Action Alerts

2012 gave us the great news that the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas had begun to negotiate an end to the longest-running conflict in the Americas. 2013 gives YOU the chance to make an impact on U.S. policy regarding the peace process by taking an urgent action today!

Your mission? Get your representative in the House to sign this congressional Dear Colleague letter in support of the peace process in Colombia!

Click here to find out how!

It's go time! As we kick off 2013 and begin to work on our new year’s resolutions, we need YOUR help in pressuring the U.S. Embassy in Colombia to speak up for human rights defenders in Colombia. Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders, labor activists and human rights defenders’ calls for protection have fallen on deaf ears and this needs to change!

You might remember this year’s theme for National Days of Action for Colombia was everyone deserves a place to call home. With over 5 million people forcefully displaced as a result of Colombia’s internal conflict, victims of violence are now hoping that the Colombian government will make good on its promise to help them return home, restoring their lands through the Victims’ and Land Restitution Law.

Working for human rights in Colombia is no easy task. But, recent news from that war-torn country gives us hope. Last month, the Colombian government announced peace talks with the FARC, Colombia’s largest guerilla group, to negotiate an end to the five-decades-old conflict.   As the peace process begins next week on October 17th, we want to know: what does peace in Colombia mean to you?

About two weeks ago my co-worker Lisa sent you a message about how you can help protect workers' rights in Colombia. Today, Asotrecol (the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of General Motors Colombia) has declared an international day of action.

 
We just celebrated Labor Day here in the United States, but Colombian workers have no room for celebration.

In our last alert we told you we would keep you updated on the injured workers from ASOTRECOL. Well, it turns out they need our help again. GM failed to propose realistic solutions to their demands during their mediation. Now, our friends from ASOTRECOL are restarting their hunger strike. As they continue to pressure GM for due compensation, we need to tell Congress to stand up for labor rights in Colombia and enforce the Labor Action Plan.  As you recall, both governments signed the Labor Action Plan before the Free Trade Agreement was passed by Congress.

After a year of protesting in front of the U.S. Embassy with no response, injured General Motors workers in Colombia go on a hunger strike. Help them fight for their rights!

Jorge Alberto Parra was 30 years old when he began working for General Motors, Colmotores in Colombia, in 2004. Now eight years later, he and four colleagues from the Association of Injured and Ex-Workers of GM Colmotores de Colombia (ASOTRECOL) are taking drastic measures.  They have launched a hunger strike to protest their firing and lack of compensation.

Wow.  What an incredible display of solidarity we saw this year!

Thanks to your help, this year’s 7th Annual Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia was a huge success!  Here at LAWG we are super impressed with how many of you got involved.  Whether by creating paper homes, sending postcards to President Obama, or signing our Petition to Congress—you helped make sure our message was heard loud and clear: everybody deserves a place to call home.  Together, we raised our voices to call for an end to the world’s largest displacement crisis that’s left millions of Colombians homeless. 

Write a Letter to the Editor: Call for U.S. policies to support a place to call home for everyone in Colombia!
Did you hear what President Obama did while in Colombia last weekend? Despite ongoing murders of union leaders and land rights activists, he glossed over all the human rights violations, ignored the continuing displacement crisis, and announced that Colombia had fulfilled its requirements on labor rights that would allow the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement to go into effect on May 15.

Click here to set the record straight on what’s really happening in Colombia!

Did you know that 60% of flowers bought in the United States come from Colombia? Nearly 100,000 mostly female flower workers have been working 16- to 18-hour days for poverty-level wages to get us the flowers that thousands of people will buy today.

This Valentine’s Day, take action to support these flower workers in their struggle for fair wages, equal treatment, justice, and dignity!

Great news! Two of the women leaders of the Afro-Colombian community La Toma, which we have told you about in blogs and action alerts, have been featured on a program called Women, War & Peace on PBS!



Please help us spread the word about this show and click here to watch it online!

Despite more than five years of incredible work by people like you to advocate for fair trade policies, we are disappointed to report that the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

Click here to find out how your members of Congress voted and hold them accountable!

We’re up against some big forces in our struggle against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA): major corporations, the Chamber of Commerce, stubborn Republicans, free trade-loving Democrats, and even the President. They have money, power, and connections. But we have conviction.

