I WAS shocked to read that the British Government is giving military assistance to the Colombian armed forces.

According to human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and the Colombian trade union movement, paramilitary death squads linked to the Colombian armed forces were responsible for the vast majority of the 184 assassinations of Colombian trade unionists last year.

How can a Government which repeatedly used the argument about appalling human rights in Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan as an excuse to go to war, then give military aid to Columbia's brutal regime?

It is time we stopped providing any military assistance to countries with such appalling records on human rights.

Andrew Collingwood,

Turners Croft, Heslington,

York.

Updated: 10:20 Wednesday, July 09, 2003