[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 79 (Wednesday, June 21, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5482-S5507]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2001
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of S. 2522, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2522) making appropriations for foreign
operations, export financing, and related programs for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other
purposes.
[[Page S5483]]
Pending:
Sessions amendment No. 3492, to provide an additional
condition on assistance for Colombia under Plan Colombia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order
that I deliver my statement while seated at my desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 3498
(Purpose: Relating to support by the Russian Federation for Serbia)
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment and ask
unanimous consent that it be considered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment will be in
order at this time. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] proposes an
amendment numbered 3498.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:
SEC. ____. SUPPORT BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION FOR SERBIA.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
(1) General Dragolub Ojdanic, Minister of Defense of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and an
indicted war criminal, visited Moscow from May 7 through May
12, 2000, as a guest of the Government of the Russian
Federation, attended the inauguration of President Vladimir
Putin, and held talks with Russian Defense Minister Igor
Sergeyev and Army Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin;
(2) General Ojdanic was military Chief of Staff of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war and has
been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for crimes against humanity and
violations of the laws and customs of war for alleged
atrocities against Albanians in Kosovo;
(3) international warrants have been issued by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for
General Ojdanic's arrest and extradition to the Hague;
(4) the Government of the Russian Federation, a permanent
member of the United Nations Security Council which
established the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia, has an obligation to arrest General
Ojdanic and extradite him to the Hague;
(5) on May 16, 2000, Russian Minister of Economics Andrei
Shapovalyants announced that his government has provided the
Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic $102,000,000 of a
$150,000,000 loan it had reactivated and will sell the
Government of Serbia $32,000,000 of oil despite the fact that
the international community has imposed economic sanctions
against the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
and the Government of Serbia;
(6) the Government of the Russian Federation is providing
the Milosevic regime such assistance while it is seeking debt
relief from the international community and loans from the
International Monetary Fund, and while it is receiving corn
and grain as food aid from the United States;
(7) the hospitality provided to General Ojdanic
demonstrates that the Government of the Russian Federation
rejects the indictments brought by the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia against him and other
officials, including Slobodan Milosevic, for alleged
atrocities committed during the Kosovo war; and
(8) the relationship between the Government of the Russian
Federation and the Governments of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia and Serbia only encourages the regime of Slobodan
Milosevic to foment instability in the Balkans and thereby
jeopardizes the safety and security of American military and
civilian personnel and raises questions about Russia's
commitment to its responsibilities as a member of the North
American Treaty Organization-led peacekeeping mission in
Kosovo.
(b) Actions.--
(1) Fifteen days after the date of enactment of this Act,
the President shall submit a report to Congress detailing all
loans, financial assistance, and energy sales the Government
of the Russian Federation or entities acting on its behalf
has provided since June 1999, and intends to provide to the
Government of Serbia or the Government of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia or any entities under the control of
the Governments of Serbia or the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia.
(2) If that report determines that the Government of the
Russian Federation or other entities acting on its behalf has
provided or intends to provide the governments of Serbia or
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or any entity under their
control any loans or economic assistance and oil sales, then
the following shall apply:
(A) The Secretary of State shall reduce assistance
obligated to the Russian Federation by an amount equal in
value to the loans, financial assistance, and energy sales
the Government of the Russian Federation has provided and
intends to provide to the Governments of Serbia and the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
(B)(i) The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the
United States executive directors of the international
financial institutions to oppose, and vote against, any
extension by those institutions of any financial assistance
(including any technical assistance or grant) of any kind to
the Government of the Russian Federation except for loans and
assistance that serve basic human needs.
(ii) In this subparagraph, the term ``international
financial institution'' includes the International Monetary
Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, the International Development Association, the
International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral
Investment Guaranty Agency, and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development.
(C) The United States shall suspend existing programs to
the Russia Federation provided by the Export-Import Bank and
the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and any
consideration of any new loans, guarantees, and other forms
of assistance by the Export-Import Bank or the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation to Russia.
(D) The President of the United States should instruct his
representatives to negotiations on Russia's international
debt to oppose further forgiveness, restructuring, and
rescheduling of that debt, including that being considered
under the ``Comprehensive'' Paris Club negotiations.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I offer this amendment in the hopes that it
will bring about needed realism in our Government's relationship with
Russia. President Clinton continues to promote the myth that the
Russian Government has been ``a supportive and reliable partner in the
effort to bring peace and stability to the Balkans.''
That myth was shattered again last month by the Kremlin's brazen
display of the enormous political, military, and economic support
Russia continues to provide the Milosevic regime. Surely no Senator has
forgotten the visit to Moscow last month by General Ojdanic,
Milosevic's Minister of Defense, who just happens to be a war criminal
indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal of the former
Yugoslavia. Instead of arresting and sending this man to The Hague, the
Kremlin provided not only meetings with the Russian Minister of Defense
but a privileged seat at the Putin inauguration and a week of fine food
and camaraderie.
Shortly after Milosevic's Minister of Defense visited Russia, Russian
officials announced that it is sending to the Milosevic regime $102
million of a $150 million loan. All of this flies in the face of the
effort of the international community to isolate and undermine the
Milosevic regime.
I confess that I find incredible the audacity of Russian President
Putin. Here he is, providing the Milosevic regime with more than $150
million in economic support while seeking debt relief from the
international community and loans from the International Monetary Fund.
He is doing this while his country seeks and receives food aid from the
United States and while he is asking the United States to reschedule
and forgive Russian debt owed to the United States.
The Kremlin should not be encouraged to assume that Western, and
particularly the United States, economic assistance and aid are an
entitlement. It is, however, sadly evident that Putin has concluded
that he can conduct Russian foreign policy with impunity and still
count on the West's economic largesse. The fact is, the hospitality and
support provided to Serbian war criminals occurred just one month prior
to President Clinton's visit to Moscow, emphasizing how little respect
Putin has for the policies of the U.S. Government.
What concerns me most about the relationship of the Kremlin and the
Milosevic regime is the threat it poses to America's men and women in
uniform serving in the Balkans, along with those of our allies. The
political, military, and economic support the Kremlin provides
Milosevic directly jeopardizes the safety and security of both American
and allied forces deployed in the Balkans. While we are trying to force
the Milosevic regime to step down and turn power over to Serbia's
democratic opposition, Russia is signaling Milosevic that he can
survive and even outlast the alliance and that Russia will help him,
Milosevic, prevail.
[[Page S5484]]
There is no reason the American taxpayer should provide Russia loan
forgiveness and economic assistance when the Kremlin continues to
support a regime in Serbia whose forces directly threaten U.S. troops
who are trying to bring peace to the Balkans.
My amendment, which I have just offered, simply underscores that the
U.S. assistance is not an entitlement benefiting the Kremlin. The
amendment proposes that the United States withhold assistance to Russia
by an amount equal to the amount which Russia provides Serbia. The
amendment also will preclude any debt forgiveness or rescheduling of
OPIC and Eximbank programs along with U.S. support for loans from
international financial institutions to Russia. This assistance
certainly is not warranted unless and until the Kremlin demonstrates
that it has at long last cut its ties to the Milosevic regime.
Amendments Nos. 3499 Through 3513, En Bloc
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a group of managers' amendments
to the desk, en bloc, and ask for their immediate consideration. They
have been cleared on both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes
amendments numbered 3499 through 3513, en bloc.
The amendments are as follows:
amendment no. 3499
On page 142, on line 5 strike: ``Provided further, That of
the funds made available under this heading, not less than
$5,000,000 shall be made available for administration of
demobilizing and rehabilitating activities for child soldiers
in Colombia'' and insert in lieu thereof: ``Provided further,
That of the amount appropriated under this heading,
$5,000,000 shall be available to the Secretary of State for
transfer to the Department of Labor for the administration of
the demobilization and rehabilitation of child soldiers in
Colombia, of which amount $2,500,000 shall be transferred not
later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act,
and the remaining $2,500,000 shall be transferred not later
than October 30, 2000''.
____
amendment no. 3500
(Purpose: To require the Secretary of State to submit a report
concerning human rights in Colombia, and for other purposes)
On page 145, line 12, after ``(b)'' and before
``Definitions'', insert the following:
``Report.--Beginning 60 days after the date of enactment of
this Act, and every 180 days thereafter for the duration of
the provision of resources administered under this Act, the
Secretary of Sate shall submit a report to the appropriate
congressional committees containing the following:
``(1) A description of the extent to which the Colombian
Armed Forces have suspended from duty Colombian Armed Forces
personnel who are credibly alleged to have committed gross
violations of human rights, and the extent to which such
personnel have been brought to justice in Colombia's civilian
courts, including a description of the charges brought and
the disposition of such cases.
``(2) An assessment of efforts made by the Colombian Armed
Forces, National Police, and Attorney General to disband
paramilitary groups, including the names of Colombian Armed
Forces personnel brought to justice for aiding or abetting
paramilitary groups and the names of paramilitary leaders and
members who were indicted, arrested and prosecuted.
``(3) A description of the extent to which the Colombian
Armed Forces cooperate with civilian authorities in
investigating and prosecuting gross violations of human
rights allegedly committed by its personnel, including the
number of such personnel being investigated for gross
violations of human rights who are suspended from duty.
``(4) A description of the extent to which attacks against
human rights defenders, government prosecutors and
investigators, and officials of the civilian judicial system
in Colombia, are being investigated and the alleged
perpetrators brought to justice.
