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!
For over fifty years, Colombians have suffered through unspeakable violence. They have been forced to flee their homes; they have been kidnapped, raped and killed. Human rights defenders, journalists and union members have been subjected to death threats and assassinated. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities have been brutally affected by the war as well as by social and economic exclusion. Colombians deserve a chance for peace. Now is the time to advocate for a U.S. policy that supports a lasting peace with truth and justice.
You can help change U.S. policy. Click here to contact your representative!
This letter circulated by Representatives McGovern and Schakowsky calls for the State Department to support negotiations, but to also advocate for including victims of violence and civil society in the peace process, and to press for an independent truth commission and strong measures to ensure justice for severe human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict. It urges both governments to pay special attention to protecting human rights defenders and rural communities during and after peace is negotiated. It calls on our government to transform aid to Colombia so that it is aid for peace, not aid for war.
What can you do? Join us in calling on our government to promote peace in Colombia!
U.S. policy and aid has long been designed to back a country at war. For the last dozen years, we have been working with our Colombian human rights partners and with you to change U.S. policy to make room for peace. Now we have a real opening to advance this. Now we must come together with our Colombian brothers and sisters in the hope of peace.
Will you ask your representative to sign this letter?
This letter needs the support of as many members of Congress as possible to send a strong message for peace. We need you to make sure your representative signs this letter. But don’t stop there. Share this with all your friends; post it on facebook, tweet it, and talk about it. Let’s drive the message home: now is the time for peace in Colombia!
