[Senate Hearing 115-676]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-676
ASSESSING THE COLOMBIA PEACE PROCESS: THE WAY
FORWARD IN U.S.-COLOMBIA RELATIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN
HEMISPHERE, TRANSNATIONAL CRIME,
CIVILIAN SECURITY, DEMOCRACY, HUMAN
RIGHTS, AND GLOBAL WOMEN'S ISSUES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
AUGUST 2, 2017
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web:
http://www.govinfo.gov
___________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-610 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
MARCO RUBIO, Florida ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
TODD, YOUNG, Indiana CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
RAND PAUL, Kentucky CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE, TRANSNATIONAL
CRIME, CIVILIAN SECURITY, DEMOCRACY, HUMAN
RIGHTS, AND GLOBAL WOMEN'S ISSUES
MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Chairman
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona TOM UDALL, New Mexico
CORY GARDNER, Colorado JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Rubio, Hon. Marco, U.S. Senator from Florida..................... 1
Menendez, Hon. Robert, U.S. Senator from New Jersey.............. 4
Brownfield, Hon. William R., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S.
Department of State, Washington, DC............................ 6
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted to
Hon. William Brownfield by Senator Marco Rubio............. 47
Palmieri, Francisco, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State,
Washington, DC................................................. 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted to
Francisco Palmieri by Senator Marco Rubio.................. 47
Cardenas, Jose, Former Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for International
Development, Washington, DC.................................... 28
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Gonzalez,Juan, Associate Vice President, The Cohen Group,
Washington, DC................................................. 32
Prepared statement........................................... 35
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted to
Juan S. Gonzalez by Senator Marco Rubio.................... 51
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Statement Submitted by Hon. Camilo Reyes, Ambassador of Colombia. 52
Statement Submitted by Jose Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director of
the Americas Division, Human Rights Watch...................... 55
Statement Submitted by Alvaro Uribe Velez........................ 56
(iii)
ASSESSING THE COLOMBIA PEACE
PROCESS: THE WAY FORWARD
IN U.S.-COLOMBIA RELATIONS
----------
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational
Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights,
and Global Women's Issues,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Marco Rubio,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Rubio [presiding], Gardner, Menendez,
Udall, Shaheen, and Kaine.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Rubio. Good morning. This is a hearing of the
Subcommittee of the Western Hemisphere. I will give you the
whole title: Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy,
Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues. We have to come up
with a good acronym.
The title is, ``Assessing the Columbia Peace Process: The
Way Forward for U.S.-Colombia Relations.''
We are going to have two panels. The first is a government
panel. Mr. William Brownfield is the Assistant Secretary of
State at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement; and Mr. Francisco Palmieri is the Acting Assistant
Secretary of State in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
The second panel will be non-government witnesses who have
extensive government experience. Mr. Jose Cardenas, three
decades of experience in the Western hemisphere in inter-
American relations. He served in senior positions in the U.S.
Department of State, the National Security Council, the U.S.
Agency for International Development, where he served as the
Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean;
and Mr. Juan Gonzalez, who has spent 16 years in government
service focused on Latin America and the Caribbean with the
State Department, the National Security Council, and the Office
of the Vice President.
I welcome all the witnesses here today.
I am going to abbreviate my comments. We have a vote at
11:00, and so I want to get through this as quickly as possible
because at some point there will be an interruption.
But let me just say that since the `90s we know that
Colombia has fought a battle against narco-terrorist
organizations that threaten the very existence of the Colombian
state. At one point it was on the verge of collapse. The road
to recovery for that nation has been long and arduous, one that
has unfortunately claimed far too many victims along the way.
With the full support of the Colombian Government,
beginning with President Uribe, and broad bipartisan support in
the United States, the U.S. Government has played a crucial
role in aiding and training and equipping the Colombian
Government in their fight against the insurgencies that were
brought about by the FARC, the ELN, and other groups.
Through Plan Colombia, the United States provided foreign
aid and military assistance that included strategies to
increase security and to eradicate cocoa, and the cooperation
between the U.S. and Colombia has been critical over the past
16 years. It has been supported by Republicans and by
Democratic administrations, and the success of the plan has
reduced drug-related violence while aiding in the restoration
of rule of law and reviving the Colombian economy.
I do think it is important to add here that while the U.S.
assistance has been critical, the bulk of the sacrifice, the
work and the dedication has been on the shoulders of the
Colombian people and their leaders, and they deserve
extraordinary credit. But the United States has played an
invaluable role.
The result of it is the Colombian military is now the best
armed and trained in Latin America. It is a reliable security
partner for the United States. It is also exporting its
expertise to help build the capacity and the capability of
other countries in the region, particularly in Central America.
The success of this cooperation led to the culmination in
2012 of talks between the Colombian Government and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the
FARC, still designated, and rightfully so, as a terrorist
organization. Our joint efforts and the determination and
leadership of former President Uribe and its current President
Santos, and Villegas, Minister of Defense, created the space
for these negotiations to even be possible.
These negotiations led to an agreement that was initially
rejected in the national referendum but that nevertheless
passed through the Colombian legislature after the fact. The
core provisions in this agreement include land and rural
development, the FARC's political participation, efforts to
counter illicit crops and drug trafficking, work on victim
reparations and transitional justice, and the demobilization
and disarmament of the FARC and a bilateral ceasefire.
Now, while obviously it is the sovereign decision of a
sovereign nation to determine whether the peace deal is a good
idea and how to move forward on it, as American policymakers we
now have to determine, as this is being implemented, what role
we will play in continuing assistance to Colombia and whether
our interests are aligned with the work that is being done.
There have already been two provisions in the agreement
implemented. The FARC has demobilized, or allegedly demobilized
into 26 rural concentrated zones. Some claim that up to 7,000
combatants have turned in their arms, but there are still many
concerns that remain unresolved. Despite the agreement, more
FARC rebels than the Colombian Government initially thought are
deciding not to participate in the agreement. Remnant groups of
the FARC, such as the ELN and BACRIM, are rushing to fill the
void left by the FARC in areas where they have demobilized, and
they are now occupying territory that was once controlled by
the FARC.
There are other troubling signs. There are reports that 60
leading rights defenders were killed in 2016, a significant
increase from the 41 in 2015. The vast majority of these
threats occurred in the zones that were previously occupied by
the FARC. These numbers are alarming, and they cannot be
ignored in this process.
Further drawing on the element of the security is the
illicit drug trade. In the past couple of years, Colombia has
experienced a drastic increase in the coca crops. According to
reports issued this year by the State Department, Colombia has
had a 42 percent increase in illegal coca cultivation since
2014 through 2015, and the same report attributes the increase
to a number of factors, including the Government's decision,
the Santos Government's decision to terminate coca eradication
through aerial spraying.
The result is that Colombia, sadly, is once again the world
leader in coca production and illicit narcotics trafficking,
with record amounts of both helping to fuel violence in Central
America and Mexico, and the repercussions are being felt
throughout the region, including our own borders where,
according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the amount of
cocaine seized in the nation increased dramatically in 2014 and
2015 to coincide with the dramatic increase in cultivation.
Just two weekends ago, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public
Security reported they have intercepted 9.4 tons of cocaine
just this year. Of course, this flow of cocaine is only
furthering corruption and security concerns in the region.
So while I applaud the efforts made by the Columbian
Government to reach a peaceful agreement with those who once
tormented and destabilized the country, I think there are
concerns about the way this plan is being implemented, and more
importantly, how U.S. foreign policy and U.S. assistance
overlays with the current agreement.
Clearly, more work remains in order to truly achieve not
just peace but security. Peace without security is not peace.
The support of the Colombian people in this transition and the
assurance of justice to the victims of this conflict,
particularly the victims of these narco-terrorists, is
essential.
So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today as we
begin to assess the way forward on the U.S.'s participation
with Plan Colombia and to hear their recommendations for the
administration and for Congress as we look to address the
growth in narcotics trafficking and support our allies, the
Colombian Government, in securing their country, because in
many ways the most difficult part of this job remains ahead.
And now I recognize the ranking member, Senator Menendez.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding a
very important hearing today. I know that you and I both have a
keen interest in the implementation of the peace accords in
Colombia and how they impact overall security and stability in
our hemisphere.
I am very pleased that we have administration witnesses,
which is a rarity so far in this Congress, and esteemed ones at
that, who will be able to offer insight and expertise on the
issues that we will discuss today.
Over the past few decades the United States and Colombia
have had a productive, cooperative, successful relationship. We
have worked together to address shared challenges, including
the scourge of narco-trafficking, working to promote regional
cooperative programs, including the Caribbean Energy Security
Initiative, and recently speaking with one voice about the
importance of preserving democratic institutions and peace in
Venezuela.
While we could have an entire hearing on our trade
relationship and the importance of protecting labor rights,
suffice to say when we have challenges in our relationship, we
have the foundation of a strong relationship and strong
institutions through which to address them.
Today, however, we are focusing on the implementation of
Colombia's peace plan and implications for regional security
and stability. Building off misguided ideological movements of
the mid-1900s, the FARC, the ELN, right-wing paramilitary
groups and other spoilers ravaged the Colombian population and
country for decades. Many consider the Colombia peace accords
one of the greatest achievements in the region in recent
memory, providing the opportunity to end the region's longest
war and bring stability and prosperity to the entire country.
While some, including some in Colombia, may have wanted to
see different final terms of an agreement, as a recent Atlantic
Council Task Force report, which I commend to anyone who may be
interested, put it, ``Applied robustly, the peace accord
represents an historic opportunity to extend state presence and
democratic institutions throughout Colombia's territory, with
corresponding peace dividends, security, stability, counter-
narcotics, economic development, and measures to address the
long-term roots of violent conflict that cost more than 220,000
lives. Applied poorly, the agreement may sap government
resources while leaving gross war crimes unpunished and
allowing new illegal armed groups to appropriate the FARC's
territory and illicit activities.''
So I am eager to hear from our witnesses their assessment
of implementation so far and what we can do to ensure that we
are rigorously and robustly assisting in the implementation of
this plan.
Of course, the Colombian people have borne the burden of
the previously seemingly intractable insurgency. Women, Afro-
Colombians, indigenous communities, rural Colombians have
disproportionately suffered and shed blood for this internal
conflict. It is incumbent upon the Colombian Government to
uphold commitments to those Colombians who suffered the most at
the hands of the FARC. Millions of Colombians are still
mourning the death of family members as thousands are still
searching for disappeared loved ones. Many are still suffering
from the trauma of violence.
In order to fully realize the potential of a grand bargain,
the Government must invest in roads, hospitals, schools, and
promote a better future for all of its citizens, many of whom
have suffered under years of neglect and lack of investment.
Criminal networks and guerilla operations were successful in
part because they exploited an absence of responsible
government.
At the same time, the Government cannot exclusively focus
its efforts on what it considers the positive components of the
peace accord. I have been deeply alarmed by reports over the
past few years that coca production is surging in Colombia.
Official numbers show that coca production increased 18 percent
between 2015 and 2016. It would appear that the Government is
so focused on its peace deal with the FARC that it runs the
risk of overlooking the dangerous actors who are still too
eager to exploit their departure from the lucrative,
disruptive, and dangerous narco industry.
The Colombian Government must seriously address this
growing crisis as we in the United States continue to combat
demand. It must clearly delineate roles for the military and
the police, and it must equip these forces with the resources
they need to not only go after traffickers but at the root
level the Government needs to work with farmers to provide
viable crop alternatives and economic opportunities.
At the mid-level of government, with the support of the
United States, it must explore the supply chain and the
financial networks that facilitate the cultivation and
exportation of these programs. Transnational criminal
organizations operate like businesses, and we must holistically
address them to combat this problem effectively. Banks and
financial institutions need resources to track the money of
criminal actors and to recover assets that can be used towards
promoting better practices.
The peace deal will leave a vacuum in the fields of
Colombia, and we must ensure it is not refilled with coca.
There is a real need to ensure we build the capacity of
Colombian institutions to cut off the body of the snake as well
as the head. As Plan Colombia proved, U.S. engagement;
sustained, reliable investment focused on combatting criminal
narco trafficking; economic development; and supporting
democratic institutions that will ultimately guarantee peace,
security, and accountability in the long term is critical for
success.
So I am interested to hear from our witnesses about ongoing
efforts to transfer from a war-ending effort to a peace-
building one. The fact is a lasting and enduring peace is in
the national interest of both Colombia and the United States.
Keeping in mind the historically important and strong
relationship we have with Colombia, it is my hope that we can
find productive and positive ways to address these challenges
and focus on a more prosperous and secure future for both of
our countries.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
Let us begin with our witnesses.
Secretary Brownfield, thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM R. BROWNFIELD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Brownfield. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Rubio,
Ranking Member Menendez, Senator Shaheen, thank you for the
opportunity to appear today to discuss the Colombia peace
process and counter-narcotics efforts after the peace
agreement.
It is impossible not to celebrate the end of 50 years of
armed conflict. In fact, the accord was facilitated by generous
support from this Congress and the United States. Since the
inception of Plan Colombia, homicides dropped by more than 50
percent, kidnappings by 90 percent, and until 2013 cocaine by
60 percent. Fueled by security success, foreign investment and
economic growth boomed in Colombia.
But as we celebrate the accord, we must not forget that one
of the parties to the accord has been designated for years as a
foreign terrorist organization and a drug trafficking
organization. In fact, in the final three years of the
negotiations, coca cultivation in Colombia grew 130 percent,
and cocaine production more than 200 percent. I do not lay all
of this at the FARC's feet. The Government itself reduced the
eradication by ending aerial spraying in 2015. But the FARC was
a key enabler of the cocaine explosion. They aggressively
encouraged planting more coca in their regions of influence,
hoping to receive more economic assistance from the Government.
They established front groups to resist eradication and crop
control efforts. They refused to assist law enforcement in
bringing to justice drug trafficking organizations by providing
evidence and information, and to this day they decline to
reveal their revenue and assets acquired during decades of
criminal activity.
We now have a crisis not just in Colombia but in the United
States. I have visited Colombia twice in the past two months to
address this crisis. In each visit I acknowledged publicly that
the Colombian police and armed forces have done a heroic job of
interdiction. Their 2016 seizures grew 40 percent from the year
before, to more than 421 metric tons.
But Colombia cannot interdict its way out of this problem,
and we have discussed six steps we can take together to reverse
the trends.
First, a serious Colombian national strategy to address the
crisis.
Second, designating a national coordinator for a whole-of-
government effort. President Santos wisely placed his vice
president in charge of this effort.
Third, an expanded and robust budget for counter-narcotics.
Fourth, enhanced eradication efforts, including areas
previously off-limits to forced eradication.
Fifth, a strategy to deal with the political realities of
coca growers' protests driving away eradicators.
And sixth, a commitment to continue to use extradition as a
tool against those involved in drug trafficking.
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, eradication has
picked up in 2017. I am moderately optimistic that this year
will cap the increase in Colombian cocaine production and maybe
begin a downward trend line. It is in the national interest of
neither country that Colombia continue its surge in coca and
cocaine production. I believe we will solve this latest drug
crisis because we are close partners and friends for more than
17 years. But we have a long way to go, and the FARC has not
made it easy for us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to your
questions and your comments.
[Mr. Brownfield's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. William R. Brownfield
Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Menendez, distinguished members of
the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss counternarcotics efforts in Colombia after the peace
agreement. Implementation of an effective counternarcotics plan for
Colombia is more important now than ever. At a time when the Colombian
Government is implementing a peace accord that promises to keep the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) off the battlefield and
out of the illicit economy, we have a limited window of opportunity to
roll back the recent troubling narcotics trends that threaten the
safety and health of citizens here in the United States as well as in
Colombia and throughout the rest of the Western Hemisphere.
The Government of Colombia has been our strong partner in the fight
against crime and narcotics for more than two decades. Since 2000, the
United States has invested more than $10 billion to improve citizen
security, disrupt the drug trade, and combat criminal networks to
advance peace and prosperity. Working with our Colombian partners, our
joint efforts have produced positive results. Since 2002, homicides in
Colombia have fallen by more than 50 percent and kidnappings have
dropped by 90 percent; in 2016, Colombia had its lowest reported
homicide rate in 40 years. Our shared successes in the security realm
also brought the FARC, which is extensively involved in the drug trade,
to the negotiating table and helped make possible the conclusion of a
peace accord.
However, after years of progress in combatting coca cultivation and
cocaine production, Colombia is once again the world's largest producer
of cocaine and is the origin of approximately 90 percent of the cocaine
seized in the United States, according to the DEA Cocaine Signature
Program. Between 2013 and 2016, coca cultivation in Colombia increased
by more than 130 percent, from 80,500 hecatres (ha) in 2013 to 188,000
ha in 2016. Perhaps more troubling, pure potential cocaine production
surged by more than 200 percent in the same time period, from 235
metric tons produced in 2013 to 710 metric tons in 2016. Cocaine use
and overdose deaths in the United States also are on the rise.
Following a dramatic decline in cocaine overdose-related deaths in the
United States since 2006, this figure has steadily increased since
2012, reaching 6,784 overdose-related deaths in 2015, the highest on
record since 2006.
This surge is due to multiple factors. These include Colombia's
decision in 2015 to end the U.S.-supported aerial coca eradication
program as well as countereradication techniques implemented by coca
growers. Widespread reporting indicates FARC elements urged coca
growers to plant more coca, purportedly motivated by the belief that
the Colombian Government's post-peace accord investment and subsidies
would focus on regions with the greatest quantities of illicit crops.
The Colombian Government also reduced forced manual eradication
operations in areas controlled by the FARC to lower the risk of armed
conflict as the parties negotiated a final peace accord. Finally,
Colombia's manual eradication budget has declined by two-thirds since
2008, resulting in a 90 percent reduction in the number of manual
eradicators in 2016 compared to 2008.
In the lead up to the official cessation of the aerial eradication
program in September 2015, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos
announced a counternarcotics strategy laying out three priority areas:
rural development programs to reduce drug cultivation, including
voluntary eradication and crop substitution for coca growers; enhanced
law enforcement efforts to dismantle organized crime groups; and public
health approaches to address domestic drug consumption. These
priorities conform to the counternarcotics-related aspects of the peace
accord, which focus on a national crop substitution and alternative
development plan to be implemented in 44 municipalities where 60
percent of the coca is cultivated.
The voluntary eradication and crop substitution plan includes the
creation of a coordination and communication mechanism for crop
substitution; hiring technicians to help implement this plan; granting
of land titles to program participants; and cash payments for food
subsidies, medium-term employment contracts for infrastructure
projects, and other payments for long-term crop substitution such as
cacao. The United States is not currently supporting the Colombian
Government's voluntary eradication and crop substitution program
because the FARC is involved in some aspects of the program and remains
designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under several U.S. laws
and sanctions regimes.
The Colombian Government is operationalizing its counternarcotics
strategy through the Ministry of Defense (MOD)-led Centros Estrategicos
Operacionales/Strategic Operational Centers, or ``CEOs,'' concept,
which is an integrated, whole-of-government approach to
counternarcotics and rural development. In early January, the Colombian
Government began implementing the CEO concept in the municipality of
Tumaco--a critical area for coca cultivation and cocaine production and
other illicit activity. The Government plans to expand this effort to a
total of four CEOs servicing the 11 departments with the highest levels
of coca cultivation. Embassy Bogota continues to support the Colombian
Government in this effort.
To date, the results of Colombia's counternarcotics strategy have
been mixed. In 2016, Colombia's land and maritime interdiction of
cocaine and cocaine base increased over 40 percent from 2015 to a
record high of approximately 421 metric tons, according to Colombian
official statistics. Additionally, 4,613 cocaine base labs and 229
cocaine hydrochloride labs were destroyed in 2016. Colombian efforts
led to the extradition to the United States of major transnational
organized criminals, including Nidal Ahmed Waked-Hatum, and the taking
down of narcochiefs, including Victor Ramon Navarro-Cerrano (a.k.a.
Megateo).
While these efforts are impressive and the commitment and sacrifice
of the Colombia security services to this mission cannot be overstated,
significant challenges remain. Chief among them is that drug seizures
are simply not keeping pace with the explosion in coca cultivation,
which must be addressed with the same vigor as the interdiction
mission.