``(5) An estimate of the number of Colombian civilians
displaced as a result of the ``push into southern Colombia,''
and actions taken to address the social and economic needs of
these people.
``(6) A description of actions taken by the United States
and the Government of Colombia to promote and support a
negotiated settlement of the conflict in Colombia.
``(c)''.
____
amendment no. 3501
On page 13, line 16, after ``vaccines'' insert in lieu
thereof: ``, notwithstanding any other provision of law''.
On page 13, line 8, delete ``41,000,000'' and insert in
lieu thereof: ``$35,000,000''.
On page 13, line 11, delete ``$65,000,000'' and insert in
lieu thereof: ``$50,000,000''.
____
amendment no. 3502
On page 57, line 19, delete the following: ``Panama,''.
____
amendment no. 3503
(Purpose: To appropriate funds to assist blind children)
Before the period at the end of the paragraph under the
heading ``Global Health'', insert the following: ``: Provided
Further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading,
not less than $1,200,000 should be made available to assist
blind children''.
____
amendment no. 3504
On page 151, line 10, after ``6105'' insert ``Herbicide
Safety.--''.
On page 151, line 12, strike ``Surgeon General of the
United States'' and insert in lieu thereof ``Director of the
National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention''.
On page 151, line 11, strike ``aerial spraying'' and insert
in lieu thereof ``use''.
On page 151, line 18, strike ``water or leach in soil'' and
insert in lieu thereof ``ground or surface water''.
____
amendment no. 3505
On page 38, line 6, strike ``$330,000,000'' and insert
``$340,000,000''.
____
amendment no. 3506
On page 63, on line 9 after the words ``Sec. 530.'' strike
all through line 15 and insert the following:
``(a) Prohibition.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law and except as provided in subsection (b), the United
States may not sell or otherwise make available under the
Arms Export Control Act or chapter 2 of part II of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 any Stinger ground-to-air
missiles to any country bordering the Persian Gulf.
``(b) Additional Transfers Authorized.--In addition to
other defense articles authorized to be transferred by
section 581 of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and
Related Programs Appropriation Act, 1990, the United States
may sell or make available, under the Arms Export Control Act
or chapter 2 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961, Stinger ground to air missiles to any country bordering
the Persian Gulf in order to replace, on a one-for-one basis,
Stinger missiles previously furnished to such country if the
Stinger missiles to be replaced are nearing the scheduled
expiration of their shelf-life.''
____
amendment no. 3507
At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following
new general provision.
procurement and financial management reform
Sec. . (a) Of the funds made available under the heading
``International Financial Institutions'' in this or any prior
Foreign Operations, Export Financing, or Related Programs
Act, 10 percent of the United States portion or payment to
such International Financial Institution shall be withheld by
the Secretary of Treasury, until the Secretary certifies
that--
(1) the institution is implementing procedures for
conducting semi-annual audits by qualified independent
auditors for all new lending;
(2) the institution has taken steps to establish an
independent fraud and corruption investigative organization
or office;
(3) the institution has implemented a program to assess a
recipient country's procurement and financial management
capabilities including an analysis of the risks of corruption
prior to initiating new lending; and
(4) the institution is taking steps to fund and implement
measures to improve transparency and anticorruption programs
and procurement and financial management controls in
recipient countries.
(b) Report.--The Secretary of Treasury shall report on
March 1, 2001 to the Committees on Appropriations on progress
made to fulfill the objectives identified in subsection (A).
(c) Definitions.--The term ``International Financial
Institutions'' means the International Finance Corporation,
the Inter-American Development Bank, the Inter-American
Investment Corporation, the Enterprise for the Americas
Multilateral Investment Fund, the Asian Development Bank, the
Asian Development Fund, African Development Bank the African
Development Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and the International Monetary Fund.
____
amendment no. 3508
On page 21, line 21, after the word ``organizations''
insert, ``: Provided further, That of the funds made
available under this heading for Kosova, not less than
$1,300,000 shall be made available to support the National
Albanian American Council's training program for Kosovar
women''.
____
amendment no. 3509
On page 21, at the end of Section (c) insert the following:
``: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under
this heading not less than $750,000 shall be made available
for a joint project developed by the University of Pristina,
Kosova and the Dartmouth Medical School, U.S.A., to help
restore the primary care capabilities at the University of
Pristina Medical School and in Kosova''.
[[Page S5485]]
____
AMENDMENT NO. 3510
(Purpose: To require the submittal to the congressional intelligence
committees of reports on waivers relating to assistance to countries
providing sanctuary to indicted war criminals)
On page 103, beginning on line 13, strike ``Committee on
Appropriations'' and all that follows through ``House of
Representatives'' and insert ``Committees on Appropriations
and Foreign Relations and the Select Committee on
Intelligence of the Senate and the Committees on
Appropriations and International Relations and the Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of
Representatives''.
____
AMENDMENT NO. 3511
(Purpose: To make available certain environmental assistance funds for
the People's Republic of China)
On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:
SEC. ____. USE OF FUNDS FOR THE UNITED STATES-ASIA
ENVIRONMENTAL PARTNERSHIP.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law that restricts
assistance to foreign countries, funds appropriated by this
or any other Act making appropriations pursuant to part I of
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 that are made available
for the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership may be
made available for activities for the People's Republic of
China.
____
AMENDMENT NO. 3512
(Purpose: To make available funds for education and anti-corruption
programs)
On page 140, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:
SEC. ____. EDUCATION AND ANTI-CORRUPTION ASSISTANCE.
Section 638 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22
U.S.C. 2398) is amended by adding at the end the following
new subsection:
``(c) Notwithstanding any provision of law that restricts
assistance to foreign countries, funds made available to
carry out the provisions of part I of this Act may be
furnished for assistance for education programs and for anti-
corruption programs, except that this subsection shall not
apply to section 490(e) or 620A of this Act or any other
comparable provision of law.''.
____
amendment no. 3513
(Purpose: To add $2,500,000 to Title ________, Research and Development
for the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability to
support the need for environmental security assessments for economic
planning, and operations support)
At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following:
Of the funds to be appropriated under this heading,
$2,500,000 is available for the Foundation for Environmental
Security and Sustainability to support environmental threat
assessments with interdisciplinary experts and academicians
utilizing various technologies to address issues such as
infectious disease, and other environmental indicators and
warnings as they pertain to the security of an area.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendments are agreed
to en bloc.
The amendments (Nos. 3499 through 3513), en bloc, were agreed to.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I
move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
amendment no. 3507
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past two years, the
Subcommittee has held hearings which have focused on corruption, fraud
and financial management problems at the international financial
institutions. The interest was stimulated in part by flagrant abuses
which compromised the World Bank's program in Indonesia. The Bank's
Country Director ignored internal reports detailing program kickbacks,
skimming and fraud because he was unwilling to upset the Suharto family
and their cronies whom he believed were responsible for Indonesia's
economic boom. A change of government and country directors presented
an opportunity to set a new course for management and lending policies.
Because of these problems, I asked GAO to conduct a review of the
Bank's management with an emphasis on anti-corruption policies and
programs in several of the largest borrowing countries, including
Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil. While the Bank limited GAO's access to
documents, and set up a special committee to supervise their work, they
still did an excellent job.
In brief, the GAO concluded the Bank has launched an ambitious effort
to identify problems, but significant challenges lie ahead. We are a
long way from real solutions.
Let me tick off some of the conclusions which concerned me the most--
First, although the World Bank has established an Investigations Unit
which answers to a new Fraud and Oversight Committee, many local
problems in borrowing countries never reach the investigators. In one
country where the Bank itself identified corruption as a serious
problem, 30 allegations of abuse reported to their local officials had
not been referred on to the Investigations Unit or Committee.
Second, both the Investigations Unit and the Committee answer to one
of the Bank's Managing Directors. GAO concluded that the independence
of investigations could be compromised by the fact that a Managing
Director controls the unit's budgets and makes final decisions on
whether an investigation is pursued, including those that may involve
employees who answer to the Director.
Third, new initiatives introduced in 1998 to improve financial and
procurement procedures only apply to 14% of the Banks 1,500 projects.
In recent audits, 17 of 25 borrowers showed a lack of understanding or
noncompliance with procurement rules. GAO's review of 12 randomly
selected projects identified 5 projects where the borrowing countries
implementing agencies had little or no experience managing projects.
Fourth, when making project recommendations for Board approval, the
staff's risk analysis fails to adequately address corruption or undue
political influence as key factors. Eight of Twelve projects reviewed
did not identify corruption or political manipulation as a critical
risk even though other Bank reports indicated both were serious issues
in the countries included in the project sampling.
Finally, GAO determined that solving problems is made more difficult
because audits are often late and of poor quality, and the Bank does
not evaluate the quality of audits.
To remedy these problems, GAO recommends the Bank integrate the
investigative function and establish its organizational independence,
include more complete corruption data in risk assessments and country
strategies, develop a system for allocating anti-corruption assistance,
improve borrowing countries' capabilities to monitor, implement and
supervise fraud free projects, and improve auditing and project
supervision.
These problems are not unique to the World Bank. We have all read the
stories about the IMF being caught by surprise in both Russia and
Ukraine regarding manipulation of loans and loan data. I am sure there
are similar problems in the regional institutions as well.
