York Research Centre Hosts Colombian Peace Activists
NGOs Say US-sponsored Plan Colombia a Threat to Civil Governance

TORONTO, June 21, 2000 -- The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University will host Colombian peace activists Daniel Garcia-Pena, former High Commissioner for Peace, and Nelson Berrio, Coordinator of the National Civil Society Assembly for Peace, on Friday, June 23rd, to discuss Canada's role in the US-sponsored peace plan for their country, dubbed Plan Colombia.

The US Congress is currently debating a proposed $1.6 billion aid package for Plan Colombia that the US administration says is aimed primarily at supporting Colombian counter-narcotics activities. Colombian and European non-government organizations (NGOs) declared last week that Plan Colombia is not a peace plan, but a US-sponsored military initiative that threatens to destroy the last vestiges of civilian governance in Colombia and create chaos in the region. They say Canada, Europe and Japan should reject US calls for support for the plan. An international meeting on Plan Colombia sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations is scheduled for July 7 in Madrid.

Visiting CERLAC fellow Manuel Rozental, a Colombian Canadian and former director of a United Nations violence prevention research institute in Cali, says the delicate peace process that is starting to take hold in Colombia is largely due to the groundwork laid by Garcia-Pena, a television journalist who became High Commissioner for Peace under the previous Colombian government. Nelson Berrio's National Civil Society Assembly for Peace is a broadly-based social movement established in 1998 to promote citizens' participation in peace negotiations. It grew out of a proposal by the second largest guerrilla group in the country, the Army of National Liberation (ELN), to create a body that excluded members of the government, the right-wing paramilitaries and the guerrilla forces, to develop an agenda for peace. The Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest guerrilla group, currently controls about 40 per cent of Colombian territory, and many of its members are peasants displaced by the 40-year civil war.

"Plan Colombia is a US initiative disguised as a Colombian one," says Rozental. "First, the government will bomb, then they will conduct aerial spraying of coca and poppie fields, with disastrous results for the environment and for the human rights of the peasant farmers who subsist on these crops," says Rozental. He says the plan does not address the causes of violence and crime in Colombia, but in fact, promotes these activities. He says the peace process will collapse as a result.

Garcia-Pena and Berrio will speak at 2 p.m. Friday, June 23 at the International Student Centre, University of Toronto, 33 George St.

The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University is an interdisciplinary research unit concerned with the economic development, political and social organization, and cultural contributions of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Centre works to build academic and cultural links between these regions and Canada; to inform researchers, policy advisors, and the public on matters concerning the regions; and to assist the development of research and teaching institutions that directly benefit the peoples of the regions.

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For further information, please contact:

Manuel Rozental
CERLAC
York University
(416) 980-1591 (pager)

Jeanneathe Lara
Research & International Support for Colombia (RISC)
(416) 924-9199, ext. 208

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100 ext. 22091
YU/071/00