To: Foreign Policy Aides

Honorable Jim Kolbe
Honorable Nita Lowey
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Honorable Mitch McConnell
Honorable Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Rep. Kolbe, Rep. Lowey, Senator McConnell and Senator Leahy,

We write to urge you to transfer substantial funding to programs for alternative development, humanitarian assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs), and peace-building in Colombia in the Andean Counterdrug Initiative section of the FY2006 foreign operations appropriations bill. Major development assistance is an essential contribution that the United States could make to help Colombia reduce the production of illegal drugs and bring its internal armed conflict to an end. Funding for alternative development, IDPs and peace-building would be a more effective and ethical use of taxpayer dollars than continued high levels of military aid and aerial spraying.

For years the U.S. government has relied on aerial eradication of illegal drug crops as its primary drug control strategy in Colombia. Since 2000, nearly 525,000 hectares of coca crops have been sprayed with herbicides, yet net coca cultivation at the end of 2004 was only seven percent below the 1999 level. In 2004 alone, 136,555 hectares were sprayed, but the total area under coca cultivation, estimated at 114,000 hectares, remained unchanged from 2003.

The rationale for supply-side strategies like aerial spraying is that they will reduce the consumption of drugs in the United States by making cocaine and heroin more expensive and less available. But U.S. street prices for cocaine and heroin continue to decline, and cocaine and heroin use among high-school students was actually higher in 2004 than in 2001.1 Drug-control officials from Democratic and Republican administrations have consistently predicted imminent success in curbing availability. For example, in July 2003, Office of National Drug Policy (ONDCP) director John Walters expressed confidence that “We expect to see in the next 6 to 9 months significant disruptions in the purity and availability of cocaine throughout the world….” But these predictions have not been borne out. Indeed, the Justice Department recently found that “Key indicators of domestic cocaine availability show stable or slightly increased availability in drug markets around the country.” 2

The failure of the policy at home is all the more disturbing because aerial spraying falls heavily on rural communities already suffering from the armed conflict. Recent and planned spraying is affecting Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities already suffering from human rights violations by all the armed actors. Small farmers desperate to feed their families—who, the UN estimates, make less than $200 per month from a one-hectare plot—are enticed or forced to plant illegal crops, often interspersed with food crops, so the aerial spraying routinely destroys food supplies. Most farmers whose crops are sprayed receive no transitional assistance, in some cases leading them to abandon their farms, or to re-plant coca in their same plot or in other areas. Increasingly, farmers are planting illegal crops in areas where there was previously no production. According to ONDCP Director John Walters, “[r]esponding in 2004, coca growers re-planted and reconstituted their crops faster than we have seen them do in the past.” 3

We fully agree that farmers, no matter how desperate, should not grow illegal crops. But to effectively address the supply of illegal drugs, the United States has to support sustainable solutions, including alternative development and broader rural development programs. According to USAID, 55,000 farmers have been helped to switch to legal crops, an accomplishment worthy of celebration.4 But the President’s budget contains no increase for alternative development, and instead plans to intensify spraying. We believe it is time for a fundamental shift.

We also urge you strongly to increase the funding provided for humanitarian assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs). As you know, Colombia faces a crisis of internal displacement that is second only to Sudan’s. Many IDPs face long waiting periods even to receive limited emergency assistance, and long-term programs are completely inadequate. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are among those currently being forced to flee their homes from violence, joining Colombia’s some 3 million IDPs. 5

Colombian civil society organizations, working with local government and private sector partners, are proposing solutions to the development challenges the country faces. For example, Redprodepaz is a network of development and peace programs that offers a new approach to combating poverty and strengthening rural communities, building peace from the ground up through participatory development projects, which is drawing the attention of international donors, including the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). These kinds of programs merit political and financial support from the U.S. government, as do programs to expand rural credit, title land, improve marketing, and develop rural infrastructure.

We believe Colombia deserves aid and support from the United States. But U.S. tax dollars should be invested in cost-effective ways that contribute to sustainable solutions to the country’s deeply entrenched problems. Please see the attached recommendations from the Blueprint for a New Colombia Policy. It’s time to invest in development for lasting results.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Wolford Ken Hackett
President President
Lutheran World Relief Catholic Relief Services/USCCB

Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory Institute Justice Team
Director, Washington Office Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Presbyterian Church (USA)

Rajyashri Waghray
Director, Education and Advocacy for International Justice and Human Rights
Church World Service

Ken Hackett
President
Catholic Relief Services/USCCB

Rev. Dr. James B. Vigen
Director of International Relations and Human Rights
Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs

Joy Olson
Executive Director
Washington Office on Latin America

Kenneth H. Bacon
President
Refugees International

Barbara Gerlach
Colombia Liaison
United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries

Anne Griffis
Chair
Action/Global Concerns Committee
Church Women United

J. Daryl Byler
Director
Mennonite Central Committee
Washington Office

Rev. James R. Stormes, SJ
National Secretary for Social and
International Ministries
Jesuit Conference

Adam Isacson
Director of Programs
Center for International Policy

Neil Jeffery
Executive Director
U.S. Office on Colombia

Cristina Espinel and Kelli Corrigan
Co-chairs
Colombia Human Rights Committee

Angela Berryman
Coordinator,
Latin America/Caribbean Program
American Friends Service Committee

Simone Campbell, SSS
National Coordinator
NETWORK, A National Catholic
Social Justice Lobby

Joe Volk
Executive Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)

David Robinson
Executive Director
Pax Christi USA: National Catholic Peace Movement

Daniel M. Kovalik
Assistant General Counsel
United Steelworkers International Union

Terry Collingsworth
Executive Director
International Labor Rights Fund

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy
Executive Director
Witness for Peace

Pam Bowman
Legislative Coordinator
School of the Americas Watch

John Lindsay-Poland
Director
Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean

Katherine Hoyt
National Co-Coordinator
Nicaragua Network

Jim Oldham
Executive Director
Las Lianas Resource Center
for Science, Culture and Environment

Todd Howland
Director, Center for Human Rights
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial

1. National Institute on Drug Abuse, Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2004, Volume 1, Secondary Students (December 2004).

2. National Drug Intelligence Center, U.S. Department of Justice, National Drug Threat Assessment, 2005, February 2005.

3. John P. Walters, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, “The Andes: Institutionalizing Success,” testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, May 12, 2005, p. 7.

4. Adolfo A. Franco, Assistant Administrator, Agency for International Development, “Plan Colombia: Accomplishments,” testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, May 12, 2005, p. 2. (These 55,000 farmers, however, are only a small subset of the farmers affected by spraying.)

5. The administration requests $26 million for the Western Hemisphere in the Migration and Refugee Assistance account, primarily for Colombia but also including aid to resettle Cuban and Haitian migrants at Guantanamo in third countries.