The three senators are:

• Russell Feingold (D-Wisconsin), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;
• Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere Subcommittee; and
• Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), who chairs the Senate Appropriations State/Foreign Operations Subcommittee.

Here is a brief excerpt. Or download the whole 3-page letter as a 1.3-megabyte PDF file.

Reports suggest further deterioration of the rule of law and basic rights in Colombia in other areas as well. The well-documented abuses of the presidential intelligence agency, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), are particularly troubling. … Colombia’s highest officials continue to publicly denigrate human rights defenders in ways that jeopardize their safety. Additionally, a possible third term for the current president threatens to further erode the checks and balances that help protect Colombia’s fragile democracy.

In light of these trends, the State Department’s September 8th decision to certify that Colombia has met the human rights conditions in U.S. law was very disappointing, as were statements indicating that the Administration’s new base-access agreement with Colombia is intended to deepen relations with the Colombian military. President Obama’s words of concern about human rights abuses during President Uribe’s June 2009 visit were welcome and helpful. But it is also essential that the administration send an unambiguous signal that these abuses are unacceptable and that stopping them is a priority and a prerequisite for our continued partnership with the Colombian government.

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Many thanks to everyone who made calls and otherwise sought to alert members of Congress and convince them to sign. Many thanks as well go to the letter’s initial sponsors, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-Illinois), Rep. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey), and Rep. Michael Honda (D-California).

As the letter notes, “This is the right moment to take stock and reconfigure both aid and diplomacy.” We hope that the State Department is working to do just that.

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Please call your member of Congress and ask them to sign on to this letter. It is circulating at a good time, as the Obama administration develops the 2011 aid request it will issue to Congress in February. If the letter goes to the State Department with lots of signatures, it will have real influence on the future of U.S. assistance to Colombia.

Here is the alert and calling instructions from the Latin America Working Group. The text of the letter is here.

As of November 6th, this letter, written by Representatives McGovern, Schakowsky, Payne, and Honda, is circulating throughout the halls of Congress with a clear message: let’s spend our taxpayer dollars on supporting victims of violence, not funding military abuses. This is our chance to get Congress behind the changes that we want to see and have our government start standing by our brothers and sisters in Colombia.

The letter makes a strong case for why there is no time to waste in changing our policies towards Colombia. It paints a vivid picture of the Colombian government’s failure to protect human rights, raising issues like the killing of civilians by the army, the persecution of human rights defenders, and the humanitarian crisis of over four million people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes. Echoing what we have been saying for a long time, it demands a cut in military aid and an increase in support for victims and those who are working for peace and justice in Colombia. It also calls for an end to harmful and ineffective aerial fumigations, investing instead in drug treatment in the United States. To get all the details, click here to read the full letter.

But, this letter needs the support of many members of Congress to be effective. So, that’s why we need you make sure your congressional representative signs on now.

Click here to contact your representative today.

And don’t stop there: Tell your friends. Tell your family. Or just go ahead and forward this on to your whole address book! We won’t get another chance like this again for a long time, so let’s pull out all the stops and make it happen together!

From November 6th through 24th, a letter calling for change in U.S. policy towards Colombia will be circulating through the House of Representatives. This letter has our message, calling for a decrease in U.S. aid for Colombia’s military and an increase in support for human rights and humanitarian efforts.

Now, it’s up to us to use our grassroots power to get at least 70 representatives to back up the initiators of this letter—Representatives Jim McGovern, Jan Schakowsky, Donald Payne, and Mike Honda—by adding their signatures before it is sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The best way to persuade your member of congress to sign on is by calling his/her office and speaking directly with foreign policy staff, so please do it today!

Below we’ve given you simple instructions for making that call. Although it isn’t quite as effective as a phone call, if you would prefer to send an email to your representative, click here.

How to Make an Effective Call

1. Check to make sure your Representative has not signed on yet. Click here to check our updated list of co-signers. Then, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be put through to your member of Congress. If you don’t know who your representative is, click here. Ask the receptionist if you can speak with the Foreign Policy aide. If he/she is not available, ask to leave a message. Below, we’ve provided a script that you can use in your phone call, but feel free to add any personal stories or thoughts that you’d like to share.

Call script:

“I am a constituent calling to encourage Representative ____________ to sign on to the Dear Colleague letter written by Representatives McGovern, Schakowsky, Payne, and Honda, which calls for change in U.S. policy towards Colombia. This letter to Secretary of State Clinton asks that our government be honest about the human rights conditions in Colombia and make changes in the aid package. The U.S. should stop spending taxpayer dollars on the military, which has been found to be killing innocent civilians and illegally wiretapping human rights defenders, journalists, and Supreme Court judges. Instead, we should be supporting refugees and displaced people, Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, and small farmers who are trying to turn away from coca. And we also need to invest in drug treatment centers here at home. I strongly urge Representative ______ to take a stand for human rights and sign on to this letter today. To get a copy of the letter and to sign on, please contact Cindy Buhl in Rep. McGovern’s office. Thank you.”

2. After you’ve made your call, if you have time, send a quick email to Vanessa, at vkritzer@lawg.org, so we can track how many phones we’re ringing.

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Commission Hearing Announcement
Human Rights Defenders in the Crosshairs:
The Ongoing Crisis in Colombia
with
Margaret Sekaggya,
UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders
Tuesday, October 20
2 - 3:30 p.m.
Room: TBD

• Principe Gabriel Gonzalez Arango, Colombian Political Prisoners Solidarity Committee·
• Reynaldo Villalba Vargas, President, José Alvear Restrepo Lawyer’s Collective·
• Andrew Hudson, Manager, Human Rights Defenders Program, Human Rights First
• Kelly Nicholls, Executive Director, U.S. Office on Colombia.

If you have any questions regarding this hearing, please contact Hans Hogrefe (Rep. McGovern) or Elizabeth Hoffman (Rep. Wolf) at (202) 225-3599.

James P. McGovern, M.C.
Co-Chair, TLHRC

Frank R. Wolf, M.C.
Co-Chair, TLHRC

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Where aid to Colombia is concerned, neither house made fundamental changes to the Obama administration’s request.

Here are the numbers as they stand right now. For far more detail, including specific programs – and much improved legibility – download this Excel file (36KB).

Please note that this is not all aid to Colombia. Another $100-150 million in military and police aid will go through the Defense budget counternarcotics account (perhaps more, when we include money spent to do construction at the bases that U.S. personnel will be using). And another $5-20 million in economic and social aid may come through USAID’s Transition Initiatives account, the Defense Department’s “Section 1207″ transfer authority, and the State Department’s regional fund for Migration and Refugee Assistance.

Sources used for this table and the Excel file are online and publicly available:

• 2009 aid: Joint explanatory statement on Division H of H.R. 1105, the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (PDF)
• 2009 aid, 2010 request: State Department Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, 2010
• 2010 House bill: HR. 3081 and House Committee Report 111-187
• 2010 Senate bill: S.1434 and Senate Committe Report 111-044

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• The House bill is H.R. 2346.
• The Senate bill is S. 1054.
• The Obama administration’s April 9 request is here (PDF).

The two chambers’ bills would also give significant new aid to Mexico this year. However, each bill’s Mexico provisions are wildly different. Here is a comparison.

Aid:

• The Obama administration had requested $66 million in additional 2009 assistance to Mexico through the State Department’s International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement program (INCLE), which funds both military and economic aid efforts.

• The bill passed by the House of Representatives goes well beyond this request. It would provide Mexico with $470 million: $160 million in INCLE funding and $310 million in military and police aid through Foreign Military Financing (FMF), the main non-drug military aid program in the foreign aid budget. If the House version of the bill is approved, Mexico would surpass Colombia as the Western Hemisphere’s number-one recipient of U.S. military and police aid in 2009.

The House Appropriations Committee’s report describes how this additional money would be spent:

In order to facilitate and sustain the difficult task undertaken by the Mexican government, the Committee is accelerating the provision of Merida program funding. In addition to the $66,000,000 requested for the purchase of three UH-60 `Black Hawk’ transport helicopters for the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP), the Committee is providing an additional $94,000,000 in INCLE funding and $310,000,000 in FMF funding. The additional INCLE funding for Mexico is intended for such items as forensics and nonintrusive inspection equipment, computers, training and fixed and rotary wing aircraft.

