National groups to Pres. Obama: End Plan Colombia; Change drug policy

Media Contacts:
* Mark Johnson, FOR Executive Director
* John Lindsay-Poland, FOR Colombia Program

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and more than 45 other national and regional human rights organizations and faith-based institutions today released a letter to President Barack Obama calling for a major change in U.S. policy toward Colombia. Responding to the President’s first address to a joint session of Congress — in which he stated the need to “go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs” and to “act boldly and wisely” — the groups urged the President to end a failed drug policy in Colombia and to invest in drug treatment for U.S. citizens and aid for the millions of Colombians displaced by war.

“For the past nine years, our nation has wasted more than $6 billion on ”˜Plan Colombia’ under the guise of the so-called war on drugs,” said Mark C. Johnson, executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. “Yet rather than ending the drug trade, the problem has increased — with more coca plants grown in Colombia, and cocaine as easily available in the United States. On Tuesday night, President Obama challenged our nation to address our problems with ”˜bold action and big ideas’ — there is no better time than now to end Plan Colombia.”

The letter encourages the White House to make three major changes to current U.S. policy. First, it presses the Obama administration to end military aid to the South American nation, which is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the Western Hemisphere. Second, it calls for renewed diplomatic efforts to support a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict in Colombia. And third, it challenges the U.S. to increase development aid to the nation, as well as to dramatically redirect funds to domestic drug treatment programs.

“Both sides in Colombia’s armed conflict have committed terrible atrocities,” and civilian killings by the Colombian army have increased in the last two years, the groups wrote. Research by FOR and Amnesty International last year showed that nearly half of these killings were reportedly committed by U.S.-supported units. “For us, and we think for you, it does matter whether people are threatened by corrupt and brutal armed forces that our tax dollars have trained and equipped. We want that to stop,” the groups said to the President.

“Our nation’s drug policies have failed doubly,” said John Lindsay-Poland, co-director of FOR’s Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean. First, by funding to a Colombian state deeply compromised by violence against its citizens. And second, as President Obama said on Tuesday night, here at home we lack the resources to address pressing social needs — that includes millions of people in our communities struggling to overcome drug addiction.”

FOR, churches, and other national groups are organizing Days of Prayer and Action on April 19 and 20, in which they will deliver thousands of paper dolls, representing four million internally-displaced Colombians, to U.S. officials in six cities, and appeal to President Obama to stop military aid to Colombia and support the war’s victims.

The letter to President Obama with names of signatories is provided with this press release (text & PDF downloadable version below). Additional information on FOR’s Colombia work is available at www.forusa.org. For information on the Days of Prayer and Action, go to www.peaceincolombia.org.

********* Colombia Call to President Obama *********

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

You have challenged us to take up the considerable challenges facing the nation, and to make genuine change in how the United States relates to the rest of the world.

In Colombia, a real change in policy begins by recognizing that the military approach to drug trafficking of the last eight years has been an abject failure, and a new one is needed. This approach, called Plan Colombia, aimed to cut production of coca leaves in half, to affect the price and availability of cocaine in our communities, and ultimately to reduce cocaine use and the social problems it generates. To this end, the United States has spent more than $6 billion since 2000, nearly 80% of it on the Colombian armed forces.

By all of these measures, the plan has been a waste of resources. Cocaine entering the United States is as cheap as it was eight years ago, and in some places it is cheaper and easier to obtain. Aerial fumigation has wreaked environmental havoc and damaged the health and food crops of poor Colombian peasants, while the total amount of coca leaf grown has remained steady, suggesting that Plan Colombia has little to do with any price fluctuations.

More than three-quarters of U.S. assistance in Colombia is focused on failed drug eradication, but promoters say that the plan has also resulted in a drop in kidnappings by guerrillas, fewer massacres, and the demobilization of 30,000 paramilitary fighters. Yet security for millions of Colombians has been devastated. Since Plan Colombia began, more than 2.5 million ordinary Colombians have had to flee their homes because of the violence, constituting the largest humanitarian crisis in the hemisphere. A disproportionate number of internal displaced people are Afro-Colombians and indigenous peoples whose identities are at risk of extinction. And the tearing of internally-displaced people from their communities continues unabated, with more than 270,000 fleeing in the first six months of 2008. For those families, this is not a war on terror, but terror itself.

Both sides in Colombia’s armed conflict have committed terrible atrocities. The armed forces supported by Plan Colombia have the worst record of human rights abuses in the Americas, and civilian killings by the army — nearly half of them by U.S.-supported units — have increased in the last two years. For these reasons, the United States should not arm either side in an unending war in which the great majority who suffer are civilians.

