Please adapt and use as a letter to the editor, or make a longer op-ed (700 words) by insertingt your own connection to Colombia, from a trip or hearing a Colombian speaker in your area. Thanks to US Office on Colombia for this suggestion!

While most attention goes to the failed policies in Iraq, the Congress is finally beginning to take positive steps to address another conflict, this one in Colombia, South America. A House subcommittee has recommended dramatically shifting U.S. funding to Colombia, cutting military spending by $150 million dollars and raising support for crucial social programs by nearly $100 million dollars. These changes will improve the situation in Colombia and help to create a sensible policy that really reduces production of coca, the raw material for cocaine.

Since 2000, the U.S. has spent over 5 billion dollars fighting the drug trade in Colombia with dismal results. A recent White House report reveals that there is more land under coca cultivation today in Colombia than when the U.S. began spraying large sections of the Colombian countryside to destroy coca seven years ago. Funding this spraying and Colombian military efforts clearly has not worked.

An increase in U.S. social and economic aid in Colombia will provide many more small farmers with real alternatives to growing coca. Increased social funding will also improve Colombia’s judicial system and support victims of Colombia’s civil war, including the vast numbers of internally displaced people lacking sufficient humanitarian assistance Some 3.8 million people have been displaced in the last two decades.

U.S. aid in these areas is essential to reduce drug production in Colombia and contribute to a lasting peace. And all of these improvements have been made while spending fewer tax dollars. This sensible step forward will spend our hard-earned U.S. tax dollars more effectively, and it deserves the support of the full Congress.

June 6, 2007