CHICAGO,
IL – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued the following statement
following the U.S. State Department human rights recertification of Colombia:
“With
this certification, the Bush Administration has demonstrated its blatant
disregard for the welfare of the Colombian people. By continuing
to fund and work closely with a military that has been implicated with
committing gross atrocities against its own people while associating with
groups designated as terrorists by the US, the Bush Administration is exacerbating
the human right crisis in Colombia. The United States has the ability
to change course in Colombia and help create a bright future for all the
Colombian people,” Schakowsky aid.
Schakowsky
is an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration’s flawed drug interdiction
policy in Colombia, which is drawing the United States deeper into Colombia’s
civil war, rewarding human right abuses by the Colombian military, and
is weighted heavily toward a supply-side reduction, a strategy that has
not decreased substance abuse in the United States. |