… [FMF] funds are available to expand aviation support for Mexico. In support of a continued cooperative partnership with Mexico, the Committee recommendation provides funding for the final three surveillance planes (CASA 235) and for medium lift maritime transport helicopters (HH-60). The Committee notes that the provision of such additional equipment in an expedited fashion will greatly assist the Mexican government by enhancing the air transport ability and maritime aerial surveillance of the Mexican Navy (SEMAR) to conduct counternarcotics, and counterterrorism operations.

• The bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee provides exactly what the Obama administration asked for: $66 million in INCLE funds for Mexico.

Human rights conditionality

In February, Congress passed the bill governing the regular foreign aid budget for 2009. Aid to Mexico’s security forces in that bill includes human rights safeguards. Section 7045(e) holds up 15 percent of this aid pending a State Department certification that Mexico’s human rights performance is improving according to four criteria. The Obama administration’s request makes no recommendation about whether these conditions should also apply to the supplemental 2009 aid.

• The House bill, however, contains specific language exempting the $470 million in aid to Mexico from the human rights conditions. The committee report language argues that the human rights language must be lifted in order “to ensure the expeditious delivery of this equipment to Mexico.” This would set a very troubling precedent for aid to Colombia and elsewhere, where human rights conditions have been an important tool to exercise leverage against impunity for abusers.

• The Senate bill, by contrast, makes no mention of the conditions, and would leave them in place.

Border security fund

• The administration’s request and the House version of the supplemental bill both include a provision allowing the Defense Department to spend $350 million “for counternarcotics and other activities including assistance to other Federal agencies, on the United States border with Mexico.” The language would allow the Pentagon to transfer the money to other agencies. It is not clear whether the confusingly worded language would also allow the Defense Department, through its regular counter-narcotics aid authority, to give some of these funds to Mexico. We have been told that the intent of this fund is to support possible National Guard deployments to the U.S. side of the border, and to assist unaccompanied minors among the migrants apprehended crossing into Mexico.

• The Senate bill does not include this border funds provision. It does, however, provide funding to the Justice and Homeland Security departments to beef up domestic border security.

Restrictions on Mexico’s use of aid

• The Senate bill would prohibit the use of U.S. funds to provide fuel or logistical support for aircraft Mexico has purchased with its own money. It would require that communications equipment provided to Mexico be compatible with equipment used by U.S. agencies. And it would require the State Department to submit a report on actions Mexico has taken “to investigate and prosecute violations of internationally recognized human rights by members of the Mexican Federal police and military forces, and to support a thorough, independent, and credible investigation of the murder of American citizen Bradley Roland Will.” Will, an independent journalist, was shot and killed while covering a crackdown on protests in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2006.

• The administration request and the House bill do not contain similar provisions.

The next steps for the bill are:

• Passage by the full Senate, which as of Tuesday evening has begun to debate the bill.
• Drafting of a compromise bill by a House-Senate conference committee, which will have to work out the sharp differences between both chambers’ Mexico provisions.
• Approval of the conference committee’s compromise version by votes in the House and Senate. This could happen before the weekend.
• Signature by the president.

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It is hugely disappointing that a prominent member of Congress failed to use this forum even to say a sentence about the importance and legitimacy of non-governmental human rights defenders, journalists, and judges. Though Álvaro Uribe frequently subjects these individuals to vicious verbal abuse – including irresponsible accusations of support for terrorism – Mr. Hoyer warmly praised the “respect and protection” that President Uribe purportedly offers them.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. I am pleased, along with Mr. Blunt, to lead this delegation of nine members of the Congress of the United States. We have taken an opportunity over this break in the Congress’ business to visit Mexico, Panama, and Colombia, and we will be going from here to Medellín, and then to Brazil.

One of the focuses of our trip has been the critical importance of the partnership between the United States and our friends, to fight those who would undermine the health and security of our countries and of our people with narcotrafficking and terrorism.

The success that Colombia has had under President Uribe has been extraordinary and welcome. Plan Colombia has worked, is working, and we believe needs to continue to work.

We are pleased as well with the progress that has been made on human rights, with the commitment of President Uribe and his cabinet, to focus on making sure that every individual’s rights are respected, and protected. Whether they be friends, or whether they not be allies or friends. That all people deserve respect and protection.

We are also pleased to be joined by our ambassador, Ambassador Brownfield, and most particularly, by the ambassador of Colombia to the United States, Carolina Barco, who is with us as well, who does such an extraordinarily good job in representing the people of Colombia and the Uribe administration.

We obviously, as well, talked about the free-trade agreement that is pending. I am a supporter of that agreement, as is Mr. [Roy] Blunt [R-Missouri]. And we heard from the President, from the Minister of Labor, the Minister of Trade, the Foreign Minister, the Defense Minister, on how very important this agreement is, not only to the economic relationship between Colombia and the United States, but also to the people of Colombia. We will hope to return to the United States and to work with the administration to see this matter move forward.

I’m now very pleased to yield, but before I do that, as I said, we are going to Medellín, the city of the President’s birth. Medellín, where I have never been, but I am told is a striking example of the success, Mr. President, that you have had in reclaiming a city from narcoterrorists, providing security and safety for people, so the quality of life of your people has been enhanced very substantially. We look forward to that visit.

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It was referred to a number of times here about the beauty of the country of Colombia. And, for those who have visited Colombia, it would not take more than a few seconds to realize why people say that, because of the spectacular nature of the country and its natural assets. And of course, when you meet its people. But that is not a substitute for a serious inquiry into human rights.

I can remember standing at the American embassy, with the American ambassador, at the height of the violence in Chile, and him telling me that this is a beautiful country, and that I should really go to Valparaiso and enjoy the beaches, and see the people who use the beaches, and I should go shopping and enjoy the people who are shopping, and that my concerns were misplaced, because it’s such a beautiful country. My concerns weren’t misplaced. It took almost 30 years, but we brought Mr. Pinochet to justice.

And the world now knows the history of what was taking place while people were suggesting it’s a beautiful country. I had the same treatment from then-President D’Aubuisson, that I should go walk and enjoy the rivers of Salvador, because it’s such a beautiful place. And we all know the history of violence by that government against its people.

[Note: Roberto D'Aubuisson, a far-right sponsor of death squads and founder of El Salvador's ARENA party, was never actually president.]

Rep. Miller’s words inspired the following response yesterday from Colombia’s vice-president, Francisco Santos, in an interview on Colombia’s RCN radio network. [mp3 version here]

RCN Questioner: What do you think about what we just heard? A U.S. Congressman, the president for these issues in the House, George Miller, comparing Colombia’s situation to El Salvador during the time of that criminal, Roberto D’Aubuisson, or with Pinochet’s Chile?

…

Santos: It seems to me that this statement indicates Mr. Miller’s lack of objectivity, of his ideologization of his entire perception of Colombia, ideologization and radical politicization of Colombia’s reality, which makes him, well, an enemy of Colombia, someone who doesn’t have Colombia’s interests in mind, only his personal and ideological interests.

…

It seems to me that it [Mr. Miller's statement] is part of a smear campaign against Colombia, in which the political debate going on here has moved overseas.

…

RCN Questioners: Of course, yes. Vicepresident, yes sir, of course yes. Sir, it’s worrisome that this person, Mr. George Miller, is quite close to Nancy Pelosi. So one might feel that bills like the Free Trade Agreement still have many enemies, at least in the ideological sense in the United States, and that the issue, instead of becoming clearer, is more tangled.

Santos: This is a congressman who only has a personal vendetta, an ideological vendetta, that has nothing to do with, with…

RCN Questioner, interrupting: Reality.

Leave aside for a moment the vice-president’s questioners’ extreme deference and lack of objectivity. (One understands why Colombians refer to RCN as “Radio Casa de Nariño,” using the name of Colombia’s presidential palace.)

