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The Movement for Peace in Colombia and more than 45 other national 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 the millions of Colombians displaced by war. The letter points out  that the Plan Colombia has been a total failure: 6 billion dollars down the drain with the flow of drugs into this country unimpeded and without reduction in the number of coca plants grown in Colombia. But the collateral damage of this plan has been the militarization of Colombia and the displacement of millions of farmers as a result of the colombian government’s determination to end the ongoing conflict by military means.

The letter encourages the White House to make three major changes to current US policy. First it presses the Obama administration to end military aid to Colombia. Second the search for a negotiated settlement of the almost 50 year war that afflicts the colombian countryside. And third, to increase the financial aid to the colombian economy and to the millions of displaced peasants by the war.

Let’s hope that President Obama is receptive to these proposals for the sake of peace in Colombia.

Obama

February 25, 2009

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

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 US 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 US-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 US assistance for aerial fumigation and military training.

•  Support a negotiated end to Colombia’s armed conflict, using US 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

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

Rick Ufford-Chase

Executive Director

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

The Quixote Center

Adam Isacson

Director of Programs

Center for International Policy

The Church of God Peace Fellowship

Medea Benjamin, Co-founder

Codepink

Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D.

Executive Director

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Philip McManus, Co-Chair

Forging Alliances South and North

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

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

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