Colombian leadership must find a way to implement a robust forced
manual eradication effort to create a disincentive to coca cultivation
and an incentive to participation in the Government's crop substitution
effort. Making manual eradication work includes overcoming the
persistent social protests that disrupt forced eradication operations.
Without a permanent solution to the social protest issue, forced
eradication efforts are unlikely to have a significant effect on coca
cultivation levels in 2017. In 2016, 675 attempted eradication
operations were cancelled in the field due to restrictive rules of
engagement that prevented security forces from engaging protestors. In
2017, the protests continue. On March 28, the Ministry of Defense-led
CEO in Tumaco launched a successful eradication operation along the
border with Ecuador. To date, approximately 6,000 hectares have been
eradicated. However, the operation has been marred by social protests
and violence, resulting in the injury of two police officers and the
death of a third. The security forces must be empowered to eradicate in
national parks, indigenous areas, and the no-fly zones around the FARC
disarmament zones, where coca cultivation is at industrial levels.
Additionally, proper military-civilian coordination continues to be
weak, and the proper financial resources to implement the CEO concept
are still inadequate.
To be successful, the Colombian Government's voluntary eradication
and crop substitution program needs adequate financial and human
resources as well as a clear implementation plan to succeed. Currently
these are lacking. We are strongly encouraging the Colombian Government
to limit the number of voluntary eradication agreements they negotiate
and sign to make implementation feasible. Voluntary eradication
agreements must also have expiration dates so the security forces can
forcibly eradicate in farms where coca growing communities fail to meet
their obligations.
In addition to eradication and crop substitution efforts, we have
also called on the Colombians to preserve the use of extradition as a
law enforcement tool, to ensure narcotraffickers do not fraudulently
use the peace accord's transitional justice measures to avoid
extradition.
I visited Colombia twice in the past several months, once in March
and again in June, to discuss these challenges and outline a plan for
moving forward together. First, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin
Whitaker, and I led a U.S. Government delegation for a Binational
Technical Working Group (BTWG) on counternarcotics in March. The
delegation met with senior Government of Colombia officials and
conveyed our government's continued concerns regarding the worsening
narcotics situation in Colombia. We stressed the urgent need to
operationalize a whole-of-government strategy to counternarcotics and
rural development in strategic areas of concern. Subsequent to the
BTWG, we also met with President Santos and then incoming-Vice
President Oscar Naranjo to reinforce these messages. Counternarcotics
was a key topic of discussion during President Santos' May 18 meeting
with meeting with President Trump, who underscored our deep and growing
concern and urged immediate action.
On June 14, Vice President (VP) Naranjo convened a day-long
strategic drug policy workshop bringing together a dozen Colombian
agencies for a comprehensive assessment of their collective
counternarcotics efforts and to lay the groundwork for a ``unified
vision'' to address illicit crops. During the event, which was notable
for its participation, structure, and candid conversation, VP Naranjo
said disparate counternarcotics strategies had failed because they
focused solely on interdiction and eradication programs, and never
addressed structural problems causing families to replant coca. He
repeatedly stressed Colombia needed a paradigm shift to promote an
integrated, whole-of-government approach. We could not agree more.
While concerns persist, my June visit to Colombia with my
colleagues on The Interdiction Committee revealed a clear improvement
in the direction of Colombia's counternarcotics efforts, and this can
almost certainly be attributed to the positive effects of Vice
President Naranjo's meeting earlier that month. The most encouraging
development during our visit was the clear signal that Colombia is
readying its various ministries to launch a second CEO in Antioquia.
The Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs (INL) continues to assist the Government of
Colombia with its interdiction and coca eradication operations;
strengthening the country's rule of law capacity to counter money
laundering and prosecute and convict organized criminals; and
supporting the expansion of government presence to rural areas to
prevent organized criminal groups from gaining a foothold where state
presence is weak. As was the case with Plan Colombia, U.S. assistance
to support implementation of Colombia's counternarcotics strategy is a
fraction of Colombia's overall investment.
The dramatic increase in coca cultivation and cocaine production in
Colombia is deeply concerning, and we remain committed to helping the
Colombian Government deal with this challenge. The stakes could not be
higher. Not only will failure to counter drugs jeopardize the hard won
gains under Plan Colombia, but emboldened organized criminal groups and
huge inflows of illicit earnings will erode citizen security, increase
corruption, foment increased illegal immigration, and destabilize
neighboring states and Colombia itself, thus undermining the legacy and
legitimacy of the peace accord. The Colombian Government has been our
steadfast partner in the fight against crime and narcotics since before
the start of Plan Colombia in 1999. Achieving our shared goals will not
be easy, nor quick, but we are confident that we will continue to
effectively work together to tackle the considerable challenges before
us.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
Secretary Palmieri?
STATEMENT OF FRANCISCO PALMIERI, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
BUREAU OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Palmieri. Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Menendez,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for convening this
hearing to discuss Colombia. Colombia is a strategic U.S.
partner at a critical time who works with us to advance U.S.
national security and economic prosperity interests in the
hemisphere and around the world. We are working with the
Colombian Government on its efforts to implement its peace
accord with the FARC.
Colombia is one of our most willing and capable partners in
the region. A Colombia at peace will strengthen its ability to
support mutual priorities, including promoting a stable and
democratic region and countering narcotics trafficking,
transnational crime, terrorism, and illegal migration.
As conditions deteriorate in Venezuela, further instability
has the potential for tremendous negative impact on its
neighbors and the region. The situation in Venezuela carries
special risks for Colombia. Every day, thousands of Venezuelans
cross the border and return home after purchasing basic goods
in Colombia. Colombia has joined the United States and other
OAS member states in issuing statements offering to assist the
people of Venezuela in addressing their political, economic,
and humanitarian crises. We will continue to work with Colombia
and other regional partners to promote a peaceful, democratic
resolution to Venezuela's challenges.
As you all know, the Colombian Government finalized a peace
accord with the FARC in November 2016. Colombia has made some
important progress implementing the accord. Nearly 7,000 FARC
rebels peacefully relocated to 26 U.N.-monitored disarmament
zones. U.N. officials confirmed the rebels completed the
surrender of the fighters' individual weapons June 27, a
significant step in the parties' ongoing efforts to implement
the accord. The parties agreed to decommission more than 900
weapons caches outside the zones by September 1. The Colombian
Government passed key peace accord-implementing legislation,
including an amnesty law, a law on political participation, and
laws to set up the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. The SJP is
designed to hold accountable those most responsible for war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and gross human rights
violations.
Colombia is investing heavily in its own future and will
cover 90 percent of the peace accord implementation costs. Our
critical contribution will provide U.S. expertise to enhance
the implementation efforts. Our programming in Colombia focuses
assistance on security, the expansion of state institutions and
presence in former rebel areas, on economic development and
humanitarian demining, and justice services and other support
for victims.
We also continue to provide bilateral assistance to support
Colombia's efforts to dismantle illegal armed groups which have
been responsible for violence against civil society activists.
We are coordinating with the Colombian Government to see how
our support can be most helpful.
Our programs will also expand humanitarian demining
operations across the country, supporting the U.S.-Norway-led
Global Demining Initiative for Colombia, to facilitate rural
economic development, land restitution, and victims'
reparations.
We are also making progress in promoting human rights in
Colombia, though there are significant challenges. We are
deeply concerned by reports of increased killings and threats
against human rights defenders and social activists. It is
essential to quickly and thoroughly investigate and prosecute
those responsible for these crimes. We welcome Colombia's
recent advances to prioritize investigations of killings and
threats against human rights defenders and civil society
activists. Concrete results, including convictions, are
critical to prevent future violence.
The support of the U.S. Congress has been instrumental to
everything the United States has achieved with Colombia, and
your support will be needed now more than ever as Colombia
attempts to find a real and lasting peace.
Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Menendez, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to meet with you
today and for your continuing commitment to helping advance
U.S. national security and economic prosperity in Colombia and
across this entire hemisphere.
I look forward to your questions.
[Mr. Palmieri's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Francisco Palmieri
Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Menendez, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for convening this hearing to discuss Colombia.
Colombia is a strategic U.S. partner at a critical moment in its
history. We are working with the Colombian Government on their efforts
to implement its peace accord with the FARC. Colombia is one of our
most willing and capable partners in the region. A Colombia at peace
will strengthen its ability to support mutual priorities, including
promoting a stable and democratic region and countering narcotics
trafficking, transnational crime, terrorism, and irregular migration.
As conditions deteriorate in Venezuela, further instability has the
potential for tremendous negative impact on its neighbors and the
region. The situation in Venezuela carries special risks for Colombia.
Every day, thousands of Venezuelans cross the border and return home
after purchasing basic goods in Colombia. Colombia has joined the
United States and other OAS member states in issuing statements
offering to assist the people of Venezuela in addressing their
political, economic, and humanitarian crises. We will continue to work
with Colombia and other regional partners to promote a peaceful,
democratic resolution to Venezuela's challenges.
As you all know, the Colombian Government finalized a peace accord
with the FARC in November 2016. Colombia has made some important
progress implementing the accord. Nearly 7,000 FARC rebels peacefully
relocated to 26 U.N.-monitored disarmament zones. U.N. officials
confirmed the rebels completed the surrender of fighters' individual
weapons June 27, a significant step in the parties' ongoing efforts to
implement the accord. The parties agreed to decommission more than 900
weapons caches outside the zones by September 1. The Colombian
Government passed key peace accord implementing legislation, including
an amnesty law, a law on political participation, and laws to set up
the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP). The SJP is designed to hold
accountable those most responsible for war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and gross human rights violations.
The mandate for the U.N. Security Council-authorized special
political mission to oversee the bilateral ceasefire and the FARC's
disarmament expires in September. The U.N. Security Council unanimously
approved a resolution July 10 authorizing a follow-on U.N. special
political mission, which will begin September 26 and focus on
monitoring and verifying implementation of security guarantees and
FARC's reintegration into Colombian society.
Colombia is investing heavily in its own future and will cover 90
percent of the peace accord implementation costs. Our critical
contribution will be providing U.S. expertise to enhance Colombia's own
implementation efforts. Our programming in Colombia thus focuses U.S.
assistance on: (1) security, including counternarcotics efforts and
reintegration of ex-combatants; (2) the expansion of state institutions
and presence in former rebel areas, including rural economic
development and humanitarian demining; and (3) justice services and
other support for victims.
We also continue to provide bilateral assistance to support
Colombia's efforts to dismantle illegal armed groups, which have been
responsible for violence against civil society activists. We are
coordinating with the Colombian Government to see how our support would
be most helpful. A stronger, stable Colombia that protects human rights
is in the U.S. interest, and we are committed to supporting Colombia's
continuing efforts to strengthen the rule of law, promote transparency
and accountability, combat crime, and increase respect for human
rights.
We are monitoring risks to peace plan implementation and working to
help the Colombians mitigate them. The surge in coca cultivation and
cocaine production is the greatest threat to peace, but also is a
threat to the United States and the region. Record levels of coca
cultivation and production strengthen illegal armed groups operating in
Colombia, undermine rural security, and corrupt Colombia's institutions
down to the local level. As President Trump told President Santos
during his visit to Washington in May, the drug epidemic is poisoning
too many American lives and more concentrated efforts are critical in
order to reverse these alarming trends.
On counternarcotics cooperation, we are working together to
implement a whole-of-government plan, first in the critical drug-
producing region of Tumaco and then in other areas, to help reduce
cocaine production. Our efforts over the last 15 years have proven that
attacking cartel organizations, interdiction, and eradication
operations should be front and center in their efforts and must be
linked with alternative development to make a durable effect on
communities affected by the drug trade. Unity of effort across
Colombia's security and civilian agencies and continued cooperation
with the United States will be critical to successfully combat narco-
trafficking and solidifying the peace.
Our programs will also expand humanitarian demining operations
across the country--supporting the U.S.-Norway-led Global Demining
Initiative for Colombia--to facilitate rural economic development, land
restitution, and victims' reparations. In addition, we are supporting
the Government's work to restore more than 84,516 hectares of land to
11,401 displaced persons, while USAID assists the development of licit
economic opportunities and alternatives to coca with programs for small
businesses.
We are also making progress in promoting human rights in Colombia,
though there are significant challenges. We are deeply concerned by
reports of increased killings and threats against human rights
defenders and social activists. Increased attacks on civil society
activists are also a threat to peace. It is essential to quickly and
thoroughly investigate and prosecute those responsible for these
crimes. We welcome Colombia's recent advances to prioritize
investigations of killings and threats against human rights defenders
and civil society activists. Concrete results, including convictions,
are critical to prevent future violence.
The investments we have made in Colombia over close to two
decades--whether through foreign assistance, messages of bipartisan
political support in Washington, or time invested building relations
with the Colombian Government and people--have benefited the United
States in security, economic, and political gains. The support of the
U.S. Congress has been instrumental to everything the United States has
achieved with Colombia, and your support will be needed now more than
ever as Colombia attempts to find a real and lasting peace.
Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Menendez, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today and
for your continuing commitment to helping advance U.S. national
security and economic prosperity in Colombia.
I look forward to your questions.
Senator Rubio. We thank you both for being here.
Secretary Palmieri, let me begin with this, and you alluded
to it in your opening statement, about how the instability in
the neighboring nation of Venezuela has an impact on Colombia.
As you know, this Sunday there was an election or a purported
election in Venezuela that sought to replace the National
Assembly that had been democratically elected by the people
with this new Constituent Assembly.
Is it the position of the Department of State that the
election on Sunday and its results are legitimate?
Mr. Palmieri. The election on Sunday was a flawed attempt
to undermine democratic institutions in Venezuela, and we
support the democratically elected National Assembly in its
efforts to promote an enduring peaceful solution to the crises
in Venezuela.
Senator Rubio. So just to be clear, is it the position of
the administration that the vote that occurred on Sunday is
illegitimate?
Mr. Palmieri. The vote--the election was a flawed election
that did not follow the constitutional precepts for such an
election, and as such the results are in question. Yes, sir.
Senator Rubio. Okay. Let me try it this way. [Laughter.]
Senator Rubio. The election on Sunday is going to put in
place as early as today a Constituent Assembly which has
elected, according to them, 535 people. They are going to wipe
out the National Assembly, which you have just said is
legitimate, and they are going to replace it with this
Constituent Assembly of 535 supporters of Maduro. Is that
Constituent Assembly legitimate?
Mr. Palmieri. The only legitimately elected, democratically
elected representatives of the Venezuelan people is the
National Assembly. The Constituent Assembly is a flawed process
that undermines any progress toward an enduring peaceful
solution to the crisis there.
Senator Rubio. I understand that. But----
Mr. Palmieri. We do not recognize the seating of that
Constituent Assembly.
Senator Rubio. So without using the term illegitimate,'' if
you say that the only legitimate elected is the National
Assembly, and you do not recognize the Constituent Assembly, I
understand you are limited by what you have been authorized to
say because you speak for the administration and the State
Department, you do not make these decisions, although you
certainly have input, but from that I take it that we do not
recognize the Constituent Assembly as a legitimate
representative of the people.
Mr. Palmieri. It is a flawed process. It will not
contribute to----
Senator Rubio. It is not the process. I know the process
was flawed. It is the outcome. It is this new Constituent
Assembly. Are they a legitimate--there cannot be a legitimate
National Assembly and a legitimate Constituent Assembly. They
are in conflict with one another. If the National Assembly is
the only legitimate entity, the Constituent Assembly, by
definition, is illegitimate.
Mr. Palmieri. I take your point, Senator. Yes, sir.
Senator Rubio. So you are not authorized today to say that
they are illegitimate. You are just authorized to say that the
process was flawed and the National Assembly is legitimate.
Mr. Palmieri. We will not recognize the seating of the
Constituent Assembly and its usurpation of the powers of the
duly elected National Assembly.
Senator Rubio. The reason why I am drilling down on this is
because I know this issue is about Colombia, but Venezuela has
a direct impact on Colombia. I think Secretary Brownfield would
absolutely agree with that.
There is an article and an interview that was given by Mr.
Fitzpatrick, the manager of South America in the State
Department. I do not know if that is the right title, but that
is what is said here. It was given to FAFE, which is a Spanish-
speaking outlet from Spain, and it basically said that ``while
the United States believes that Venezuela is a dictatorship, it
still considers the Government of Nicolas Maduro to be
legitimate and would not recognize a possible parallel
executive formed by the opposition.''
So the problem that we have with that statement is if the
Constituent Assembly is, in essence, according to Maduro, the
new government, it would be the equivalent of an administration
in the United States holding a vote to wipe out the existence
of Congress and replacing Congress with a whole new set of
people, all loyal to the executive.
So if the National Assembly is legitimate, the
Constitutional Assembly we do not recognize is now the new form
of government, and they are going to move forward now to
rewrite the constitution, how can we argue or how can the
position be that Nicolas Maduro is legitimate even if the
Government that he has now put in place is one we do not
recognize?
Mr. Palmieri. I am not sure I understand the question, sir.
Senator Rubio. Maduro argues there is a new government in
Venezuela, but the existing government no longer exists. A new
government is taking over through the Constituent Assembly, and
we do not recognize it. That is what you just said. So how can
we argue that Maduro's Government is legitimate if Maduro
himself is saying the Government he has put in place is one
that you say you do not recognize?
Mr. Palmieri. It is clear that with this effort to seat a
Constituent Assembly, the Maduro Government is proceeding to
greater and greater authoritarian rule in the country. The
seating of--the attempted seating of a Constituent Assembly
will be met with swift and strong action by this administration
to ensure that the democratically elected institutions in
Venezuela are protected, including the role of the National
Assembly.
Senator Rubio. Well, I am going to turn it over to the
Ranking Member, but here is my advice. You have a new
government in Venezuela. As early as today, they are going to
nullify completely the existence of a National Assembly, which
we recognize as legitimate, correct?
Mr. Palmieri. Yes.
Senator Rubio. They are going to basically say you are no
longer the National Assembly, you no longer exist. We have this
new government under a Constitutional Assembly. We do not
recognize them. As early as some point today that is going to
be, according to Maduro, the new government of Venezuela. That
was the whole purpose of this vote.
I do not know how we are going to be able to continue to
argue that we recognize the legitimacy of the Maduro Government
if the Maduro Government, as early as today, is going to
formally announce that it is something we do not recognize. So
I think that issue needs to be flushed out here pretty quickly
because the Constituent Assembly is now the new government of
Venezuela, according to Maduro, and we do not recognize it. So
if we do not recognize it, how can we argue that it is
legitimate? I think that is a point that the State Department
is going to have to clarify here probably in the next few
hours, if not later today, when they finally try to seat these
people.
The Ranking Member?
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do echo some
of your concerns.
Who is Mr. Fitzpatrick? What is his role at the State
Department?
Mr. Palmieri. Michael Fitzpatrick is the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for South America.
Senator Menendez. Deputy Assistant Secretary. Is he acting
or is he actually the Deputy Assistant Secretary?
Mr. Palmieri. He is the Deputy Assistant Secretary, sir.
Senator Menendez. For South America. So let me just say
that from my perspective, I think Ambassador Haley gets it
right. She called the Maduro Government illegitimate, and it is
illegitimate. A Constituent Assembly that, at the end of the
day, we do not recognize that is flawed is not only flawed, it
is illegitimate.
One of our challenges in foreign policy, whether it be in
Venezuela or elsewhere in the world, is sometimes we just will
not call it what it is. An invasion is an invasion of Ukraine.
It is not usurpation, it is an invasion. And the illegitimacy
of a dictatorship, which now the administration has recognized
that the Maduro Government is a dictatorship, something I
applaud, is an illegitimate government.
So when Ambassador Haley says Maduro's sham election is
another step toward dictatorship, we will not accept an
illegitimate government, I think that speaks volumes about what
we should be doing, and that is why I applaud her work.
Let me ask you--and this was important because the
potential overflow into Colombia is destabilizing, as well as
for the region. Do you believe--and you can both give me yes or
no answers to this. Do you believe it is in the United States'
interest to support democracies that promote the rule of law
and justice?
