Urgent Action: Oppose "Alianza Act"

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The Colombia Support Network calls upon its members, friends, allies and supporters to communicate to their members of Congress their opposition to the proposed so-called Alianza Act of 1999 introduced by Republican Senators Michael DeWine of Ohio and Paul Coverdell of Georgia on October 20, 1999. This $1.635 billion proposed legislation would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to the Colombian military for training and equipping new "counterdrug" battallions. Given the bill's identification of drug traffickers with guerrillas ( using the name "narcoguerrillas") and that it almost totally overlooks the very extensive links between drug-trafficking paramilitaries and Colombian army units, this means counterinsurgency aid. Thus the U.S. government would shower funds upon military officers and units which work in tandem with cuthroat, drug trafficking paramilitaries. Included among the equipment proposed to be sent to the Colombian armed forces are 15 Blackhawk or comparable helicopters, Huey upgrade kits, forward-look infrared radar systems, 6 patrol planes and 14 excess U.S. patrol boats. While the proposed legislation speaks of support for human rights, it provides a maximum of just 1% of total security assistance to the Colombian military for maintaining the use of U.S. assistance by the Colombian armed forces.

Refusing to acknowledge the fact that Colombian security forces are permeated by collaboration with paramilitaries who are responsible for over 70% of all human rights violations and are lead drug traffickers, Senator DeWine suggested that the proposed legislation would help Colombia reduce the flow of illicit drugs to the United States though U.S. Embassy officials admit cocaine production in Colombia increased (by 26% it has been reported) in 1998 despite millions of dollars provided to Colombia last year for the so-called "War on Drugs". And Senator DeWine suggested that without the U.S. aid package "one of our largest export markets in the Western Hemisphere will continue to falter, and a neighboring democratic government will further erode". DeWine has shown no connection between the Colombian economy's difficulties and the $1.6 billion aid package, nor has he recognized that Colombia is a democracy in name only, an exclusionary society where 70% of the wealth is controlled by less than 1/3 of the population and where alternative political movements are not tolerated, as the killing of over 4,000 Patriotic Union Party members in the 1980's and 1990's vividly attests.

Please express your disapproval of the proposed aid package, which will further militarize Colombia, results in thousands of additional deaths and many more displaced persons (Colombia already has 2 million internal refugees), by contacting your Senators and Representatives to urge them to oppose the legislation sponsored in the Senate by Senators DeWine and Coverdell and by Iowa Republican Charles Grassley.