Rep. Miller’s point was that he was tired of discussing a country’s natural beauty or good shopping when he wanted to have a conversation about human rights. He was not comparing Colombia to Pinochet’s Chile or 1980s El Salvador – though given the hundreds of unpunished extrajudicial executions the Army has committed in the past few years alone, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

In no way should his words make George Miller an “enemy of Colombia.” But the Vice President’s use of this terribly unfortunate term is a chilling example of how today’s Colombian government regards any expression of dissent.

This is not an accidental gaffe on the Vice President’s part, either. He had similar words for a delegation of human rights leaders who visited Washington this week. He told Colombia’s “La W” radio network the following, about an hour before the delegates spoke at an event on Capitol Hill hosted by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-California).

Today in the United States … there is a Sam Farr hearing … where the sad thing about all this is that Colombian politics have moved to international scenarios, and the hatred of the President, the ill will toward the President on the part of some sectors, has now taken on the strategy of going everywhere to trash the country. It makes one feel pain for the fatherland, it hurts one that this strategy is used to try to attack Colombia, to attack the President.

Last week, the Colombian government sent three ministers and other high officials to Washington to ask for a continuation of aid, and to present their version of the country’s current security and human rights situations. However, when Colombian experts and activists with different information travel here – whether to testify at hearings or as guests of non-governmental colleagues – the Colombian government’s highest officials trash them viciously in the national media, while severely mischaracterizing what they have to say. And now, this trashing even extends to members of the U.S. Congress.

We note as well that one of those who testified in Rep. Miller’s February 12 hearing has received serious threats from the Black Eagles paramilitary group. Here in Washington, these threats and Vice President Santos’ careless words send a message loud enough to drown out all official public-relations campaigns’ images of natural beauty and improved security.

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One of those ten sections funds foreign assistance for the rest of the world. The 2009 State Department and Foreign Operations bill provides Colombia with US$547.05 million in aid for 2009. Of that total, 55.8 percent (US$305.05 million) would go to Colombia’s armed forces and police.

An additional amount of military and police aid goes separately, through accounts in the Defense Department’s budget. In 2007, the Defense budget added an additional US$114.26 million in military and police aid. If that amount is similar in 2009, then total aid to Colombia this year will add up to US$666.31 million. Of that total, 62.9 percent (US$419.31 million) will be military and police aid.

The 2009 aid bill’s Colombia outlay almost exactly resembles the amounts and military-economic splits that Congress provided to Colombia for 2008. The Bush administration, which heavily favored military aid to Colombia, had sought to undo the Democratic Congress’s far less military 2008 aid package for Colombia; in February 2008 it requested a 2009 aid package for Colombia that was 72.9 percent military and police aid (76.9 percent when Defense-budget aid is added). Congress denied this request and maintained 2008 aid levels.

Here are the details, from the House-Senate Conference Committee’s “Joint Explanatory Statement” (PDF).

Military and Police Aid:
(Thousands of dollars)

Economic and Social Aid:
(Thousands of dollars)

Overall Total:
(Thousands of dollars)

The House-Senate Conference Committee’s statement [PDF] provides this additional detail about economic aid to Colombia, indicating how it recommends that the 2009 aid money be distributed.

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We will post more about what we saw soon. In the meantime, here are some photos from the trip. More can be viewed here and here.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) at Yuca 5 oil well site, November 9

Visit to San Carlos, Orellana, November 9

Shushufindi 38 Oil Well Site, November 10

Shushufindi 38 Oil Well Site, November 10

Shushufindi 38 Oil Well Site, November 10

On a barge outside Lago Agrio, Ecuador, November 10

Visit to Cofán indigenous community in Dureno, Sucumbíos, November 10

Visit to Cofán indigenous community in Dureno, Sucumbíos, November 10

On the road between Lago Agrio and Barranca Bermeja, Sucumbíos, November 11

In Barranca Bermeja, looking across the San Miguel River at Putumayo, Colombia, November 11

Meeting with community leaders in Barranca Bermeja, Sucumbíos, November 11

Meeting with community leaders in Barranca Bermeja, Sucumbíos, November 11

Meeting with community leaders in Puerto Mestanza, Sucumbíos, November 11

Meeting with President Rafael Correa, Quito, November 12

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From Colombian Embassy lobbying materials being distributed this week (PDF).

We’re hearing reports from Capitol Hill that an enormous delegation of Colombians has descended on them.

Led by Colombian Trade Minister Luis Guillermo Plata and funded (or at least mostly funded) by the Colombian government, at least eighty government officials, businesspeople, pro-trade labor unionists, former combatants and others have fanned out across the U.S. Congress this week. Divided into eight separate groups, each with a different agenda of legislative lobby visits, their goal is to sell the controversial U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The FTA’s ratification has been stalled since April, when House Democratic leaders responded to the Bush administration’s effort to force a debate by removing the strict timetable, known as “fast track,” in the rules governing congressional consideration of trade treaties.

The Colombian visitors hope to nudge the U.S. Congress into considering the FTA before the 110th Congress adjourns at the end of the year. That is unlikely to happen. Congress will recess on September 26 – two-and-a-half weeks from now – so that members can return to their home states and campaign for the November 4 elections. It is not clear whether they will come back between the elections and the early January inauguration of the 111th Congress, a period punctuated by the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays known as a “lame duck session.”

There may not be a lame duck session this year, Reuters, repeating what we have also been hearing, reported yesterday: “Democratic leaders in Congress say their plan is to finish up whatever work there is to do in the next several weeks and not return until early 2009, when a newly elected president and lawmakers will take office.”

The Colombian government has nonetheless pulled out all the stops. Just consider the expenses incurred for the current lobby visit.

Assume a four-day stay in Washington for 80 people. We have hosted enough visitors from Latin America over the years to know that a visit to Washington is not cheap. These are very conservative estimates:

• Airfare, visa fees, aiport taxes – assume $900 per person. (More if the visitor didn’t fly coach, or had to fly first from a Colombian city without an international airport.)
• Hotels, four nights – assume $1,000 per person. (Go to hotels.com and try to find a room in downtown DC for less than $250, including taxes, this time of year.)
• Food and ground transportation, four days – assume $200 per person.

That brings us to $2,100 per person, or $168,000 for this week’s lobby visit. The real figure is likely higher, but even this is about 50% higher than CIP’s expenditures on all Colombia-specific work this year. On the other hand, it is equal only to what the U.S. government provides to Colombia’s police and military every 3 1/2 hours.

Meanwhile, President Álvaro Uribe will be passing through Washington next week, while visiting the United States to attend the UN General Assembly. The blitz continues.

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Citing human rights and strategic concerns, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota) had introduced an amendment seeking to cut back the large military component in the Clinton administration’s proposed package. Pacing the Senate floor while holding a handheld mike, Sen. Biden (D-Delaware) opposed Wellstone’s amendment with a lengthy improvised speech.

There will be a worldwide spotlight shined upon this military. I have never personally testified on the floor that I have faith in an individual leader, but I have faith in President Pastrana. He is the real deal. What is at stake is whether or not Colombia becomes a narcostate or not. This is not in between. Keep in mind, folks, when the Supreme Courts of Colombia several years ago extradited some, they blew the Court up; they blew the building up and killed seven Justices. When a Presidential candidate took them on, they shot him dead.

Since then, however, Sen. Biden’s view on U.S. policy toward Colombia has become notably more nuanced. Now, of course, he is the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee. Unlike nominee Barack Obama, who arrived in the Senate in January 2005, Sen. Biden – the ranking Democrat and now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – has a long record of statements that allow us to gauge the evolution of his views on Colombia.

Here are some highlights.

• February 22, 2000: Press Release
  We must make clear to the Colombian government, in our words and our deeds, that although their fight against narcotics trafficking is our fight, their war against the guerrillas is their fight to win.

• May 3, 2000: Report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
  I came away from my visit convinced that the U.S. Congress should act quickly to approve President Clinton’s request for supplemental funding for Colombia. Unless the Congress acts quickly to approve funding for this plan, a critical opportunity in the fight against narcotics trafficking in Colombia may be lost.

