2008

Call your member of Congress today! Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) are circulating a “dear colleague” letter to President Uribe over the recent wave of threats against, and targeted killings of, human rights defenders, trade unionists, and others in Colombia.

At the end of last month, Senators Dodd (D-CT) and Feingold (D-WI) sent a “dear colleague” letter to Secretary of State Rice expressing concern over the increase in civilian killings by the Colombian Army in recent years. Click here to read the letter and here to see if your senators signed it. Many thanks to everyone who called in and wrote emails to their senators—sending a strong human rights message to Secretary Rice would not have been possible without our collective efforts!

We hope that you have been keeping up with the news on Cuba (one great source is through signing up for weekly news reviews from CubaCentral.com ), as Cuba has been getting a lot of ink in the past couple of weeks. We last sent you an update on February 19 with the news about Fidel's resignation. Since then, as you certainly know, Cuba has a new President, the Bush Administration has reacted predictably, and Congress is making noise about re-visiting U.S.-Cuba policy-with an eye to revising it. House Letter, Senate Letter

By now you have seen the news - Fidel Castro announced early this morning that he will not seek or accept the position of President or Commander and Chief of Cuba. His announcement comes less then a week before Cuba's National Assembly is scheduled to meet to vote for the next President of the island.