To accelerate a solution to these pressing issues, Senator Leahy and
I felt it was prudent for the Secretary of the Treasury to encourage
these institutions to implement GAO's recommendations. The amendment
before the Senate requires the Secretary to withhold 10% of our
contribution to each institution until audits are in place, independent
investigation units are established, and the problem of corruption is
being addressed in risk assessments. We also expect the institutions to
strengthen local government capacity so that lending and projects are
better supervised to prevent corruption.
This amendment addresses one of the most fundamental issues which has
compromised support for the multilateral banks. Bringing more
transparency to lending and improving procurement and management
procedures will help restore confidence and support to the banks.
amendment no. 3511
Mr. ROBERTS. I support the Baucus-Roberts amendment to engage china
on the important issue of rapid industrialization and the environment.
The amendment would permit appropriated funds for the US-Asia
Environmental Partnership (USAEP)--an initiative of the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID)--to be used for environmental
projects in the People's Republic of China (PRC). In other words, the
U.S. government would finally be able to, for example, help U.S.
businesses connect with provincial and municipal governments in China
to initiate badly needed environmental engineering projects. This work
is necessary to attempt to prevent a possible long-term environmental
catastrophe resulting from intense industrialization and development in
the PRC and Asia in general.
Why should one care whether Chinese or Asian people breath clean air
or
[[Page S5486]]
drink clean water? Besides the obvious humanitarian concern, a ruined
environment throughout Asia will--at some point--affect us here in the
United States and our interests. This is common sense.
The Baucus-Roberts amendment also sends a strong pro-engagement
message to the PRC since the U.S. excluded de jure or de facto the PRC
from U.S. foreign aid programs with passage and signing of the FY 90-FY
91 State Department Authorization, specifically section 902 of H.R.
3792.
Our government purports to be concerned about global environmental
issues, Mr. President, about avoiding contamination of the world's
water, air, and soil. Yet, we prohibit ourselves from consulting and
cooperating on a government to government basis with the one nation
with the greatest potential to impact the world's environment over the
next 50 to 100 years. That makes no sense.
What is the United States-Asian Environmental Partnership? It is a
public-private initiative implemented by the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID). Its aim is to encourage
environmentally sustainable development in Asia as that region
industrializes at a phenomenal rate. By ``environmentally sustainable
development,'' we mean industrial and urban development that does not
irreparably damage the air, water, and soil necessary for life. It's
really that simple. US-AEP currently works with governments and
industries in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. In
creating US-AEP, the U.S. government recognized the long-term
environmental hazards of Asia's rapid industrialization and the need
for the U.S. government to engage on the issue.
The program provides grants to U.S. companies for the purpose of
facilitating the transfer of environmentally sound and energy-efficient
technologies to the Asia/Pacific region. Again, the objective is to
address the pollution and health challenges of rapid industrialization
while stimulating demand for U.S. technologies. In cooperation with the
U.S. Department of Commerce, US-AEP has placed Environmental Technology
Representatives in 11 Asian countries to identify trade opportunities
for U.S. companies and coordinate meetings between potential Asian and
U.S. business partners.
Mr. President, on the basic issue of the global environmental impact
of Asian industrialization, specifically Chinese modernization, the
Senate has the responsibility to authorize at least some cooperation
between Beijing and Washington. I ask for my colleagues support for
this common sense amendment.
AMENDMENT NO. 3512
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, this amendment would allow the United
States to provide non military education and anti corruption assistance
to countries, and their governments, that are not on the terrorism
list, and that are denied U.S. assistance or are under U.S. sanctions.
Let me just reiterate that this amendment is not applicable to
countries on the terrorism list or which are major producers or
traffickers in illegal drugs.
This provision is specifically intended to enable the U.S. Government
to conduct a broad range of rule of law programs, as well as other
programs (e.g. setting up elementary schools, high school exchanges,
health education, economic reform measures; tax reform, tariff
regulation, developing rational and transparent budgeting procedures,
privatization, or drafting a commercial code, etc.), so long as there
is some component of the program that includes educating or providing
information to persons.
Mr. President, the United States has been working for a long time to
try to find ways to help the most vulnerable populations around the
world. Allowing the United States to continue to provide assistance in
education and anti corruption training is something which ultimately is
in our own interests.
In many parts of the world, we are up against elements like the
Wahhabis, the Saudis, the Iranians and the likes of Bin Laden and
others, who are pouring money into the poorest regions of the world to
set up schools which are dedicated to teaching children anti-Western
attitudes, as well as how to carry weapons.
In many countries, because of the dire poverty, such schools are the
only game in town. And the single common element which allows these
schools to flourish is poverty and ignorance. There is no other option
for many people. The poverty and the lack of education leads to
radicalism, and violence, often directed first against women, and a
host of problems which every one on this floor can list.
The growth of this radicalism comes back and haunts us and affect
American lives and American security. The popularity of Bin Laden for
example, and the anti-Western fervor which is rampant in the Middle
East and South Asia can too often lead to terrorism and attempts to
destabilize developing countries that are trying to remain secular and
pro-west. Ultimately, this is a threat to U.S. security.
This lack of education also leads to tragic global phenomena like the
trafficking in women and children: Education would substantially
increase awareness regarding the insidious practice of international
sex slavery. This involves forcing women and children into prostitution
against their will, who are held in slavery-like conditions, having
been transported into a strange country.
There is a general sentiment in the Congress these days that
sanctions have gone too far, that they don't work and that we should
remove all of them. I do not share this view, I believe sanctions have
a role to play and are appropriate in certain situations. But denying
ourselves the opportunity to provide education in a variety of fields
in certain parts of the world is counterproductive. We are only hurting
ourselves.
Instead of being able to implement education programs which would
help bring a secular alternative to the lack of education, or the types
of schools I mentioned earlier, we find our hands are tied when
assistance is denied to a country or when general sanctions are imposed
on a country--including sanctions on countries that for one reason or
another default on their loans. Yes, we should be able to take
political action against countries that are doing bad things; but we
should not be put in a situation where programs in education or in anti
corruption training is involved. We shouldn't be mandating sanctions in
an area, like education, which are of long term assistance to the
United States.
We sit and complain about such things as corruption or lack of
environmental awareness, or lack of democracy, or child labor, or
trafficking in women and children. Education could help make a dent in
such things, from helping to set up elementary schools, having
exchanges at higher school levels, to such things as providing
information to people in such areas as economic reform, equitable
distribution of wealth, growing their economies, implementation of tax
reform and tariff regulation, development of rational and transparent
budgeting procedures, development of rule of law and democratic
institutions, and privatizing or drafting a commercial code.
And yet we occasionally find ourselves in the position of having to
deny assistance in the very area which would help fix these problems.
That is why I am introducing this amendment today. Denying U.S.
assistance to a country is a right we should preserve, but we shouldn't
be cutting our ability to influence countries at such a basic level as
education and we certainly should do what we can to combat anti-
corruption.
The most effective way to overcome the anti democratic threats and
the lure of terrorism is to go to the root of the problem and to
encourage the development of civil society.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Minnesota is here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Minnesota is recognized to offer an amendment relative to Colombia.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I got a last-minute call from the
Budget Committee, and we may have to work this amendment out. I will
wait about 5 minutes before I offer the amendment. I am waiting for
some last-minute wording.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
[[Page S5487]]
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. What is the situation
now? Is there an amendment pending? Are we open for general debate on
the foreign operations appropriations bill?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina sent up an
amendment by unanimous consent, and the regular order is to recognize
the Senator from Minnesota to offer an amendment.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would like to use leader time at this
point to speak with regard to the Wellstone amendment, which I
understand he will be offering momentarily.
I rise to speak against the Wellstone amendment that I understand
will be offered. What this amendment would do would be to knock out the
funds that are included in the foreign operations appropriations bill
for Colombian aid. Is that correct about the intent of the amendment by
the Senator from Minnesota?
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, no, it is not. This amendment leaves
several hundred million dollars out of the $900 million that would go
to the southern Colombia military campaign. I will talk about the
military and the right-wing violence groups and go through State
Department reports and human rights reports about this. But in no way,
shape, or form does this amendment say that.
Mr. LOTT. You would move a significant portion of the funds in excess
of $900 million into another category to be used for exactly what? Will
the Senator describe that to me?
Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to. We are working on this final wording
because we are trying to figure whether to do this out of emergency
designation or whether we can do this in a different way.
What this amendment says is that we absolutely are committed to
institutional building in Colombia; we are committed to helping out in
every way, shape, or form, including interdiction and police action.
There are very serious concerns that have been raised by a whole
range of religious groups. I have a list of hundreds of nongovernment
organizations in Colombia, but a particular portion, $225 million,
would go to this one military campaign in southern Colombia. This money
instead would say--and this follows up on what General McCaffrey and
others have said, which is that we also need to deal not just with
interdiction but also the demand side in this country.
I say to the majority leader, I am going to be presenting compelling
evidence about the huge gap in the number of people who are not getting
any treatment. We have to figure out a way to cut down on the demand
side in our country so we will provide money for prevention and
treatment programs in this country.
Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator for his explanation.
At this time, rather than just speaking against his amendment, I will
speak for what is in the foreign operations appropriations bill for the
Colombia aid package. As a matter of fact, the Senate version has over
$900 million in this area. The House bill actually included around $1.7
billion because the House included not only funds for the drug war in
Colombia--I believe they also provided more than what had been asked
for by the administration--they also provided some aid for other
countries in the area that are also having some difficulty in fighting
the drug situation in that part of the world.