• June 21, 2000: Senate Floor Speech in Opposition to the Wellstone Amendment
  The good news is, because of eradication programs, because of U.N. leadership, I might add in this area, essentially there has been an elimination of the crop in those two countries. The bad news is that it has all moved into Colombia. They now are a full-service operation. The product is there, the narcotraffickers are there, the laboratory laboratories are there, and the transiting is there. That is the bad news. The good news is it is all in one spot for us to be able to hit it. It is all in one spot for us to have a very efficacious use of this money.

• August 30, 2000: Press Conference Accompanying President Clinton’s Visit to Cartagena
  The journey now begins. We’re in it for the long haul, as long as you are able to, as you’ve been in the past, demonstrate at least to my countrymen that human rights is very high on your agenda. I thank you and compliment you for your efforts.

• September 17, 2002: Hearing of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control
  The United States has to continue to press Colombia for improvements in human rights. Last week, the secretary of state certified that Colombia’s military is taking steps to suspend soldiers committing human rights violations and is cooperating with civilian prosecutors to prosecute those who have been alleged to have committed those acts. And is taking steps to severe links with the paramilitaries. But the military has long way to go, in my opinion. The military continues to turn a blind eye to paramilitary violence. I believe support for the Andean Counter Drug Initiative and will inevitably erode in this body and in this country.

• June 3, 2003: Hearing of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control
  We are beginning to see some results. Last year, there was a 15 percent decrease in coca cultivation and a 25 percent decrease in opium poppy cultivation. This reduced supply has led to a modest decrease in purity of both cocaine and heroin on the streets of the United States. There is still a long way to go, but this progress is encouraging. … I know that the Vice President and President Uribe are committed to improving human rights. But the message is still not getting through to all levels of the military. We need to see more improvements.  

• October 22, 2003: [PDF] Letter to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe
  You stated, among many assertions, that some human rights defenders in Colombia are “spokespersons for terrorism” and “traffickers for human rights”.  I am deeply troubled about your comments, and their potential effect on the safety of human rights defenders in your country, and those working for international organizations who may travel to Colombia.

• June 3, 2005: Letter to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, signed by Sens. Biden, Obama, and Four Other Democratic Senators
  We are highly concerned that the bill proposed by the Colombian government and approved by committees in Colombia’s Congress [the Justice and Peace Law] is inconsistent with these standards. We are especially disappointed by the fact that the bill does not require that paramilitary combatants reveal all the information they possess about the operational structure and financing of these Foreign Terrorist Organizations, or that they fully confess their role in illegal activities before receiving benefits.

• March 6, 2007: [PDF] Letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
  As we proceed in partnership with the Government of Colombia, our support cannot be more of the same. Rather, we need to reexamine the balance between military and social and economic aid.

• December 4, 2007: Statement Opposing Peru Free Trade Agreement
  I cannot support the Peru Free Trade Agreement because the Bush Administration has not proven that it will effectively enforce labor and environmental provisions, however good they may be. Our economy is slowing down, and Americans don’t trust this administration to protect their jobs, or the safety of our imports.

Over the past few years, meanwhile, four significant letters from mostly Democratic senators did not include Biden’s signature [Note as of 9:30 8/26 - a colleague reminds me that Sen. Biden has a policy of rarely signing on to group letters.] :

• July 26, 2004 letter from 23 senators to President Uribe endorsing the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
• July 1, 2005 letter [PDF] from 22 senators to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding the human-rights certification process
• May 15, 2006 letter [PDF] from 3 senators, including Obama, criticizing a column by then-Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns
• February 28, 2008 letter [PDF] from 14 senators to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding extrajudicial executions in Colombia

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• Excerpts from the Senate’s bill are here.
• Excerpts from the Appropriations Committee’s non-binding narrative report are here.
• The Bush Administration’s 2009 foreign aid budget request, issued in February, is here.

The House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee has also finished its version of the bill; that language is not available yet, though a brief summary press release is here [PDF].

Don’t expect this bill to become law anytime soon. The U.S. Congress is only in session for six more weeks between now and the November elections. The Democratic majorities that control both houses are unlikely to hurry and send a bill for a Republican president’s signature when they stand at least a 50-50 chance of being able to send a much different bill to a Democratic president in January. Still, this bill is a useful measure of the Senate’s view of how foreign assistance programs should evolve.

The bill does not recommend specific aid levels for most countries. In the case of Colombia, however, there are enough recommendations to draw a pretty accurate picture of how the Senate appropriators would assign aid. As the table below indicates, aid to Colombia would remain similar to 2008, which involved a significant cut in military aid and increase in economic aid over 2007 levels. The Bush administration’s 2009 aid request sought to undo those 2008 changes; the Senate bill refuses to do so.

Military and Police Assistance
Aid Program	2007 (approved by Republican-majority Congress)	2008 estimate (approved by Democratic-majority Congress)	2009, administration request	2009, Senate Appropriations
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement	386,869,000	247,097,704	329,557,000	241,800,000
Foreign Military Financing	85,500,000	55,050,000	66,390,000	53,000,000
NADR – Anti-Terrorism Assistance	3,395,000	3,288,000	2,750,000	2,750,000
International Military Education and Training	1,646,000	1,428,000	1,400,000	1,400,000
NADR – Humanitarian Demining	691,000
NADR – Small Arms and Light Weapons		427,000
TOTAL	478,101,000	307,290,704	400,097,000	298,950,000
Economic and Social Assistance
Aid Program	2007	2008 estimate	2009, administration request	2009, Senate Appropriations
Economic Support Fund		194,412,000	142,366,000	199,000,000
International Narcotics Control Economic Aid	139,166,000	39,427,296		45,000,000
Transition Initiatives	1,699,970	2,000,000
TOTAL	140,865,970	235,839,296	142,366,000	244,000,000
Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill Total	618,966,970	543,130,000	542,463,000	542,950,000
Military-Police Aid Economic-Social Aid
Other military-police appropriations (est)	126,638,053	126,374,053	126,347,053	126,347,053
Other economic-social appropriations (est)	4,858,000	0	0	0
Total aid to Colombia	750,463,023	669,504,053	668,810,053	669,297,053

(Recall that the Foreign Operations funding bill provides most, but not all, aid to Colombia. Visit our “Just the Facts” Colombia aid page for the full picture.)

The bill also repeats conditions on the Colombia aid regarding impunity for human rights violations, and the environmental and health impacts of aerial herbicide fumigation.

The Senate bill meanwhile slices deeply into the Bush administration’s $500 million request for counter-narcotics aid to Mexico under the “Mérida Initiative,” granting $300 million instead. The committee’s report recalls that Mexico got $400 million through the special Iraq-Afghanistan war appropriation passed last month, and that this aid will only begin to get spent when the 2009 budget year begins.

Here are some excerpts from the committee’s narrative report.

International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement: Merida Initiative- The Committee notes that $465,000,000 was included in the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 (Public Law 110-252) for the Merida Initiative, including $400,000,000 for Mexico and $65,000,000 for the countries of Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The bulk of those funds will not be disbursed until fiscal year 2009, after a spending plan and strategy, with concrete goals, actions to be taken, funding amounts, and anticipated results, are developed. Because it will not be possible to determine until late in the fiscal year, at the earliest, whether the fiscal year 2008 funds are being effectively used, and due to other competing pressing needs, the Committee recommends $300,000,000 for Mexico and $100,000,000 for the countries of Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, for fiscal year 2009. The Committee continues the requirements in Public Law 110-252 on 15 percent of the funds for the military and law enforcement. The Committee notes that no funds are provided for budget support or cash transfer assistance.

Andean Counterdrug Programs (basically the same as International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement): The Committee notes that after providing more than $6,000,000,000 in support of Plan Colombia since 2000, and vigorous efforts by the Colombian Government, many areas of Colombia are safer and its economic indicators have improved. However, armed groups, including demobilized paramilitaries who have rearmed and continue to traffic in drugs, threaten the security of many communities.

