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Departments International Issues So what's a conscientious citizen to do? by Margaret Knapke in Journal issue July 20, 2002 First it was all about drugs - or so we were told. Sen. Mike DeWine helped craft Plan Colombia for the Clinton Administration, and $1.3 billion flowed to Colombia's declared drug war. Two years later President Bush demands more dollars and weapons - having broadened US objectives to fighting terror and insurgency - and DeWine cheers him on. The U.S. insists its intervention in Colombia is protecting democracy and the rule of law. But our policy there violates both of those principles, as well as the human rights which depend upon them. And the violation - of rights and logic - is extreme. For starters, many drug policy and human rights organizations refute the Drug War rationale for supporting the Colombian military. Even the relatively conservative Rand Corporation has concluded that drug treatment for U.S. cocaine users is 10 times more cost-effective than drug interdiction, and 23 times more cost-effective than coca eradication! And - while eradication using Round-Up Ultra in combination with the surfactant Cosmoflux is proving toxic to Colombian farmers and their lands - coca crops are doing quite well! Often coca can be replanted in sprayed soil, unlike food crops which are more vulnerable to Monsanto's toxins. And rainforests are readily cleared for virgin soil. Despite Plan Colombia, coca production has actually increased, for three reasons: the resilience of the coca plant; the easy availability of uncultivated land; and, most importantly, the unavailability of other crops that can sustain small farmers and their families. Realistically, the only way to stop the flow of drugs into the U.S. is to provide real economic opportunity on the supply end, along with drug treatment on the demand end. Recasting this failed Drug War policy now as a War against Terrorism similarly abuses fact. Documentation from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, and even the U.S. State Department shows that the Colombian military regularly coordinates with right wing paramilitaries. These "paras" commit - again, often with military cover - approximately 75% of the human rights violations. That's 75% of the terror! So arguably the Clinton Adminis-tration's Plan Colombia - by aiding and abetting the very military which aids and abets the paramilitaries - has actually accelerated terrorism in Colombia. And the current Bush plan for further militarization can only increase U.S. culpability for civilian deaths, despite War against Terrorism rhetoric. Yet, on a good day, rhetoric confronts reality - and finds the grace or good sense to defer to it. Sadly, April 30 was not such a day. On that Tuesday, ten Ohioans tried to share their Colombian experiences and their concerns with Sen. DeWine, but got only as far as the Franklin County Jail. They represented civic groups from the Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton areas which had tried for two years to get a face-to-face meeting with their senator. While they had repeatedly related their own wrenching Colombian experiences and grim documentation to the Senator's aides, his position reflected none of that information. How, then, to be heard? Demand his ear! And trust that this pro-child and pro-family politician could also care about Colombian children and Colombian families. Trust that he could grasp their brutal reality under Plan Colombia. So grandparents, college students, businesspersons, a seminarian, and a teacher refused to leave DeWine's Columbus office without setting a firm appointment with him. They were arrested, and arraigned the following morning on counts of criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. Now they await trial dates on July 9 and 11. But it is the Colombian people who can least afford the Senator's rebuffs. For it is their story - those who suffer the toxic effects of fumigation and are forced from their lands, those whose children sicken and sometimes die after being fumigated, those who are usually targeted by paramilitaries and regular military, but sometimes by the guerrillas as well - it is their story which needs to be told to every citizen on and off the Hill. Sadly, it is their story which Sen. DeWine seems determined not to hear. But grace and good sense can still carry the day! Hearts can soften. Minds can change. Mistaken allegiances and policies can be corrected. Even community so broken can be repaired: Colombian victims honored and their survivors spared. Margaret Knapke works with the Ohio Working Group on Latin America, the Dayton Pledge of Resistance, and SOA Watch. She served three months in federal prison in 2000 for nonviolent civil disobedience at Fort Benning, Georgia. For subscription information and links, see www.owgla.mahost.org/ and www.soaw.org. Email this article to a friend |
Don't forget to check out articles from 2007 and 2008
"Fifteen Killed, More Wounded in Hebron Shooting Attack "
November 16, 2002
Le Anne Clausen
"One Month"
November 15, 2002
Mary Yoder
"Removing the sweatshop from the coffee fields: A journey to El Salvador"
May 28, 2002
Michele Spring-Moore
"Fifteen Killed in Hebron Shooting Attack"
March 15, 2002
Mary Yoder
"Venezuelan coup: Made in the U.S.A."
July 20, 2002
"DeWine's Plan Colombia kills democracy in Ohio"
July 20, 2002
"So what's a conscientious citizen to do?"
July 20, 2002
"Columbia: Kill off the food crops and let the US sniff out the coke"
January 16, 2002
"Argentina cries out for justice"
January 16, 2002
"Speak up on the Palestine/Israel conflict "
January 16, 2002
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