Future&present wars

Dear WSN-list people,
This is not to contribute to the futurology of 2025 war, but about the 
actualogy of colombian 2000 war, not as big, but equally terrible.
You are invited to read the following text from Justin Delacour,
Seattle Colombia Committee, which has already been signed by more of 500 
people of different nations.
Thanks if you read it, and even more if you agree with supporting it as 
explained in the attached letter. Regards from Colombia, Emilio
******
To the ZNet forum participants -
As you probably know, the Clinton administration has recently put forth a 
proposal to drastically increase military aid to the war-torn country of 
Colombia. Under the pretext of the drug war, the administration
plans to provide a $1.6 billion "counter-narcotics" package for the 
Colombian government and security
forces, which have a record of extensive collaboration with brutal 
paramilitaries who are guilty of the vast majority of human rights abuses 
in 
Colombia. Despite the rhetoric about "counter-narotics" aid, the wealthy 
paramilitary leaders who are deeply involved in narco-trafficking are left 
untouched, illustrating that we're really talking about counter-insurgency 
aid to Colombia.
Below is a letter - intended for the President - opposing the 
administration's military aid package to Colombia. The letter is the 
product 
of a collaborative effort between several groups concerned about
human rights in Colombia. It has been endorsed by Cynthia McKinney, a 
congresswoman from Georgia who has been perhaps the most courageous 
spokesperson for human rights in Congress. We hope that all of you will 
respond with an endorsement of the letter. In order to stop congress from 
passing this terrible military aid package, we must show the politicians 
that we are adamantly opposed to military aid for Colombia. We encourage 
you 
to forward the letter to the organizations and individuals with whom you're 
acquainted that might be interested in endorsing the letter. We intend to 
gather as many endorsements as possible for this letter, and we hope to 
advertise the letter with thousands of endorsements from individuals and 
organizations
alike. Please tell those to whom you send the letter to send their messages 
of endorsement to <mailto:oakleyruth@igc.org>. To endorse, please send in 
your name and the city or town where you live, as well as any other 
information about yourself that you wish to put down. We're asking that all 
endorsements be in by February 3rd. Thanks for your time. We're in for some 
interesting weeks ahead. Here's the letter.
Take care.
Justin Delacour
Seattle Colombia Committee
P.S. - If you already got this message, please disregard.
January 24, 2000
William J. Clinton
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
Our concern for the tragic situation facing the people of Colombia causes 
us 
to write to you. As citizens of many countries with a variety of political 
opinions, we are united in urging you to change your Colombian policy from 
a 
predominantly military strategy to an approach that supports the needs and 
hopes of the Colombian people.
While it is impossible to summarize in one letter all the dramatic 
circumstances affecting Colombia, we want to highlight the points that seem 
most alarming to us:
1. Reports from a number of sources, including the U.S. State Department, 
have documented the continuing collaboration between members and units of 
the Colombian armed forces and paramilitary groups. This collaboration has 
included several cases of open alliances. The paramilitaries, according to 
these reports, are responsible for 75% to 80% of the cases of 
assassination, 
kidnapping, torture, and massacre of civilian non-combatants, while the 
guerrilla groups and the armed forces commit the rest of these abuses. Only 
a few implicated officials and soldiers have been investigated and 
punished, 
while collaboration between the armed forces and the paramilitaries 
continues to this day. The U.S. contributes to the deterioration of this 
disturbing human rights situation by continuing to provide military aid, 
training, and sales, despite these
well-documented reports of collaboration.
2. The armed conflict has forced as many as 1.6 million internal refugees 
to 
seek protection for their lives and well-being, according to the United 
Nations. The number of families who have fled their homes in Colombia 
exceeds the forced expulsions that the world witnessed with horror in both 
Kosovo and East Timor. The U.S. is doing little to help care for the 
refugees that U.S. military aid is helping to create.
3. Further military aid will undermine the fragile peace process that has 
been initiated by President Pastrana. Civilians in Colombia have 
overwhelmingly voted for peace and marched in favor of peace. Massive 
infusions of military aid will not only increase the number of deaths and 
massacres carried out by all the armed groups, but will also strengthen 
hard-liners in Colombia who oppose the peace process. Recent murders of 
academics, human rights defenders, trade unionists and even entertainers 
who 
worked to support the peace process illustrate the difficulty of working 
for 
peace in Colombia.
4. The U.S. Drug War strategy has been an expensive failure and more of 
this 
same strategy will not combat drugs. This strategy has not reduced coca 
cultivation in Colombia, the flow of cocaine or heroin to the U.S from 
Colombia, or the profits of the drug traffickers. Instead it has caused 
untold environmental and human destruction. It has also strengthened the 
guerrillas as more landless peasants join their ranks. Military aid will 
not 
address the reasons why Colombians choose to cultivate drugs in the first 
place. The problems that have led to increased drug cultivation include 
state neglect of rural areas, a nonexistent rule of law, and the lack of 
economic infrastructure and opportunity. These problems can only be 
resolved 
through support for efforts to strengthen the peace process and to enhance 
the lives of the poor.
We respectfully make the following requests of your administration:
* Given the Colombian armed forces' continuing collaboration with the 
paramilitaries, such as in the massacre at Barrancabermeja in 1998, and 
their continuing impunity from prosecution for that collaboration, we ask 
that you send no further U.S. aid to the Colombian armed forces. You 
eloquently told the people of Guatemala in May of 1999:
"For the United States, it is important that I state clearly that support 
for military forces or intelligence units which engaged in violence and 
widespread repression of the kind described in the report was wrong. The 
United States must not repeat that mistake."
Colombia already receives the greatest amount of U.S. military aid in the 
Americas and the third most in the world. Please do not make the problem 
worse by giving any more money to the partners of the paramilitaries.
* We ask that you recognize the biased nature of the war on drugs, which is 
mainly being fought against landless peasants and unarmed civilians, 
leaving 
many real drug traffickers, including the paramilitaries, untouched. 
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, some of the 
paramilitary leaders such as Carlos Castaño are major drug traffickers. 
Consequently, we object to using the war against drugs as even a partial 
pretext for increased military aid.
* We ask that the U.S. play a key role in supporting initiatives for 
international mediation in Colombia, with possible mediators including the 
European Parliament, the Secretary General of the UN, the UN High 
Commission 
for Refugees, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. This peace 
effort must include Colombia's civil society. On October 24th, 1999 the 
world witnessed marches for peace that mobilized more than nine million 
Colombians of all ages and social positions. Colombian civil society has 
courageously demanded and actively worked for peace and deserves to be 
heard. The U.S. should honor these efforts by providing Colombia with 
humanitarian and economic support, not the tools of war.
Respectfully,
(Signers follow)  (......7 pages of signatures )

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