Despite predictions that Plan Colombia would cut by half the amount of coca production by 2005, the amount of coca reported to be under cultivation has increased and coca is now grown in small, hard to eradicate plots in every region of the country, as coca growers continue to migrate and destroy the forest as they replant. The Committee directs the Department of State to conduct a thorough, objective cost-benefit analysis of the aerial eradication program, including an assessment of alternative approaches to reducing the cultivation and trafficking in illegal drugs in Colombia, and to report its findings and recommendations in writing to the Committee not later than 90 days after enactment of this act.

Many coca growers would voluntarily shift to licit crops to avoid the dangers and difficulties of growing coca, if offered viable alternatives. Coffee and cacao offer such alternatives but require considerable training and support. To date, far too few resources have been devoted to such programs, without which Plan Colombia cannot succeed.

The Committee remains troubled that after billions of dollars in U.S. training and equipment, reports of extrajudicial killings and other violations of human rights by the Colombian army, and impunity for these crimes, persist. The Committee notes the efforts of the Ministry of Defense to address these problems, but positive results are needed. The Committee directs the Secretary of State to report in writing, not later than 45 days after enactment of this act, detailing procedures in place to ensure the eligibility of Colombian army units that receive U.S. training and equipment. The Committee again conditions a portion of the military assistance on specific progress on human rights, and expects the Secretary to apply the law rigorously. The Committee commends the Fiscal General and the Procuraduria General for their efforts to investigate these crimes and recommends additional funds to support their offices.

International Military Education and Training: The Committee directs the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation to make publicly available the name, rank, country of origin, and dates of attendance of students and instructors at the institute.

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In 2007, the UN measured more coca in Colombia than it had since 2002.

• This morning’s El Tiempo has the first solid official statistics for Colombian land area under coca cultivation in 2007. The news is not good. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, whose 2006 figure of 78,000 hectares (193,000 acres) was half the U.S. government’s estimate, detected 98,000 hectares (242,000 acres) in 2007 – 20,000 hectares or 26% more coca. While some of this increase likely owes to methodological adjustments, the figures make clear that narcotrafficking is one area where Colombia has made no progress since the “dark days” of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The UNODC data are not public yet, but will eventually appear here. No final word yet on when the U.S. government will release its (normally higher) coca-cultivation estimates for 2007.

• John McCain will be visiting Colombia sometime in early July. For McCain, this is a smart political maneuver, currying favor with swing Latino voters – including more recently arrived Colombians and Venezuelans, who tend to be fervently “Uribista” – in key states like Florida. For the Colombian government, it’s a risky gamble. If Obama wins in November, the new administration might not easily forget that President Uribe held what amounted to a campaign rally with the opposing candidate. It will be interesting to see how the Uribe government handles the visit. “More doors must be opened,” warns former foreign minister Augusto Ramírez Ocampo. “All the eggs can’t be put in one basket.”

• On Tuesday, the House of Representatives debated and approved a bill authorizing expenditures for the “Mérida Initiative” aid package to Mexico and Central America. It is important to note that this is not the bill that will send any money to Mexico and Central America. That is a separate bill: the 2008 supplemental appropriations bill, which would provide piles of money for Iraq and Afghanistan, includes the Mérida aid in a few pages. The bill that passed the House this week, by contrast, only authorizes this use of funds for Mexico and Central America, laying out a statement of policy and adding provisions to permanent law.

In Congress, it is considered good practice to “authorize” appropriations like this before laying out money for them. But it doesn’t happen all the time; where foreign aid is concerned, in fact, “unauthorized” appropriations have been the norm since the mid-1980s. Though the House made the effort to pass authorizing legislation, the Mérida Initiative aid will be no exception: the Senate has no similar authorizing bill, so the bill that the House passed on Tuesday is unlikely ever to become law.

The supplemental appropriations bill that will actually “write the checks,” on the other hand, is on a separate track: the House and Senate both passed it in May, and now they are working out the differences in the two bills. This bill would give Mexico less money, and include stronger human rights conditions on military aid, than what this week’s House authorization bill recommends. The Mexican government has loudly complained about these human-rights conditions, especially the more specifically worded ones in the Senate’s version of the appropriations bill.

The New York Times reported – very briefly – on Wednesday that the House and Senate had worked out their differences and rewritten the conditions in a way that leaves them “intact, although softened.” The new text has not been made publicly available, but would appear here when it does.

• Meanwhile, back in Colombia: another unpleasant chapter has been opened in the two-year-old scandal surrounding Jorge Noguera. For more than three years, Noguera headed President Uribe’s powerful presidential intelligence service (DAS). Today, he stands accused of using his position to help paramilitary leaders, including passing them lists of labor leaders and activists to be killed. For the second time, Noguera’s lawyers have managed to get him out of prison on a slim technicality (something involving the fact that a delegate of the prosecutor-general, and not the Prosecutor General himself, filed the charges – look it up yourself and try to understand it).

Noguera is free, and prosecutors now have to file charges all over again. And once again we see how hard it is to prosecute the powerful and well-connected in Colombia, even when the charge is aiding and abetting mass murder.

• We haven’t been paying close enough attention to the scandal involving allegations that President Uribe offered favors to an obscure regional congresswoman, Yidis Medina, in exchange for a crucial committee vote that allowed him to run for re-election in 2006. But it certainly turned weird this week, with Uribe, brandishing cellphone call records and posting a flurry of releases on the Colombian Presidency’s website, claiming that Medina had been trying to blackmail his family. “The confusion increases when President Uribe himself heads the curious media crusade,” notes a sober editorial in today’s El Tiempo.

• In our 2006 report on Medellín [PDF], we discussed many analysts’ view that the city’s newfound social peace owed in part to the monopoly on organized crime enjoyed by former paramilitary leader Diego Fernando Murillo, alias “Don Berna.” From his jail cell, many believed that Murillo continued to exercise control over much gang and narco activity in the slums tha surround the city, enforcing a sort of “pax mafiosa.”

A month ago, however, Murillo was extradited to the United States. With the paramilitary “Leviathan” out of the country, the “pax mafiosa” hypothesis is now being tested. An article in this week’s edition of the Colombian newsmagazine Cambio is not encouraging. It notes that violence took ten lives in 24 hours on Monday, the highest single-day total since 2002 – which in Medellín was an especially grim year marked by daily battles between guerrilla militias and two paramilitary groups.

• Rumors of an impending FARC hostage release – under varying possible circumstances – were raised several times this week. President Uribe says that guerrillas have called the current DAS chief to discuss conditions, such as a no-extradition guarantee, in exchange for releasing captives. Former hostage Luis Eladio Pérez told reporters Monday that “the country will soon hear the news” that the FARC are to release four more hostages unilaterally, including the son of “peace walker” Gustavo Moncayo. Journalist Jorge Enrique Botero, who has interviewed FARC leaders on numerous occasions, told a policy forum on Monday that the FARC may be reconsidering the whole idea of hostage-taking. Senator and former dialogue facilitator Piedad Córdoba said, “Íngrid [Betancourt]’s liberation is closer today. … But the next liberations are going to be absolutely difficult.” And even a Washington Post editorial speculated that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s new attitude toward the FARC may be relevant: “Perhaps, too, Mr. Chávez hoped to take credit for what some Colombian sources say may be an imminent move by the FARC to free hostages.”

• Here are two videos worth viewing: an investigative report from Ireland’s RTÉ network on the drug war’s failure, and a vivid look at Barrancabermeja, and the brave members of that city’s Popular Women’s Organization (OFP), from former Peace Brigades International volunteer Taline Haytayan.

• Many congratulations to Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), who was named yesterday to replace the late Rep. Tom Lantos as co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

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Many Republican members of Congress from blue-collar, swing districts no doubt breathed a sigh of relief yesterday. Thanks to the House Democratic leadership’s unprecedented change in the “fast track” rules, these vulnerable legislators would not have to cast a potentially damaging vote for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement before the November elections.