Let me emphasize that we have been very much involved, obviously, in
being supportive of bringing about a peaceful solution in Kosovo. It
has been, of course, debated what should be done there, if we should do
what we have done there, and how much should be spent there. The
administration has pursued the policy there and the Congress has gone
along with it, for better or for worse, at a cost of billions of
dollars.
I point out on this map the area we are talking about. Kosovo is in
this area of the world. It is very important to Europe and to our
allies in Europe. I have suggested to our allies--NATO, Germany,
Britain and other countries--they should assume more of the
responsibility there, not less. I have been very concerned they have
not met their responsibilities. Until just very recently, they seemed
to be doing a better job of providing the money and the people they
committed.
My point is while this is important, it is not nearly as close and as
directly involved in the U.S. national security as the situation in
Colombia. This map depicts Colombia. This whole region is experiencing
some transition now. Since we have turned over the Panama Canal and
closed our bases there, we see evidence that already there has been an
increase of drug trafficking through Panama. We are concerned about the
narcotraffickers in Colombia; we are concerned about what is happening
in Venezuela, and this whole region of the world. It is in our
neighborhood.
For years, to our own detriment, in my opinion, we have not been as
involved with Central America and South America as we should have been.
Now we see democracy and economic opportunity beginning to make
progress in Central America, in the Caribbean, and democracy at least
blossoming in parts of South America, but we see a threat, and it is
being driven by drugs.
In addition to being in our hemisphere and in close proximity, we are
talking about activities by people who are undermining the Colombian
Government, who are killing people, and who are killing our children.
The drugs that come out of Colombia are coming right into the United
States--cocaine and heroin. They are poisoning our children.
I take this not very well. I am very concerned about it. I think we
ignore it to our own peril. Should we do more in our country to deal
with the demand problem, education, and treatment? Sure. We ought to
find ways to do that. But we shouldn't do it by taking away from the
efforts that are underway in Colombia.
That is why I call this a close national security interest for our
own country. There are those who are worried if we do this, we are
slipping toward being involved. Where better to be involved than to try
to take action and provide support for people who are trying to move
toward greater democracy and greater economic development and to
control and stop the drug trafficking and the drug pushers in that part
of the world? I think we should do this. I think we should have been
doing more a year ago or 2 years ago. I worked in the Senate with
Senators Coverdell, DeWine, and others in communication with our own
drug czar in America that we were not doing enough in Colombia.
Finally, the administration has said, well, we need to do something
more; we need to be involved. I commend them for that. We need to get
it done. That is why we pulled this foreign operations appropriations
bill up as early as possible. We think we should get this foreign
operations bill done and we should get the Colombian aid package
included. This is very important for us.
President Pastrana of Colombia has asked for our help--not to solve
the problem for him. We are not advocating U.S. troops go in or that we
have direct involvement in their efforts there but to help him without
American troops. Give them the aid they need; give them the equipment
they need to fight these massive narcotic drug cartels in Colombia and
that part of the world.
President Clinton's plan is multifaceted: Economic, political,
social, and military means to gain the upper hand in dealing with the
narcoterrorists who control vast amounts of Colombian territory. That
is an area where I have some concern. I think too much territory has
been conceded to these narcoterrorists.
Make no mistake, the FARC and the ELN guerrillas are ruthless. They
don't know anything or care anything about human rights. They only want
power to turn Colombia into the first nation controlled by
narcoterrorists. Think about that. That is a real possibility unless we
act to get assistance there as soon as possible.
Will this aid package alone solve the problem overnight? No. I
emphasize again we should have been doing more last year and the year
before and over a period of years. But it will make a significant
contribution by giving to
[[Page S5488]]
the Colombian Government the wherewithal to challenge these
narcoterrorists.
We know one thing for certain: Without this package, these
narcoterrorists will be emboldened and they will have no incentive to
come to the peace table. The freely elected pro U.S. government of
President Pastrana will be dealt a very serious blow. We cannot leave
them unassisted when they have asked for our help.
This is a question of standing up for our children, of standing up
and fighting these narcoterrorists in our part of the world, in our
neighborhood, in our region. Colombia has a chance. They are tired of
the bloodshed. They are tired of kidnappings. They are tired of human
rights abuses on all sides. I don't for a minute mean to push aside the
complaints about some of the human rights violations on the other side,
but that shouldn't be a reason not to act.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, support the foreign
operations bill as it is, with the Colombian aid. As a matter of fact,
I think it is possible the aid may actually be increased somewhat in
conference. We should not let this be pecked apart. We should step up
to our responsibility and fulfill our commitment to Colombia, to
President Pastrana for his efforts, but particularly for the children
of our country.
Do not support amendments that will take away funds in this package
and move them over into other areas. It is the minimum that we should
do.
I thank Senator Wellstone for allowing me to go forward at this time.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, I
appreciate his comments and I did not want to interrupt him while he
was speaking.
I will, in as thoughtful a way as possible, respond to some of his
comments. I don't think there is any question that we need to deal with
narcoterrorists. I don't really believe that is the issue. I will take
time to develop this.
My colleague from New York wanted to speak.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to follow
the Senator from North Carolina.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, more than 80 percent of the cocaine, and most of the
heroin flooding America's streets comes from Colombia. That is just one
of many reasons why helping honest Colombians is an urgent and absolute
necessity.
Today, Colombia's democratically elected government is besieged by
blood-thirsty communist guerrillas who have gone into business with
narcotraffickers, and, Mr. President, without U.S. help, Colombia may
very well lose its fight with these narcoterrorists--and that is why
the United States must move swiftly to help President Andres Pastrana
save the second oldest democracy in the Americas.
I support doing whatever it takes to save Colombia--not only because
of the enormous cost of drugs to our country but because the United
States of America should stand with a decent, democratic government in
our own hemisphere that is threatened by Marxist terrorist groups.
I am grateful to the distinguished Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens,
and the able Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, for including in the
foreign operations bill the emergency anti-drug assistance for Colombia
and surrounding countries.
This bill deserves our support even though I expect that the House-
Senate conference will choose to make some adjustments.
For example, we must resist unrealistic conditions that will block
the delivery of badly needed support. Also, I am persuaded that we must
supply the Colombian Army with Blackhawk helicopters so they have the
mobility to respond to the hit-and-run tactics of the guerrillas who
are part of the drug trade.
The stakes are enormously high. Colombia is one of the most important
U.S. trading partners in the Americas, with $4.5 billion in direct U.S.
investment in sectors--not counting the key petroleum sector. Also, the
guerrillas have expressly targeted American businesses and citizens in
Colombia for bombings, kidnapings, and murders.
Further, the threat to regional stability is acute: Venezuela, Peru,
and Ecuador all have massed troops on their borders with Colombia.
Panama, which has no army, is helpless to secure its frontier from
smugglers of drugs and weapons.
President Pastrana doesn't ask us to do his fighting for him. In
fact, no man alive has taken more risks for peace. If anything, he
might be criticized for making too many concessions to bring the
guerrillas to the peace table.
The guerrillas have responded by launching murderous attacks on
civilian targets. While President Pastrana is going the extra mile for
peace, the guerrillas have launched a recruitment drive--bent on
tearing Colombia apart.
These guerrillas are criminals and terrorists who thrive on drug
trafficking, kidnaping, and extortion. They are playing an ever-
increasing role in the drug trade, which earns them a blank check from
the narcotraffickers who realize that chaos is good for their dirty
enterprise.
These 20,000 guerrillas move about the country virtually unchallenged
while most of Colombia's army is pinned down protecting bridges, oil
pipelines, and power stations from terrorist attacks. That leaves only
40,000 soldiers, with a mere 30 helicopters, to take on the guerrillas
in a rugged, mountainous country almost twice the size of Texas.
What can the United States do to help?
We can approve emergency anti-drug aid to Colombia and to her
neighbors, thereby giving them a fighting chance to stem the tide of
lawlessness and cocaine that threatens the entire Andean region.
U.S. support will bolster the Colombian army's counter-drug
battalions, providing continued U.S. military training, better
intelligence and communications, and increased mobility in he form of
transport helicopters. We will also provide support to eradicate
illegal crops and create alternative employment for displaced farmers.
Current U.S. law requires that any military units receiving U.S. aid
must be ``scrubbed'' for human rights violations. That is as it should
be. But we should not hold U.S. support hostage to unrealistic
preconditions.
If America fails to act, Colombia will continue to hurdle toward
chaos. If the war drags on--or if desperate Colombians lose their
struggle or are forced to appease the narco-guerrillas--the United
States and the rest of the hemisphere will pay a very dear price.
The longer we delay, the higher that price will be.
I urge Senators to support emergency anti-drug support for Colombia--
and to do so without delay.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Without objection,
the Senator's time will be charged under the previous order against his
time on the amendment.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, we are working on the final version of
the amendment, but I will outline for colleagues what this amendment is
about. I will send the amendment to the desk in a short while.
This amendment would essentially transfer $225 million--as I said to
the majority leader, this is by no means an amendment that says we
don't supply assistance to Colombia--from the Colombian military for
purposes of the push into southern Colombia to the domestic drug
treatment programs.
Specifically, this amendment would transfer funds to the substance
abuse prevention and treatment block grant program to provide--I will
marshal evidence to colleagues--desperately needed funds for State and
local community-based programs and for drug treatment programs within a
variety of different facilities, such as correctional facilities and
other facilities in the country.
