Ask your House representative to sign a Dear Colleague letter condemning the July 5 th violence

Ask your House representative to sign a Dear Colleague letter condemning the July 5 th violence

In recent additions of SHARE news we have informed you about the protests around the hikes in the bus fare and electricity rates. These protests and ensuing police aggression led to excessive force by the police and also led to the deaths of two policemen and many other injured civilians.

Now you can respond!

Please call your congressperson in DC TODAY to urge her/him to sign on the Dear Colleague letter copied below. The more signatures we can get, the more impact it will have when it reaches both Secretary Rice and the Salvadoran government recipients. You can reach the Congressional switchboard and be directed to your member’s office at 202.224.3121.

Read the Dear Colleague letter text (pdf)

BACKGROUND

On July 5, 2006, a demonstration protesting increases in bus fares and electricity charges in San Salvador ended in the deaths of two police officers with additional police and protestors wounded. Since the incident, Salvadoran police have forcibly entered private property (including a Catholic church and a union office) without warrants, political actors have used the media to exacerbate tensions, and the roots causes of the protest itself—the deteriorating economic situation in El Salvador—has yet to be addressed.

We condemn the violence on all sides, support a thorough and impartial investigation into the events, and call for the de-escalation of tensions via dialogue between political and civil society actors.

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE

When you call, say that you are a constituent and that you’d like to speak to the staffer who works on foreign policy issues. (Don’t forget to write this person’s name down!) Also ask for the email address of this staffer. You will probably be connected to an answering machine. Say that you urge your member to sign onto the Dear Colleague letter on the violence in El Salvador being sponsored by Reps. Tom Lantos and Jim McGovern. Let them know that you will be faxing or emailing the letter to their attention today and ask for a response to your call.

If you reach the staffer live, ask if s/he has seen the Dear Colleague letter and if the member will be signing onto it. Ask to be notified if the member hasn’t yet decided. If you have not obtained an email address for him or her, ask for it. Say that you will email a link to the Dear Colleague letter. Volunteer to fax it if they do not want to receive an email.

When you finish the call, email or fax (if you cannot reach the staffer and obtain the email address) the letter to the attention of the appropriate staffer (this is where the staffer’s name comes in handy). You can find the fax number on your member’s webpage, which you can find at www.house.gov. Or, ask the receptionist for the fax number when you are on the phone with him/her.

Please forward this alert to friends and family. We are trying to generate calls during one of the most difficult weeks in the session—the final one before the August recess—and so we need every call possible to happen ASAP. Thanks for your efforts to accompany the people of El Salvador by condemning this violence during this fragile moment for human rights and democracy in El Salvador . Let us at SHARE know if you have any questions by emailing Tara Carr Lemke at tcl at share-elsalvador.org.