Mr. Palmieri. Yes, sir.
Mr. Brownfield. As do I, Senator.
Senator Menendez. Do you believe it is in our interest to
fund foreign assistance programs that support democracy and
human rights programming?
Mr. Palmieri. Yes, sir.
Mr. Brownfield. As do I.
Senator Menendez. Has our engagement with Colombia in these
priorities produced positive results that directly promote the
security and prosperity of the United States?
Mr. Palmieri. Yes, it has, sir.
Mr. Brownfield. Yes.
Senator Menendez. Okay. Thank you. We don't get
administration witnesses that often, so I just want to create
certain templates here.
Ambassador Brownfield, let me ask you, can you give us a
better update on efforts to confront Colombian criminal
organizations, the ELN or the Bandas Criminales, as they step
into areas of coca cultivation previously controlled by the
FARC? And can you speak, either you or Secretary Palmieri, can
you speak to that under the terms of the peace accord FARC
members who committed lesser crimes are eligible for amnesty
under certain conditions, and the Colombian Government has
signaled it will not comply with extradition requests? However,
many FARC members are wanted in the United States for serious
crimes related to murder, kidnapping, and drug trafficking. Can
you discuss the ongoing efforts with the Colombian Government
on extradition requests? I understand, for example, the embassy
may have recently raised the case of Julio Enrique Moreno. So
speak to those two things for me, I guess on the first part
Secretary Brownfield, and then Mr. Palmieri on the second.
Mr. Brownfield. In fact, I will take a crack at both of
them----
Senator Menendez. Fine.
Mr. Brownfield [continuing]. Senator Menendez, and then let
Paco add on as he thinks best.
What is their approach in terms of taking down the drug
trafficking organizations and ELN, which also is a drug
trafficking organization, in the aftermath of the peace accord?
They have developed a national strategy, which is called the
SAO Strategy, the Operational Strategic Center Strategy. The
strategy defines four principal drug-producing zones in
Colombia, in the southwest around Narino, in the upper east
around Upper Antioquia, in the northeast near the Venezuelan
border, and in the east center in the province of San Jose del
Guaviare.
The concept is to do a whole-of-government comprehensive
approach that includes both voluntary and forced eradication,
government support, and police and military presence to ensure
government control in those zones. It is not a bad strategy. It
is, however, going at it piece by piece. They started in the
southwest. They were very heavy on voluntary, not so heavy on
involuntary, and it is so far producing, as I suggested in my
statement, better results than we saw in 2016, but they are
going to have a tough time meeting their own self-announced
objectives for 2017.
Senator Menendez. Better results than 2016 is a low
threshold.
Mr. Brownfield. It is. It is setting the bar extremely low.
I could not agree with you more in that regard. They have set
their objective of 50,000 hectares, about 120,000 acres, for
involuntary eradication in 2017. I would be pleased if they
made that result. I am not certain that they are going to.
Amnesty and extradition. You have hit an issue that causes
us collectively, me personally, a great deal of frustration,
and let me use the specific case that you referred to. It was a
case that I knew back in my day, in 2009, when I was in
Colombia, as the Padron case. Padron was a U.S. citizen who was
living in Panama. He was kidnapped for revenue, basically for
ransom, by an individual who was part of the FARC 57 Front, but
was not operating in Colombia. He was operating in Panama.
There is no evidence that he had FARC command or authority
direction to perform this kidnapping. He earned a substantial
amount of money. I have heard a figure of up to $2 million from
this kidnapping, and I have seen no evidence that would suggest
he shared this with the FARC.
Okay. He comes into the custody of the Colombian national
police earlier in this year. He goes through the process. The
argument that we made, somewhat emphatically, is this gent is
surely outside of the purview of the amnesty that applies to
FARC members who conduct or commit crimes while operating as
active FARC members. He was outside of Colombia. He did it for
personal gain. He did it against a foreign citizen. There was
obviously an active request for the extradition of that
individual.
The judicial process concluded that, in fact, he was
covered.
This is bad news because during my two trips to Colombia
earlier this year, the agreement that I had hoped we had
reached was that we would try to keep individuals outside of
the amnesty. In other words, the objective, if there is a means
of saying this individual should not be covered by the peace
accord and its amnesty, that is what we should aspire to, to
have as few covered rather than as many to keep extradition an
effective tool.
We are not there yet. We need to work more on this issue.
It is not a simple issue. At the end of the day, it was the
Supreme Court who made this decision, but it is an excellent
example of the problems that we still have.
Senator Menendez. Thank you.
Senator Rubio. Thank you to the Ranking Member.
Senator Shaheen, if you would just indulge me for a moment,
I want to put this on the record because we were talking about
this.
There are now 40 democratic countries that have announced
they do not recognize the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela.
They are as follows: Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, who we are talking about today, Costa Rica, Mexico,
Panama, Peru, Paraguay and Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece,
Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Italy, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic,
England, Romania, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Norway. I may
have missed a couple. This is a growing list. We are not alone
in that calculation.
Senator Shaheen?
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you both for being here and for your service to the country.
Secretary Brownfield, I want to go back to your discussion
about what is happening with coca production and with the drug
trade in Colombia. A number of us senators had a chance to meet
with President Santos when he was here earlier this year, and
we, I think, uniformly expressed concern about increased
production, coca production in 2016 and 2015 and what that
meant. He expressed a continued commitment to try and address
that.
For me and for my home state of New Hampshire, this is a
very personal issue. We have the second-highest overdose death
rates in the country. So whatever we can do to help interdict
those drugs, to help reduce the production of illegal drugs, is
going to be very important to us.
As I am sure you all heard yesterday, the President's
commission on the opioid epidemic recommended declaring a
national health emergency around the opioid epidemic, which I
fully support.
So what more can be done? You described that six-point plan
that sounds good in the abstract, but it is hard for me to see
how that is really going to have much impact. So what more can
we do to encourage anti-drug coca production efforts in
Colombia, and what do you see being done between Colombia,
Mexico, and the United States to address drugs coming into this
country?
Mr. Brownfield. Senator, I am in the uncomfortable position
of agreeing with everything that you have said.
Senator Shaheen. I am sure you do.
Mr. Brownfield. And actually wanting to reinforce some of
your points.
First, your meetings and discussions with Juan Manuel
Santos, the President of Colombia, he is a gentleman that I
respect enormously. I have known him since I served as
ambassador and he was the minister of defense in 2007 to 2009.
If he were not the president, I would say that we were friends.
You are not allowed to be friends unless you are another
president with a president, but that is the degree of respect I
have for President Santos.
He has a difficult situation to deal with. He is trying to
bring peace and end a 50-year armed conflict that has taken
tens of thousands of lives in his country, and we have to
respect that and honor that. And he believes that he needs to
address the drug issue in a way that is not going to complicate
his peace objectives.
Fine. He has come up with some ideas, more voluntary
eradication, more alternative development with assistance,
literally economic and social development assistance by the
Government to the coca growers, and I think those are noble
objectives.
The problem is 40 years of counter-narcotics efforts around
the world have taught me, at least, that you cannot use just a
single element in a formula to produce the results. We have
tried that in the past. We have tried to just do a lot of
eradication and that will cut off all drug importations into
the United States. It did not work in the 1980s. It is not
going to work today.
We have tried crop substitution. We have tried alternative
development. We have tried comprehensive development. If that
is the only thing we are offering, the campesino takes the
assistance and continues to grow coca or opium poppy. There has
to be a hard edge to the policy as well.
So at the end of the day, our problem is maintaining a
balanced approach, heavy work by the police who are going to
say you have 30 days to eradicate your own coca or we are going
to come in and do it for you, and if you want to get the money
from the Government, you had blipping well better eradicate
now. That is the nature of the argument that we are having.
You have put your finger, second, on what is today the
worst drug crisis that affects and has affected the United
States for at least 40 years, since the crack cocaine crisis of
the 1980s, and we are all old enough, more or less, to remember
that and what the impact on us was at that particular point in
time.
Now, the good news, I guess, from the Colombia perspective
is that very little of that is coming out of Colombia. Very
little heroin is now being produced in Colombia, as you well
know because you have had these conversations a number of times
with my colleagues in the counter-narcotics community. The
overwhelming majority of heroin that is consumed in the United
States comes from Mexico, a different problem set, but you put
your finger with your third point on how to work that issue
trilaterally--U.S., Colombia, Mexico.
The truth is we are kind of three of the four or five major
countries in the Western hemisphere that are working well
together on certain issues. We are working well together in
Central America in terms of exporting security capabilities and
training and law enforcement skills into Central America. We
are working more cooperatively in terms of how to address
maritime and aerial trafficking that goes from Colombia,
frankly a lot of it via Venezuela, up, over, through or around
Central America and into Mexico. We are making progress there,
Senator.
But I am going to close my answer by saying something that
I say all the time because I am an old fart now and I am
allowed to say this sort of thing. I have been in this business
for 39 years. I realize and I have learned that it takes us
many years to get into these messes and these crises, and it is
going to take us a good number of years to get out of them.
Hold me accountable for long-term objectives, but at the end of
the day I am not going to be able to produce a result or an
outcome for you by lunch today or even lunch tomorrow.
Senator Shaheen. Well, my time is up, but I certainly
appreciate that. I also think the point that you make that
there is not a silver bullet answer to this problem, just as we
address the opioid epidemic in this country there is not one
answer, it takes a variety of approaches and a real
collaborative effort, and we need to continue that and reward
good behavior when it occurs and punish bad behavior where it
occurs. So, thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Rubio. Thank you. And just for the record, I am 46.
I do remember it. Senator Gardner is only 42, so you may have
to talk to him about the crack epidemic.
Mr. Brownfield. I was making eye contact with no one, Mr.
Chairman, absolutely no one. [Laughter.]
Senator Rubio. I remember when there were Saturday morning
cartoons. [Laughter.]
Senator Gardner?
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
I think several months ago, I guess the last Congress,
after the retirement of General Kelly from SOUTHCOM, he came to
our conference and addressed the conference about his
experience leading SOUTHCOM. Senator Rubio was there, and I do
not know if he remembers the exact number that General Kelly
used, but in this conversation with the conference General
Kelly said it was his experience at SOUTHCOM that we had eyes
on 90 percent. Again, 90 percent may or may not have been the
number, but a very high percentage of the drug flow from South
Central America to the United States. It was just a resource
issue and how to deal with it.
Could you expound on that, or maybe whether you agree or
disagree with that? Do we have eyes on that high of a
percentage of what is happening, what is coming in, and it is
just a resource issue?
Mr. Brownfield. Senator, I learned never to disagree with
General and then Secretary and now Chief of Staff Kelly. He is
a very smart fellow. I presume that the point he was making--
and if this was his point, I agree with it absolutely and
completely--is that we have a much better picture and a great
intelligence understanding of what is moving, how it is moving,
where it is moving, and when it is moving than we have assets
to address that. In other words, General Kelly has said his
successor, Admiral Tidd, has said the commander of the Joint
Interagency Task Force South, headquartered in Key West, has
said a number of times we have more targets out there that we
could actually take down than we have assets available to take
them down.
The point that they are making and that General Kelly has
made in the past is that if he had more aircraft, boats,
cutters, ships, and for that matter ground-based assets, as
well as aviation assets, he would be able to have a much
greater impact in terms of what is moving through. That, I
think, is the idea he was trying to transmit, and I agree with
that completely.
Senator Gardner. So assets, boats, ships, cutters, what
does that cost and what kind of a percentage dent would it
make?
Mr. Brownfield. Yep, a fair question. I mean, I am not
going to give you a cost estimate. At the end of the day, that
would come out of General Kelly's former department in terms of
that estimate, as well as the Department of Defense in terms of
what it would cost. You know as well as I do it costs a great
deal. His position over the years had been that there are
cheaper ways to do this. You can, for example, use assets that
are otherwise performing other missions, such as DOD or
military missions, and while they are transiting a particular
zone, or while they are engaged in training, use them for these
purposes so you get multiple value out of the same asset, and I
agree with that as well.
My own team at INO, we maintained the State Department's
air wing, and I have to tell you, I have to tell each and every
one of you senators that what we have in our inventory is
aircraft that have first been processed through the armed
forces and discharged because they are no longer of interest to
them, provided to the National Guard, who used them for as long
as they wished, and when they no longer believe they have value
we then get them.
We are still able to use these assets. We have the largest
number of original-issue UH-1 helicopters, I suspect in the
entire world. They are all probably as old as I am, or at least
approaching that. That is not particularly young, by the way,
Senator, and we are able still to get value out of them. In
other words, there are cheaper ways of doing it, is my point.
Senator Gardner. The coordination that you talked about,
the coordination of those assets that are in the region, I
mean, is that a matter of just a bureaucratic interaction or an
agency interaction? I mean, is it coordination that they could
pursue on their own? Is it a matter of congressional
legislation that we need to allow it to happen or force it to
happen?
Mr. Brownfield. I will offer my own views based upon off-
and-on--I guess I first came into this business in 1992 on the
drug side, so that is 25 years of experience. It is a
combination of several things.
One, relative priorities. In other words, different
departments and different agencies have their own priority
list, and the drug issue will fit somewhere on that priority
list.
Second will be--and this is natural--any agency or any
institution, including my own, wishes to be able to control its
own assets and not be told by others what they are supposed to
do.
Third is an authorities issue. And I have learned that when
people do not want to do certain things, they will find that it
is not within their legal authorities in order to do it. That
third point eventually, I guess, would be a congressional issue
if we want to get there.
But my own view is it is a coordination issue, and it is a
matter of making the decision that we will use the assets that
we have in the most efficient and effective manner. That is one
opinion.
Senator Gardner. If the Chairman would allow me to ask one
final question, you mentioned Mexico in your previous answer to
Senator Shaheen. Are the reforms through the judiciary in
Mexico making a difference in how they are able to prosecute
and enforce drug narcotic issues?
Mr. Brownfield. I will let the esteemed Dr. Palmieri have
his own opinion on this if he wishes. My own view, Senator,
would be it is a bit--it is still early to say. The new system
has come into play in virtually all of the states. And
remember, like in the United States, 90 percent of all law
enforcement and justice is performed at the state level in the
united Mexican states. So it has come online.
The long-term objective, as you know, is to have a much
more effective and efficient system that processes cases in a
matter of weeks or, at most, months that these days take years
and years to process.
When we are in a position to see those results and that
outcome, I think the answer to your question is going to be
yes, but I think they are still in the early stages, and I am
not yet prepared to say that it is having the impact that we
expect.
Mr. Palmieri. I would agree entirely that it is in the
early stages of implementation, and the proof would be in the
effectiveness of that implementation and the adoption of the
new reforms so that there is a more efficient and effective
judicial process.
Senator Menendez [presiding]. Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you to the witnesses, to my colleagues
on the committee. My colleagues have asked many of the
questions I wanted to. I want to focus on one area that we have
not talked about enough in my view, and that is as we talk
about the way forward in the Colombia peace process, I was
struck visiting Colombia in February of 2015. President Santos
at that point and some of his colleagues said to me it will be
easier to stop the war than to win the peace, and the cessation
of active war leaves much to be done.
We focused on the narcotics eradication aspect of the
current challenge that they have, but as they described the
challenge at that time to me, the decades-long civil war left
some parts of the country sort of untouched by government
services, under-invested in economically, poor infrastructure.
So part of this winning the peace was not just the eradication
of narcotics, but it was going into parts of the country that
really had not seen a functioning civil government and building
that in those regions of the country.
Talk to me a little bit, each of you, about how you view
the Colombian Government's effort to tackle that part of the
challenge. And I know it is related to the eradication issue
because some of the substitution, et cetera, is about economic
development. But talk about these other aspects of building out
civil government in the formerly FARC-controlled areas of the
country.
Mr. Palmieri. I think the Colombian Government has made
that a priority as it begins to implement the peace accord.
They understand that they need to reestablish government
services and government presence in these areas to ensure that
the peace accord is effectively implemented.
They have a plan. They are putting resources to it. U.S.
assistance can complement those efforts, and I think that is
exactly right in addressing the socioeconomic factors as a part
of a successful implementation of the peace accord. It will be
critical.
Senator Kaine. Ambassador Brownfield?
Mr. Brownfield. If I could just add to that, Senator Kaine,
I mean, I agree with the premise of your question, and I also
agree with what President Santos has said to you, and he said
it to me, and he said it to almost anyone who asked him: the
solution is not just eradication. But we have known this for 30
or 40 years.
To be successful, a drug strategy has to address all
elements of the problem. Now, some may be higher priority than
others. Some may get more resources than others. But you do
education. You do alternative development. You do eradication.
You do laboratory takedowns. You go after the organizations.
You do interdiction, and you eventually get at their financial
networks and go after money laundering. You have to address all
elements of the chain. If you leave one completely untouched,
you will not succeed, and that is the argument that I am making
to a certain extent.
My concern is that if you put too much of your effort
strictly into alternative development and offering financial
inducements to stop growing coca, what we have learned in
decades past is that the campesino, who is not a stupid
individual, may be very poorly educated in a classic sense but
knows exceptionally well what is going on around him, he will
take the money and perhaps eradicate right near the road, but
200 yards off the road he will continue to grow.
There has to be the threat of eradication along with the
alternative development. That has been my concern.
Senator Kaine. And let me ask you one other question
because your testimony gets at this, and I wonder if it is a
binary choice of just yes or no. On page 2 of your written
testimony, you talk about the voluntary eradication and crop
substitution plan, which includes hiring technicians to
implement granting of land title to program participants, cash
payment for food subsidies, and employment contracts for
infrastructure projects.
But then you have this line: ``The United States is not
currently supporting the Colombian Government's voluntary
eradication and crop substitution program because the FARC is
involved in some aspects of the program and remains designated
as a foreign terrorist organization under several U.S. laws and
sanctions regimes.''
Is this a binary choice? We should not be supporting the
alternate economic development plan at all because the FARC may
be involved in some aspects of it, or we should regardless of
that, or we should do it with conditions? If you were advising
us based on your experience, what is your advice?
Mr. Brownfield. Senator, it is not binary, it is at least
trinary, and I will explain it in 15 seconds or less.
We have a legal problem so long as they are listed on the
foreign terrorist organizations list. We are prohibited by law
from engaging with the FARC or organizations that are under the
FARC's control and/or influence. What we are trying to do,
because the FARC has, to a certain extent, captured the
alternative development process through several front
organizations which have for the first time in the history of
Colombia organized the cocaleros, the coca growers into
organizations, as you see in Bolivia to a considerable extent,
in Peru to a lesser extent, that then complicates our ability
to deal with them.
Tranche 1 in this four-stage Colombian strategy was the
southwest, down in Tumaco and the Province of Marino. We are
unable to support that because the FARC has, in a sense,
captured the alternative development part of that.
The next step is going to be up in Antioquia. That is
further to the north and slightly to the west, but still
central Colombia. There we are trying to work specifically an
arrangement whereby the Government will work directly with the
campesinos themselves, the individual farmers, and we have told
the Government we will support alternative development. We will
provide ample funding, generously provided by the United States
Congress to the Department of State and INL, and we will
support alternative development there.
We will then, ladies and gentlemen, have a test. We will
see how it worked in the southwest with the FARC largely
running the process, how it works up in Antioquia with the FARC
out of the process, and then we will reach some conclusions,
what works best.
That is how I want to address your question, and I would
hope by the end of this year we will have some quantifiable
data that we could offer in terms of which works best.
Senator Kaine. Excellent. Thank you.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Senator Rubio. [presiding] For the record, those 15 seconds
took two minutes, but that is good by Senate standards. That is
very good by Senate standards. [Laughter.]
Senator Rubio. Senator Udall?
Senator Udall. Thank you, Chairman Rubio. I appreciate it
very much.
When I visited President Santos earlier this year, he
stressed the importance of roads as a key factor to bring
government services to rural areas and to give rural citizens a
way to connect to the rest of the country and the world
economically.
In your opinion, how important are these projects for
sustaining peace? And if the U.S. cuts assistance, as proposed
by the Trump administration, would this have a negative impact
on infrastructure projects and other efforts to maintain peace
in former FARC territories?
