ABOUT THE COLOMBIA MOBILIZATION

The Church of the Brethren Witness/Washington Office has endorsed the Colombia Mobilization, convened by School of Americas Watch and Witness for Peace. The Colombia Mobilization is a national coalition of organizations and individuals working to transform U.S. policy toward Colombia and the Andean region.

We (the endorsers of the Colombia Mobilization) share the following principles:

1. We call for an end to U.S. military aid to Colombia and the Andean region. Current U.S. military aid to Colombia, including military training and private contracting, is a failed policy. As part of the "War on Drugs," U.S. military assistance is inflaming a violent conflict and contributing to increased human rights abuses and displacement. Afro-Colombians, indigenous groups, trade unionists, the rural poor, human rights defenders, social organizations, and others working for peace and justice in Colombia are suffering disproportionately from these human rights violations.
   
   
2. We call for an end to U.S. funding of counter-narcotic aerial eradication in Colombia and the Andean region. We recognize that U.S.-funded aerial eradication, or fumigation, of coca and poppy crops is damaging critical biodiversity throughout the Amazon region and is creating health and food-security crises among the local populations. Aerial eradication is a destructive tool that largely fails to achieve U.S. policy goals, without addressing the real development needs that drive people to cultivate coca leaf and poppy.
   
   
3. We call for dramatic expansion of drug treatment and prevention in the United States. Any sincere effort to curb illegal drug use in the United States must seriously address the issue of demand, and must de-emphasize the destructive and ineffective supply-side policies, including punitive and racist mandatory minimum drug sentencing.
   
   
4. We call for the United States to support comprehensive sustainable economic development alternatives throughout the Andean region, as well as efforts for peace that include the full participation of civil society. U.S.-supported international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF, have promoted development and trade policies in the Andean region that have failed to address the region's growing poverty and need for long-term social investment. Proposed U.S.-led free trade agreements will further contribute to economic injustice if they favor large corporations over the needs of the general population. For the United States to make a positive contribution in Colombia, the development and human rights needs of Colombian people and an emphasis on the peace process must be incorporated into the policy-making process.
   
   
5. We call for the United States to help alleviate the conditions of refugees and those people internally displaced because of the conflict. With over 300,000 Colombians internally displaced in 2000, and thousands of refugees spilling into neighboring countries, US policy is aggravating a staggering humanitarian crisis that is militarizing borders and threatening regional stability. The United States should increase humanitarian assistance, prevent further displacement by safeguarding communities' human rights, and provide temporary protected status (TPS) to Colombians living in the United States whose lives are in danger because of the conflict.
   
   
6. We are committed to nonviolence in our own actions as well as supporting exclusively nonviolent, negotiated political solutions to the conflict in Colombia. We do not support or endorse any armed actor in the Colombian conflict.