CPTnet
23 May 2009
COLOMBIA URGENT ACTION: Ask U.S. officials to vote against U.S./Colombia free trade agreement

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) asks for your help to stop any further negotiations and ratification of the U.S./Colombia free trade agreement (FTA).

The Obama administration is still pushing the Clinton/Bush free trade and neo-liberal policies that have bankrupted the United States and Mexican economies.  On 7 April 2007, then-President Bush sent legislation to implement the U.S.-Colombia Trade Agreement to Congress for its approval.  Due to strong public opposition, Congress did not approve it.  At the recent Summit of the America’s in Trinidad, President Obama and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe stated they would re-launch the initiative due to Colombia’s supposed improvement in human rights and the protection of Colombian workers.

CPT’s direct experience in Colombia has shown team members that—contrary to what Presidents Obama and Uribe are saying—the situation in Colombia remains the same and that FTAs are bad for working people in the United States and in Colombia.

In Colombia:
·         The country continues to suffer the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere with more than 13,000 people displaced from January to June 2008 alone due to Plan Colombia.
·         474 union organizers have been murdered under President Uribe, and labor leaders continue to receive threats.  Members of the Colombian armed forces continue extrajudicial executions of civilians.
·         Supposedly demobilized paramilitaries continue to reorganize and threaten human rights defenders.
·         Even without an FTA, cheaply priced subsidized corn, rice, and beans pushes small farmers into financial ruin and forces them to displace in search of economic survival, a process the Colombia team witnessed, with much pain, in the Opón; an FTA will only exacerbate this process.

In the U.S.:
·         Major trade unions all oppose the Colombian FTA.
·         The free trade agreement with Mexico (NAFTA) hurt real wages and job security for U.S. workers.  A U.S.- Colombia FTA will do the same.
·         U.S. workers need well-paying jobs with benefits, not jobs that are outsourced overseas.

Approving an FTA with Colombia will perpetuate these abhorrent human rights violations and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.  Neither the people of Colombia nor the people of the U.S. can afford a NAFTA-style trade agreement that will cause more displacement and suffering.

ACT NOW to stop the U.S./Colombia FTA.

Visit or call your Congress leaders and members to urge them to vote against any FTA legislation.

To find addresses and phone numbers for your members of Congress.  Click here

Visit your members of Congress or staff at their local offices.  Follow up the visit with a letter restating what you ask.  Click here for more information about “How to schedule a visit.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Office of the Speaker H-232 US Capitol, Washington DC 20515. Phone: 202-225-0100

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 522 Hart Senate Office Bldg, Washington, DC 20510.  Phone: 202-224-3542, Fax: 202-224-7327.

If you are not able to visit your members of Congress, please call their local offices or the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121).  Give the operator your zip code and ask to be connected to your senator and representatives’ office.  Ask to speak to the staff member in charge of Latin America policy.