Mr. Palmieri, you start.
Mr. Palmieri. Yes, sir. Clearly, the ability to build roads
into these areas is a part of the Colombian Government's
efforts to enhance government presence to deliver the range of
social services, education, health services that will win this
population over and establish government authority in those
regions.
They also need to create jobs that will provide alternative
economic means for these communities, and they have to also
promote financial investment in these areas so they have the
capital to create new opportunities.
Mr. Brownfield. I would just add one thing, Senator, and
that is--and I will be as blunt as possible--if we do not have
an adequate and functioning road system, counter-narcotic
strategy will not succeed for the very simple reason that the
campesino, the farmer that we are trying to convince to stop
growing coca and to grow something legitimate, if he cannot get
his crop to market, he is going to go back to growing coca
because there the buyers come and pick it up and he does not
need to worry about roads. No roads, no successful alternative
development. It is just that simple.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Rubio. The ranking member had one question.
Senator Menendez. Well, one comment and one question.
I am disappointed, Secretary Brownfield, in you. When you
said that most of us are old enough, more or less, and only
looked at the Chairman, I thought you might have given me a
break and----
Mr. Brownfield. I deny that. I deny that, Senator.
[Laughter.]
Senator Menendez. On a serious note, Mr. Palmieri, let me
ask you, Secretary Brownfield talked about the totality of what
we need to do to deal with the coca production and the drug
trafficking, and I agree with him. It is either holistic or we
do not achieve success.
Having said that, the part that the United States has been
engaged with on strengthening democratic institutions, economic
development in rural areas of Colombia, AID support for a crop
substitution plan, that element of it, how is that working
under the present efforts?
Mr. Palmieri. Well, I hesitate to speak for the Agency for
International Development, but they do have programs that are
designed to provide this kind of complementary assistance to
the Colombian----
Senator Menendez. No, I am not asking you to speak for
them, I am asking you as the Acting Assistant Secretary of the
Western Hemisphere to make an assessment as to what that is
doing.
Mr. Palmieri. As implementation gets underway, we have some
programs that historically have produced positive results in
those three areas that you have mentioned. We are confident
that those programs can yield additional results in these
demobilization zones and support of the Colombian peace plan,
the Colombian implementation of the peace plan.
Senator Menendez. My last point is that when President
Santos was here, I had the opportunity to be part of the
members that met with him, and I get the difficult challenge he
has, I get it. But by the same token, I get a sense that the
question of coca production is sort of like a wink and a nod
and, okay, we will deal with it, but it is not a priority as he
deals with the rest of the implementation of the peace plan.
And as someone who has supported Plan Colombian from my
days as the Chairman of the Western Hemisphere in the House of
Representatives, from the beginning of it when it was not
popular to support assistance to Colombia at the time, and who
has consistently maintained that support moving to the United
States Senate, I have a problem in U.S. taxpayer money
continuing to flow to Colombia if extradition is not going to
be seriously dealt with in a way that the United States law
needs to be responded to, and with coca production, if it is
just a tertiary consideration as we move forward.
So, you know, I am strongly supportive of our efforts to
help Colombia, but Colombia has to be reciprocal, at least from
my perspective, in these two issues if it wants to continue to
have strong support from members of Congress.
Senator Rubio. Thank you. I just have a follow-up question,
and then I think the Ranking Member is going to go. I just want
to keep this rolling to the extent possible, and we will start
with that second panel. Then when he gets here, I will go vote,
and then we will go from there. If there is somehow a pause in
there, it will be brief.
We are wrapped up here. I just have two quick questions for
Secretary Brownfield.
The first is--well, let me just ask this, because we are
going back to Venezuela again because of the impact it has on
Colombia. In the role that you are currently in now, the Bureau
of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, we have seen
numerous arrests, extraditions, and reports about the role that
narco-terrorism and narco-trafficking plays in the Government
of Venezuela, and in particular high-ranking figures and the
family members of high-ranking figures. The current vice
president is currently sanctioned for that. We have seen
reports in multiple publications around the world about the
role that Carrera plays in narco-trafficking and the Cartels of
the Sun.
Could you describe for us the role of narco-trafficking in
the Venezuelan Government and in those in power, and the impact
that has on Colombia?
Mr. Brownfield. I will, Mr. Chairman, and I will answer
your question directly and not gloss too much over it.
I would say to you that over the last 15 years, the
Venezuela route has become, for a while, the preferred for the
majority of all cocaine that was exiting Colombia exited
through Venezuela and then was flown or shipped out of
Venezuela en route to market, either to North America or to
Europe. I believe in recent years more of that flow has begun
to shift to both southwest and northern Colombia in terms of
departing the country by maritime routes, but nevertheless a
substantial amount still goes through Venezuela.
Now, how does that happen? Obviously, it does not happen
unless they have a network in Venezuela, a network of officials
who will look the other way or support or agree, because they
are moving tons and tons of product through Venezuela. And
beginning in the early years of the last decade, that network
began to penetrate to increasingly higher levels of the
Venezuelan Government, up to the point where I would say by the
end of the last decade there was almost no institution in
Venezuela that was involved in security or law enforcement
affairs that had not been penetrated to some extent by
professional drug trafficking organizations. I believe you
could say that 10 years ago. I believe you can say it today. I
believe that is the basis for many of the sanctions that have
been announced under the Drug Kingpin Act, which by definition
requires a strong nexus to drug trafficking over the last year
or two years here in Washington. At the end of the day, that is
the reason--that is yet another reason why the Venezuela
problem today is exceptionally complicated.
Senator Rubio. So just to summarize what you have said,
there is a substantial amount of drugs, even to this day,
exiting Colombia and other parts that traffic through
Venezuela. It would be impossible for that to happen without
not just the knowledge but the in-depth cooperation of figures
at a high level in the Venezuelan Government; correct?
Mr. Brownfield. I would say that is true, factually true.
Could they have done it without having penetrated to the
highest levels? Maybe. But in my opinion, they have penetrated
to the highest levels, making the issue moot.
Senator Rubio. And the fact that they have penetrated to
the highest levels was not--they did not do that as a favor, in
essence. If, in fact, high levels of the Venezuelan Government
have allowed this to happen, they have done so for a profit.
They have taken their fee and they have been paid, and
therefore if that is all true, it explains the extraordinary
amount of wealth that has increased and accumulated in the
hands of a handful of individuals linked to or in the
Government.
Mr. Brownfield. I will not give you a precise figure, Mr.
Chairman, but I would say multiples of billions of dollars is
what I would calculate.
Mr. Palmieri. Mr. Chairman, in addition to the Vice
President, the current Interior Minister also has been
sanctioned under the Kingpin Act.
Senator Rubio. Without going into anything we cannot talk
about in this setting, is it fair to say that there are still
people in or around government in Venezuela involved in this
who have yet to be sanctioned?
Mr. Palmieri. Yes.
Mr. Brownfield. Yes is the correct answer.
Senator Rubio. Okay. One last point. I have here a
memorandum from the previous president of Colombia who, as we
would all agree, was a key figure in the implementation of Plan
Colombia, Alvaro Uribe Velez, who is now in the Senate in
Colombia, and it is an extensive memo. We obviously cannot go
through it all, but one of the claims that he makes and I have
heard made repeatedly by others is that one of the causes of
this increase in cocaine production in Colombia is the
Colombian Government's unwillingness to continue eradication
efforts.
When you talk to President Santos, when you talk to people
in the administration in Colombia, they tell you that this was
because some of this was in national parks. They also say that
it is because the people on the ground figured out how to coat
the coca leaves, that they were resistant to the aerial
spraying. If you talk to President Uribe, or Senator Uribe now,
and those who share his point of view, including a large number
of people in Florida who keep tabs on this issue, they argue
that this stopped, the eradication effort stopped as a
concession to make peace possible with the FARC.
Secretary Brownfield, no one knows about this more than you
do on our side. Would you care to opine on that debate?
Mr. Brownfield. I will be uncharacteristically careful, Mr.
Chairman, because just as I admire and respect enormously
President Santos, I also admire and respect enormously former
President Uribe. I believe they are two extraordinary men, and
I hope when they both cease to be president I can call each of
them a friend.
I opposed the decision to end aerial eradication in 2015. I
acknowledge, however, that it was a sovereign decision for the
Government of Colombia and that the Government concluded that
it had to do so as the result of a Supreme Court decision. I
regret that.
I do believe it had an impact in terms of the explosion of
coca cultivation in Colombia. I believe, for example, the
entire issue of social protest, which is to say the community
where coca growers are located rally when eradication missions
arrive, block the highway, the policy back-off because they are
concerned about being prosecuted in the event that they use
force against the community. That was not a problem that they
had when they were doing aerial eradication. You cannot protest
from the ground an airplane that is flying over a coca field
and killing the coca from the air.
Those who defend the decision are correct when they say
that the coca growers had learned by the year 2015 how to avoid
most of the eradication efforts. They consciously grew and
cultivated in national parks, in indigenous reserves, near the
borders of Ecuador and Venezuela, and in areas where the FARC
had a presence, or at least had some degree of influence.
This was supposed to stop with the peace accord when the
FARC committed, in Chapter 4, I believe, to become an active
player in combatting, resisting, and eliminating drug
trafficking and cultivation, something that I call upon them
today to do. And in addition, during my two visits to Colombia
earlier this year, I felt we had an understanding that they
would open up areas previously closed to forced eradication
near the borders, in the national parks, in the FARC-influenced
zones, and in indigenous reserves, and start to hit the areas
that had not been hit before. That is an area where we still
need to do work.
Do we need to get back to aerial eradication? I cannot do
it right now, Mr. Chairman. All of the equipment that we had as
of 2015 has been either turned over to the Colombians or we
have passed it off to other buyers. From a standing start, it
would take us, optimistically, between a year and two years
before we could be operational again, and we would still
confront the legal problem that led the Colombian Government to
terminate aerial eradication two years ago.
Senator Rubio. Well, I want to thank both of you for being
here.
Two housekeeping items.
Thank you both for being here.
This is my statement, not yours, but I want it to be on the
record. I am going to ask you about the sanctions. I deeply
believe that there are individuals in the Venezuelan Government
today, sanctioned and unsanctioned, who will one day be
indicted or have been indicted, and I believe will one day be
extradited to the United States and face charges in this
country for their participation in the drug trade, and I want
that to be clear and on the record because that will happen. I
do not know if it will happen next year or five years from now,
but it does not end well for them. Beyond their human rights
violations, they have also played a role, in my view, in
destabilizing Colombia through the assistance and space they
created for the FARC and the narco-trafficking groups that
continue to try to undermine the Colombian state. Hence, the
interrelationship of these two matters.
But I thank you both for being here.
What I am going to ask now is for the second panel to begin
to transition over. I have to go vote because if I do not, and
they write an article about how I missed a vote, then you guys
are going to have to be my witnesses that I tried to get there.
But if Senator Menendez arrives before I get back, I am
going to ask him to open up the second panel so we can get
going, because we also have a nomination right behind it.
But I thank you both for being here.
While you guys adjust, we are going to be in a brief recess
while I go vote, and then either Senator Menendez will open up
the second panel or, if I make it back before he does, I will
do that.
So, thank you both for being here.
We will recess for a few minutes. [Recess.]
Senator Menendez. [presiding] The committee can come back
to order. The Chairman has gone to take a vote and has asked me
to begin our second panel, which he introduced previously, and
we are pleased to have both of your experience here.
And with that, we will start with Mr. Cardenas.
STATEMENT OF JOSE CARDENAS, FORMER ACTING ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, U.S.
AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Menendez. It is
an honor and a privilege to appear before you today to discuss
the critical issue of the Colombia peace process and its
implications for U.S. policy.
I am going to try to speed-read through my oral testimony
so we can get to discussion. But I want to begin by saying that
the narrative of Colombia as a success story should not breed
complacency about the serious challenges the country continues
to face. Colombia may be at peace, on paper at least, but the
process continues to be burdened by the lack of political
consensus in Colombia, an untrustworthy partner in the FARC,
continued organized criminality, and a politically weak, lame-
duck president.
To consolidate the achievements of a decade of U.S.
support, it is imperative that the United States remains
engaged to target the significant challenges to establishing a
real and lasting peace.
I describe the challenges more fully in my written
testimony, but I wanted to note two in particular. First is the
lack of popular support for the peace agreement due largely to
the Colombian people's profound lack of trust in the FARC as an
honest interlocutor. Thanks to its 50-year record of murder,
kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking, it is difficult to
over-estimate the animus the Colombian people have for the
group. This continued distrust poses a serious challenge to
implementation of the agreement, especially the reintegration
of guerillas into society and its acceptance as a legitimate
political movement.
Let me just add that the burden to changing this situation
is not on the Colombian people and not on the Government but on
the FARC, who must demonstrate tangibly their supposed change
of heart.
Secondly, the peace accord will be undermined by continued
criminality in Colombia. The demobilization of thousands of
FARC guerillas does not mean the end of conflict and
criminality in Colombia. Major organized criminal groups
continue to engage in drug and human trafficking, illegal
mining and kidnapping, while perpetrating attacks against
military and civilian targets.
If these groups continue to impede the pacification,
stabilization and development of the rural areas, then we are
merely running in place as far as the long-term prospects for
peace and combatting the drug trade.
With so much blood and treasure invested in Colombia by the
United States over the past 15 years, we have no choice but to
help Colombia secure the peace so that the hard-fought-for
gains of the past decade are not lost. In particular, we cannot
simply allow the agreement to undermine longstanding U.S.
counter-narcotics efforts in Colombia, as we heard during the
first panel.
I would advise Congress also to be circumspect about
dramatically increasing aid to Colombia without heightened
oversight to ensure that, in particular, it is used creatively
and purposefully on behalf of Colombian efforts to develop
self-government and licit economies in areas once controlled by
the FARC. Empowering rural Colombians and providing them a
stake in their country's future will, in the end, do more to
ensure peace than 1,000 Nobel peace prizes.
Also, to pick up on something you were saying during your
earlier remarks about these programs, alternative development,
crop substitution, self-government in the areas controlled by
the FARC, the rural areas, I think that what the difference is
today is that if we are to follow the logic of President
Santos' agreement, then we will have for the first time an
opportunity for these programs to really work, because what is
being suggested is that the FARC will no longer be in a
position to spoil these efforts, because what has hampered,
what has hindered, and what has blocked the success of many of
these programs, of alternative development and crop
substitution, has been the FARC's ability to undermine these
programs, block these programs, because they do not want rural
Colombians to be able to develop licit economies or engage in
self-government.
I would add that the United States should also continue to
provide robust intelligence and technical assistance,
monitoring FARC leaders to ensure they are otherwise complying
with their commitments and are not playing a double game.
We should also assist Colombia in helping to uncover FARC
assets hidden abroad. That dirty money should not be used to
build a political profile and a political agenda, a political
movement for the FARC.
Let me just conclude by saying that whatever anyone thinks
about President Santos' decision to seek peace with the FARC,
the United States must continue to maintain common cause with
millions of skeptical Colombians who are otherwise resigned to
give peace one more chance. We have come too far together at
this point to abandon the journey.
Thank you.
[Mr. Cardenas's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jose Cardenas
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Menendez, distinguished members of the
subcommittee, it is an honor and privilege to appear before you today
to discuss the critical issue of the Colombia Peace Process and its
implications for U.S. policy.
The U.S.-Colombian strategic partnership has been one of the most
successful U.S. foreign policy initiatives since the end of the Cold
War. A country that was bordering on failed-state status in the late
1990s is once again being hailed as a stable, vibrant democracy. But
the narrative of Colombia as a success story should not breed
complaceny about the serious challenges the country continues to face.
President Juan Manuel Santos surprised both Colombians and the
international community in 2012 by announcing his intention to enter
peace negotiations with the narco-terrorist FARC (Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia), whose five-decade war against the
Colombian state had resulted in some 260,000 deaths of Colombian
citizens, with seven million displaced and another 60,000 unaccounted
for. After four contentious and controversial years of negotiations
held in Cuba, an agreement was struck on September 26, 2016.
On paper at least, Colombia is now at peace. For millions of people
in the areas of past conflict, life has improved in tangible ways.
However, serious questions remain about the longer-term prospects for
peace in Colombia and the underlying issues that have plagued Colombia.
Burdened as the process is by the lack of a political consensus, an
untrustworthy partner in the FARC, continued organized criminality and
violence perpetrated by remaining criminal groups and FARC dissidents,
and a politically weak lame duck president, to consolidate the
achievements of a decade of U.S. support it is imperative that we
target the significant challenges of establishing a real and lasting
peace.
A Divided Country
Colombians overwhelmingly support peace for their country; but they
are divided as to how much they are willing to concede in order to
achieve it, as was demonstrated by the October referendum on the
accord. Those divisions and concerns were never fully addressed and now
continue to divide the country as it approaches the 2018 presidential
elections. Many believe that the agreement grants FARC leaders impunity
by not demanding more justice and accountability for their long record
of crimes against the Colombian people.
The arrogant attitude adopted by the FARC throughout years of
negotiations and continued since reaching the accord aggravated this
sentiment. FARC leaders never evinced any real remorse or contrition
for their crimes, acting instead as though they were fully justified in
their actions and on the same moral plane as the Government. Many
Colombians believe that the FARC changing from camo to civilian dress
signifies not a renouncement of their Marxist Leninist aims, but merely
a change of tactics to make use of electoral democracy to achieve their
objectives.
Yet even the most vocal opponents of the accord talk about the need
to preserve the accord and address its problematic elements during the
implementation rather than simply discard it.
Perhaps the most controversial provisions in the agreement relate
to transitional justice, or to how FARC leaders accused of genocide and
other war crimes will be held accountable. Critics are indignant that
the accused can avoid jail time by confessing before a special tribunal
(separate from the Colombian judicial system) and being sentenced to
``restricted liberty'' to be served out specially designated geographic
zone (about the size of a rural hamlet or urban neighborhood) rather
than in prison. To assuage concerns of a developing a ``parallel''
judiciary, the deal will limit the tribunals to ten years' operation
and all cases before them must be presented within the first two years.
Additionally, tribunal decisions may be appealed to the country's
constitutional court.
Another particular contentious point is the guarantee of political
representation for the FARC in the Colombian Congress: a minimum of
five seats in the House and five in the Senate for two legislative
periods. Former President Alvaro Uribe, now a Senator and leader of the
organized opposition to the accord, had argued that those convicted of
crimes against humanity should be barred from holding public office (as
had Human Rights Watch), but those demands were not accepted. According
to Santos, ``The reason for all peace processes in the world is
precisely so that guerrillas leave their arms and can participate in
politics legally.''
The status of the FARC's financial assets is also a point of major
concern. According to the Colombian Defense Ministry, the FARC made as
much as $3.5 billion a year from its involvement in drug-trafficking,
illegal mining, kidnapping, and extortion. Opponents of the deal feared
that the FARC would hide those funds for later use in political
campaigns and bribery. The revised agreement requires an ``exhaustive
and detailed'' accounting of the FARC's financial assets, which must be
turned over to the Government to pay for reparations for victims of the
conflict.
Despite those principal revisions, however, critics are still not
mollified. Nor were they reassured when the Santos Government bypassed
another referendum and immediately sent the revised agreement to
congress, where Santos' coalition controls both houses. (Some 30
lawmakers allied with Uribe protested by walking out of Congress right
before the vote; hence Santos' unanimous victory.)
Yet, beyond every dot and dash in the 300-page agreement lies a
more fundamental problem for securing the peace. That is, the Colombian
people's profound lack of trust in the FARC as an honest interlocutor.
Quite simply, they have seen this movie several times before, and it
always ends the same: with FARC duplicity. This continued distrust and
hatred poses a serious challenge to the reintegration of guerrillas
into society.
Thanks to the FARC's 50-year record of murder, kidnapping,
extortion, and (later) drug trafficking, it is difficult to
overestimate the animus the Colombian people have for the group.