While opinions about the FTA diverge sharply, few members of Congress could have been anxious to debate and vote on a controversial free-trade agreement in the midst of an election year (an election year in which the free trade issue has already arisen a few times), while the economy appears to be in recession. In this climate, even an FTA with Canada or Norway would have been in trouble – and Colombia is not Canada or Norway.

Now that “fast track” is stripped out, though, what happens next? This week’s move in Congress leaves some key questions unanswered.

1. Is the agreement dead, or is the intention to bring it up in 2009?

While the White House and House Republican leaders clearly believe that the FTA was “killed” on Thursday, that is not certain. Some speculate that the Congress might try to vote on the FTA between the November election and the January negotiation. A more likely scenario could be that it comes up in 2009, with a new (presumably Democratic-majority) Congress and a new (anyone’s guess which party) administration.

Bringing up the agreement in 2009 would give Colombia’s justice system more time to reach verdicts in dozens – we would prefer hundreds – of cases against union-members’ murderers. A year to take a big piece out of the impunity that labor leaders’ killers have traditionally enjoyed. If that progress takes place, one of the Democrats’ main objections to the FTA would be weakened, and even a President Obama or a President Clinton might argue that their expectations for change in Colombia have been met.

2. Will the agreement have to be re-negotiated?

Even if Colombia locks up dozens of unionist killers by next year, however, the agreement will still be very controversial. The U.S. labor community will continue to oppose the FTA as another example of an objectionable “model” or “template” that dates back to NAFTA and CAFTA. Others will remain concerned about other aspects of the treaty like its effect on smallholding agriculture in Colombia or the impact of higher intellectual property standards.
If the agreement is to come up again, the next administration and congressional leaders will have to decide whether progress against unionist killings (if there is any) is enough – or whether the entire agreement must go back to the drawing board.

3. What is the congressional Democrats’ message to Colombia and Latin America?

Either way, right now the congressional Democrats do have a public-relations problem in Colombia, and to some extent elsewhere in Latin America.

House Republicans sounded silly Thursday when they called the fast-track rule change “The Hugo Chávez Rule” because, in their view, the United States was abandoning Colombia and conceding more regional influence to the Venezuelan leader. But it is now common to read or hear pundits in Colombia’s media saying that things go better for Colombia with Republicans in office than with Democrats.

It is important to make clear that opposing policies that are too militarized and too skewed toward Latin America’s wealthiest is not the same as “abandoning” the region. But it is incumbent on the Democrats to say clearly how they would engage differently with Colombia and the rest of the region. They can’t be seen just to be obstinately saying “no” to proposals like Plan Colombia and the FTA – but that caricature is proliferating in the region.

Opponents of the reigning policies need to keep articulating what they would do differently. Where aid to Colombia is concerned, the changes that Congress made to the 2008 aid bill make clear the outlines of what a new approach should look like. Now it is time to be clearer about sort of trade deal the FTA’s opponents would say “yes” to.

With yesterday’s vote, the agreement’s opponents now have an opportunity to create a new model for trade engagement, one based on consultations with a far broader sample of both countries’ societies. Congressional Democrats and other constituencies that opposed this FTA should spend the next year engaging publicly and constructively with Colombians who did not have a seat at the table when the agreement was first negotiated.

They must seize this opportunity. It is time to be creative. The alternative is to be caricatured, however unfairly, as the segment of U.S. opinion that simply wants to “walk away” from Colombia and the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

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AP reports:

Pelosi said she will bring a procedural change to the House floor on Thursday that would remove the timetable under which Congress would have had to take up trade bills within 90 legislative days after they are received from the White House.

“The president took action” in submitting the Colombia free trade agreement to Congress on Tuesday, she said. “I will take mine tomorrow.”

Pelosi’s statement is here.

A January story from Reuters reporter Doug Palmer explained that the House Rules Committee has the prerogative to remove fast-track authority, but that doing so sets a precedent that may affect future trade treaties.

Now with the Doha round of world trade talks edging toward a possible conclusion, the fight between the White House and Democratic-controlled Congress over the Colombia deal threatens to unravel the inner workings of fast track.

On the surface, the law requires both houses of Congress to approve or reject a trade deal within 90 days of receiving it from the White House and without making any changes.

But ultimately, parliamentary experts say, fast track is a congressional “rule” for considering trade deals. Lawmakers can vote to change the procedures if they want or even exclude a certain trade agreement from fast track protection.

“The parts that deal with procedures in the House and the Senate remain exercises of the rule making power and subject to change by further rule making,” said a congressional expert on House legislative procedures.

So, if Bush submits the Colombia agreement to Congress over the objections of senior Democrats, it is possible lawmakers could create a new rule releasing themselves from the obligation of having to consider the pact.

WORSE THAN REJECTION?

In the long run that could be worse for U.S. trade policy than an outright rejection of the Colombia trade pact. It would destroy fast track as a procedure for getting trade deals through Congress, said R.K. “Judge” Morris, president of the Global Business Dialogue, a trade advocacy group.

“Once you have demonstrated that the law isn’t a law, in the sense that it can’t be tested by the courts and you can’t enforce it, then it loses value,” Morris said.

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Right-wing blogs have followed with claims that Rep. McGovern is somehow sympathetic to the FARC. (Also see this report, resembling a Daily Show parody, on a local New England news network.)

In an attempt at April Fools humor yesterday, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader, read a false “testimony” from Hugo Chávez including this passage:

I want to applaud the ongoing support that has reportedly been provided by at least one of your House Democratic colleagues for my Marxist brothers in the Colombian FARC – a terrorist organization I have been working closely with to expand my influence in that nation. News reports recently detailed a trip one senior House Democrat made to Colombia to force Colombian President Alvaro Uribe – an American ally – to position me as a mediator between Colombia and the FARC.

Rep. McGovern is the member of Congress who has done most to help end the FARC hostage crisis, and CIP has accompanied his efforts over the past year. That puts us in a good position to clear up some of the glaring inaccuracies and outright falsehoods flying around.

Not every one of these media outlets is merely out to settle a political score. The Worcester Telegram and Gazette editorial at least makes an honest argument about McGovern’s endeavors:

We take him at his word that his intentions, at least, were purely humanitarian. … Yet, his outreach to the notoriously brutal FARC is of a different class than his longstanding communications with the Castro government in Cuba. Negotiating with terrorists or hostage-takers, even with the best intentions, only encourages more of the same. Mr. McGovern correctly points out that it is “ludicrous” to suggest that caring about Americans and others kidnapped by FARC is tantamount to supporting FARC. By the same token, no good can come of fueling a perception on FARC’s part that it can use a member of the U.S. Congress to gain political leverage.

This argument – that Rep. McGovern is simply naïve – leaves no solution for the hostages and their families, and seems to imply that a negotiated solution should be avoided because it might somehow “encourage” the guerrillas. Still, at least this line of reasoning is not based on distortions and political mudslinging.

Unlike the following assertions, which are very silly but keep bouncing around in the far-right blogosphere.

• “Jim McGovern sympathizes with the FARC.”

Wall Street Journal editorial: The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government. … Some Democrats oppose the Colombia trade deal because they sympathize more with FARC’s terrorists than with a U.S. antiterror ally.

It’s still amazing that we need to say it, but Rep. McGovern – like all members of Congress we have ever heard from – has no fondness for the FARC. In particular, he has no illusions about their horrific human rights record:

Worcester Telegram and Gazette: “The reports that we’re getting back is a number of the hostages have chains around their necks and sleep in tents with explosives. There are no humanitarian rules the FARC is following. It’s just a god-awful situation,” [McGovern] said, later adding, “The FARC are a brutal force. That word is not strong enough.”

Back in September, Colombian opposition Senator Piedad Córdoba, at the time an authorized facilitator of hostage-release dialogues, showed Rep. McGovern a video in which FARC leader Raúl Reyes called for a meeting in Venezuela between FARC representatives and members of the U.S. Congress.

McGovern did not jump at the opportunity. To the contrary: the congressman’s response, conveyed to Sen. Córdoba and through intermediary Jim Jones, was that he would only meet with FARC representatives if such a meeting came with a “positive and tangible” sign of progress – for instance, the unilateral release of a hostage.

