The House Begins to Turn a New Leaf on Colombia!
June 7, 2007

For years we, you and all of us, have been asking Congress to take a new approach to Colombia. Change the aid package that is 80 percent focused on military aid, which fans the flames of conflict. Stop the destructive and futile aerial spraying of the Colombian countryside. Help small farmers switch from illegal drug production by giving them the support they need to switch permanently to the food crops they should be growing. Encourage the Colombian government to end the climate of impunity, and focus attention on the victims of the conflict.

Well, guess what! They finally listened to us. The House foreign aid appropriations subcommittee just marked up a foreign aid bill that starts a new approach to Colombia. It still contains strong support for Colombia but moves it in a more positive direction. Instead of 76 percent military aid, 24 percent economic assistance, it is now 45 percent economic aid. This means a big increase in aid to: help the victims of the conflict, strengthen the judicial system, invest in rural development, and help farmers turn away from growing coca, the raw material for cocaine. It means a more than $150 million cut in U.S. investment in military aid and aerial spraying. The aid still supports counternarcotics efforts: alternative development, drug interdiction, strengthening the rule of law. It’s just a more effective and humane approach.

1. If your representative is on the House Appropriations Committee (See if your member is on the committee here: http://appropriations.house.gov/members110th.shtml) before the bill goes to the committee on June 12, let him/her know that you support the new approach to Colombia in the foreign aid bill. Tell him/her that the bill’s changes for Colombia—more aid for victims of the conflict, for farmers to switch away from drug production, for rural development, for supporting the rule of law; and less military aid and fumigation—is the right way to go.

2. If your representative is not on the committee, tell them the same thing, but you have more time! The number for the Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121.

3. When you contact your representative, you can also ask them to cosponsor H. Res. 426 to recognize 2007 as the Year of the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia. Click here for the current list of cosponsors. Click here to see the resolution.

4. And then, tell your senators you’d like them to support this new direction.

Click here for a sample letter to the editor that you can send to your local paper.