To: Colombia Grassroots List
From: Elanor Starmer, Latin America Working Group
Date: April 3, 9:30 am
Re: Colombia update
Thank you to everyone who has been making phone calls and sending letters to
their members of Congress expressing concerns over the $104 million in
military aid to Colombia that was included in the Iraq supplemental. I
wanted to give you a quick update on where things stand and let you know
that we still need calls today, so please keep up the good work!
The House and Senate will debate their versions of the Iraq supplemental
later on today (Thursday, April 3). Both versions still include that $104
million for Colombia, although Senator Leahy (VT) was able to ensure that in
the Senate version of the bill, $5 million of the Colombia aid is designated
to help Colombia's internal refugees.
On the House side, it looks like Reps. McGovern (MA), Skelton (MO) and
DeLauro (CT) will be offering an amendment that would take out a portion of
the military aid to Colombia and transfer it into programs that support
local police and first responders in the US.
We are asking everyone to call their representatives and urge them to
support this amendment. To be connected with your member's office, call the
Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected. If you
don't know who your rep is, see www.house.gov/writerep. Once connected with
your member's office, ask to speak with the foreign policy aide, and let
them know that you are concerned about more military aid to Colombia, and
you hope that your representative will support the McGovern/Skelton/DeLauro
amendment to the Iraq supplemental to cut out a portion of that military
aid.
To help us with the DC side of this work, it would be great if you could
send me a report of the calls you are able to make-- estarmer@lawg.org.
Thank you!
And thank you so much for your hard work and dedication to improving US
policy towards Colombia.
Elanor Starmer
Associate for Colombia and Central America
Latin America Working Group
110 Maryland Ave. NE, Box 15
Washington, DC 20002
Tel. 202/546-7010
Fax 202/543-7647
e-mail: estarmer@lawg.org
For updates on US policy toward Latin America, please see our website,