We want real changes in US-Colombia policy: WOLA http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/interviews/9673-we-want-real-changes-in-us-colombia-policy.html

Gimena Sanchez, Senior Associate for Colombia at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), says that despite the fact that Colombia is not a priority for the Obama administration, U.S. policy in the country is wreaking havoc in the Andean nation in a myriad of ways.Oftentimes, many congressmen in the U.S. are unaware of the plight of at-risk citizens in Colombia, partially due to "intense lobbying by the Colombian government, who insist that there is no more armed conflict, and no more displacement," notes Sanchez.

The proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and Colombia has also raised concerns for WOLA. Sanchez says that many of the regions potentially most affected by the trade agreement, encompass populations already threatened by displacement. She cited as an example the expansion of the port at Buenaventura - slated to happen in the event of the bill's approval - which would displace 3,000, mostly Afro-Colombian, families.

The process of the FTA's approval also irks Sanchez. She says that she would like to the Colombian government to meet many more benchmarks, before her organization could begin to support the agreement. She cites as examples, a reduction in the murders of trade union organizers, the dismantling of paramilitary infrastructure, protection for indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories, and a renegotiation of certain terms of the agreement, which take Afro-Colombian and Indigenous groups' concerns into account.

Sanchez claims that "fumigation doesn't work." She says that destroying coca crops with pesticides or other poisonous agents just disperses the area used for cultivating the coca, further displaces already vulnerable populations, and destroys unrelated crops and territories right along with illegal narcotics.Sanchez also notes that Colombian military behavior was never taken into account when making the agreement, and that the U.S. seemed to have no qualms about collaborating with a military body accused of human rights violations, such as extrajudicial killings in the "false positives" cases.

While Sanchez applauded Obama's dressing down of Uribe for attempting to seek a third term as president, she says that aid from the U.S. to Colombia is still rubber-stamped no matter what the Colombian government does, even if they don’t meet the U.S. State Department democratic and human rights provisions theoretically required for the aid."Even at the height of the DAS wiretapping scandal, with the government eavesdropping on journalists and government watchdogs, the State Department approved their aid," Sanchez says.