We have hardworking partners in the United States. We have incredibly brave community leaders and human rights defenders on the ground in Colombia telling us every day about why this trade deal will be so devastating for those already hit hardest by Colombia’s conflict. And we have something better than a slingshot to fight this Goliath—YOU.

Will you chip in $50 or more today to make sure we can do everything in our power to stop this harmful trade agreement?

Can you believe it’s August? It’s amazing to realize that through months of working hard together to maintain pressure on our legislators, we have kept the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement off the table. Congrats on fantastic work so far!

Help us keep the momentum going by participating in our first District Office Call-in Day TODAY!

Congress will be on recess August 8th through September 6th, meaning your Representative will be back in their hometown office for an entire month. Together, we have the opportunity to make sure our members of Congress don’t just vacation during their time away from Capitol Hill, but instead hear from all of us, urging them to oppose the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. So we have to get organized now.

Join our August Recess Get-Active Campaign Conference Call on Thursday, August 11th to learn how you can turn up the heat in your district!

This could be it.

The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) could come up for a vote any day now unless our legislators really see some resistance. So please participate in our National Call-in Day to Congress TODAY Monday, July 11th!

With the debate over the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) intensifying, we’re pulling out all the stops to make our message heard. This week we’re taking over the internet and we need your help!

Watch our new two minute video opposing the U.S.-Colombia FTA and then spread the word about it:

All across the country activists are coming together to stop the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).  Check out these resources we've compiled on opposing the FTA, and get involved!

Whether you only have enough time to send an email or you want to visit your member of congress in person, this is the moment to make your voice heard!

It’s go time. The Obama Administration has started moving forward with the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). So we’re organizing immediate national actions to convince Obama and Congress that passing this FTA is wrong—and we need your help.

Join us on a National Conference Call this Monday, May 16th, at 8:30pm EST/ 5:30pm PST to learn what’s happening and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it !

Many of the communities living in the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó river basins in Colombia’s northwest Urabá region have come under great threat this past week.

Will you send a message to the Colombian government today to ask for their protection?

Momentum is building fast in Washington to approve the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia. Just today there were two hearings in Congress about it! But we cannot let this unfair agreement move forward.

Click here to sign our petition calling on President Obama to say no to the FTA now!

Major changes in the U.S. Congress. A new government in Colombia that’s more open to dialogue, but threats against human rights defenders and community leaders still on the rise. Pressure building to move forward with a harmful U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

With everything that’s going on right now, we can tell that we’ll need a lot of help from you to promote peace and justice in U.S. policy towards Colombia this year. So while you’re filling in your calendar for the next six months, we wanted to make sure you get these Colombia to-dos on the list:

How do you unearth the many narratives of violence, repression, and displacement of families and communities that have never made it into Colombia’s official history? How do people who have experienced so much destruction and death even find the strength to tell these stories, relive this pain? And how do you make sure that these people, if they do speak out, are heard?

Click here to find out how you can amplify the voices of Colombia’s silenced.

We’ve got just one simple, but crucial action for you to take today:

Join our new Facebook campaign “Stand for Land Rights in Colombia” and help us grow the movement for change in U.S.-Colombia policy.

For a lot of people, the day after Labor Day is the time to get down to business. For us, it's just September 7th. Why? Because when you're going for change as big as we are on U.S.-Colombia policy, you never stop working hard.

I wanted to write a quick, exciting update on the situation with the Afro-Colombian community La Toma:

We stopped the eviction!

Stop the eviction of this
incredible community!If the Colombian government does not change its mind, tomorrow the 1052 families that make up the Afro-Colombian community La Toma will be evicted from the land that they have lived on for almost 400 years. We cannot let this happen.

Take action now to support the community and stop the eviction!



On Tuesday night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Colombia; by today she'll be in Barbados. During her 24 hours in Colombia, do you think she heard much about the rise in threats and attacks against Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities in Colombia? Did President Uribe talk with her about the illegal wiretapping that part of his special intelligence service used to sabotage the work of human rights defenders, journalists, and Supreme Court judges? Or would you guess she talked with any of Colombia's almost 5 million internally displaced people about how they have been robbed of their land and forced to live in misery?

We doubt it. But these issues are exactly what she must be thinking about as the State Department prepares to make its most important decision on U.S.-Colombia policy this year.

