians, have increased dramatically.

Thousands have been driven from their homes by the violence, the fumigation
campaign and resulting poverty. There must be a negotiated, political
solution to Colombia's conflict.

Increased U.S. participation in war-making is the wrong approach to
achieving peace in Colombia, just as it has been the wrong approach to
stopping the production of illegal drugs.

Jean Blackwood, Carthage