With the Obama Administration we’re learning that it’s often two steps forward one step back.
Will you give us the support we need to keep pushing them forward? Click here to become an official Colombia Acompañante today!
Just weeks after State Department officials stood up for Afro-Colombian rights by helping to stop the eviction of the La Toma community, they decided—despite glaring evidence to the contrary—to certify that the Colombian government was meeting the human rights conditions tied to a portion of the millions of dollars in military aid that the United States gives every year. With a new government in Colombia, what they really needed to do was send a strong message that the types of abuses that have gone on in recent years will not be tolerated anymore, but they chose not to do so again.
Now, while we are infuriated, we are not down, because we know that with your help they won’t get away with this. Click here to support our efforts to hold our government accountable!
We are motivated right now by the knowledge that through sending thousands of messages from activists like you, and working with our Colombian and U.S. human rights partners to present evidence of human rights abuses, we’ve put the heat on our government to think carefully about a decision that in the past they’ve made lightly. While they did certify, they also had to publicly announce concerns about lack of progress in bringing soldiers and officers to trial for killing civilians, and the illegal wiretapping and targeting of human rights defenders and journalists.
Still, that’s not nearly enough. So, we’re already on to the next step, asking Congress to hold up this military aid until there are real advances and saying to the State Department: put your money where your mouth is.
But we can’t do it alone. If you haven’t become a Colombia Acompañante yet, please click here!
This month, we’re ratcheting up the pressure by working with our partners to bring Colombian activists to DC—like a leader of the San José de Apartadó peace community, which has had hundreds of its members assassinated and still has not seen justice for these crimes—to give firsthand accounts to U.S. officials of exactly why they must hold the Colombian government accountable. These types of coalition efforts really make a difference in swaying the hearts and minds of our policymakers, but they would not be possible without your support.
Thank you for standing by us and for sustaining our work as a Colombia Acompañante today!
