2010

It's not every day that we get to write you about a historic legislative victory for a more humane, sensible, and just U.S. policy towards Cuba; but today isn't just any old day. In a thrilling "mark-up" session Wednesday in the House Committee on Agriculture, H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act was passed by 25 votes to 20, putting us one step closer to ending the travel ban this year, in this Congress.

After a momentous week in the nation’s capital, advocates of lifting restrictions on U.S. citizens’ travel to Cuba have reason to celebrate.

On Wednesday, June 30, the House Committee on Agriculture held a mark-up session of H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act. While out-of-touch hardliners on the committee tried to amend and motion Ag Committee Chairman Peterson and Congressman Jerry Moran’s bill to death, it ultimately received a favorable 25 to 20 vote, putting Congress on the verge of voting on ending the travel ban, rather than simply shutting down its checking account, for the first time in history.

Over two thousand civilians intentionally killed by army soldiers seeking to beef up their body counts and score days off. A massive illegal wiretapping operation by the president’s intelligence agency targeting Supreme Court judges, journalists, opposition politicians and human rights defenders. Seven human rights defenders and leaders of displaced communities killed in May alone, in a nation where threats and attacks against defenders are rarely effectively investigated and government officials’ denunciations of them place them in danger. In which authoritarian country opposed to the United States did these abuses take place? In none other than Colombia, often called “the United States’ best ally in the Western Hemisphere.” And we, the U.S. taxpayers, bankrolled this friendship to the tune of more than $6 billion.

Far Worse than Watergate reveals the inside story about a wiretapping scandal in Colombia.  It documents how the Colombian government’s intelligence agency not only spied upon major players in Colombia’s democracy—from Supreme Court and Constitutional Court judges to presidential candidates, from journalists and publishers to human rights defenders, unions and faith-based organizations, from international organizations to U.S. and European human rights groups—but also carried out dirty tricks, and even death threats, to undermine their legitimate, democratic activities. 

Read our publication Far Worse than Watergate (PDF)
Lea nuestra publicación Mucho peor que el Watergate (PDF)