National Office
3628 12th Street NE
1st Floor
Washington, DC
20017
202.547.6112
202.536.4708 fax

Stop the Cycles of Military and Economic Violence
Peace is Possible in Colombia!

In 2006, Witness for Peace will launch its national campaign, Stop the Cycles of Military and Economic Violence: Peace is Possible in Colombia! Witness for Peace’s commitment to nonviolence and our solidarity with partners in Latin America for more than 20 years has led us to identify the cycles of military and economic violence in the region. Our monitoring presence leads to a keen awareness of the United States role, through complicity and at times even sponsorship, in this violence. U.S. policy motives often serve the larger purpose of securing U.S. military and economic control. Military and economic policies protect U.S. economic interests in this region. Civilians often pay the cost through the loss of decent standards of living, human rights and their very lives. Witness for Peace calls for an end to the brutalities of all kinds of violence toward the civilian populations of the Americas, specifically the cycles of violence found in Colombia.

Military violence has become so commonplace in our national media and mindset that we can become desensitized to its horrors. Increasingly each year, the United States spends millions of public dollars a day perpetuating military violence in places such as Colombia. In that embattled country, stated U.S. policy goals like the “War on Drugs” or the more recent “War on Terrorism” are the forerunner to millions in U.S. military aid. While campaign names change, the victims remain the same. Over 80 percent the U.S. War on Drugs funding in Colombia is military and police aid. Despite pouring over $3 billion dollars into Colombia’s military since Congress passed Plan Colombia in 2000, the U.S. has failed to reduce the availability of drugs on U.S. streets or help Colombia move toward an end to its embittered 40-year-old conflict.

Economic violence is often more subtle than the use of military force and rarely make headlines. The silent violence of unjust economic policies continues to take countless innocent victims. People are impoverished when they are deprived of access to power and resources. The United States wants to establish new international trade and investment with Colombia through the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA). The impact of AFTA’s predecessor in Mexico—NAFTA--has taught us that free trade is not free. The livelihoods of small and mid-sized farmers are seriously at risk in these “deals” as low-cost imports devastate local farm products and as a result, families. Economic desperation has already forced many of Colombia’s farmers to produce coca. Displacing farmers as a result of unfair trade promotions could only intensify the population caught in the cross fire of the “drug war”.

Stop the cycles of violence. The free market practice of privatizing public services prioritizes profit over people. Violation of human rights often follows, and human dignity and sovereignty are in danger. Poverty is globalized and desperation increased throughout the region.

As mega-development initiatives and free-trade agreements habitually threaten the well-being and environment of local populations, the implementing policies are often enforced at gunpoint. Tragically, the United States military, through presence or threat, has often been the enforcement mechanism for those policies. Yet political figureheads in the U.S. insist that farther-reaching free trade policies are necessary for U.S. security: that free trade and neoliberal models are synonymous with patriotism and freedom. It is wrong that the U.S. government uses its military might to crush anyone it choose to deem “evil” or simply contrary to U.S. interests.

Witness for Peace calls U.S. citizens to recognize, reflect on and resist the violence in both military and economic policies in Colombia. Through our international delegations program, speaker’s tours, nonviolent civil actions, stateside education and advocacy, Witness for Peace exposes and challenges these cycles of violence found in Colombia.