According to a Gallup poll in May, 82 percent of Colombians have a
negative opinion of the FARC. Genuine peace would require the FARC to
take dramatic steps to overcome the deep suspicions with which
Colombians view them, so that they might see them as legitimate
political actors in South America's oldest democracy. The burden for
this is not on the Colombian people or the Government. The FARC leaders
must show that they are truly committed to peaceful reintegration and
acknowledge the terrible suffering that their actions have put the
country through. Until that happens, the FARC might never earn broad
acceptance as a bona fide political force.
Challenges to Implementation
The FARC's estimated 7,000 foot soldiers have moved into 27
specially designated zones around the country, where they are
reportedly relinquishing their weapons to a U.N. verification force--
although it is important to point out that they are only turning in
weapons they self-reported to the Government and U.N. Numerous weapons
caches are being seized by U.N. officials, but more than half of those
reported to officials remain hidden and we can assume that many more
have not been reported.
Additionally, coca cultivation has exploded and Colombia is now
producing more than ever before. According to the latest numbers from
the U.N., cocaine production in 2016 increased by 34% from the year
before while coca cultivation increased by 52%.
The peace accord's implementation will be undermined by continued
criminality in Colombia. It is important to note that the
demobilization of thousands of FARC guerrillas does not mean the end of
conflict and criminality in Colombia. As a recent report from the
American Enterprise Institute explains, major organized criminal groups
such as the ELN and the paramilitary Clan del Golfo continue to engage
in drug and human trafficking, illegal mining, and kidnapping while
perpetrating attacks against military and civilian targets. These
groups are also actively seeking to reoccupy the spaces left by the
demobilization of the FARC.
Furthermore, the worrying appearance of supposed FARC
``dissidents'' portends a direct continuation of the FARC's
criminality, albeit with a reduced capacity. The existence of an
organized FARC dissident group with hundreds of members also raises
serious concerns about the possibility of remaining ties--including
financial relationship--between the FARC political movement and
``dissidents'' who remain engaged in lucrative criminal activity.
Problems from the Government's fulfillment of the accord have also
sparked complaints from the FARC. These complaint's range from
insufficient food and supply deliveries in the demobilization zones to
the lack of progress on the release of guerrillas jailed prior to the
accord.
That any process as complex and controversial as this would be
subject to fits and starts, progress and reversal, unplanned
complication after unplanned complication is not surprising. Still, the
Santos Government hasn't always appeared adequately prepared for
contingencies and other problematic developments, raising questions
about its capacity to manage the implementation phase. These challenges
have continued into the implementation phase with controversies,
delays, and multiple accusations of a failure to adhere to the
agreement coming from all sides. The FARC can be counted on to game the
situation to its advantage at every turn to increase their political
power. The Colombian Government will continue to require strong support
and accountability from the United States and the international
community to ensure the implementation goes as smoothly as possible.
The U.S. Role
As Latin America's fourth largest economy and the largest recipient
of U.S. assistance, what happens in Colombia matters to the United
States. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations,
Washington has provided more than $10 billion in aid to Colombia since
2000 to combat drugs and drug-related violence. Colombia has also
become a key ally in the fight against transnational organized crime
throughout the region.
The Obama administration supported the Santos Government throughout
the negotiations with the FARC, pledging some $400 million in further
assistance under a new framework called Paz Colombia (Peace Colombia)
to help implement the peace plan, including the demobilization of
guerrillas, demining, and expansion of alternative development and good
governance programs in the conflict zones.
In a May 2017 meeting with President Santos, President Donald Trump
affirmed his willingness ``to assist Colombia's strategy to target and
eliminate drug trafficking networks, illicit financings, coca
cultivation, and cocaine production, of which there is far too much.''
He also noted, however, he was ``highly alarmed'' by the reports of
record highs in coca cultivation and cocaine production, ``which,
hopefully, will be remedied very quickly by the President. We must
confront this dangerous threat to our societies together.''
With so much blood and treasure invested in Colombia by the United
States over the past 15 years, we have a significant stake in what
happens in this strategic ally. Some of us may have deep reservations
regarding President Santos's decision to seek peace with the FARC, but
we recognize that the United States has no choice but to remain fully
engaged with the Colombian Government to ensure the implementation goes
as smoothly as possible. We simply cannot allow the agreement to
undermine long-standing U.S. counter-narcotics efforts in Colombia.
Congress and the Trump administration are right to be circumspect
about dramatically increasing aid to Colombia amidst the uncertainty
surrounding the deal's implementation. Both should recognize the need
to secure the peace so that the hard-fought gains of the past decade
are not lost. There will remain profound suspicion of the FARC
demanding heightened oversight of U.S. assistance to ensure that it is
used creatively and purposefully on behalf of Colombian efforts to
develop self-government and licit economies in areas once controlled by
the FARC.
The United States should also continue to provide robust
intelligence and technical assistance monitoring FARC leaders--not to
mention assisting Colombia in helping to uncover FARC assets hidden
abroad--to ensure they are complying with their commitments to abandon
criminal activities and are not otherwise playing a double-game.
Congress might want to consider the need to provide additional
authority that any recovered FARC assets could be allocated to U.S.
security and economic assistance to Colombia and other countries
impacted by this criminal activity. The U.S. should also assist in the
fight against other drug trafficking groups such as the ELN. There is
also some concern that the Colombian Government has not provided
adequate funding to ensure that its military has the capacity to
confront criminal bands and residual guerrilla groups.
Conclusion
In short, the United States' common cause should be with the
millions of Colombians who also have deep reservations about peace with
the FARC, but are willing to try one more time. There is much yet to be
done. It will require that the Colombian Government accomplish things
it has never achieved in its history: for example, establishing a
government presence throughout its entire territory, including in
regions previously controlled by the FARC. Providing marginalized
Colombians with government services and economic opportunities will
spell the success or failure of an enduring peace. Developing
infrastructure, creating markets, building schools and clinics, and
modernizing and strenghthening local governance--for example, with the
type of programs carried out by the International Republican Institute
and the National Democratic Institute--and providing for public
security will not be cheap; Colombian estimates place the cost at some
$30 billion. It will also not be accomplished overnight.
Yet this is what is ultimately necessary to achieve a lasting and
durable peace in Colombia. For 50 years, the FARC has recruited or
kidnapped young people on the margins of society. Protecting and
empowering these people by securing their local communities, providing
alternative ways to prosper, and giving them a stake in their country's
future will, in the end, do more to ensure domestic peace than 1,000
Nobel Peace Prizes. But first you have to reach them, and that requires
a disarmed and demobilized FARC no longer in a position to spoil the
effort.
STATEMENT OF JUAN GONZALEZ, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, THE COHEN
GROUP, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Gonzalez. Good afternoon, Ranking Member Menendez.
Thank you, members of this committee, for this opportunity to
come and testify about Colombia. It is an honor to be sitting
next to my former distinguished colleague, Jose Cardenas.
I would like to summarize the remarks that I submitted for
the record, but start out by underscoring that the amazing
success of the U.S.-Colombia strategic partnership is a product
of the longstanding bipartisan consensus in favor of Colombia
that exists in this body. Indeed, it was thanks to the
leadership and oversight of the U.S. Congress that the United
States was able to provide sustained support for Plan Colombia
throughout the years, and to continue that support for Peace
Colombia with $450 million in Fiscal Year 2017 to help the
country implement an historic peace agreement with the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
On a personal level as a Colombian American, it was the
leadership by this body that inspired me into public service,
because it demonstrated the transformational nature of U.S.
foreign policy when combined with Colombian political will. So,
thank you for your continued leadership and for inspiring a
young Colombian American like myself to serve his country for
over 17 years.
I had the good fortune to serve on the National Security
Council when President Santos began to set the stage for
negotiations with the FARC. By then, the United States had
stood by Colombia on the battlefield for over a decade, so for
us there was no question that we would continue our support for
Colombia as it pursued a negotiated peace.
The rationale was simple: we recognized that supporting a
sustainable and just peace presented the best policy option for
the United States to achieve a strategic victory against the
Colombian drug trade, and that entering into negotiations also
offered an opportunity for the Colombian Government to
delegitimize the FARC for the narco-terrorist organization that
it is, masking itself as a belligerent movement by separating
its political component from the criminal elements.
Taking the long view, the prospects of a Colombian peace
also offered an opportunity for the country to fulfill its full
potential as a regional leader and an exporter of security.
Successfully addressing the domestic security situation would
also allow Colombian foreign policy to embrace a broader
international vision that includes developing a 21st century
military, establishing an active partnership role with NATO,
accession to the OECD, and increasing its already robust
participation in international fora.
Peace also offered an amazing potential for U.S. businesses
to benefit while also investing in the broad-based prosperity
of Colombia and its people. But we also knew that Colombia
would need our help with implementation if the talks succeeded,
but perhaps more so if they did not. That is why in 2012 we
agreed to establish the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Strategic
Security Dialogue as a high-level mechanism for two-way
communication between our respective national security teams on
everything from peace negotiations, the country's security
challenges, and military transformation. It was the first time
since the initial years of Plan Colombia that the United States
and the Colombian Governments were engaged at such a high level
on national security matters and to think about what the
bilateral relationship could look like post-Plan Colombia.
Our initial focus was on the counter-insurgency strategy
which represented an integral part of the Government's efforts
to lay the groundwork for negotiations with the FARC. Under the
leadership of then-Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon, the Government
took the fight to the FARC's traditional safe havens and
targeted its financial infrastructure, increasing the incentive
for the group to negotiate in good faith for the first time
since its creation. We made human rights a central part of
every conversation, used the dialogue to convey our
expectations with regard to continued cooperation, and our
respective justice counterparts engaged actively on matters
related to extradition and transitional justice.
We also developed a regional plan for cooperation in
Central America under the leadership of Assistant Secretary
Brownfield.
A lot has happened since 2012. At first, we were not
represented in Havana, but when talks advanced to critical
issues, President Obama and Secretary Kerry agreed to send the
distinguished Bernard Aronson as a special envoy in 2014. It
took several years of negotiations, but the FARC and the
Government finally reached a peace agreement in November 2016,
but the hard part is just beginning.
All those years of painstaking work are now at risk for two
reasons. One is the political battle between the current and
former president of Colombia in the run-up to next year's
legislative and presidential elections, and a spike in
cultivation following the suspension of aerial eradication in
2015. In that context, the August 13 visit of Vice President
Pence to Latin America, which includes Colombia, is incredibly
important and could determine the course of U.S.-Colombia
cooperation over the next several years.
I was just in Colombia and had an opportunity to meet with
several senior officials and presidential candidates, and if I
was in my former job advising Vice President Pence to go down
on his way down to Colombia, I would tell him a couple of
things, very briefly.
First, the question of whether or not to follow through
with the implementation of the peace agreement will become
central to next year's elections in Colombia, but that debate
should be behind us. A lot of the current debate reflects
preparations for the elections next year. The focus of the
United States should remain on robust implementation.
Second, the problem of increased coca cultivation is simple
arithmetic: more coca, more money to Colombian criminal groups.
But aerial eradication is not the only answer. It was
originally developed as a short-term solution to create a space
for the Colombian Government to establish the presence of the
state. Right now we are at a time when the Colombians are as
alarmed as we are by the spike in coca cultivation, and the
focus should be on helping them do it their way and achieve
results through increased law enforcement operations, rural
development, manual eradication, and a focus on public health.
Third, as my colleague, Jose Cardenas, said, the FARC must
come clean with regard to its finances. They have a fortune
that is estimated in the billions of dollars. And we also have
to get better as a U.S. Government in tackling the financial
aspects of the drug trade, and this is where the Congress can
play an important role in helping the administration develop
the necessary tools.
Fourth and lastly, and I will finish here, Senators, the
Colombian national police needs all the support it can get to
fill the vacuum. As part of the peace agreement, the military
is supposed to cede the space to the police, and they will have
to hire a significant amount of people, but they also need
technical expertise and training if they are to succeed.
And last but not least, sir, back to where I started, which
is the bipartisan support of Colombia. I would urge Congress to
signal that support, that continued support through the 2018
budget. The President reduced that request for Colombia from
$391 million to $250 million, which suggests the United States
is walking away from Colombia. When compared to the billions of
dollars the United States spends in the Middle East every week,
the impact of $10 billion over the life of Plan Colombia
represents a better return on investment, and I will leave it
there.
Thank you very much.
[Mr. Gonzalez's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Juan Sebastian Gonzalez
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, distinguished members of the
committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today
on ``Assessing the Colombia Peace Process: The Way Forward in U.S.-
Colombia Relations.'' It is an honor to testify beside my distinguished
former colleague Mr. Jose Cardenas.
The amazing success of the U.S.-Colombia strategic relationship is
a direct result of the longstanding bipartisan consensus in favor of
Colombia that exists in this body. Indeed, it was thanks to the
leadership and oversight of the U.S. Congress that the United States
was able to provide sustained commitment to Plan Colombia through the
years, and to continue that commitment by supporting Peace Colombia
with $450 million in Fiscal Year 2017 as the country works to implement
a historic peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC). As a Colombian American, it was this leadership that
inspired me into public service, because it demonstrated the
transformational nature of U.S. foreign policy when combined with
Colombian political will. So, thank you for your continued leadership
and for inspiring a young Colombian American to serve his country just
over 17 years ago.
U.S. Support for the Colombian Peace Process
During my service with the Obama administration, I served on the
National Security Council (NSC) when President Juan Manuel Santos began
to set the stage for peace negotiations with the FARC. By then, the
United States had stood by Colombia on the battlefield for over a
decade, so there was no question that we would continue our support as
Colombia pursued a negotiated peace. From our perspective, supporting a
sustainable and just peace presented the best policy option for the
United States to achieve a strategic victory against the Colombian drug
trade. Entering into negotiations also offered an opportunity for the
Government to delegitimize a narco-terrorist organization masking
itself as a belligerent movement by separating its political component
from the criminal elements.
As the administration considered its policy options, it was clear
that Colombia would continue to need our help with implementation if
the talks succeeded, but perhaps more so if they did not. Taking the
long view, the prospect of a Colombia at peace also offered an
opportunity for the country to fulfill its full potential as a regional
leader and an exporter of security. Successfully addressing the
domestic security situation would free up the Government to pivot
toward a broader international vision that included developing a 21st
century military, establishing an active partnership role with NATO,
achieving accession to the OECD, and increasing its already robust
participation in international fora. Peace also offered amazing
potential for U.S. businesses to benefit while investing in the broad-
based prosperity of Colombia and its people. Without a doubt,
supporting peace negotiations was the right choice for the United
States and for the Colombian people. The modalities were another
question.
At the beginning, we decided against joining the negotiating teams
in Havana, even though both the Colombian Government and the FARC
wanted us there. We knew the presence of the United States would
distract negotiators from the fundamental points of the agenda,
including land reform and end-of-conflict. Instead, we agreed to
establish the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Strategic Security Dialogue
(HLSSD) in 2012 as a high-level mechanism to communicate U.S. national
security interests and to provide the Colombians with a direct channel
on matters related to peace negotiations, security challenges, and
military transformation. It was co-chaired by the Deputy National
Security Advisor and the Colombian Minister of Defense, with the
participation of our respective national security Departments and
Agencies. It was the first time since the initial years of Plan
Colombia that the U.S. and Colombian Governments were engaging at such
a high level on national security matters and starting to think about
what the bilateral relationship could look like post Plan Colombia.
Our initial focus was Colombia's revised counter-insurgency
strategy, which represented an integral part of the Government's
efforts to lay the groundwork for negotiations with the FARC. Under the
leadership of then-Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon, the Government took the
fight to the FARC's traditional safe havens and targeted its financial
infrastructure to degrade its capabilities and increase the incentive
for the group to negotiate in good faith for the first time since its
creation. We made human rights a central part of every conversation,
used the HLSSD to convey our expectations with regard to continued
counternarcotics cooperation, and our respective justice counterparts
engaged actively on matters related to extradition and transitional
justice. We also developed a regional plan for cooperation in Central
America under the leadership of Assistant Secretary William Brownfield
and his team.
I left the NSC in 2013 to advise Vice President Joe Biden on
regional matters but remained actively involved in the HLSSD up until
2014, when peace talks reached an advance stage and delved into
difficult topics, including aerial eradication; and disarmament,
demobilization, and reintegration. At that point, the locus of
coordination on peace negotiations for the administration shifted to
the Department of State, where Secretary John Kerry took an active
personal role. His decision to name Bernard Aronson as U.S. Special
Envoy to the negotiations helped accelerate the talks by demonstrating
to the FARC that while the United States stood with the Government, it
was also willing to listen to the other side. Aronson successfully
navigated the difficult task of serving as the voice of the U.S.
Government while avoiding getting pulled into the negotiations as a
party to the talks. He also, as Colombia's peace commissioner told the
Washington Post, helped the FARC understand that the world had changed.
The FARC had lost perspective in the jungles of Colombia, and it was
necessary to help them establish baseline realities about what was and
was not possible at the negotiating table.
Implementing the Peace Agreement
Following several years of negotiations, the Colombian Government
and the FARC concluded a wide ranging peace agreement in November 2016,
but the hard part is just beginning and there are already two serious
threats against its successful implementation: the political battle
between the current and former president of Colombia and the spike in
coca cultivation following the suspension of aerial eradication. As
Colombia prepares for legislative and presidential elections next year,
the United States will again need to carefully avoid picking sides as
it seeks to advance U.S. national security interests. In that context,
the August 13-18 visit of Vice President Mike Pence to the region, with
stops in Cartagena and Bogota, is incredibly important and could
determine the course of U.S.-Colombia relations for the next several
years.
I was just in Colombia, and had the opportunity to meet with Vice
President Oscar Naranjo, Director of the Colombian National Police
(CNP) General Jorge Hernando Nieto Rojas, current and former officials
from the ministry of defense, and several of the Colombian presidential
candidates. The meetings provided me with important insights into the
charged political dynamics in Colombia today. And if I were travelling
with Vice President Pence on the Air Force 2 flight to Colombia, I
would tell him this:
First, the question of whether or not to follow through with the
peace agreement itself will become central to next year's Colombian
election, but that debate is already behind us. Much of the friction
today between President Juan Manuel Santos and his predecessor Alvaro
Uribe is politically charged, which detracts from what should be a
conversation about how to address the valid concerns with the accord
and its implementation. The diverging positions on those components of
the agreement covering human rights accountability and the FARC's
political participation are prominent examples, and should be addressed
by Colombia's strong democratic institutions. But abandoning the
agreement at this juncture would set Colombia back by a decade,
significantly hurting the country's economic prospects and undermining
U.S. national security. The focus of the United States should remain on
ensuring robust implementation.
Second, the problem of increased coca cultivation is simple
arithmetic: more coca, more cocaine to the United States, more money
for Colombian criminal groups, but a return to aerial eradication is
not the only answer. An estimated one quarter of the $10 billion
provided by the United States for Plan Colombia went to spraying coca
crops when factoring air time, ground troops, the cost of glyphosate,
etc. There's no question regarding the initial success of aerial
spraying but it was always intended as a short-term solution that would
allow the Colombian Government to re-establish rule of law in the
countryside. Perhaps the Colombian Government's greatest mistake in
negotiations with the FARC was to end spraying unilaterally in
September 2015 without first placing responsibility on the FARC to
produce results on voluntary crop substitution. That said, the
Colombians are equally alarmed by the spike in coca production, and the
focus of the United States should be to help them do it their way:
through increased law enforcement operations, rural development, manual
eradication, and a focus on public health to tackle the country's
increased coca consumption.
Third, the FARC must come clean with regard to its finances.
Colombia's Attorney General estimates the FARC's fortunes to be
somewhere in the billions of dollars, which the group vehemently
denies. As a matter of policy, the United Sates should pursue every
avenue to prevent the FARC from using its funds for anything other than
upholding its accord-based commitment to compensate victims of the
country's internal conflict. The United States also needs to do a
better job of working with our regional partners to tackle the
financial component of the drug trade, regardless of the currency.
Congress should consider leading a dialogue with the administration on
possible legislative tools to strengthen the ability of U.S. law
enforcement to tackle criminal financial networks.
