Aktionen
Von: "Alliance for Global Justice" <>
Betreff:
Sign on for
peace in Colombia!
Datum: Dienstag, 3. August 2010 20:08
Sign on for peace in Colombia!
www.afgj.org
Send a letter to new President Santos!
Dear Friend,
In
the final week of Alvaro Uribe's Colombian presidency, Colombia continues to
generate a regional crisis in South America. Please join Alliance for Global
Justice, SOA Watch, Noam Chomsky, and others in signing on to the following
letter calling for a peaceful resolution. Please distribute it to your networks
as well. The letter will be delivered to in-coming Colombian President Juan
Manuel Santos and cc'ed to UNASUR President Nestor Kirchner and OAS Secretary
General José Miguel Insulza on Aug. 7, the date of Santos' inauguration.
To
sign on, please send an email to
paz4colombia@gmail.com . For organizational sign-ons, include your name and
organization. Indicate if the organization should be listed as "For
identification only." For individuals, please include your name, city, state,
and country. The deadline for sign-ons is 5pm EDT, August. 5.
This letter is very similar to a recent letter delivered to Secretary General
Insulza and all OAS Ambassadors on the morning when Colombia presented it's
complaint that Venezuela is harboring guerrillas of the FARC and ELN. If you are
like me, you were reminded of Sec. of State Colin Powell's UN performance
proporting to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. (If you signed on
to the OAS letter, please send an email to
paz4colombia@gmail.com informing us
that you want to sign on to this one as well.
Regional tensions in the Andes are very high and the situation is dangerous.
Please join us in calling for a peaceful normalization of relations and for a
negotiated peace to the 60 year-old civil war in Colombia.
Chuck Kaufman
Alliance for Global Justice
President Juan Manuel Santos
Casa Nariño
Carrera 8 No.6-26;
Edificio
Administrativo: Calle 7 No.6-54
Bogota, Colombia
August 7, 2010
Dear President Santos,
We, the undersigned, wish to express our strong support for progress in the
establishment of a constructive regional dialogue around the internal conflict
in Colombia and its impact on neighboring countries. We consider this dialogue -
based on mutual trust and respect - to be essential to the construction of a
lasting peace in Colombia and to regional stability.
Civil society
organizations in the United States and in Latin America, as well as regional
bodies including the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), have worked
tirelessly to open doors for dialogue and seek a more comprehensive approach to
Colombia's bloody 60 year old civil war. Unfortunately, Colombia, under the
Uribe government, focused instead on a policy of increased militarization that
has claimed an enormous human and material toll, especially for Colombia's Afro
descendant and indigenous communities. We urge you, as president, to open a new
chapter in Colombian history, its relationship with its citizens, and with its
neighbors.
The Uribe administration left behind it a dismal human
rights record that is the direct product of the so-called democratic security
policy first implemented in 2003. Along with over 20,000 deaths of combatants,
thousands of civilian non-combatants have been killed according to human rights
groups. Over 2,000 extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by Colombia's
armed forces are currently under investigation by the country's
Prosecutor-General. Meanwhile, the number of internally displaced in Colombia
has reached the millions and hundreds of thousands of Colombians have sought
exile in neighboring countries.
Former President Uribe also has left a
sad record in the foreign policy realm given the troubling actions his
government has taken in the regional arena and his refusal to consult affected
countries before taking these actions. His government's decision in 2008 to
invade and bomb Ecuadoran territory without any regard for that country's
sovereignty led to a regional crisis that continues to have repercussions to
this day. His decision in 2009 to sign an agreement with the United States that
greatly enhances the US military presence in Colombia, has led to further
tensions with countries throughout South America that are historically wary of
any form of US military buildup in the region.
In the final days of
his government, President Uribe once again chose to provoke a neighbor - in this
case Venezuela - rather than engage in much needed dialogue. With his
government's decision to make unsubstantiated accusations before the OAS against
the Chavez government at a crucial moment of transition that should offer a
unique opportunity for putting relations with Venezuela on a new path, Uribe
once again demonstrated his preference for conflict over dialogue.
Yet we wish nonetheless to express our hope that Colombia's internal situation
and external relations can and will improve. President Santos, you undoubtedly
bear a share of the responsibility for the security policies implemented by
Uribe, given that you were Colombia's defense minister from 2006 to 2009.
However, your pre-inaugural statements suggest that you may be willing to turn a
new page, to begin writing a new chapter. It is our hope, both for Colombia and
for the future stability of the region, that now that you are in office you will
seek to significantly revise the harmful security policies put in place by
former President Uribe and to work in earnest to rebuild relations with the rest
of the region.
Hope for real change in Colombia lies on the horizon. We
strongly urge the new Colombian administration to foster improved dialogue, and
a negotiated peace, within Colombia as well as with neighboring countries as
Colombians move forward in constructing a more peaceful and democratic nation.
Nothing less is owed to the thousands of Colombians who have been victims of
this bloody conflict or who have been displaced or exiled in foreign lands for
more than half a century.
Sincerely,
[see partial list]
cc: UNASUR President Nestor Kirchner
OAS Secretary General José Miguel
Insulza
Signers (list open until Aug. 5, 5pm EDT)
Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Founder, SOA Watch
Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator,
Alliance for Global Justice
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor emeritus, MIT
Marjorie Cohn, Professor at Thomas
Jefferson School of Law and Deputy Secretary
General of International Association of
Democratic Lawyers
Katherine Hoyt, Ph.D., National Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua
Network
James
Jordan, National Coordinator, Campaign for Labor Rights
Blase Bonpane, Ph.D., Director, OFFICE
OF THE AMERICAS
Dale Sorensen Director, Marin Interfaith Task Force on the
Americas
Judy
Somberg, Attorney, Cambridge, MA, National Lawyers Guild*
Daniel Kovalik, Senior Associate General
Counsel, United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO
(USW)
Tim Jeffries, Bend-Condega Friendship Project*
Erin Cox, 8th Day Center for Justice,
Chicago, IL*
Barbara Larcom, Casa Baltimore/Limay
Diana Bohn, Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua
Center for Community Action (NICCA),
Berkeley, CA
Gunnar and Xiomara Gundersen, Oregon Bolivarian Circle
Edward L. Osowski, St. Francis Xavier
church, La Grange, Illinois, Peace and Justice
Committee*
Rev. Ann Marie Coleman, Chicago, IL
Chris Benson, Loves Park, IL
Colleen Rose, Novato, CA
Debra Evenson, Attorney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alliance for Global
Justice | 1247 E St. SE | Washington | DC | 20003