By the way, part of the argument that I present today is that we deal
with this drug problem for sure, but there is a considerable amount of
evidence that we don't want to all of a sudden militarize this whole
package, especially with the record of the military in Colombia.
Moreover, we want to deal with the demand side in our country. By the
way, I am sure the vast majority of people in the United States of
America agree.
[[Page S5489]]
This amendment leaves substantial assistance for the Colombian
Government and civil society, including all sorts of alternative
development programs such as judicial reform and human rights programs.
I want to make this clear, given some of the comments of the majority
leader. It also leaves extensive funding for interdiction,
investigating, and prosecuting drug trafficking and money laundering,
and for the counternarcotics effort of the Colombian national police,
as well as for other counternarcotics programs in other Latin American
countries. It doesn't cut 1 cent from any of that.
I want colleagues to know what they are voting on. It simply removes
and transfers to more effective domestic use the resources in this
particular bill destined for the Colombian Army's push into southern
Colombia.
Since 1989, virtually all U.S. assistance to Colombia has officially
been intended to fight illicit drug production and trafficking. The
majority leader comes to the floor and speaks as if we have not been
making this effort. But what is sold as a war on drugs to the Congress
and the American public is far more complex. This is where I dissent
from the majority leader. This is much more complex than just a war
dealing with drug production and trafficking.
Colombia today is embroiled in the hemisphere's largest and longest
civil war with the military increasingly linked to paramilitary death
squads.
The majority leader says this is just a matter of whether or not we
are serious about the war on drugs. That is not what this amendment
deals with. I am serious about the war on drugs. I am serious about
interdiction. I am serious about getting the assistance to Colombia for
that. But when the majority leader says: I am concerned about human
rights, he then quickly brushes this aside.
We need to understand that there is a civil war in Colombia. There is
a military link to paramilitary death squads with massive corruption
and widespread human rights atrocities. The rebel insurgency has also
expanded throughout large sections of the country, and innocent
civilians have been killed by these rebels as well. Colombia now has
the third largest internally displaced population in the world.
Before I go any further, since we are now by a 7-to-1 ratio going to
change our assistance from police to military--that is what worries me
with American advisers--let me talk about the military.
Let me, first of all, quote from the 1999 country reports on human
rights practices released by the U.S. Department of State, February 25,
2000.
Paramilitary groups and guerrillas attack at increasing
levels unarmed civilians expected of loyalty to an opposing
party in the country.
Government forces continue to commit numerous serious
abuses, including extrajudicial killings, at a level that was
roughly similar to that of 1998. Despite some prosecutions
and convictions, the authorities rarely brought officers of
the security forces and the police charged with human rights
offenses to justice, and impunity remains a problem. At
times, the security forces collaborated with paramilitary
groups that committed abuses.
Paramilitary groups and guerrillas were responsible for the
vast majority of political and extrajudicial killings during
the year. Throughout the country, paramilitary groups killed,
tortured, and threatened civilians suspected of sympathizing
with guerrillas with an orchestrated campaign of terrorizing
them into fleeing their homes thereby depriving guerrillas of
civilian support.
This report goes on. It basically says you have the military directly
linked to these paramilitary groups which have committed widespread
abuses of human rights and which have murdered innocent civilians.
I am all for interdiction. But I have to raise some questions about
what we are doing all of a sudden in this package by dramatically
changing the ratio of our support and giving much more to the military
linked to these death squads. I don't think that is what our country is
about.
Moreover, I don't believe the militarization of this package will
work. I will get to that in a moment.
The majority leader says he is concerned about human rights. He said
it in a word or two. But I would like to spend a little bit more time
on this.
``Human Rights Watch World Report 2000,'' in Colombia,
Paramilitary groups working in some areas with the
tolerance and open support of the armed forces continue to
massacre civilians, commit selected killings and special
terror.
Democratic Senators and Republican Senators, now we are going to give
this military, given this record, a massive infusion of money for a
campaign in southern Colombia with American advisers with them.
Let me quote again from the ``Human Rights Watch World Report 2000.''
That is this year.
Paramilitary groups working in some areas with the
tolerance and open support of the armed forces continue to
massacre civilians, commit selected killings and special
terror.
I argue that we should take this seriously.
Amnesty International, May 3, 2000:
Jesus Ramiro Zapata, human rights defender, was abducted
and killed in Segovia, department of Antioquia. Several days
earlier he reported that members of paramilitary groups had
inquired into his whereabouts eight times in the latter part
of April. On the 3rd of April, 500 paramilitaries reportedly
entered the municipalities of Segovia and Remedios, setting
up camp in Otu. The large number of Colombian National Army
4th Brigade troops stationed in the area did nothing to
confront the illegal paramilitary group.
That is a report from Amnesty International.
I could go on.
The armed forces, the military that we are now going to provide money
to with American advisers watching and standing by idly as paramilitary
groups violate human rights, abduct innocent people and murder them,
and we are going to be providing all of this support for this military?
Colleagues, if there had been some evidence over the last couple of
years that there has been a change, that would be a different story.
This is a letter from a number of different religious organizations
in the United States of America.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all of these documents be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Legal Action Center, National Association of Alcoholism
and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC), National Council on
Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), Partnership for
Recovery, State Associations of Addiction Services
(SAAS),
May 18, 2000.
Support the Wellstone Amendment to the Foreign Operations
Appropriations Bill
Dear Senators: We are writing in support of Senator
Wellstone's Amendment to the Foreign Operations
appropriations bill to transfer $225 million from the section
of the bill funding military operations in Southern Colombia
to drug and alcohol treatment and prevention programs funded
by the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block
grant. We feel this amendment leaves intact critical
assistance for democracy stabilization and drug interdiction
efforts in Colombia, while also supporting the vastly
underfunded drug and alcohol treatment and prevention
programs here in the United States.
Public funding for treatment primarily serves low income
and indigent people who are seeking treatment in order to
reclaim their lives. When looking at drug and alcohol
addiction, we find that in addition to being a disease
itself, it is a critical risk factor for health problems such
as the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases as well as
social problems such as crime and domestic violence.
Additionally, treatment and prevention systems have faced
increased pressure from entitlement reforms, specifically
welfare and SSI program reforms that decrease system capacity
while increasing the need for public treatment and prevention
services. Successful criminal justice programs involving (and
often mandating) treatment, including drug courts, have
proliferated and are steadily increasing the demand for
treatment.
We feel that a balanced approach to the drug control effort
is necessary, yet prevention and treatment programs have not
received adequate funding to keep up with demand. The
Wellstone amendment adds necessary prevention and treatment
funds to domestic programs that will save lives and taxpayer
dollars.
On behalf of the 18 million Americans who chronically use
drugs or alcohol and the 8.3 million children whose parent(s)
abuse drugs or alcohol, we ask that you support drug and
alcohol prevention and treatment programs by supporting the
Wellstone amendment.
We thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Tom McDaniels,
Director of National Policy, Legal Action Center.
[[Page S5490]]
William D. McColl, Esq.,
Executive Director, National Association of Alcoholism and
Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC).
Sarah Kayson,
Public Policy Director, National Council on Alcoholism and
Drug Dependence (NCADD).
Carol McDaid,
Partnership for Recovery.
Art Schut,
President, State Associations of Addiction Services (SAAS).
____
1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
colombia
Colombia is a constitutional, multiparty democracy, in
which the Liberal and Conservative parties have long
dominated politics. Citizens elected President Andres
Pastrana of the Conservative Party and a bicameral
legislature controlled by the Liberal Party in generally
free, fair, and transparent elections in 1998, despite
attempts at intimidation and fraud by paramilitary groups,
guerrillas, and narcotics traffickers. The civilian judiciary
is largely independent of government influence, although the
suborning or intimidation of judges, witnesses, and
prosecutors by those indicated is common.
The Government continued to face a serious challenge to its
control over the national territory, as longstanding and
widespread internal armed conflict and rampant violence--both
political and criminal--persisted. The principal participants
were government security forces, paramilitary groups,
guerrillas, and narcotics traffickers. In some areas
government forces were engaged in combat with guerrillas or
narcotics traffickers, while in others paramilitary groups
fought guerrillas, and in still others guerrillas attacked
demobilized members of rival guerrilla factions. Paramilitary
groups and guerrillas attacked at increasing levels unarmed
civilians suspected of loyalty to an opposing party in the
conflict. The two major guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation
Army (ELN), consist of an estimated 11,000 to 17,000 full-
time combatants organized into more than 100 semiautonomous
groups. The FARC and the ELN, along with other smaller
groups, exercised a significant degree of influence and
initiated armed action in nearly 1,000 of the country's 1,085
municipalities during the year, compared with 700
municipalities in 1998. The major guerrilla organizations
received a significant part of their revenues (in the
hundreds of millions of dollars) from fees levied on
narcotics production and trafficking. Guerrillas and
paramilitary groups supplanted absent state institutions in
many sparsely populated areas of the national territory. In
July 1998, then-President-elect Pastrana met with the FARC's
leader, ``Manuel Marulanda Velez,'' and agreed to a
demilitarized zone (``despeje'') in which the two sides could
pursue direct peace talks. In November 1998, the despeje was
initiated in 5 southern municipalities, with a total
population of approximately 100,000 persons. Security forces
completed their withdrawal from the area the following month.
In January Marulanda failed to appear for the scheduled
formal inauguration of peace talks in the despeje. President
Pastrana and Marulanda met again in May and agreed on an
agenda for formal negotiations and on procedures for the
creation of an international verification commission to
monitor both sides' compliance with the terms of the despeje.
