Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 11:03:07 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200006241503.LAA03580@mattababy.mit.edu>
From: belmonte@mit.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: senator@kennedy.senate.gov
Subject: your vote on S.2522, the Colombian aid package

Dear Senator Kennedy

I was disappointed to read in this past week's Congressional Record of your
votes in favour of S.2522, the foreign appropriations act that contained
military aid for Colombia, as well as your votes against two amendments that
would have decreased the level of this military aid.

Specifically, you voted against the Gorton amendment, which would have reduced
funding for military assistance to $200 million.  You also voted to table the
Wellstone amendment, which would have diverted $225 million from military aid
in Colombia to badly needed drug treatment programs here in the United States.
(Tabling this amendment effectively killed it.)

As I wrote to you in my email of 6 February, the Colombian military is
notorious for its abuses of human rights, and in supplying military aid the
United States will indirectly further such abuses.  As for the problem of
addiction, the United States should begin addressing that at home, not in
Central America.

I never did receive a reply to the mail that I sent you in February.  I'd like  
to hear more about your rationale for these votes, and any views you may have   
on how we can begin addressing the drug problem with public health services
rather than with guns and helicopters.