Fourth, the CNP needs all the support it can get if it is to
successfully fill the vacuum left by the Colombian Military. The CNP
needs to hire and train thirty thousand more police personnel over the
next ten years, but they will also need air mobility to project force
throughout the country, the technical capabilities to tackle complex
criminal networks, and a community-based approach to maintain rule of
law in rural areas. Colombia's military is one of the best trained in
the hemisphere, and the U.S. should work to get the CNP to the same
level.
None of this is possible without the leadership and oversight of
the U.S. Congress. I would urge the distinguished members of this
committee to engage personally and often on Colombia, including visits
to see firsthand the progress in implementation. My former colleagues
at the Department of State and esteemed former counterparts in the
Colombian Government may not like to hear it, but conditionality on
human rights needs to remain a necessary component of U.S. support to
Colombia. Congress also should defend against any abrogation of U.S.
law enforcement efforts related to Colombia--let us not forget the
horrible crimes perpetrated by the FARC, including the kidnapping of
American citizens and facilitating the flow of cocaine to our shores.
The FARC may be able to enjoy the beaches of Cartagena, but never
Miami.
Lastly, please continue to send a signal of bipartisan support for
Colombia through the Fiscal Year 2018 budget. The President reduced the
request for Colombia from $391 to $250 million, which suggests that the
United States is walking away from Colombia. When compared to the
billions of dollars spent in the Middle East every week, the impact of
$10 billion over the life of Plan Colombia represents a much better
return on investment.
Senator Menendez. Thank you both very much.
I think I will start asking questions in order to move the
hearing along and when the Chairman arrives yield to him.
So, let me ask you, could the United States effectively
help Colombia promote stability and work productively with our
partners there without sustained American investments through
the State Department and USAID?
Mr. Cardenas. I think that we bring an essential
complementary role. I agree with the implication that this is a
problem that the Colombian people are going to have to address
fully. I think, if I am not mistaken, I saw figures as high as
$30 billion that the Colombian Government expects will be
required for the full implementation of the peace plan,
including the rural development and occupying the spaces that
historically have not.
But I think the United States plays an essential role,
first of all because we----
Senator Menendez. But can we play that?
Mr. Cardenas. Yes.
Senator Menendez. My question, for the sake of time, is can
we play a significant role if we are not, in addition to our
engagement, engaged with some resources here both on the rule
of law, economic stability, economic development, and the State
Department's diplomacy engagement?
Mr. Cardenas. Yes. We have key and essential expertise to
offer in terms of developing economies, in terms of linking
those rural areas with the rest of the country, and in terms of
the self-governance, improving our programs through IRI, NDI.
These bring a special expertise to filling that space.
Senator Menendez. Mr. Gonzalez?
Mr. Gonzalez. Senator, I would say the answer is no, for a
couple of reasons. First, over the course of Plan Colombia, the
synergy that has developed between our militaries, between our
police forces, and even at the diplomatic level, has become
incredibly close. So if our strategic interest is to preserve
that alignment with Colombia, we need to have a seat at the
table.
Secondly, when it comes to--no matter how successful the
implementation of the peace agreement is, and there is no
debate that there are aspects of that agreement, including
human rights and transitional justice and how members of the
FARC may participate in political life--there will be criminal
elements that have no interest in actually being a part of that
process. There is no other government or country in the world
that can help Colombians achieve a strategic victory over these
criminal elements like the United States.
Senator Menendez. And for that we need to have resources to
do it.
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, sir. But I would add that the new
element would be that the private sector, the U.S. private
sector can bring significant resources to bear in the
development of Colombia's infrastructure in the countryside. So
that should be an added element of complexity to the entire
process.
Senator Menendez. So, now, let me ask you, I hear you both
say we need to stay the course, and I largely agree. But as a
policymaker, what would you be saying to me if extraditions of
wanted criminals in the United States does not take place; if
coca eradication, however you devise the broad-based plan, not
just aerial eradication, substitute crops, police enforcement,
all of the elements that one would agree is necessary, does not
take place? At what point does one consider success is peace
ultimately the goal in the absence of all other things from a
United States perspective? Maybe from a Colombian perspective
it might be. But from me going to a United States taxpayer and
saying we should give hundreds of millions of dollars, continue
to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Colombian
Government, even in the face of criminals not being extradited,
even in the face of coca still growing significantly, and we
have not even had a real chance to talk about human rights,
which I think is very important as well, how do I justify that
to American taxpayers?
Mr. Cardenas. Senator, I think the word you used earlier
was reciprocity, and I take a back seat to nobody in insisting
on the fact that U.S. interests remain protected and remain
central to our engagement with Colombia. I disagree totally
with the slow walk on extraditions. I disagree with ending
aerial fumigation. I think that in our engagements with
Colombian officials we continue to need to insist on respect
for U.S. interests in this.
We do have, obviously, overall bilateral interests or joint
interests in suppressing criminality and suppressing drug
trafficking with Colombia, but we also have some very specific
interests, and these have to be protected as we go forward with
Colombia. We will see a new government taking office next year
in Colombia, and I think that is where we pick up with the new
candidates, is an insistence on defending U.S. interests in
this bilateral relationship.
Mr. Gonzalez. Senator, just very briefly, I think that it
is a balance of strategic patience and rigorous oversight,
which we have a long history of advancing in the region.
Certainly, the bipartisan consensus in favor of Colombia exists
on the pillars of eradication of coca, of the active
extradition relationship, and the respect of human rights. And
all three are potentially in peril as Colombia looks to
implement the peace agreement.
I think that, in terms of using taxpayer money effectively,
we should have that conversation with the Colombians in a way
that on the one hand respects that only Colombians can find the
right balance between justice, peace, and truth; but also
saying that if the United States is going to be there in
support, that we have certain expectations with regard to
international humanitarian law, with regard to the rule of law
and the active extradition relationship, and that they need to
demonstrate results on the coca front.But I think the
Colombians do recognize this. They recognize the urgency of it.
So I think an active dialogue, but also, secondly, my
former colleagues at the Department of State will shudder when
I say this but the conditionality that the U.S. Congress
includes in the appropriations legislation has been
instrumental in the success of Plan Colombia and should
continue.
I think lastly, sir, just considering additional tools for
law enforcement would be something I think that would help
increase the synergy between law enforcement in the United
States and law enforcement in Colombia to achieve gains.
Senator Menendez. I, for one, am of the view that the
conditionality is important here to achieve what I believe are
mutual goals. But certainly sometimes some of the hardest
elements of what your work is are the ones that we avoid for as
long as we can, and for so long as aid continues to flow and a
``yes, I get it, but you do not actually do something'' works,
then that is what will happen. At some point my own view is, as
a long-term supporter of this, is that conditionality is going
to be important to meet the three pillars of justice--i.e.
extradition, work on narcotics trafficking, and a promotion of
human rights--as elements of our policy.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Senator Rubio. [presiding] Thank you, and thanks for
starting it up so we would not have to waste anyone's time.
Let me first begin with a sort of--you guys have both
watched the sort of internal debate going on in Colombia
between the--and I just characterize it this way because it is
the easiest way to do so, the sort of people of the old view
that President Uribe holds and who by and large I think are
represented in the Colombian-American community, that the peace
deal, they want peace, but they want peace with security, that
in many ways this peace deal is illusory, and that in many ways
it perhaps contributes to a lack of security.
The flip side, of course, is the Santos Government's view
that this is a good thing and that we need to continue to move
forward on it. Obviously, there will be new presidential
elections coming up soon.
What is your take on how central an issue that is going to
be in that campaign? It certainly was the central issue in the
referendum vote that occurred a couple of years ago, but how
has that played out since then, and what role will that play in
the next presidential national election in Colombia? Do you
view it as the central issue that will be debated?
Anyone? Do you want to go in alphabetical order, Mr.
Cardenas?
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that my
sense is, in watching the ebbs and flows of Colombian politics
as they head into an election year, is that there is a
tremendous amount of fatigue, fatigue with the cacophony of
yelling and shouting about the peace process.
I think that my own sense is that as difficult as it was
for many Colombians to swallow, they are willing to see how the
process evolves. In other words, no one, I believe, is going to
campaign on a strict platform of tearing up the agreement. I
think that perhaps there will be efforts to sharpen up
enforcement, some of the aspects, more controversial ones.
But I also think that, speaking generally about Colombia,
that there is a popular frustration that President Santos has
put so much effort into, has expended so much local capital and
attention into the peace process that other problems of
Colombia have been ignored that you see in a stagnant economy,
you see complaints about social services, you see complaints
about education.
So a candidate coming next year is going to have to come up
with--and also that has led to a frustration with the
traditional political parties in Colombia. So candidates next
year are not going to campaign up or down on the peace process.
They are going to campaign on who can best provide a positive
pathway forward for the country as a whole in terms of economic
growth, in terms of, again, improving services.
So no one that I see at this point is going to be
campaigning up or down on the peace process, but there will be
efforts, I would predict, to sharpen up.
Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Chairman, if I may just digress briefly
on Venezuela. As a former government official, one of the
liberating parts is that I do not have to clear what I have to
say, and I just want to say that the legitimacy of a government
is based on its ability to protect fundamental freedoms and
rights. By that measure, Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate
leader of Venezuela. And secondly, by rigging this election and
packing the members of the Constituent Assembly with loyalists
to the Government, he has equally I think held illegitimate
elections and the current government is illegitimate.
The way forward has to be an electoral one, but at this
moment the U.S. Government should come out vociferously saying
as such.
On the peace process, one of the things I said in my
opening is that one of the dangers right now to the peace
process is the debate between the current and former
presidents, which in many ways is highly politically charged in
advance of next year's election. In some ways, that is par for
the course when it comes to politics in Colombia, but it is
distracting from the real conversation about how do you make
sure that the FARC stands by its commitment to spend its money
to compensate victims is actually something that they deliver
on, as well as the questions of transitional justice and human
rights, and the questions of FARC's political participation.
Human Rights Watch has come out and said that it is
unfathomable for a FARC member who has pending charges to run
for office. I would agree with that.
So it is not right now a question of whether or not the
agreement should stand but how Colombians can get to the most
effective implementation.
The challenge, though, is a political one, because since
most Colombians live in urban centers, to them the war has been
over for a while. They have not had to suffer from violence of
the FARC. So when they see on television that the FARC is
getting paid or that people in the countryside who were growing
coca are being compensated above the minimum wage, they are
right to be upset. The danger is that whoever comes in as a new
president will see the increase in violence that will be a
consequence of the implementation in the short term, and sees
the unpopularity of some parts of this agreement, and then
decides to walk it back. I think that would be a mistake,
because the right way to do this is to have robust
implementation and to find a balance that works for the
Colombian people and to address some of the fundamental
imbalances of inequality, of lack of presence of the state in
Colombia.
Senator Rubio. And just to further elaborate on that point,
it has always been my position that Colombia is a sovereign
nation that has elected representatives who have to respond to
their people for the decisions they make. So I have never
opined on whether I am in favor or not in favor of the peace
agreement. That belongs to the Colombian people. They voted
against it, but through their constitutional process they got
it through the congress in Colombia, and they will have an
election and people will be held to account for how they voted
and what their positions might be.
Where I do think we have a role to play is how it impacts
U.S. foreign policy, and the first thing I have outlined--I was
asked about it in the hallway. We have to go to our colleagues
every year and justify the amount of money that we are putting
towards this effort, and do so now in an environment where you
see an uptick in cocaine production and coca cultivation. So I
could see where my colleagues would say to us, well, why are we
spending more money if it is getting worse, not better, and if
it implicates the peace deal as a result, it endangers it? So
that is the first thing.
The second thing it touches upon is the standing of the
FARC. We still designate them, and rightfully so, as a
terrorist group. There is the example that I ran out of time to
ask for our government witnesses, but on the 13th of February
of 2003 there were four Americans, Department of Defense
contractors. They were on a counter-narcotics flight mission.
They were shot down by the FARC. The pilot, who was a retired
member of the U.S. Army's Delta Force, was executed on the
spot. There were three Floridians who were captured. They were
held captive. They were tortured for over five-and-a-half years
until they were rescued by the Colombian Army.
So as we talk about the future of the Colombian peace
accord and the demobilization of the FARC for the good of the
Colombian people, we also have a group of Americans, all of
whom were former U.S. military, and their families who were
subjected to atrocities and crimes at the hands of the FARC.
And to see people in any way associated with this wearing a
suit and coming up to Washington as elected representatives of
Colombia is a very difficult thing for anybody to tolerate
here, not to mention a very difficult thing to justify in terms
of our relationship and our funding.
The other concern is that there are people who we worked
with, hand in hand, with this effort who could now potentially
find themselves standing trial before a FARC kangaroo court,
where some of them are granted immunity and the like. So these
things begin to impact our ability to seek the funding.
So I have always pursued this not through the lens of what
the Colombian people decide. They are going to have elections,
unlike in Venezuela, which are legitimate. But how do we come
back here and justify how that program is outlined?
I think I walked in when the Ranking Member was talking
about conditionality. There is, at least for our money--it has
to be clear that our money cannot be used to reward the FARC.
It should not even be used to pay compensation for victims. The
FARC should be paying that, and the like. And also, obviously,
what is the point of getting rid of the FARC if the territory
they once held and the industry they once ran has simply been
replaced by another group, be it dissident members of the FARC,
the ELN, the BACRIM, the Gulf Clan, or the like?
The second question related to this--and I think we need to
start thinking about it in these terms--we need to start
thinking within our planning about what does instability in
Venezuela mean to Colombia? In the short term, migratory
pressures from a catastrophic meltdown that continues to happen
humanitarian-wise--I know the Colombians should be very
concerned about that.
So my question to both of you is, number one, as we look
forward on Plan Colombia, should there be elements of that that
take into account some potential issues at the border with
migration and the like? And the second is long term, start
thinking about what would it mean if Nicolas Maduro is actually
able to pull this thing off, hold on to power, him or someone
like him remains in power?
And you saw just two nights ago after the fraudulent
elections, which, by the way, the voting machine people, the
company, the CEO of Smartmatic said that those things were
tampered with to affect the number of people voting. They did
not have to affect the outcome because everybody voting,
everybody running was in favor of Maduro, but maybe they messed
with that as well.
But you have here from BBC this morning the CEO of the
company that provided the voting machines saying the voting
machines were tampered with. So, there you go.
But going back to the point of them being able to hold on
to power, one of the things you heard them talking about that
night in their speeches is imagine if they did a Constituent
Assembly in Colombia, imagine if they did a Constituent
Assembly in Brazil, in Mexico, in Argentina, almost to imply
that once we hold on to power here and we stabilize the
situation, we are going to use our resources to support people
just like us in all of these other countries. And imagine a
decade from now a Venezuela-style regime in Colombia, in
Honduras and Guatemala and Panama, in Costa Rica. You already
kind of have that in Nicaragua. So you can just begin to
imagine how problematic this is.
So I guess my question on that point is what should we be
doing as part of Plan Colombia to help Colombia in the short
and long term with regard to what is happening in Venezuela?
Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Chairman, I would say that in addition
to--I do think the FARC does want to drive Colombia toward a
Constituent Assembly, but the country's democratic institutions
are strong enough and will survive. In Venezuela, since Chavez,
they have reduced their institutiona to rubble and are not able
to grapple with something like this.
But you mentioned the hostages taken by the FARC. I was in
Colombia a couple of weeks ago and I visited El Nogal, which
was a nightclub that was bombed in 2002. There are memorials
there to the 65 people that were killed by a car bomb that the
FARC set off that included two American citizens that were
killed.
So it reminds you that the FARC is a narco-terrorist
organization, and as such they may have some sort of
arrangement with regard to transitional justice in Colombia,
but they should never, ever be able to go to the beaches of
Miami, and the Unites States and the U.S. Congress should never
allow the abrogation of U.S. judicial claims, law enforcement
claims over these individuals.
At the end of the day, when you look at peace processes
around the world, the balance between peace, justice and truth
is never perfect, and it is often a matter of perspective or
where you have been on the side of, particularly when it comes
to protracted conflicts like the one in Colombia. I think only
the Colombians will know that exact balance, but you are right
to say that the U.S. Congress has a voice in that debate, and
particularly when it comes to international humanitarian
standards.
So that is something that needs to continue to be
emphasized, even as I know you have a good relationship with
President Santos and President Uribe and President Pastrana. It
is something that is, when you have a close friend, you have to
have that direct conversation.
On top of all of this, you have a Colombia that has an
enormous task of implementing a peace deal with a potential
humanitarian disaster right at its border. The first thing that
will happen if there a meltdown of the Venezuelan economy is
that Venezuelans are going to go to Colombia, much like
Colombians went to Venezuela in the late 90s. That is a
humanitarian issue. I know that Colombians have been preparing
for this. I know the U.S. Government has been preparing for
this. But up until now, the Venezuelan Government has not
allowed the delivery of food, of international humanitarian
assistance, and that needs to change. I think U.S. pressure
should try to get them to that point.
The second thing is you may have non-state actors that have
access to some of the military equipment that exists in
Venezuela. They have surface-to-air missiles. They have several
military assets that in the wrong hands could cause a regional
problem. So I think that is a regional solution that I think
the United States and the administration and the Congress
should be having with our regional partners to ensure that
those challenges are contained.
Senator Rubio. Just suffice it to say that--and I know we
are going to run out of time because we have an ambassador
hearing that we have to take up here at the conclusion of this.
But just to be clear, as we understand how other elements have
empowered themselves in the region, they run for office, they
get elected as a minority party, they use democratic processes
to gain power and then begin to govern undemocratically. We are
under no illusion that that would be the goal of the FARC once
they become engaged politically, is to engage themselves in the
political life first through the legitimate organs of the
democratic process, but eventually to gain power, and once
there, go in the direction the Sandinistas and Ortega have
taken Nicaragua and that Chavez and now Maduro have taken
Venezuela. Certainly having a Maduro regime next door
supportive of them would make them stronger in that effort, not
weaker.
I would ask you, Mr. Cardenas, about it, but I think I
heard that embedded in both of your statements and testimony
today.
Mr. Cardenas. I will be very quick, Mr. Chairman. I think
you described the political agenda of the FARC to a tee. I do
not believe there has been any profound change of heart among
the FARC. I think that they are merely changing their camo garb
for civilian dress merely as a tactic to achieve political
power. And then, as you have correctly noted, they would
emulate the same agenda as we have seen others.
And I think what is key to this, to impeding their plan or
otherwise making them earn whatever political legitimacy they
aspire to, is to go after the money. Find their offshore
accounts and seize that money so that it is not employed
directly to either suborn democratic institutions in Colombia,
or buy off political support, as Chavez did with the oil
windfall.
Both you and the Ranking Member mentioned about having to
continue to justify U.S. assistance to Colombia. I would urge
the Trump administration to make political appointments to get
politicals in some of these jobs, to appoint a strong
ambassador in Bogota, to push the U.S. agenda, our interests,
in our bilateral relations, to achieve the successes that we
want to see without compromising on the kind of expectations
that we have for the taxpayer money.
Venezuela is a disaster for Colombia. It is not only
regarding the narco trafficking, the consolidation of a narco
state next door, what impact that will have on the coca growers
and the traffickers in Colombia but also, as you know, Mr.
Chairman, the humanitarian crisis of Venezuelans pouring over
the border into these very same rural areas that the Colombian
Government and partners like the United States are setting out
to pacify and stabilize. It is an unmitigated disaster. Here
you have Venezuela and Cuba as co-guarantors of the peace
agreement. It just goes to show that when you go to the local
Mafia don for a favor, you are basically at his mercy for the
rest of your life.
Senator Rubio. Well, on that uplifting note--[Laughter.]
Senator Rubio. We want to thank both of you for being here.
We apologize for the disruption and the back and forth.
I do want to ask unanimous consent to include for the
record of this hearing a statement from former Columbian
President Uribe, which I referred to earlier, and also a
statement from Jose Miguel Blanco from Human Rights Watch,
which I believe Mr. Gonzalez referred to a moment ago in his
testimony.
[The information referred to above is located at the end of
this hearing transcript.]
Senator Rubio. And again, I want to thank everyone for
being here today.
The record of the hearing will remain open for 48 hours.
