Dear Senator/Representative X,

The 109th Congress faces a set of formidable challenges in the new year, and I am sure that you and your staff are already hard at work. One of the greatest challenges ahead will be addressing the national budget crisis, which could undermine our country’s ability to support important domestic and international programs for years to come. The crisis we face highlights the need for Congress to examine and reform costly programs that have failed to show progress. US assistance to the Colombian military, which has totaled over $3 billion since 2000, is one example of a policy that warrants serious reconsideration. I ask that you support amendments to the foreign aid or defense bills to cut military funding to Colombia, and back initiatives to strengthen social and economic assistance.

US policy in Colombia has never had a clear set of benchmarks or an endgame strategy, and US military involvement has deepened over the years. US policy goals have expanded from counternarcotics efforts to include counter-terrorism measures and the protection of a privately owned oil pipeline. In the fall of 2004, Congress approved an administration proposal to double the number of US troops stationed in Colombia. Three weeks after the elections this November, President Bush traveled to Colombia to pledge continued support for legislation aiding the Colombian military for these efforts. The US Congress first funded Plan Colombia in 2000, and did so with the promise that the timeline of the program would be limited to five years; now, the President hopes to extend the program beyond the original timeframe. We could see another $3 billion—or more—backing this ineffective policy should Congress support the extension.

An extension of Plan Colombia is extremely worrisome because the policy has failed to meet the goals set out in the original legislation. Since 2000, over $3 billion has gone to Colombia's military, police, and a drug crop-eradication program based on aerial herbicide fumigation. The goal of the policy as expressed to Congress in 2000 was to make drugs less available in the United States. However, the April 2004 report of the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center found that powder and crack cocaine are “readily available throughout the country and overall availability appears to be stable.” According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s 2004 report, a gram of powder cocaine on US streets in mid-2003 cost less than one-fifth its price in 1981. Prices are falling, and purity levels are rising. Why are we continuing to support a policy that doesn't work?

One of the reasons that cocaine availability has remained unchanged on our nation’s streets is because even when the level of coca cultivation is reduced in one country, production shifts to another country. The State Department found that coca cultivation in Colombia dropped some 30% since 2001, but it has shot up again in Bolivia, an area that was lauded as a "drug war success" in the 1990s.

In addition, the United States has not found a worthy ally in the Colombian military. Colombia’s armed forces have a long history of human rights abuses; rather than insisting on reforms, the United States has rewarded the military with more aid. This support is extremely dangerous. In August of this year, three Colombian union leaders—Jorge Prieto, Leonel Goyeneche, and Hector Alirio Martinez—were found murdered by members of the US-trained 18th Brigade of the Colombian army. The brigade's commander claimed that the three were Marxist guerillas and were killed during a shootout. Colombia's Vice President, who originally supported the commander's story, has since acknowledged that there was no gun battle. The soldiers involved have been charged with homicide, but the Colombian government is not looking into the role of the brigade's commander or other superiors. Meanwhile, the Colombian government is engaged in peace talks with right-wing paramilitary militias that may lead to high-level human rights abusers and drug traffickers going free, undermining the safety and security of human rights, labor, and religious leaders and others who have long been innocent targets of violence.

Our country is getting more deeply involved in Colombia's internal conflict at a moment when our national budget is in crisis. If Plan Colombia is extended beyond 2005, we could see even greater levels of US military involvement. I urge you to support any effort to cut funding to the Colombian military, and to back efforts to refocus US support on more humane and effective counter-drug and counter-terrorism strategies: protection for Colombia’s many threatened human rights defenders and labor and religious leaders; targeted development assistance to help Colombia’s rural communities produce and market legal crops; and drug prevention and treatment programs at home.

I appreciate your attention to this important issue, and I look forward to hearing your position on the policy.

Sincerely,

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