[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 15, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H1000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          COLOMBIA AID PACKAGE

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, the 
soothsayer warned Caesar to ``beware of the Ides of March.'' Caesar did 
not listen and Caesar perished.
  Today, on this Ides of March, I bring my colleagues fair warning. If 
we do not pass the Colombia aid package soon, our friends in Colombia 
could suffer the same fate as Caesar and our own children could be 
next.
  Mr. Speaker, in fiscal year 1999, Federal agents intercepted nearly 
2,800 pounds of heroin and 280,000 pounds of cocaine coming into the 
United States. And of these amounts, DEA estimates that 80 percent of 
the coke and 75 percent of the heroin originated in Colombia.
  These are staggering figures indeed, but they only represent the 
seizures. I can assure my colleagues that much more is making it to our 
streets and to our young people.
  Without U.S. help in fighting the drug war, the Colombian Government 
has little chance of ending the violence and stopping the flow of 
drugs. With the illegal drug trade providing the insurgents with over 
$600 million a year in drug money, it is likely that the duly-elected 
Government of Colombia will fall without our immediate help. Failing to 
act will stay with our children forever.

                          ____________________