And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted to
William Brownfield and Francisco Palmieri by Senator Marco Rubio
On Eradication
Question 1. One of the unintended consequences of the peace process
in Colombia may end up being a wave of cocaine coming towards our
borders. Both the U.S. Government and the United Nations have estimated
a dramatic spike in Colombia's coca cultivation and cocaine production,
in part due to the Santos Government ceasing aerial eradication
efforts.
Do you foresee a surge in Colombian cocaine coming to the U.S.?
Do you see crop substitution and manual eradication as viable tools
to decreasing coca crops in Colombia?
How can the U.S. Government best support the Santos Government in
its counternarcotics efforts?
Answer. The alarming surge in Colombian cocaine production since
2013 has already increased the volume of Colombian cocaine coming to
the United States, according to U.S. Government estimates. To curb the
over 130 percent increase in coca cultivation in Colombia since 2013,
the U.S. Government is supporting Colombia's implementation of a
comprehensive, multi-year, whole-of-government strategy. Vice President
Oscar Naranjo is leading Colombia's implementation of this strategy.
Forced eradication and interdiction both increased this year thanks
to Colombian commitment and strong Colombian capabilities developed
with sustained assistance from the United States. The Colombian
Government's coca crop reduction plan includes forced eradication and
crop substitution coordinated through Strategic Operations Centers
(CEOs in Spanish). The CEOs are strategically placed in high coca
growing and narcotrafficking regions throughout Colombia and, if
properly resourced and effectively implemented, could address coca
cultivation. We continue to encourage President Santos' administration
to address protestors who hamper forced eradication efforts and to
maintain the use of extradition as a tool against narcotraffickers.
On Targeting of Civil Society:
Question 2. One troubling trend has been the targeting of civil
society activists, including trade unionists and human rights
activists. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in
2016 alone there have been nearly 400 attacks on activists, including
127 murders.
What is the Santos Government doing to protect civil society
activists?
Is this violence related to the peace plan?
Do you expect there to be increases in "score settling" between
former combatants?
If yes, is the Santos Government prepared to deal with a spike in
violence? Could this violence destabilize the peace plan?
Answer. We are deeply concerned by reports of killings and threats
against civil society activists and human rights defenders in Colombia.
In its 2016 annual report, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights in Colombia reported 59 verified killings of human rights
defenders and 389 aggressions, which include killings, threats,
infringement of the rights to property and privacy, enforced
disappearances, and sexual violence. We support the Colombian
Government's efforts to quickly and thoroughly investigate and
prosecute those responsible for these crimes. Concrete results will be
critical to prevent future violence and will affect peace accord
implementation. The Colombian Attorney General's Office has prioritized
investigations of recent killings of human rights defenders under the
"Plan Esperanza" initiative. The first conviction in Colombia for a
case involving threats against human rights defenders, in May 2017, was
also a positive step forward. Furthermore, human rights groups have
recognized the Attorney General's progress in prosecuting attacks on
activists; though more work remains to be done to end impunity for
political violence, which is a direct threat to democratic peace. We
continue to engage the Colombian Government on these issues at the
highest levels and urge concrete results.
In the accord, the Colombian Government recommitted to ensuring
security for all residents through new mechanisms and measures,
including improvements to the National Protection Unit (UNP), which
provides protection measures to at-risk citizens. In 2016, the UNP
provided protection measures to 6,501 at-risk individuals. High-level
Colombian officials, including President Santos, offer political
protection to civil society activists through public statements
condemning aggressions against them and supporting the work of these
activists. President Santos inaugurated on February 23 the National
Commission on Security Guarantees provided for in the peace accord,
which will design and monitor interagency policies aimed at dismantling
criminal organizations that threaten social movements, human rights
defenders, and individuals engaged in peacebuilding. The Government
also reactivated the Mesa Nacional de Garantias, a forum for the
Government to meet with human rights defenders to discuss strategies,
actions, and investigations in support of advocacy. In June 2017, the
Office of the Inspector General released a new directive outlining how
the Government should respond to protect activists.
Though challenges remain with respect to violence against civil
society activists, Colombia has made important advances. The bilateral
ceasefire and peace accord between the Government and the FARC have
resulted in an overall reduction of violence in Colombia. The Conflict
Analysis Research Center reported that in 2016 levels of violence in
the country fell to their lowest in 52 years in terms of the number of
victims, combatants killed and injured, and the number of violent acts.
In 2016, Colombia had its lowest reported homicide rate in at least 40
years.
We agree on the importance of adopting effective measures to
protect social activists, human rights defenders, Afro-Colombian and
indigenous leaders, and members of the political opposition who remain
at risk with respect to threats and violence by illegal armed groups.
We believe an integrated civilian-military government peace accord
implementation plan that prioritizes expanding the state's presence to
conflict-affected areas is critical to success and the protection of
civil society leaders. We have underlined with the Colombian Government
that more needs to be done to dismantle the illegal armed groups
responsible for these crimes. The Colombian Government requested
specific international "accompaniment" of the peace accord, including
U.S. support for a provision in Section 3.4.4 of the accord providing
for the creation of a special unit within the Attorney General's Office
to focus on dismantling organized criminal groups. We are coordinating
with the Colombian Government to see how our support would be most
helpful.
Dismantling illegal armed groups responsible much of the violence
against civil society activists will also be essential to prevent
potential "score-settling." In addition, the security guarantees in the
peace accord provide for a comprehensive national strategy and new
institutions to protect demobilized combatants, as well as human rights
defenders, unionists, political actors, ethnic communities most
affected by the conflict, and civil society leaders.
The greatest near-term threats to accord implementation are
inadequate government efforts to address continued criminality, attacks
on rights defenders, and lack of government presence in rural Colombia.
Effective civilian agencies that provide government services in remote
areas will be important to sustain the peace.
On FARC Demobilization
Question 3. On FARC Demobilization: The demobilization is a massive
effort. The UN reports that the FARC has turned in more than 7,000 arms
and thousands of former fighters have entered camps.
Would you provide an update on the demobilization process?
Has this process gone as you expected?
What percentage of weapons do you think the FARC has turned in?
What do you believe happened to the rest? Are they sitting in a
bunker somewhere? Buried in the jungle? Sold to
narcotraffickers?
Is any of the $391 million for Colombia going to support FARC
members who have not demobilized? How are you ensuring that
U.S. dollars are only going to those who are participating?
Answer. The United Nations and the Government of Colombia remain
committed to disarming the FARC rebels and decommissioning more than
900 weapons caches outside the 26 UN-monitored disarmament zones. The
UN has extracted roughly 218 of these caches as of July 24, and caches
remaining after September 1 will be removed by the Government of
Colombia. Outside these unrecovered arms caches, the number of FARC
militia weapons remaining outside of UN control is unknown.
Additionally, nearly 7,000 FARC members turned over their personal
arms by June 27. That day, UN officials confirmed the rebels completed
the surrender of almost all fighters' individual weapons. The United
States strongly supports these achievements, which collectively
represent a huge step towards peace after 52 years of conflict. They
are also the culmination of more than 16 years of bipartisan U.S.
support for peace in Colombia.
The Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2366 on July
10, establishing a second Special Political Mission (SPM) to verify
implementation of several measures of the final agreement, including
the political, economic, and social re-incorporation of the FARC as
well as security programs and protection measures for communities and
organizations in conflict-affected areas. This transition to a second
SPM demonstrates progress in monitoring and verifying the laying down
of arms by the FARC and the bilateral ceasefire and cessation of
hostilities.
The Department will continue to implement its foreign assistance
activities in accordance with applicable U.S. laws. The United States
provides technical assistance to Colombian reintegration agencies,
which are providing former combatants services such as rehabilitation
and education, as part of the reintegration process. This assistance
will also help Colombia advance its counternarcotic and counter-
transnational organized crime strategies by bolstering rural police
presence, expanding security aviation, increasing maritime
interdiction, and helping ensure demobilized FARC combatants do not
return to the battlefield or criminality.
Question 4. Given the FARC's narcotrafficking past, do you expect
some of the demobilized combatants to themselves have drug problems? If
so, is the Colombian Government prepared to deal with an increase in
those needing drug rehabilitation?
Answer. The Colombian Ministry of Justice assesses that demobilized
combatants are vulnerable to the abuse of drugs and alcohol due to
difficulties and the shock of adapting to mainstream society. According
to the Ministry of Justice, the country is not prepared to provide
widespread treatment to overcome addiction in remote regions or small
communities in the country where demobilized zones are located. The
Colombian Ministry of Health created but has not yet implemented a
reincorporation plan to deal with health issues, including the use of
psychoactive substances, in these rural areas.
On the ELN
Question 5. Do you believe that the Santos Government will be able
to reach a deal with the ELN?
What do you think the broad outline of that peace deal may look
like? Would it be similar to the FARC deal?
Are you concerned that the ELN's leadership structure-much more
horizontal than the FARC-makes striking a deal observed by most
ELN members much more difficult?
Answer. We welcome efforts by the Colombian Government and people
to pursue the just and lasting peace Colombia deserves. The United
States is not a party to the talks between the Colombian Government and
the ELN. The Colombian Government has not requested U.S. Government
involvement in the talks with the ELN, as it did in the case of the
FARC, which led to the appointment of a U.S. Special Envoy.
The agenda and the process of the ELN talks differ from that of the
FARC peace process. When the Colombian Government and the ELN announced
peace talks in March 2016, the parties said negotiations would focus
on: (1) participation of society in constructing peace; (2) democracy
for peace; (3) transformations for peace; (4) victims; (5) the end of
armed conflict; and (6) implementation.
The ELN's ideological intransigence and diffuse organizational
structure could pose challenges to striking a deal. We are not in a
position, however, to predict whether the Santos Government will reach
a deal with the ELN.
Question 6. Has the ELN taken over parts of the FARC's cocaine
empire? How much has the ELN gained from the FARC peace plan?
How is the Colombian Government dealing with the ripple effect, as
other groups fill the void the FARC is leaving behind?
Answer. Since the ratification of the peace accord, the ELN has
clearly expanded its narcotrafficking activities near the Colombian
border with Venezuela in Catatumbo, Norte de Santander Department. The
ELN's narcotics-related and other criminal activities also increased in
areas where it has traditionally had a presence, such as Arauca, Cauca,
Bajo Cauca, Antioquia, and others. As a general matter, in areas where
the ELN and FARC shared territory, the ELN now controls more territory.
Other criminal groups, especially the Clan del Golfo, have increased
their criminal penetration into areas previously operated by the FARC,
notably in Antioquia and Choc".
To deal with the threat of expansion of the ELN, Clan del Golfo,
and other bandas criminales (BACRIMs), the Colombian Ministry of
Defense, launched or expanded named operations with the objective of
dismantling the persistent threat posed by these organizations.
Additionally, through Strategic Operations Centers (CEOs in Spanish),
the Government of Colombia not only plans to curb coca cultivation and
cocaine production, but is also expanding state presence in rural areas
to prevent proliferation of new criminal organizations, increase access
to justice and licit economic opportunities, and other social
government services.
While the ELN and other groups continue to fill the territorial
void left by the FARC, we believe some demobilized FARC and certainly
FARC dissidents continue to actively engage in narcotrafficking
activities throughout Colombia. We continue to urge the Colombians to
preserve the use of extradition as a law enforcement tool to ensure
narcotraffickers do not fraudulently use the peace accord's
transitional justice measures to avoid extradition.
On FARC Atrocities Committed against Americans:
Question 7. On February 13, 2003, four Americans who were
Department of Defense contractors on a U.S. Government counter-
narcotics flight mission in Colombia were shot down by the FARC. The
pilot, Tom Janis, a retired member of the U.S. Army's Delta Force, was
executed on the spot and three Floridians--Keith Stansell, Mark
Gonzalez, and Tom Howes--were captured. They were held captive and
severely tortured for over five and a half years, until they were
rescued by the Colombian Army.
While these Americans and the Janis family obtained a judgement in
2010 under the Anti-Terrorism Act for damages against the FARC to
compensate them for the FARC's acts of terrorism during their captivity
and the execution of one American, there are no FARC assets in the
United States besides drug money of FARC agents, traffickers, and money
launderers. These assets are frozen under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin
Designation Act. Under current law, victims cannot access frozen assets
under the Kingpin Act. In the 114th Congress, I co-sponsored
legislation the Clarifying Amendment to Provide Terrorism Victims
Equity Act (CAPTIVE Act) to change current law. While the bill passed
the House by unanimous consent last year, it was stalled in the Senate
when the Obama administration raised concerns about the bill that they
failed to disclose during the House's consideration. In the meantime,
the victims have been waiting 14 years for justice and have received
little help from the U.S. Government that they served heroically.
Ambassador Brownfield and Secretary Palmieri, do these men and
their families deserve justice? What would you say to them and
their families?
Answer. The four U.S. Department of Defense contractors shot down
by the FARC in 2003 were victims of a heinous crime, and they and their
families deserve justice. Our highest priority is to protect the lives
and interests of U.S. citizens.
Question 8. How can we work together to find justice for them? What
is the State Department's current view of the CAPTIVE Act?
Answer. We agree it is essential to pursue meaningful justice and
accountability on behalf of victims of the conflict, especially
protecting the interests of U.S. victims of the conflict. We also have
met with, briefed, and provided information to families of U.S. victims
who have contacted us. We have explained how our foreign assistance
provides technical assistance and capacity building support for
Colombian institutions, including the Government's Victims' Unit and
Colombian NGOs, which in turn provide essential services to conflict
victims and advocacy on their behalf.
In terms of the CAPTIVE Act, we are aware that the legislation has
been reintroduced in the House and are monitoring efforts in this
regard. We believe the FARC's stated commitment to making reparations
to conflict victims and disclosing the full truth about its crimes
should include the disclosure of information about their illicit
finances. In an October 1 statement, the FARC committed to forfeit all
assets-including monetary and non-monetary resources, such as land-in
order to fund victim reparations. The Department remains committed to
deepening our law enforcement and intelligence collaboration with
Colombia to combat financial crimes, including with respect to the
FARC's illicit finances.
__________
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted to
Juan S. Gonzalez by Senator Marco Rubio
On Upcoming Elections
Question 1. Congressional elections in Colombia are scheduled for
March 2018, with a presidential election following in May 2018.
Will the peace plan play a major role in the campaigns?
Answer. Definitely. Already, the peace plan between the Government
and the FARC has dominated Colombia's political discourse--and served
as the main point of friction between the current and former
president--since the negotiations began several years ago.
Question 2. How do you see the 2018 Colombia presidential election
affecting the peace process? If so, how?
Answer. The peace process could very well determine the out come of
the 2018 Colombian presidential election. Polls show that Colombian
electorate overwhelmingly supports peace but is also highly skeptical
of the agreement. The main candidates also agree--with varying degrees
of nuance--on the need to continue implementing the agreement. The
winner of the election will be the candidate who can articulate a way
forward for ensuring accountability for the FARC, maintaining a central
focus on the victims of the conflict, advancing consensus on the FARC's
political participation, and addressing the rising cultivation of coca
in Colombia. The challenge, however, will be in advancing a vision for
peace in a way that does not prompt the FARC to retake up arms or
undermine negotiations with the ELN.
Question 3. Do you think that the ELN peace talks will be slowed
down because of the upcoming elections?
Answer. For various reasons, it is reasonable to expect the
Colombian electoral calendar to delay talks with the ELN. The first is
that the campaign will eat up a lot of the political bandwidth of the
outgoing Colombian administration. The second, is that the ELN may want
to evaluate the next president's position with regard to the agreement
with the FARC. But most importantly, the next president of Colombia
will have a lot on their plate, including finalizing tax reform,
deciding whether to support a four-year renewal of the peace/war tax
that since 2003 has supported the work of Colombia's security forces,
all the while needing to take steps to reduce the fiscal deficit to
under 2 percent by 2022 as required by law.
On the FARC
Question 4. The demobilization and reintegration is going to be
very difficult. It's going to be hard logistically, it's going to be
hard culturally-FARC members just spent decades in the jungle,
relatively removed from Colombian society-and, especially, emotionally.
There are people who have lost fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and
siblings to the decades of war. That can't just be turned off because
politicians sign a piece of paper.
Do you believe that the Peace Accords will succeed?
Answer. It took several years for the Colombian Government to reach
an agreement with the FARC, but it will take at least generation to
successfully implement the agreement and for Colombia to finally
achieve reconciliation following a 50-year internal conflict. The
accords will succeed with the following ingredients: First, the
sustained bipartisan support of the United States. We are Colombia's
strongest ally and they need us more now than ever. That doesn't mean
the U.S. Congress should write Colombia a blank check, but we need to
be actively present. Second, there needs to be a presence of the state
in rural Colombia. That means the Colombian National Police needs to be
able to fill the vacuum left by the military to guarantee the country's
domestic security. It also means the Government needs to provide access
to rule of law institutions to guarantee that anyone who breaks the law
will face the consequences. Lastly, Colombia needs to grow
economically, to continue reducing still-high levels of inequality, and
to ensure access to quality education--so that the son or daughter of a
reintegrated member of the FARC can forge a different path.
Question 5. What are the most difficult parts of the Peace Accords?
Answer. The most difficult part of the accord is reconciliation,
because so many have been affected by what was the hemisphere's longest
running internal armed conflict. That process will take time, and other
such processes around the world tell us that not everyone will support
the final balance between peace, justice, and truth. Countries like El
Salvador and Argentina continue to struggle with the legacy of their
peace accords.
Question 6. What do you think the FARC's long game is?
Answer. Unarguably, the FARC's priority is to undo Colombia's
economic model and forge a Marxist state, but they've been in the
jungles of Colombia far too long and have lost touch with the Colombian
people. The FARC today is very unpopular and will struggle to find
footing in Colombia's political system. Particularly if the Colombian
Government can make significant inroads in reducing poverty and
inequality, the FARC will be reduced to a fringe political element.
Question 7. Pope Francis is expected to visit Colombia this year.
How do you think this will impact the implementation of the Peace
Accord?
Answer. The visit of Pope Francis has the potential to unify
Colombians behind a common vision for peace. Colombia has the largest
percentage of Roman Catholics in Latin America, and his affirmative
support for staying the course could refocus the current political
friction toward a debate on how to implement the best agreement for
Colombia.
__________
Statement Submitted by Hon. Camilo Reyes, Ambassador of Colombia
The hearing held today by Senator Rubio comes at a pivotal moment
in Colombia's history, as we implement a historic Peace Agreement that
brought more than a half-century of conflict to an end. For the first
time in half a century, Colombia is a nation working to build stable
and lasting peace. The path to peace has not been easy. Endeavors of
this size and significance rarely are. We know that we face a number of
challenges on Peace Agreement implementation. We also know that we are
resolute in our commitment to peace for Colombia, and now, more than
ever, further strengthening the bilateral alliance between Colombia and
the United States is key. The U.S.-Colombia partnership is critical to
advancing peace and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere and around the
world.
We will continue all of our efforts to strengthen our Armed Forces
and combat crime as we implement the Agreement.
The Success of the U.S.-Colombia Partnership
Colombia is the peaceful, stable nation it is today thanks in large
part to the United States. The United States made a remarkable
investment in Colombia's future with the Plan Colombia initiative in
2000. Plan Colombia has proven to be the most successful bipartisan
U.S. foreign aid effort to date.
With Plan Colombia, my country went from the brink of failure to
the most dynamic economy in Latin America. Plan Colombia also set the
stage for peace. Today, Colombia has record investment from the world's
leading companies and industries and is an innovation hub, a tourism
hotspot and home to a competitive economy and workforce--and is on the
verge of acceding to the OECD. Colombia has stepped in to help nations
in Central America, the Caribbean and around the world confront
security challenges--from regional initiatives to NATO. That is the
power and promise of the U.S.-Colombia partnership.
Colombia is the United States' strongest ally in Latin America, and
together, we have been able to promote security, peace and prosperity
in both of our countries. We are equally committed to continue working
with the Northern Triangle countries--El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras--to share lessons Colombia has learned through experience and
much sacrifice--with the ultimate goal of achieving peace and
prosperity throughout the Western Hemisphere.
With a Peace Agreement secured and implementation firmly underway,
Colombia is taking another historic leap on the path to sustained peace
and prosperity.
