Thursday night, the House Appropriations committee approved the $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia, by a 33-13 vote (when included with the $300 million already pledged to Colombia, the total equals $1.6 billion). This is a strong indication that the bill will pass the House quite easily, despite the efforts of a committed group of representatives to point out the dangers inherent in the aid package.
The House bill includes $1.15 billion in aid to the Colombian military and police. This grant includes no safeguards that these groups, long known as human rights offenders, will have to clean up its act to receive the aid.
The lack of human rights conditions is not lost on the Senate. There is a strong bipartisan contingent in that body which is opposed to military aid to Colombia without human rights conditions. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is the leader of this group, but statements by legislators like Arlen Specter (R-PA) and even Ted Stevens (R-AK) indicate serious misgivings on the other side of the aisle as well.
CSN activists' strategy to stop this aid should now have two components:
Continue to educate your respective representatives about the situation in Colombia, and encourage the representatives who have already spoken out against this aid. This will include thanking the representatives who signed the Baldwin-Schakowsky-Campbell letter (link).
Secondly, we should begin to focus on the Senate. The Senate should be able to pass a bill only with strong conditionality language. If this is the case, then a bill emerging from conference (after both bodies' bills pass) would likely have significant conditions