However, the FARC refused to proceed with the establishment
of the commission. Formal Government-FARC peace negotiations
began in earnest in October and were underway at year's end,
following the Government's concession to the FARC that, at
least initially, there be no international verification
commission. The Government also held a series of informal
discussions with the ELN during the year, but insisted on the
ELN's release of the victims of specific mass kidnapings as a
condition for undertaking formal negotiations and for
demilitarizing a zone in which the ELN could hold its
national convention. At year's end, the ELN had not complied
with the Government's request and still held captive several
dozen of the specified kidnap victims.
The civilian-led Ministry of Defense is responsible for
internal security and oversees both the armed forces and the
National Police, although civilian management of the armed
forces is limited. The security forces include armed state
law enforcement, investigative, and military authorities,
including the National Police, army, air force, navy,
marines, coast guard, the Administrative Department of
Security (DAS), and the Prosecutor General's Technical
Corps of Investigators (CTI). The army, air force, navy,
marines, coast guard, and National Police fall under the
direction of the Minister of Defense. The DAS, which has
broad intelligence gathering, law enforcement, and
investigative authority, reports directly to the
President, but is directed by a law enforcement
professional. The police are charged formally with
maintaining internal order and security, but in practice
law enforcement responsibilities often were shared with
the army, especially in rural areas. The security forces
regularly failed to confront paramilitary groups, and
members of the security forces sometimes illegally
collaborated with paramilitary forces. The armed forces
and the police committed numerous, serious violations of
human rights throughout the year.
Despite years of drug- and politically related violence,
the economy is diverse and developed. However, the economy
has suffered a recession, and there was negative growth of 5
percent in 1999 for the first time in the country's modern
history. The Government has privatized many public-sector
entities and liberalized trade and financial activity since
1991, and it plans further privatizations. Crude oil, coal,
coffee, and cut flowers are the principal legal exports.
Narcotics traffickers continued to control large tracts of
land and other assets and exerted influence throughout
society, the economy, and political life. The official
unemployment rate peaked at 20 percent, a record high,
although it had declined to 18.1 percent by year's end.
Inflation at year's end was 9.2 percent. The Government
passed an austere budget to address the fiscal gap, which was
at 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and has
prepared reform proposals in areas such as pensions and
regional finance. The balance of payments deficit was 4.5
percent of GDP. Income distribution is highly skewed; much of
the population lives in poverty. Per capita GDP was
approximately $2,100.
The Government's human rights record remained poor; there
was some improvement in several areas, and the Pastrana
administration took measures to initiate structural reform,
but serious problems remain. Government forces continued to
commit numerous, serious abuses, including extrajudicial
killings, at a level that was roughly similar to that of
1998. Despite some prosecutions and convictions, the
authorities rarely brought officers of the security forces
and the police charged with human rights offenses to justice,
and impunity remains a problem. At times the security forces
collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses;
in some instances, individual members of the security forces
actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups by
passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence, and
providing them with ammunition. Paramilitary forces find a
ready support base within the military and police, as well as
local civilian elites in many areas.
On August 12, President Pastrana signed into law a revised
Military Penal Code, which includes provisions that unit
commanders no longer may judge their subordinates; that an
independent judge advocate general corps is to be created;
and that troops are to be protected legally if they refuse to
carry out illegal orders to commit human rights abuses.
However, necessary implementing legislation had not been
passed at year's end. Also on August 12, the Government made
public the Government's national human rights plan, which
includes a provision that permits the armed forces commander
to remove from service summarily any military member whose
performance in combating paramilitary forces he deemed
``unsatisfactory or insufficient.'' The State demonstrated an
increased willingness to remove from duty security force
officers who failed to respect human rights, or ignored or
were complicit in the abuses committed by paramilitary
groups. The Government removed four army general officers
from service during the year; the generals were under
investigation for collaborating with or failing to combat
paramilitary groups. A few other state security officers were
removed from service or suspended during the year. The
military judiciary demonstrated an increased willingness to
turn cases involving security force officers accused of
serious human rights violations over to the civilian
judiciary, as required by a 1997 Constitutional Court ruling;
however, concerns about impunity within the military
judiciary remained.
Police, prison guards, and military forces continued to
torture and mistreat detainees. Conditions in the overcrowded
prisons are generally harsh; however, some inmates use bribes
or intimidation to obtain more favorable treatment. Arbitrary
arrest and detention, as well as prolonged pretrial
detention, are fundamental problems. The civilian judiciary
is inefficient, severely overburdened by a large case
backlog, and undermined by intimidation and the prevailing
climate of impunity. This situation remains at the core of
the country's human rights problems. The Superior Judicial
Council (CSJ) reported in August that 63 percent of crimes go
unreported, and that 40 percent of all reported crimes go
unpunished. The use of ``faceless'' prosecutors, judges, and
witnesses, under cover of anonymity for security reasons,
continued until June 30, in cases involving kidnaping,
extortion, narcotics trafficking, terrorism, and in several
hundred high-profile cases involving human rights violations.
Human rights groups accused these courts of violating
fundamental rights of due process, including the right to a
public trial. On June 30, a ``specialized jurisdiction''
replaced the anonymous regional court system. The specialized
jurisdiction prosecuted and tried cases of extortion,
narcotics trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, and
serious human rights violations, including massacres, some
homicides, torture, and kidnaping. It permitted the use of
anonymous witnesses and prosecutor in exceptional
[[Page S5491]]
cases that potentially placed their lives in danger.
The authorities sometimes infringed on citizens' privacy
rights. Journalists practices self-censorship. There were
some restrictions on freedom of movement. There were
unconfirmed reports of security forces harassing or
threatening human rights groups. Violence and extensive
societal discrimination against women, abuse of children, and
child prostitution are serious problems. Extensive societal
discrimination against the indigenous and minorities
continued. Child labor is a widespread problem. Trafficking
in women and girls for the purpose of forced prostitution is
a problem. ``Social cleansing'' killings of street children,
prostitutes, homosexuals, and others deemed socially
undesirable by paramilitary groups, guerrillas, and vigilante
groups continued to be a serious problem.
Paramilitary groups and guerrillas were responsible for the
vast majority of political and extrajudicial killings during
the year. Throughout the country, paramilitary groups killed,
tortured, and threatened civilians suspected of sympathizing
with guerrillas in an orchestrated campaign to terrorize them
into fleeing their homes, thereby depriving guerrillas of
civilian support. Paramilitary forces were responsible for an
increasing number of massacres and other politically
motivated killings. They also fought guerrillas for control
of some lucrative coca-growing regions and engaged directly
in narcotics production and trafficking. The AUC paramilitary
umbrella organization, whose membership totaled approximately
5,000 to 7,000 armed combatants, exercised increasing
influence during the year, extending its presence through
violence and intimidation into areas previously under
guerrilla control. Although some paramilitary groups reflect
rural residents' desire to organize solely for self-defense,
others are vigilante organizations, and still others are
actually the paid private armies of narcotics traffickers or
large landowners. Popular support for these organizations
grew during the year, as guerrilla violence increased in the
face of a slowly evolving peace process. The army's record in
dealing with paramilitary groups remained mixed. In some
locations the army on rare occasions attacked and captured
members of such groups; in others it tolerated or even
collaborated with paramilitary groups.
The FARC and the ELN regularly attacked civilian
populations, committed massacres and summary executions, and
killed medical and religious personnel. Guerrillas were
responsible for the majority of cases of forcible recruitment
of indigenous people and of hundreds of children; they also
were responsible for the majority of kidnapings. Guerrillas
held more than 1,000 kidnaped civilians, with ransom payments
serving as an important source of revenue. Other kidnap
victims were killed. In some places, guerrillas collected
``war taxes,'' forced members of the citizenry into their
ranks, forced small farmers to sow illicit crops, and
regulated travel, commerce, and other activities.
____
U.S. Aid to Colombia,
March 8, 2000.
Dear Representative: We are writing as religious leaders in
the United States to urge you to oppose the two-year $1.3
billion military aid package for the ``Push into Southern
Colombia'' proposed by President Clinton on January 11. This
aid targeting the coca growing regions of southern Colombia
will escalate the violence and undercut efforts for a
negotiated peace settlement to Colombia's 40-year civil war.
We urge you instead to support much-needed assistance for
peace, human rights, justice reform, alternative development,
and humanitarian assistance to Colombia's internally
displaced.
Colombia is currently the third largest recipient of U.S.
military assistance. Yet reports from the United Nations, the
U.S. Department of State, independent human rights
organizations, and Colombian judicial authorities point to
continuing ties between the Colombian security forces and
brutal paramilitary groups responsible for massacres,
assassinations of community leaders and human rights
defenders, and over 70% of Colombia's human rights abuses. A
report released by Human Rights Watch this month links half
of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units to paramilitary
activity.
Colombia's internal conflict has produced 1.6 million
internally displaced persons, more than in Kosovo or East
Timor, and an increasing number of refugees fleeing to Panama
and Venezuela. It is our fear the proposed aid package will
draw the U.S. deeper into Colombia's civil war, intensify the
conflict, and make the U.S. complicit in violations of human
rights. Even more disturbing, the proposed aid package
includes plans for intensive aerial fumigation that will
displace 10,000 more people from southern Colombia, forcing
them off of their lands and deeper into the fragile
rainforests, causing great human suffering and incalculable
environment damage.