Over the last couple weeks, from Tempe, Arizona to Duluth, Minnesota, Olympia, Washington to Jackson Heights, New York, people like you have been creating hundreds of portraits of our Colombian sisters and brothers and have been showcasing them in your community centers, churches and city streets. And people are paying attention!

But to make a real impact, we need Washington to get in on the conversation, too.

The National Days of Action for Colombia have begun! As we write you this update, people all across the country are gathering their materials, friends, and families, and are preparing to "face the displaced." Are you?

Click here to get involved!

If this is the first time you're hearing about it, don't worry; it's not too late. Here are four ways you can get involved in the movement to stand with those working for peace in Colombia.

Until two years ago, José Goyes had lived in the indigenous community of Honduras in Cauca, Colombia. But his life came under threat because of his role as a leader in his community's struggle for land rights in the face of abuses committed by a multinational corporation that owns a dam in their area. The threats got worse and worse until finally on July 5, 2008, as he was leaving his office, hitmen fired 4 shots at him. Luckily, he survived, but he was forced to flee to Bogotá.

Spring is coming and major grassroots action for peace in Colombia is near! Soon communities all across the country will start preparing for Days of Prayer and Action, when we will join in solidarity with our Colombian sisters and brothers and show policymakers the real size of the movement for change in U.S.-Colombia policy.

We want to make sure we can count on you to get involved because right now the stakes are higher than ever before.

Did you have a restful holiday? We hope you did because now that the new year is here we're going to be putting you back to work in pushing for real change in U.S. policies towards Colombia.

As we pointed out in a recent blog post reflecting on "Obama's First Year," although the administration promised us a foreign policy that would bring us hope and change, Colombia policy is still falling far short.  Giving Colombia a free pass on the human rights conditions, signing military base agreements, continuing high levels of military aid—these actions are a bitter disappointment.  Yet we have seen some good signs, especially when President Obama raised real concerns about human rights and democracy when Colombian President Uribe came to visit the White House.  This year, no excuses:  We want our government to use both words and deeds to say that respect for human rights does matter.

Have you called yet?

Last week, we told you about the letter on Colombia that's circulating in Congress and what you can do to help. We've had a good start, but we still need more action from grassroots activists like you and the people in your community.

Please take two minutes right now to give your representative a call.

Here's How:

We're hitting the ground running with Human Rights NOW and we need you to join us in a taking an urgent action today.

Our mission? Convince as many congressional representatives as possible before December 7th to sign on to a letter calling for real change in U.S. policy towards Colombia, so that it can be sent out ASAP to Secretary of State Clinton.

Click here to find out how!

As a newcomer to the LAWG team, and inside the beltway advocacy, I have been surprised over the last few months to learn what it actually takes to achieve the change we want. Before I started, I assumed that if we could simply bring the facts about real people who are suffering as a result of U.S. policies in countries like Mexico and Colombia, we could make it happen. But it turns out that there's so much more that goes on in DC every day than I could have anticipated.

They don't get it... yet.

Although we now have new leadership in Washington, they still don't understand what they need to do to stand up for human rights. They think that by saying more about the importance of human rights and democracy than the Bush Administration did, they are making progress. But we know that until they actually change U.S. policies to support victims of violence in places like Mexico and Colombia, they will continue to be a part of the problem, not the solution.

Now, if we can get them to hear what we hear from people in Mexico and Colombia and know what we know, they might change their tune.

So, this month we are launching a "Human Rights NOW" campaign, which will use innovative tactics to get them to make human rights come first in U.S. policy.

Actions speak louder than words.

This seems like a simple concept. But lately, the Obama Administration and the State Department seem to have forgotten it when dealing with Latin America. Despite serious human rights abuses by Colombian and Mexican security forces alike, the State Department just went ahead and declared that both countries were meeting the human rights requirements needed in order to receive more U.S. military aid.

Click here to send a fax to Secretary of State Clinton asking her to stand up for human rights!

$800,000 on hearts.

You heard that right. With a massive humanitarian crisis on their hands, the Colombian government is spending $800,000 on an installation of more than forty, 8-13 ft tall heart sculptures in DC and New York this fall. This campaign, called "Colombia Is Passion," was supposedly designed to educate Americans about the "real" Colombia, a fun and beautiful country in which violence and human rights abuses are a thing of the distant past.

At this point, you might be asking, "Why this? Why now?"

