drug policy

Here's the Fellowship of Reconciliation's Colombia update for September 2009.

• Thanks, and a Request
  
• Bases and UNASUR Update
  
• Beyond the Peace Community...
  
• Damming Magdalena: Emgesa Threatens Colombian Communities

This coming Sunday and Monday, the annual Colombia Days of Prayer & Action will be held across North America. FOR is one of a dozen national organizations cosponsoring this year's events.

As momentum builds toward this important international solidarity effort, drawing both faith and secular U.S. communities into deeper relationship with our sisters and brothers in Colombia, staff members of FOR's Latin America program are being interviewed on the challenges facing Colombia by numerous media sources.

Earlier today, FOR Colombia campaign organizer Liza Smith was interviewed on KAOS radio (Portland OR) by Kim Dobbs. We are hopeful that an MP3 audio file of the interview will be posted in the next couple days on the station's website -- if and when it is, you'll be able to access it here.

Media Contacts:           
* Mark Johnson, FOR Executive Director
* John Lindsay-Poland, FOR Colombia Program

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and more than 45 other national and regional human rights organizations and faith-based institutions today released a letter to President Barack Obama calling for a major change in U.S. policy toward Colombia. Responding to the President’s first address to a joint session of Congress – in which he stated the need to “go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs” and to “act boldly and wisely” – the groups urged the President to end a failed drug policy in Colombia and to invest in drug treatment for U.S. citizens and aid for the millions of Colombians displaced by war.