Rep. McGovern didn’t offer Jim Jones any guidance about how to word Jones’s message to FARC leader Reyes recounting an October meeting with the congressman. Though the message’s friendly tone has caused innumerable headaches for Jones since it was revealed in files culled from Raúl Reyes’ computer, it did manage to serve its purpose. The message quickly made it to the FARC’s top command, and the requested proofs-of-life were produced shortly afterward. (Of course others, including Chávez and Senator Córdoba, were making similar requests for proofs-of-life at that time.)

Let’s also recall that Rep. McGovern sharply disagreed with Hugo Chávez’s controversial January suggestion that the FARC be removed from the world’s lists of terrorist organizations. “The FARC can be taken from the terrorist list when they stop behaving like terrorists,” the congressman told reporters.

Let’s not confuse “promoting a negotiated peace” with “sympathizing.” There are millions of people worldwide who want Colombia’s long war of attrition to come to a negotiated end. But the FARC has very, very few sympathizers.

• “Jim McGovern is trying to pressure Álvaro Uribe into granting the FARC a demilitarized zone.”

This chestnut first appeared in December, when President Uribe said publicly that Democratic members of Congress were conspiring with the FARC to pressure his government to meet a FARC pre-condition for talks: pulling the military out of two counties in southwestern Colombia.

Whoever Uribe was talking about, it wasn’t Rep. McGovern, who has only supported the type of smaller, conditional “encounter zone,” proposed by both the Catholic Church and a group of European governments, that President Uribe himself has already backed. In discussions with hostage relatives and other Colombian experts, I have personally heard Rep. McGovern express strong reservations about the FARC’s demand that the municipalities of Florida and Pradera be demilitarized.

While some “security zone” may be necessary to hold talks in Colombian territory, Rep. McGovern’s position – one we share – is that any such zone should not be an unconditional demilitarized area like the one that existed in 1998-2002. The makeup of any zone should be determined by negotiations guided by a trusted interlocutor (or group of interlocutors).

• “Jim McGovern is an admirer of Hugo Chávez who has participated in Venezuela’s low-income heating oil program.”

Investor’s Business Daily editorial: [A]nother trip taken to the Andes last year by another Democratic threesome — Reps. Bill Delahunt and James McGovern of Massachusetts and George Miller of California. With at least two of them in hock to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez for supplying cheap heating oil to their districts, the trio decided to meddle in Colombia, a democracy Chavez seeks to overthrow. … Secret correspondence from the computer of dead FARC warlord Raul Reyes suggests that the real aim of the trip was to muscle Colombian President Alvaro Uribe into restoring Chavez as a mediator between Colombia and the FARC.

Rep. McGovern does not participate in the Venezuelan heating oil program. While he has been critical of the U.S. approach to Venezuela, his record includes no words of praise for the Chávez government. He has never set foot in Venezuela.

While he and I have recently indicated that Chávez may need to play some supporting role in future hostage-for-prisoner talks, this is simply a recognition of a cold, hard reality: to our knowledge, at this moment Chávez is the only intermediary with whom the FARC have chosen to be in regular contact.

• “Jim McGovern is freelancing and working clandestinely.”

Worcester Telegram and Gazette: Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, said she was not aware of any notification from Mr. McGovern that he played a part in hostage negotiations. She said members of Congress are free to pursue such freestyle diplomacy if they wish.

In fact, Rep. McGovern has kept State Department and Colombian Foreign Ministry officials, including both countries’ ambassadors, regularly notified about the few gestures he has made. (None of these, incidentally, has progressed to the point of “playing a part in hostage negotiations.”) In fact, he has already discussed the content of his proposals in the U.S. and Colombian media.

Rep. McGovern has not produced a public, point-by-point response to his critics, something that would probably only encourage them. His office also notes that very few of those who have written about him have actually sought to speak with him.

This is a Swift-Boat campaign in miniature. Not only is it dishonest and politicized, it does harm to the urgent effort to win the guerrilla hostages’ freedom. This effort should be bipartisan, not another pretext for divisive attacks.

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They include this tantalizing passage, in an August 23, 2007 communication from FARC Secretariat member Alfonso Cano to the other six secretariat commanders.

The Democrats of the USA, in Colombia, who were in Venezuela before, say they have a clear position about a political negotiation with the FARC. [Colombian Nobel Laureate author Gabriel] García Márquez is in charge of this intermediation with the FARC on behalf of the USA, and they want Panama to be the country through which to talk to the FARC. For this, García Márquez has already transferred that request to [Panamanian President Martín] Torrijos, and he accepted. Clinton told García Márquez in Cartagena, “I want to have a personal task. I want to help Colombia. An accord with the FARC must be sought.” Senator McGovern [almost definitely Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts)] told García Márquez that: Bush wants to make Colombia play the role that West Germany played against socialist Europe, and this must be stopped. He also said that the Democrats’ political analyst specialized in Colombia is Adam Isackson [sic.].

I was pretty surprised to see my name there, however misspelled. But since it is, perhaps I’m in a position to clear up some of this.

• I don’t know of Bill Clinton expressing any recent desire to be involved in talks with the FARC. That would be surprising, since he has had to dedicate so much time to his wife’s presidential campaign.
• The involvement of Gabriel García Márquez and Martín Torrijos is also something I had never heard before. If true, it would be encouraging, because both have sufficient credibility with both sides to be useful interlocutors.
• The “Senator McGovern” in question is definitely not former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern (D-South Dakota), who has not been to Colombia anytime recently.
• This leaves Rep. Jim McGovern, who has been to Colombia twice in the past year. But Rep. McGovern has never set foot in Venezuela. In fact, very few congressional Democrats have paid visits to Venezuela since Chávez made his “sulfur” speech at the UN in September 2006.
• Neither has Rep. McGovern ever met Gabriel García Márquez.
• Rep. McGovern denies making any bizarre comments about West Germany. (And of course, defenders of U.S. policy could easily point out that West Germany emerged from the Cold War as a stable democracy and an economic powerhouse.)
• Though more of a legal detail than anything else, I should make clear that I have no formal ties to the Democratic Party. It just so happens that many more Democrats than Republicans agree with CIP’s critiques of, and recommendations for, U.S. policy toward Colombia and Latin America. Getting those recommendations enacted, in fact, requires the support of at least a fair number of Republicans.

With so many glaring inaccuracies, it’s apparent that this FARC communication is either a blatant fabrication or the result of a series of miscommunications fed in part by the guerrillas’ own wishful thinking. It could be that, like the old game of “telephone,” messages get more and more garbled as they are passed along to the top of the guerrilla command.

Knowledge that this particular communication is so inaccurate leads me to two conclusions about the “revelations” from Raúl Reyes’s computers.

1. They cannot be taken at face value. While what has been recovered so far reveals much about the guerrillas’ thinking, their own understanding of their dealings with the outside world is apparently quite distorted. For me, knowing how badly the guerrillas got things wrong about the “Democrats” calls into question the accuracy of other tidbits recovered from the FARC computers, including Venezuela’s alleged payments or the guerrillas’ apparent efforts to buy uranium.
2. They underscore the need for trusted interlocutors. The recovered communiqués show how badly information gets garbled and distorted as it passes, slowly, to the guerrilla commanders in their jungle hideouts. If talks with the guerrillas are to go ahead about anything, but especially about freeing their hostages, then both sides need a trusted go-between who can ensure that communications pass efficiently, accurately and in something close to real time. These necessary conversations just can’t happen otherwise. We repeat our call for the appointment of a neutral facilitator, or group of facilitators, that is acceptable to all sides.

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This makes for an interesting contrast with the United States, where even the two “liberal” Democratic presidential candidates defended the Uribe government’s action.