Well, it wasn't the ringing call for respect for human rights and freedom of expression that we longed for --that's for sure.  But when President Obama met with Colombian President Uribe on June 29th, it was clear that he had been listening to our message on Colombia.

So it's going to happen. Colombian President Uribe will make his first visit to the Obama White House next Monday to discuss the future of Plan Colombia and the stalled U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with President Obama. While the two leaders met at the Summit of the Americas in April, this could be the moment when President Obama makes clear his positions on Colombia. It's up to us to use this opportunity to make sure that he sets the right course from the get-go by making human rights a priority in U.S. policy towards Colombia.

We're emailing to say "¡gracias!" for participating in the 2009 Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia. Whether you mailed postcards to President Obama, organized a prayer service for your local congregation, or simply sent good vibes in our direction, you were part of the largest national call for peace in Colombia and change in the United States' approach since 2003. Give yourself a pat on the back—you deserve it!

Earlier this month the Obama Administration submitted its foreign aid budget request to Congress, giving us the first clear indication of where the administration intends to take Colombia policy. The administration has said many good (and needed) things since coming to office, but now that they're showing us the money—and repeating the Bush Administration's military aid request—it's clear that these positive words are not yet being backed up with positive deeds.

Did you know that last year 1,500* Colombians were violently forced to flee their homes each day? At such a staggering rate, it's no wonder that Colombia is now home to more than 4 million internally displaced people (IDPs), more than any country in the world including Sudan.

Another wave of threats has once again swept across Colombia, this time warning of an imminent “social cleansing” of “undesirable” individuals from Colombian society. Colombian churches and others are reporting that the violence unleashed by these alleged paramilitary threats has already left three young people and seven fishermen dead in Chocó.

Did you know that last year almost 1,500 Colombians* were violently forced from their homes each day? It's no wonder that Colombia now has more internally displaced persons than any other country in the world, even more than Sudan.

There have been some positive signals on human rights in just the first three weeks of the Obama Administration. But since U.S. policy towards Colombia and Latin America is not a priority for this administration, we have to make sure that the United States is indeed standing up for human rights by putting our energy into educating and cajoling our representatives to support our values.

As President Bush in the waning days of his administration bestows the Presidential Medal of Freedom upon Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, we'd like to nominate as LAWG Heroes of the Year 2008 the brave and tireless Colombian human rights activists who are taking risks to end the Colombian army's killings of civilians.

We're saddened to report that the spouse of an indigenous activist working in Cauca was killed when Colombian soldiers fired shots into his vehicle this past Tuesday. The killing of Edwin Legarda shows that despite recent firings of top military officials, the Colombian government is not doing enough to prevent new civilian killings by the army.

On October 12th, more than 12,000 indigenous Colombians gathered to peacefully protest the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement and the Colombian government's consistent failure to return land obtained by violence to indigenous communities.

Last week, the Colombian government sent an 80-member delegation to Capitol Hill as part of an intensive, last-ditch effort to secure our Congress' support for the stalled U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Today, Colombia's president arrives in Washington, DC to continue this expensive lobbying blitz with the message that all is well with human rights in Colombia.

Victims and human rights defenders became the targets of a severe wave of threats and violence earlier this year after organizing a peaceful march to call attention to the plight of victims and denounce violence by all actors in Colombia.

Last year the Congress made many positive changes in U.S. policy towards Colombia—changes that couldn't have been made without committed activists like you picking up the phone, demanding your voice be heard. With the foreign aid subcommittees in the House and Senate set to "markup" their respective bills in mid-July, it's time to call your representative and senators and urge them to stand by Colombia's victims of violence.

Last week, the full House of Representatives approved a resolution to remove “fast track” language from the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement by a vote of 224 to 195. See how your representative voted. Thank your member of Congress if they voted to “stop the clock” on the trade pact. If they voted no, let them know your concerns about the Colombia FTA.

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!

Call your senators today! Senators Dodd and Feingold are currently circulating a “dear colleague” letter to Secretary of State Rice expressing concern over the alarming increase in killings by the Colombian army. Click here to read the letter.

Many of the changes in aid to Colombia that you contacted your members of Congress about in 2007 became law when the president signed the all-rolled-into-one spending bill on December 26. While still very far from the perfect world we dream about, the law makes some positive changes in U.S. aid and policy towards Colombia.