Pubdate: Thu, 07 Sep 2000
Date: 09/07/2000
Source: Illinois Times (IL)
Author: Don Smith Moorman

To the editor:

In the interest of increasing public knowledge, I submit the following
observations.

Waging "war" consistently fails to stop drug use, and in the guise of
the War on Some Drugs, our government serves corporate interests.  Al
Gore has close ties to Democrat donor Occidental Petroleum (Oxy),
which seeks to drill for oil on land traditionally cared for by
indigenous Colombians.  Oxy did not consult them, and they oppose the
drilling, as it threatens their land, livelihood and lives.

The Clinton-Gore administration's energy secretary, Bill Richardson,
hired an Oxy lobbyist to work for him.  Richardson himself visited
Colombia to meet with government officials on Oxy's behalf.  Under
Gore's "reinventing government" initiative, Gore championed the sale
of federal land to Oxy in an unprecedented closed bidding process,
tripling Oxy's U.S. oil reserves overnight.  This was the largest
privatization of federal land in history.

The $1.3 billion we're now giving Colombia is just part of a larger
package -- 80 percent of which is for military use, and Clinton waived
Congress' human rights requirements!  Strenthening Colombia's military
makes Colombia more secure for global capitalism to dig up and sell to
us for profit, bring cultural and ecological destruction to Colombia
and continuing America's unsustainable petroleum dependence.

Don Smith Moorman,
Springfield