Peace Agreement Implementation
Peace Agreement implementation began as scheduled following the
November 2016 conclusion of the Agreement. Many critical milestones
have already been achieved. On June 27, 2017, the FARC, as scheduled,
delivered more than 7,100 weapons to the United Nations (UN). Earlier
this week, the UN collected the first container of additional FARC
weapons. After the extraction of the containers, the UN will proceed to
destroy some of the arms and use the remaining portion to construct
three monuments by melting them down. These monuments will be erected
in Colombia, at the UN headquarters in New York City and in Havana,
Cuba.
In addition to the Colombian Agency for Reincorporation and
Normalization and other government entities, on July 10, 2017, the UN
announced it will oversee former FARC members' reintegration into
civilian life and civil society. Land and other agricultural reforms
will continue to transform local communities throughout the country.
The Government bears the ultimate responsibility for implementation
of the Agreement, and is committed to successful implementation that
includes citizen participation and promotes dialogue among different
sectors of society to build trust and social inclusion. The transition
to peace will continue to demand a great amount of time, resources and
leadership in Colombia--as well as the continued support of the
international community, including the United States.
Both the Colombian Government and Colombian people are behind Peace
Agreement implementation, and just as Colombian taxpayers covered 90
percent of the costs associated with Plan Colombia, the same will be
true with the transition to peace.
Ensuring Justice
As part of the Peace Agreement, a Special Jurisdiction for Peace
(JEP by its Spanish acronym) was established as the mechanism for
ensuring justice. The JEP exceeds international standards and justice
measures in other peace accords, complies with our international
obligations and is consistent with the Colombian legal framework for
peace--the legal foundation on which our Congress established the Peace
Process.
The JEP does not permit amnesty for the most serious international
crimes, such as genocide, extrajudicial killings, forced displacement,
etc. It creates an accountability system with a national tribunal. With
this mechanism, we are setting a precedent for the international
community, which may provide hope for addressing other armed conflicts
across the globe.
It is important to note that failure to comply with the Peace
Agreement exposes FARC members not only to exclusion from the special
treatment provided by the JEP and to face criminal proceedings before
the regular criminal justice system, but also to losing all of the
benefits of reincorporation.
In addition, if conditions under the Peace Agreement--truth,
reparation and non-repetition--are not complied with, FARC members have
to go to jail and may be extradited. In Colombia, extradition is a
presidential political decision, and you can be assured, it is a matter
that will be considered with the highest degree of seriousness.
Combatting Drug Trafficking
We know that combatting drug trafficking is one of the many
challenges we must solve in order for Peace Agreement implementation to
be successful. Fighting illicit drugs was one of the driving reasons
for embarking on this Peace Agreement, and the world can be sure we are
focused on and committed to combatting drug trafficking as we work to
implement the Peace Agreement. No nation has suffered the scourge of
illicit drugs more than Colombia.
The Government recognizes the importance of increasing national and
regional efforts and maintaining pressure on all links in the drug
trafficking chain. Peace Agreement implementation is transforming
territories and providing solutions to the problem of illicit drugs.
In addition to combatting drug trafficking through Peace Agreement
implementation, we have launched a robust three-year counter-narcotics
strategy, which includes three key components: transformation and
development of communities and territories; interdiction and crime
policies; and consumption prevention and treatment of addiction.
The Presidency's High Counselor for the Post-Conflict has
established a new agency, the Department for Comprehensive Attention in
the Fight Against Drugs. This Department is leading efforts to
significantly increase crop substitution agreements by involving all
individuals in affected areas, allowing for inter-agency cooperation
through coordination among local and regional communities, governments
and the private sector, incentivizing communities to completely abandon
all connections to drug trafficking.
The Defense Ministry will focus its strategy on strengthening
naval, fluvial, aerial and terrestrial interdiction; eradication of
illicit crops; and also taking action against criminal organizations by
attacking their logistic and financial infrastructure in efforts to
improve the wellbeing of communities.
The goal is to eradicate 100,000 hectares of coca crops--50,000
hectares through forced eradication and 50,000 hectares through crop
substitution agreements. Every 50,000 hectares of illicit crops
eradicated results in the elimination of 300 tons of cocaine
production; 750 million fewer doses; and stops nearly $10 billion from
going to criminals.
Recently, the Government has achieved a number of advances in the
fight against drug trafficking. Between January and July 2017, the
National Police and the Armed Forces eradicated 23,000 hectares of
coca, which represents 48 percent of the total goal for the year. On
drug interdiction, last year Colombia seized 50 percent of all cocaine
produced in the country and was responsible for 34 percent of cocaine
seized worldwide. Looking at the year to date, Colombian authorities
have seized 221 tons of cocaine, an 11-percent increase compared to the
same time period in 2016. Destruction of drug production laboratories
is also on the rise, as 4,864 were destroyed in 2016, a 24-percent
increase over 2015. In addition, thus far in 2017, another 2,235 labs
destroyed have added to our success. When comparing the period from
January--July 2016 and January--July 2017, in 2017, eradication is up
107 percent, cocaine seizures are up 13 percent and seizures of
chemical drug inputs are up 35 percent.
Regarding the crop substitution program, the Government has also
signed 43 collective agreements that cover 91,000 families who will
voluntarily substitute 76,617 to 80,000 hectares of coca in 13
departments.
Of all of Colombia's municipalities, 83 percent are free of illicit
crops--leaving 17 percent of municipalities as the areas of focus for
eradication and substitution efforts. Nearly half (48 percent) of all
illicit crops are located in 1 percent of municipalities. These
advances will only increase as we move forward with implementation of
the Peace Agreement and our new counter-narcotics strategy.
Colombia's fight against coca cultivation and cocaine production is
long-standing, continual and far from over, as the latest production
numbers show. Colombia is more committed than ever to ending the flow
of drugs--from seed to shipment--and we remain a partner with the
United States in this effort.
A Bipartisan Roadmap Forward for the U.S.-Colombia Partnership
The issues discussed during today's hearing were the focal point of
a report released in May by the Atlantic Council's bipartisan Colombia
Peace and Prosperity Task Force. The Task Force is composed of members
of Congress from both parties, former senior foreign policy experts
from every administration since President Reagan, as well as the
private sector and the leading think tanks on Latin American policy in
the United States.
Co-chaired by Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Ben Cardin (D-MD), the
Task Force issued recommendations on the roadmap for the future of the
U.S.-Colombia partnership, including:
1. Establish Peace Colombia as the ongoing strategic framework for
U.S. policy.
2. Recognize that robust peace accord compliance and implementation
are critical to U.S. national security interests and regional
stability.
3. Put forward policies that expand U.S.-Colombia cooperation in order
to achieve concrete victories against transnational criminal
networks.
4. Deepen U.S. commercial and economic cooperation through Peace
Colombia and the existing Trade Promotion Agreement framework.
5. Expand the shared security portfolio in international hotspots
where Colombian military and peace-building expertise can play
a pivotal role to advance U.S. interests globally.
It is important to emphasize the bipartisan process that produced
this road map. The U.S.-Colombia alliance is built on a solid
foundation of bipartisan support. Successive Colombian Governments have
worked with U.S. presidents from both political parties as well as with
Republican- and Democrat-controlled Congresses, and we look forward to
continuing to advance the bilateral partnership with strong bipartisan
support. It was strong bipartisan support that made Plan Colombia--a
U.S.-Colombia effort that helped transform Colombia--the most
successful U.S. bilateral initiative with a foreign nation; and it is
strong bipartisan support that will make the next phase of Plan
Colombia--the Peace Colombia initiative--successful as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as a nation at peace, Colombia now has the
opportunity to reinforce the security gains our nations have achieved
together and usher in a new era of cooperation that will deepen the
U.S.-Colombia partnership. Colombia's progress benefits Colombians and
Americans and helps ensure stability and security across the entire
Western Hemisphere. The partnership with the United States that has
helped make Colombia a beacon of hope and an example for other
countries in the region can be shored up through our continued
partnership. Given our history of success and progress, Colombia and
the United States are well positioned to achieve even more together.
__________
Statement Submitted by Jose Miguel Vivanco, Executive
Director of the Americas Division, Human Rights Watch
Mr. Chairman, committee members, Thank you for the invitation to
appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on behalf of
Human Rights Watch (HRW) to discuss our assessment of the justice
component of the peace accord between the Colombian Government and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. I would like
to submit, for the record, my written testimony.
Let me first stress that HRW applauds the efforts of the Colombian
Government to bring an end to the country's long and bloody conflict
which has caused so much suffering to its people. The peace accord
signed on November 12, 2016, undoubtedly poses a landmark opportunity
to advance the protection of fundamental human rights in the country.
Indeed, since the ceasefire amongst the parties to the accord, Colombia
has benefited from a very significant decrease in reports of human
rights abuses.\1\
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\1\ See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, World Report 2017 (New York:
Human Rights Watch, 2017), Colombia chapter,
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Human Rights Watch, however, has very serious concerns regarding
the justice component of the accord, which could seriously undermine
the prospects for a sustainable peace.
The FARC committed systematic atrocities for more than five
decades, beginning in the 1960s. Its forces killed and abducted
civilians, took hostages, carried out enforced disappearances, used
child soldiers, conducted grossly unfair trials, forcibly displaced
civilians, and subjected captured combatants to cruel and inhuman
treatment.
Army soldiers also engaged in atrocities. Between 2002 and 2008,
army brigades across Colombia killed more than 3,000 civilians, in what
are known as ``false positive'' cases. Under pressure from superiors to
show ``positive'' results and boost body counts in the war against
guerrillas, soldiers abducted victims or lured them to remote locations
under false pretenses. The soldiers killed them, placed weapons on
their bodies, and reported them as enemy combatants killed in action.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that, as it stands, the justice
component of the accord could allow those responsible for many of these
atrocious crimes to escape meaningful justice. The key shortcomings in
the justice component of the accord include the following:
Sanctions
First, the accord provides that war criminals who fully and
promptly confess their crimes would be exempt from any time in prison
and would be subjected to modest and vaguely-defined ``restrictions of
rights and liberties.'' While the final accord reached in November
provided a little more clarity regarding these sanctions, there are
still a range of ambiguities and loopholes that can and should be
addressed in the implementing legislation of the accord to ensure that
war criminals are not allowed to escape meaningful punishment.\2\
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\2\ See Human Rights Watch, ``Letter to President Santos on the new
peace agreement with the FARC,'' November 23, 2016.
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As they stand, such sanctions could run counter to Colombia's
obligation under international law to provide sentences that reflect
the gravity of the offense. Indeed, Human Rights Watch knows of no
precedent from other courts or tribunals adjudicating war crimes where
those most responsible for the worst crimes did not face custodial
sentences.
Command responsibility
Second, the agreement includes a clause that would make it possible
for military commanders to escape responsibility for the atrocities
committed by their troops by claiming they did not know about them. But
under the international law principle of ``command responsibility''
prosecutors do not need to prove that commanders actually knew about
the crime--which is often impossible--but only that they had reason to
know and should have known.\3\
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\3\ See Human Rights Watch, ``Letter to President Santos on the new
peace agreement with the FARC,'' November 23, 2016.
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What is worse, in April 2017, the Colombian congress passed a
constitutional amendment establishing a special definition of ``command
responsibility'' for army soldiers that, if accepted by the country's
Constitutional Court, would require prosecutors to prove several
additional conditions--such as showing that the criminal actions were
committed within a commander's area of responsibility--that are not
required under international law.\4\
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\4\ See Human Rights Watch, ``Letter on `Command Responsibility' in
the Implementing Legislation of the Peace Agreement,'' January 25,
2017. Human Rights Watch, ``Colombia: Amicus Curiae regarding the
Special Jurisdiction for Peace,'' July 17, 2017.
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These changes would introduce new and indefensible barriers to
accountability for armed forces personnel. In particular, they could
allow senior officers responsible for ``false positive'' killings to
escape justice. While more than 1,000 soldiers have been convicted for
these crimes, few commanders who led brigades responsible for the
killings and later rose through the military ranks have been held
accountable. Amongst the officers who commanded brigades responsible
for multiple killings are General Juan Pablo Rodriguez Barrag n, who is
currently the country's top commander, and retired General Jaime
Alfonso Lasprilla Villamizar, who at least until recently was--and as
far as we know still is--Colombia's defense attache in Washington.\5\
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\5\ For more information on these and other commanders see Human
Rights Watch, On Their Watch: Evidence of Senior Army Officers'
Responsibility for False Positive Killings in Colombia, June 24, 2015.
See also Kevin G. Hall and Brittany Peterson, ``Why was this Colombian
general posted to his country's Washington embassy?'' The Miami Herald,
April 11, 2017,
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Third, the justice component of the accord includes a broad
provision allowing FARC guerrillas to seek or hold public office even
while serving sentences for grave abuses. We understand that a
fundamental aim of the peace process is to allow the former FARC
guerillas to pursue their political objectives within the democratic
arena. But allowing people convicted of war crimes or crimes against
humanity to run for and hold political office while serving their
sentences would severely undermine the credibility and seriousness of
the sanctions imposed by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
Amnesty law
Finally, while the accord provides that amnesties would not cover
serious human rights violations, an amnesty law passed last December
includes language that could allow people responsible for atrocities to
benefit from amnesties. For example, the law allows those responsible
for certain war crimes to benefit from amnesties if they are able to
show that their crimes were not committed in a systematic manner.
Colombia, however, has an obligation to investigate, and where
appropriate prosecute, all war crimes, regardless of whether these were
systematic.\6\
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\6\ See Human Rights Watch, ``Letter to President Santos on the
Amnesty Bill,'' December 25, 2016.
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In the upcoming months, Colombian authorities have a chance to fix
these shortcomings ideally through implementing legislation, or,
failing that, through the Constitutional Court--which, in the past,
played a key role in ensuring justice for victims of the armed
conflict. Only by addressing these issues would Colombia be able to
achieve a just and sustainable peace.
Mr. Chairman and committee members, thank you for your attention to
this critical issue.
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Statement Submitted by Alvaro Uribe Velez
Below are some comments, from my point of view, on the current
situation in Colombia and the peace deal reached by and between
the Santos administration and FARC.
It is important to repeat that the Colombian Government ignored the
triumph achieved by the No vote supporters in the plebiscite. The
polling threshold was lowered by the Government, from 50 percent to 13
percent of YES votes. This victory was achieved by the No vote
supporters in spite of the widespread international support, the
unlimited amounts of money, and the propaganda machine in favor of the
Yes vote. The Colombian Government did not substantially change the
deals and, with the incomprehensible support from the Constitutional
Court of Colombia, ratified the deal by means of a proposal in the
Colombian Congress, clearly contradicting the plebiscite results.
1. Production of narcotics. Coca crops where reduced from 170,000
hectares in 2001 to 78,000 in 2012. Nowadays, according to
White House's estimates, there are 188,000 ha, which is the
highest figure in Colombian history. Drug use and addiction,
criminality, and blackmail figures have simultaneously
increased. Our economy is not in recession owing to the plague
of drug trafficking.
2. The cause of this dangerous trend. The Colombian Government stopped
fumigating illegal crops in order to please FARC terrorists.
Manual eradication was reduced and progresses only if permitted
by communities, which are continuously subject to pressure by
FARC.
Even though illegal crops increased by 141 percent in Colombia from
2012 through 2016, this increase started as of 2013, which is the year
after talks were started by and between Santos administration and FARC,
with an increase of 3.2 percent. The highest increases were 39.1
percent and 42 percent in 2014 and 2015 respectively, which were the
years where aerial crop dusting was banned and the lack of penalties
for narcoterrorists was confirmed.
Unfortunately, Colombia became again the world's biggest producer
of illegal crops.
3. Justice scheme for FARC. FARC group has designed its own justice
scheme. Justices will be appointed by people who are renowned
for their support to terrorism and share the alleged FARC's
ideology. According to Act 01 dated 2017, FARC ringleaders and
their assistants have been granted impunity and eligibility for
politics, whatever the crime committed. Atrocious crimes, such
as recruiting minors and assaults on women, will continue to go
unpunished. Ringleaders' freedom is somewhat restricted. That
penalty is inappropriate and inapplicable because culprits will
not serve jail sentences and, simultaneously, may run for
Congress or any other public office. The idea that rebellion
was funded by drug trafficking became the excuse for accepting
this crime as one related to political crimes committed by FARC
guerrillas who will enjoy total impunity and eligibility for
politics and cannot be extradited. Alias Simon Trinidad is
serving a sentence in the United States for drug trafficking
and the kidnapping of three American citizens. However, his
accomplices are enjoying impunity in Colombia.
4. FARC group will not give up their illegal fortune. According to
Presidential Decree 903 dated 2017, FARC are allowed to finance
their political proselytism by using illegal funds from drug
trafficking and kidnapping, etc., instead of paying reparations
to their victims.
5. FARC members may be elected for public office. According to Act 03
dated 2017, FARC members will have their own political party
funded by more money than any other political party in
Colombia. And, what is more, President Santos gave FARC 10
seats in the Congress and public funds for their think tank.
Additionally, they would have a seat in the Colombia's National
Electoral Council (Colombia's highest body in charge of
organizing the elections), which is a benefit that older
parties have never enjoyed.
6. Constitution replaced. Colombian Constitution has been replaced by
the deal reached with FARC. According to article 1 of Act 02
dated 2017, by which an interim article is added to the
Constitution, ``the State's institutions and authorities must
bona fide honor the provisions set forth in the Final Deal''
and, therefore, any regulations passed ``must be consistent
with and integral to what has been agreed'' with FARC, for the
next 12 years.
7. Children and weapons. Out of more than 11,000 children who were
recruited, only few of them (less than 90) have gone back to
their families' home. FARC recently announced that they would
not release any more minors. And, what is worse, guerrilla
leader alias Iv n M rquez, when asked two days ago by a
journalist on the release of minors recruited, replied: ``What
do they want if weapons have already been given up and FARC is
no longer an armed organization? That is just to bother, to
disturb, and just to try to cause controversy.''
Our intelligence services estimated some years ago that 40,000
weapons are kept by FARC. Colombian President recently stated that such
a terrorist organization was going to give up 14,000 weapons. The
Minister of Defense of Colombia said that 11,000 of those weapons were
rifles. Nevertheless, FARC members decommissioned just 7,132 weapons.
No information has been given on missiles and other dangerous weapons
owned by FARC.
In 2016, a military intelligence source, with expertise in
armaments, asked by the El Colombiano newspaper, estimated that the 80
guerrilla squads, together with their support networks, might be
keeping more than 45,000 weapons of all kinds: ``there might be around
30,000 long guns, i.e. rifles or machine guns, while there might be
around 15,000 or 20,000 handguns, such as pistols. However, most of
such arsenal may not be in good condition,'' the official said.
Recently, Juan Carlos Pinzon, former Colombian ambassador to the
United States, posted on his Twitter `PinzonBueno:' ``It is a mistake
to celebrate the laying down of the arms as though this were done in
its entirety. It is clear that FARC and their dissident groups are
keeping arms. More transparency, please!''
Governor of Antioquia, Luis Perez Gutierrez, reported on July 25
that some FARC guerrillas who were expelled from or abandoned town
district rural areas are now members of new armed groups who have
benefited from the arsenal hidden in the above-mentioned guerrilla
group's underground storerooms in Antioquia:
``We have been informed that, in the rural areas of the towns of
Dabeiba and Ituango, at least 14 guerrillas who know where such arsenal
is have been expelled from or have abandoned those areas, resulting in
arming those two new illegal groups. Now the authorities must go after
those crooks.''
8. Present and future. In oppressing democracy, independence of
institutions, and warranties for the private sector, the
current Juan Manuel SANTOS administration has not gone too far
as Mr. Maduro in Venezuela, but the former's legacy will allow
any potentially weak or pro-FARC governments to go on the same
track in the future. The poor--since they are desperate,
deprived of opportunities due to the lack of private
investment, and suffering due to violence--will not distinguish
the difference between our Rule of Law and the neighboring
tyranny. Colombia needs profound changes, otherwise we are
condemned to become Mr. Maduro's second version.
Yours truly and respectfully,
Alvaro Uribe Velez
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