• Barack Obama: “[T]he Colombian government has every right to defend itself against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The recent targeted killing of a senior FARC leader must not be used as a pretense to ratchet up tensions or to threaten the stability of the region.”
• Hillary Clinton: “The Colombian state has every right to defend itself against drug trafficking terrorist organizations that have kidnapped innocent civilians, including American citizens. … Rather than criticizing Colombia’s actions in combating terrorist groups in the border regions, Venezuela and Ecuador should work with their neighbor to ensure that their territories no longer serve as safe havens for terrorist groups.”

John McCain, reports CBS news, sees in this crisis a reason to bring back the super-hard-line “Just Say No” drug policies of twenty years ago.

“I want to reiterate our partnership and friendship with President [Alvaro] Uribe and the government of Colombia. … They are a vital ally. … I hope that tensions will be relaxed, President Chavez will remove those troops from the borders – as well as the Ecuadorians – and relations continue to improve between the two. … [The FARC] are a terrorist organization and one that I believe we must assist the Colombian government in repressing.”

For his part, President Bush’s three-minute statement on the crisis yesterday was partly a show of support for Colombia, partly a call for a diplomatic solution, and mostly a “commercial” for congressional ratification of the Colombia free-trade agreement.

President Uribe told me that one of the most important ways America can demonstrate its support for Colombia is by moving forward with a free trade agreement that we negotiated. … Our country’s message to President Uribe and the people of Colombia is that we stand with our democratic ally. My message to the United States Congress is that this trade agreement is more than a matter of smart economics, it is a matter of national security. If we fail to approve this agreement, we will let down our close ally, we will damage our credibility in the region, and we will embolden the demagogues in our hemisphere.

A State Department spokesman sent a more helpful message on Monday. After making clear that the U.S. government supports Colombia, Tom Casey called forcefully for diplomacy.

 ”[L]ook, I think right now our focus is on trying to encourage Colombia and Ecuador to work out diplomatically the concerns that have been raised about this military strike. Certainly, we expect that that’s how this is going to be resolved. And I don’t think anybody at this point ought to be talking about military action.”

This sentiment was echoed in a letter to the OAS (PDF), released Tuesday, which bore the signatures of fifteen members of the U.S. Congress. The message, calling for OAS leadership of a diplomatic solution, is the only Colombia-related letter in memory signed by both the hawkish Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) and the dovish Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts).
While this letter was signed by both parties’ senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere (Burton and Rep. Eliot Engel [D-New York]), the ranking Republican on the full Foreign Affairs Committee was absent. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) put out her own, more bellicose statement.

The courageous men and women of the Colombian National Police, its intelligence unit and the country’s security services have shattered the myth that FARC’s leadership is invincible. … Recent State Department reports cite deepening ties between the Chavez regime and Iran and Cuba, and an unwillingness by Chavez to prevent Venezuelan territory from being used as a safe haven by FARC. These reports are alarming and require the careful attention of our government and those of our neighbors. … Rather than rattle sabers, Colombia’s neighbors need to play a more constructive role in bringing about a durable peace and removing FARC’s foreign sanctuaries that have been exposed by this operation.

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Only yesterday did we see a list of the ten Democratic members of Congress who will be accompanying the Secretary. This made it impossible to prepare any briefing materials or lists of suggested questions to ask.

Those ten members, who will spend about 24 hours in Medellín, are:

• Eliot Engel (D-Bronx/Westchester, New York), the Chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee;
• Jane Harman (D-El Segundo/Wilmington, California);
• Solomon Ortiz (D-Corpus Christi/Brownsville, Texas);
• Alcee Hastings (D-Ft. Lauderdale/West Palm, Florida);
• Jim Moran (D-Alexandria/Reston, Virginia);
• David Scott (D-Jonesboro/Smyrna, Georgia);
• Rick Larsen (D-Everett/Bellingham, Washington);
• Melissa Bean (D-Schaumburg, Illinois);
• Ron Klein (D-Ft. Lauderdale, Florida); and
• Ed Perlmutter (D-Lakewood, Colorado).

Three of these ten (Bean, Moran and Ortiz) were among the fifteen Democrats who voted for the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005. Two (Moran and Ortiz) have voting records that reflect support for Plan Colombia over the years, while six (Engel, Harman, Hastings, Scott, Larsen and Bean) have tended to vote for amendments to cut military aid and increase economic aid to Colombia. The other two, Klein and Perlmutter, are in their first term.

CIP’s Colombia Program is not an active participant in the Free Trade Agreement debate – our expertise is security and human rights, not economics. (We share Human Rights Watch’s view, however, that the U.S. government should use the pending agreement as “leverage to press Colombia’s government to effectively confront impunity and break the paramilitaries’ power.”)

Beyond the FTA, though, we worry that some of these ten Democrats might come back to Washington with a skewed view of Colombia, and U.S. policy toward Colombia, after their two highly staged days there.

Over the years, we’ve seen trips like these distorting the views that members of Congress hold about Colombia, a country about which they probably don’t think too often. Normally thoughtful members of Congress, prefacing their remarks with “I’ve been to Colombia, I’ve talked to the Colombian people,” go on to declaim about the wonders of Plan Colombia and President Uribe’s hard-line policies.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about, Plan Colombia is working,” they will say to congressional colleagues who have paid longer, unofficial fact-finding visits to less-charming regions of the country. “I think you’re being overly negative.”

We ask the members of Congress in Medellín today: please return to Washington wanting to know more. You’ve only heard half the story. After one day in the Secretary of State’s bubble in Medellín being shown just what they want you to see, you’ve “been to Colombia” as much as a Cancún spring breaker has “been to Mexico.” Your intellectual curiosity should be provoked, not satisfied.

Incidentally, while in Medellín it’s a shame that you won’t be meeting with any of the following people. These uninvited individuals and groups could have given you a much fuller idea of how complex the situation really is in Colombia, and what the true consequences of your aid and trade decisions will be.

• Medellín has been a center of paramilitary activity, and lately has hosted many of the confessions that top paramilitary leaders have given to prosecutors as part of the “Justice and Peace” demobilization process. Being in Medellín would have offered a great opportunity to speak to the paramilitaries’ victims, who stand vigil outside these prosecutorial sessions. You could have taken a moment to hear of their desire to know what happened to their loved ones, to see a measure of justice done, or to win the return of lands that were stolen from them. You could have pondered why nearly all who aided and funded the paramilitaries who victimized them remain not only unpunished, but unnamed.
• You could have met with the overworked, underfunded prosecutors and investigators in the “Justice and Peace” unit of Colombia’s Prosecutor-General’s office (Fiscalía), to find out what their needs are – everything from manpower to security to the ability to uncover mass graves – and how the United States could be supporting them.
• You could have met with relatives of civilians who were detained by the Colombian military, only to show up dead, presented as guerrillas killed in combat. Colombia has seen a rash of these “extrajudicial executions” in the past few years [PDF], and the Colombian Army’s Medellín-based 4th Brigade is alleged to be one of the worst offenders.
• Medellín is the capital of a department (province) called Antioquia. In 2006 Antioquia, according to the UN, was fifth among Colombia’s 32 departments in production of coca, the plant used to make cocaine – more than 15,000 acres were detected there that year. Being in Medellín would have offered an opportunity to speak with coca-growing families, to find out why they chose to plant the crop, and what economic options remained after U.S.-funded spray planes fumigated them.
• You could have met with members of indigenous nations living just a few hours’ drive from Medellín, such as the Embera-Katío. Beset by the conflict and by people who would evict them to profit from their land, these nations’ cultures, languages and traditions face the very real possibility of extinction.
• You could have spoken to Medellín’s ombudsman (Personería) or to respected NGOs like the Popular Training Institute (IPC) to get an overview of the city’s complex security situation, including concerns that new armed groups, fueled by the drug trade, may be asserting themselves in the poor barrios that ring the city.
• You could have met with Medellín-based negotiators and accompaniers of the ongoing, promising peace process with the ELN guerrilla group. They would have explained the possibilities and challenges that these negotiations face, and how the United States could be supporting them.

We are pleased that the ten Democratic House members accompanying Secretary of State Rice today have taken an interest in Colombia. We encourage them to remain engaged, and to seek a much broader spectrum of views and facts, after they return to Washington.

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