Aerial fumigation of coca cultivation in Colombia has
failed to reduce coca production in Colombia or consumption
in the United States. Between 1992 and 1998 the area under
coca cultivation has increased from 40,000 to 100,000
hectares despite huge increases in U.S. assistance for
weapons, training, and intelligence. This proposed aid
package will only expand a failed war on drugs by increasing
military force, while failing to address the complex
political, economic, and social inequalities at the root of
Colombia's internal conflict.
On October 24, 1999, more than 10 million Colombians
marched for peace. Talks between the Colombian government and
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the
largest guerrilla force, have resumed. Progress is being made
toward opening negotiations with the National Liberation Army
(ELN), the second largest guerrilla group. We ask you to
honestly assess the possible negative effects on U.S.
military aid on those peace efforts. It is our judgment that
such aid will undermine them. We urge you to vote against
increased U.S. military involvement in Colombia.
Raquel Rodriguez,
Program Associate, Latin American and Caribbean Office,
Global Ministries, United Church of Christ--Disciples of
Christ.
David A. Vargas,
Executive for Latin America and the Caribbean Global
Ministries, United Church of Christ--Disciples of Christ.
Thom White Wolf Fassett,
General Secretary, United Methodist Church, General Board
of Church amid Society.
Steven Bennett,
Executive Director, Witness for Peace.
Mr. WELLSTONE. They are opposed to this aid package for the push into
southern Colombia, again with the same concern about the basic
violation of human rights and the close connection between the armed
services and these paramilitary terrorist organizations.
Mr. President, I also have here a document which is from Human Rights
Nongovernmental Organizations and the Peace Movement In Colombia.
I ask unanimous consent this be printed in the Record.
There being no objection the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Colombia Answers Plan Colombia: A Plan for Peace or a Plan for War?
(A Declaration From Social and Human Rights Nongovernmental
Organizations, and the Peace Movement in Colombia, Bogota, May 31,
2000)
We would like express our support for those offers of
international assistance that contribute to resolving the
armed conflict through a process of political negotiation,
and that strengthen and unite Colombian society and the
economy. We support proposals that include viable and
integral solutions to the problem of drug trafficking, the
design of a new development model agreed to by the people,
and the strengthening of a new kind of democratic
institutionality.
However, Plan Colombia, presented by the Government of
President Pastrana, has been developed with the same logic of
political and social exclusion that has been one of the
structural causes of the conflict Colombians have experienced
since the time of our formation as a Republic.
In this same vein, because we feel it is a mistake, we are
obligated to reject the fact that Plan Colombia includes, as
one of its strategies, a military component that not only
fails to resolve he narcotrafficking problem, but also
endangers the efforts to build peace, increases illicit crop
production, violates the Amazonic ecosystem, aggravates the
humanitarian and human rights crisis, multiplies the problem
of forced displacement, and worsens the social crisis with
fiscal adjustment policies. In its social component, the Plan
is limited to attending to some of the tangential causes and
effects of the conflict.
What we are proposing is the need for a concerted agreement
between different actors in Colombian society and the
international community, one where civil society is the
principal interlocutor, where solutions to the varied
conflicts are found, and where stable and sustainable peace
is constructed. We are ready and willing to design
strategies, to define forms of implementation and to monitor
a plan that reflects these intentions.
Taking into consideration the arguments put forth above, we
the undersigned are given no choice but to reject the U.S.
assistance for Colombia that you are considering at this
time.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I will quote one section:
In this same vein, because we feel it is a mistake--
They are talking about this package--
we are obliged to reject the fact that Plan Colombia includes
as one of its strategies, a military component that not only
fails to resolve the narcotrafficking problem--
I say to the majority leader and others, ``that fails to resolve this
problem,'' but that is what we want to do, is resolve the problem--
[[Page S5492]]
but also endangers the efforts to build peace, increases
illicit crop production, violates the Amazonic ecosystem,
aggravates the humanitarian and human rights crisis,
multiplies the problem of forced displacement, and worsens
the social crisis with fiscal adjustment policies.
It is from a variety of about 70 nongovernment organizations,
including religious organizations as well, in the country of Colombia.
They are saying don't do this. Provide the assistance; we need it.
Let's get it to the civic-building organizations, get it to the police,
get it to some of the interdiction efforts, get it to some other
economic development efforts. But don't put the money into the military
for this campaign, given the military's record of torture, murder, and
widespread violation of human rights.
In short, continuing to pursue our current Colombia counterinsurgency
policy, cloaked under the veil of antinarcotics efforts--that is not
what this is about. This is not about an antinarcotics effort. That is
not what the vote is about. The vote is about whether or not you are
going to put money into this military anti-insurgency effort. It risks
drawing us into a terrible quagmire. History has repeatedly shown,
especially in Latin America--just think of Nicaragua or El Salvador--
that the practical effect of this strategy now under consideration is
to militarize, to escalate the conflict, not to end it. That is, I
think, the flaw in this package.
The call by the administration for a massive increase in
counternarcotics assistance for Colombia this year puts the United
States at a crossroads. Do we back a major escalation in military aid
to Colombia that may worsen a civil war that has already raged for
decades or do we pursue a more effective policy of stabilizing Colombia
by promoting sustainable development, strengthening civilian democratic
institutions, and attacking the drug market by investing in prevention
and treatment at home--the demand side of the equation, right here in
our own country?
The decision to fund the Colombian Army's push into southern Colombia
is an enormous policy shift. It represents a 7-to-1 shift in funding
from the Colombian police to the army. General McCaffrey says the
purpose of Plan Colombia is to help the Colombian Army recover the
southern part of the country now under guerrilla control. But honestly,
if the purpose of this military aid is to stop drug trafficking, should
some of that aid not target the northern part of Colombia as well?
Something strange is going on here. If we want to deal with the people
who are involved in drug trafficking, then one would think we would
also have a campaign in the northern part of Colombia. There you have
the right-wing death squads involved. Colombia is currently the largest
recipient of U.S. security assistance. It is exceeded only by Israel
and Egypt. Foreign aid and other assistance to Colombia, since 1995,
now totals $739 million. Yet the administration's own estimate shows a
140-percent increase in Colombia coca cultivation over the past 5
years.
Colombia now produces 80 percent of the world's cocaine. Drugs today
are cheaper and more available than ever before. If the drug war was
evaluated like most other Federal programs, I suspect we would have
tried different strategies a long time ago. More weapons and more
soldiers have not and cannot defeat the source of illegal narcotics.
While the Colombian Government and people merit our assistance, more
money for guns is not the answer to Colombia's troubles or our own
troubles with the serious use of drugs right here in our own country.
Being tough on drugs is important. But we also need to be smart about
the tactics we employ. No one disagrees that Colombia faces a difficult
challenge and we should respond to President Pastrana's call for help
to combat illegal drug trafficking. I agree. President Pastrana has
argued that U.S. support is necessary to ``strengthen democratic
institutions, stop the flow of drugs, and bring peace to the country.''
I agree.
I would support the army's push into southern Colombia if I felt this
proposal would make that happen. But, in fact, I think a military push
would have the exact opposite effect by weakening democratic
institutions and bringing more hardship to the Colombian people. There
is not anything in the world we can do, by way of monitoring this, to
make sure that this military--which has been so clearly linked to these
right-wing death squads and terrorist organizations--will change its
practice.
Amnesty International, the State Department report, ``Human Rights
World Watch Report''--I could spend hours just reading from these
reports on the atrocities committed by the military, or the atrocities
committed by these death squads, these paramilitary organizations
toward which the military basically has turned a blind eye. Now we are
going to provide the money for this military, for a military campaign,
with American advisers, in the southern part of Colombia? That is what
is problematical about this.
At the same time, however, forces from within Colombia threaten
democracy. Paramilitary groups operating with the acquiescence or open
support of the military--the very military we are going to support--
account for most of the political violence in Colombia today. I need to
make that point.
Yes to interdiction, yes to going after drug trafficking--but
understand that this is a country in civil war. This is a country with
the largest internally displaced population, maybe in the world,
certainly in the hemisphere. And this is a country where too many
innocent civilians are murdered. This is a country where paramilitary
groups, operating with the acquiescence or open support of the
military, account for most of the political violence.
Yet Colombia's military leaders have not taken a firm stand or taken
clear steps necessary to purge human rights abusers from their ranks.
The evidence is clear. They have taken no steps to purge human rights
abusers from their ranks. They have acquiesced to these human rights
abuses. Sometimes they support these human rights abuses. And we are
going to provide this money for this military with American advisers?
I support the addition to this bill that requires conditions on
assistance based on human rights concerns. But just as the Committee on
Appropriations noted in its committee report to this bill, I, too,
``have grave reservations.'' I quote from the Committee on
Appropriations:
. . . grave reservations regarding the Administration's
ability to effectively manage the use of these resources to
achieve the expected results of reducing production and
supply of cocaine while protecting human rights.
Human rights organizations have detailed abundant and compelling
evidence of continuing ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary
groups responsible for gross human rights violations. In its annual
report for 1999, Human Rights Watch reports:
[I]n 1999 paramilitary [groups] were considered responsible
for 78 percent of the total number of human rights and
international humanitarian law violations [in Colombia.]
Human Rights Watch collected this evidence with the help of the
Colombian Commission of Jurists, a highly respected human rights
watchdog within Colombia. It has also collected evidence linking half
of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units to paramilitary activity.