Last May, you said, “the person living in fear of violence doesn’t care if they’re threatened by a right-wing paramilitary or a left-wing terrorist — by a drug cartel or a corrupt police force. They just care that — their families can’t live and work in peace.” We share this insight. For us, and we think for you, it does matter whether people are threatened by corrupt and brutal armed forces that our tax dollars have trained and equipped. We want that to stop.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Our nation can encourage a long-sought peace in Colombia, if we are willing to use our resources for diplomacy to support a negotiated peace. While billions flow to war in Colombia, health programs for treating drug addiction and the larger economy here at home suffer from a deep social deficit. More than 23 million Americans need treatment for alcohol or substance abuse. Among substance abusers who feel a need for treatment and are ready to stop using, more than half cannot afford the cost of treatment. The current economic crisis will make the situation for these people and their families even worse, unless we act.

For these reasons, we urge you to:

• Rethink the failed “war on drugs” in Colombia. Instead of spending billions in a failed “supply-side” strategy that funds human rights abuses, destroys the environment and fuels a decades-long armed conflict, the United States should terminate military aid for the Colombian army. Begin by suspending all U.S. assistance for aerial fumigation and military training.

• Support a negotiated end to Colombia’s armed conflict, using U.S. diplomatic efforts.

• Invest in real alternative development abroad and drug prevention and treatment at home. Assistance in Colombia should include much more humanitarian aid to the country’s millions of internally displaced people, administered by independent agencies not tied to the military, and support for justice for the war’s victims. The federal government must fully fund Substance Abuse Block Grants, and include treatment for addiction in comprehensive health care reform. Such treatment will ultimately reduce spending on emergency room and criminal justice costs caused by untreated addiction.

We believe this nation needs a change in its failed policy toward Colombia. This requires deep re-examination of how funds are spent and what the results have been where it matters most — for the most vulnerable and the victims of violence. We look forward to working with you and the Congress to achieve these goals.

Sincerely,

Faith-Based Institutions and National Organizations

Chuck Kaufman, Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice

Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Executive Director, Buddhist Peace Fellowship

James Jordan, National Coordinator, Campaign for Labor Rights

Adam Isacson, Director of Programs, Center for International Policy

Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D., Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation

The Church of God Peace Fellowship

Medea Benjamin, Co-Founder, CodePink

Philip McManus, Co-Chair, Forging Alliances South and North

Kirsten Moller, Executive Director, Global Exchange

Lutheran Peace Fellowship

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

Jim Schrag, Executive Director, Mennonite Church USA

Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office

Rev. Kathryn J. Johnson, Executive Director, Methodist Federation for Social Action

Lee Siu Hin, National Coordinator, National Immigrant Solidarity Network

Sylvia Romo, Interim Executive Director, Network in Solidarity with Guatemala

Katherine Hoyt, National Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua Network

Michael Beer, Executive Director, Nonviolence International

Christy Thornton, Director and Publisher, North American Congress on Latin America

Ken Butigan, Executive Director, Pace e Bene

Dave Robinson, Executive Director, Pax Christi USA: National Catholic Peace Movement

Paul Kawika Martin, Organizing, Political and PAC Director, Peace Action

Bill Scheurer, Editor, PeaceMajority Report

Rev. Rick Ufford-Chase, Executive Director, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

The Quixote Center

Pamela Bowman, Legislative Coordinator, School of the Americas Watch

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

Kelly Nicholls, Executive Director, U.S. Office on Colombia

Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council

Stephen Coats, Executive Director, U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP)

Banbose Shango, National Co-Coordinator, Venezuela Solidarity Network

Michael T. McPhearson, Executive Director, Veterans For Peace

Melinda St. Louis, Executive Director, Witness for Peace

Women for Genuine Security

Regional and Local Organizations

Brooklyn For Peace, Brooklyn, New York
James H. Vondracek, Managing Director, Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

Colombia Aqui Collective/Bay Area Colombia Working Group

Colombia Human Rights Committee, Washington, DC

Haiti Action Committee, Berkeley, California

Judy Barry, Co-Chair, IF, Watsonville, California

InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Cleveland, Ohio

Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (LEPOCO Peace Center), Pennsylvania

Movement for Peace in Colombia, New York, New York

Greater New Haven Peace Council, New Haven, Connecticut

Nicaragua Center for Community Action (NICCA)

Rev. Deborah Lee, Program Director, PANA Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific Asian North American Religion, Berkeley, California

Nada Khader, Executive Director, WESPAC Foundation, Westchester County, New York