In other words, military support for paramilitaries remains national
in scope and includes areas where units receiving or scheduled to
receive U.S. military aid operate. This is quite unbelievable. I hope
all Senators will consider this seriously when they vote on this
amendment.
I was also given a book detailing the human rights situation in
Colombia by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Colombia Support Network.
This organization is working to establish a sister-city relationship
with the war-torn town of San Pablo in southern Colombia. San Pablo is
directly in the path of the suggested push into southern Colombia. This
is just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of heartbreaking stories:
A young woman, with a confused and almost hopeless air
about her, answered my questions and spoke into my
taperecorder. She had been forced to join a military patrol
and walk for 13 days through the mountains, guiding the
soldiers and carrying their knapsacks. Although she witnessed
numerous cases of torture and the destruction and burning of
humble campesino dwellings, it was the brutal murder of Jesus
Pastrana which affected her the most. I myself had
[[Page S5493]]
met this campesino leader on one of his visits to Bogota to
attend meetings of ANUC (a national peasants organization
with strong support during this period). According to the
terrible details the young woman gave me, Chucho, as Jesus
was affectionately called, died a slow and agonizing death on
October 31, 1981. He was hung from a tree as psychopathic
soldiers cut off his ears, his fingers, hands, then arms and
testicles and finally shot him 21 times.
Other colleagues have come to the floor to speak, and I want to make
sure they speak.
If this were an isolated example and if I did not have in hand the
evidence from respected human rights organizations and the State
Department reports of blatant violation of human rights now of these
paramilitary organizations committing so many of these atrocities, most
of the violence, with the military acquiescing and sometimes linked to
it and supporting it, with no evidence the military is taking any steps
to purge its ranks of human rights abusers, I might think better of
this dramatic change in our package, 7 to 1 from military to police,
for a campaign in southern Colombia with American advisers, putting us
in the middle of the civil war aligned with this military.
I want to have aid for Colombia. I want President Pastrana to have
our support, but this effort will not be successful. Moreover, I think,
we are, on very treacherous ground, moving into this area.
I will summarize so that other colleagues may speak.
We could put this money into the demand side. I am simply saying we
take $225 million, leaving $700 million, or thereabouts, and we put it
into the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant program
which basically is a block grant to our States. Whether or not we are
talking about the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy or
whether or not we are talking about the data that is collected in our
States, we are talking about a situation where 50 percent of adults or
more and 80 percent of adolescents or more who need treatment are
receiving no treatment because we do not have the funds for the
treatment programs.
Our police chiefs tell us drug abuse is the most serious problem in
their community. They also identify a shortage of treatment programs as
a real limitation on their ability to deal with it.
We know from study after study--and I will talk more about this when
I have more time--that money put into treatment programs pays for
itself over and over. I have dramatic statistics and data I will
present, but the long and the short of it is, if we have this package
and if there are questions to be raised about the militarization of
this aid, putting the money into the military for the southern
campaign, a military directly linked to human rights violations, with
so many organizations in Colombia saying do not do this, it will lead
to more violence; do not do this, America, you could be sucked into
this conflict; at the same time, we could provide a significant package
into building democratic institutions for economic aid, $700 million,
and we could take a tiny portion of it and deal with the demand side
for drugs in our own country, which is also critically important, and
get the funding to the community level that would help us provide some
treatment for people, that is a win-win situation.
I hope this amendment will receive strong support from my colleagues.
Amendment No. 3518
(Purpose: To provide additional funding for the substance abuse and
mental health services)
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send the amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone], for himself and
Mrs. Boxer, proposes an amendment numbered 3518.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 143, line 9, insert before the period the
following: ``: Provided further, That, subject to the 2
preceding provisos, of the funds appropriated for military
purposes under this heading for the `Push into Southern
Colombia', $225,000,000 shall be made available to the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for
carrying out subpart II of part B of title XIX of the Public
Health Services Act (42 U.S.C. 300x-21 et seq.): Provided
further, That amounts made available under the preceding
proviso are hereby designated by the Congress to be emergency
requirements pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985: Provided
further, That such amounts shall be made available only after
submission to the Congress of a formal budget request by the
President that includes designation of the entire amount of
the request as an emergency requirement as defined in such
Act''.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 26 minutes and has 64
minutes remaining.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
I sent this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer. I
reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise in reluctant opposition to this
amendment that has been offered by my friend and colleague from
Minnesota. I commend him for his commitment to drug use reduction. He
and I serve on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee. We have worked on a number of bills having to do with this
very topic, including the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program.
Ultimately, however, this amendment is, I am afraid, attempting to
reallocate resources from one part of our antidrug strategy to another.
The amendment raises important questions about the effectiveness of our
entire strategy and opens, I believe, an important and necessary
discussion about our drug control policy in this country.
The sad fact is that since almost the beginning of the last decade,
our antidrug strategy has not worked. More children are abusing drugs,
and with an abundant supply, drug traffickers are seeking to increase
their sales by targeting children ages 10, 11, 12, and 13. This is
certainly an assault on the future of our children, an assault on our
families, and an assault on the future of our country. This is nothing
less than a threat to our national values and, yes, a threat to our
national security.
All of this, though, begs the question: What are we doing wrong?
Clearly, there is not one simple answer. However, in 1998, a bipartisan
group of Senators--myself; the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Coverdell; the
Senator from Florida, Mr. Graham; the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley;
and the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein--worked together to
deal with this problem. We came to the conclusion that our overall drug
strategy simply was no longer balanced. I want to talk about this
because I am afraid what my colleague is doing is not helpful as we
attempt to balance our antidrug strategy.
We have been working together since 1998 to restore that balance. The
emergency assistance antidrug package for Colombia contained in this
bill is part of that effort to restore this balance, but even with
this, we still have a long way to go.
The fact is, to be effective, our national drug strategy must have a
strong commitment in three different areas: No. 1 is demand reduction
which consists of prevention, treatment, and education. The Federal
Government in this area shares responsibility to reduce that demand,
along with State and local governments, local community groups,
nonprofit organizations, and families.
When you are dealing with education, when you are dealing with
treatment, you are dealing with something that is a shared
responsibility between the Federal Government and the local
communities.
The second component is domestic law enforcement. Again, in this
area, it is a shared responsibility among the Federal Government, the
local communities, and the States. Again, the Federal Government has a
shared responsibility to use law enforcement resources, along with the
State and local governments, to detect and dismantle drug trafficking
operations within our borders.
We witnessed a successful return on that investment last week on what
was called Operation Tar Pit, when the Justice Department announced it
had worked with State and local law enforcement agencies in 12 cities,
including 2 in the State of Ohio, to dismantle
[[Page S5494]]
a major Mexican heroin trafficking organization. They did a great job,
in a coordinated effort.
The third component in any successful antidrug strategy is
international eradication and international interdiction. This is the
sole responsibility of the Federal Government. States can't help. Local
communities can't help. We are the only ones who can do this. I am
afraid my colleague's amendment strikes directly at our attempt to do
this.
Like our national defense and immigration policies, only the Federal
Government has the authority, only the Federal Government has the
responsibility to keep drugs from ever crossing our borders. If we do
not do it, no one else will. No one else can. The buck stops in this
Chamber.
These three components are all interdependent. We need to have them
all. A strong investment in each is necessary for them to work
individually and to work collectively.
For example, a strong effort to destroy or seize drugs at the source
or outside the United States both reduces the amount of drugs in the
country and drives up the street price. As we all know, higher prices
do in fact reduce consumption. This, in turn, helps our domestic law
enforcement and demand-reduction efforts.
As any football fan knows, a winning team is one that plays well at
all three phases of the sport: Offense, defense, and the special teams.
The same is true with our antidrug strategy. All three components have
to be supported if our strategy is to be a winning one.
While I think the current administration has shown a clear commitment
to demand-reduction and domestic law enforcement programs, the same,
sadly, cannot be said for our international eradication and
interdiction components. This was not always the case.
I think these charts I have will show how our commitment has changed.
In 1987, a $4.79 billion Federal drug control budget was divided as
follows: 29 percent for demand-reduction programs, 38 percent for
domestic law enforcement, and 33 percent--one-third--for international
eradication and interdiction efforts. This is the way it should be.
This is a balanced program. This is what we had in 1987.
Now we fast forward to 1995, and you will see that this balance goes
out of whack. We no longer had that balance. We no longer had that
balance today.
The balanced approach worked. It achieved real success. Limiting drug
availability through interdiction drove up the street price of drugs,
reduced drug purity levels, and as a result reduced overall drug use.
From 1988 to 1991, total drug use declined by 13 percent, cocaine use
dropped by 35 percent, and overall drug use by American adolescents
dropped by 25 percent--results. We began to see results.
This balanced approach, however, ended in 1993. By 1995, the $13.3
billion national drug control budget was divided as follows: 35 percent
for demand reduction, 53 percent for domestic law enforcement, but only
12 percent for international interdiction efforts. International
interdiction efforts have gone down to 12 percent from 33 percent.
Though the overall antidrug budget increased almost threefold from
1987 to 1995, the percentage allocated for international eradication
and interdiction efforts decreased dramatically. This disruption only
recently has started to change.
We have put together, on the floor of the Senate and in the House of
Representatives, a bipartisan group--a bipartisan group of Senators--
who have said: We cannot have this imbalance. We must begin to restore
the balance we had a few years ago in 1987. We have to do it.
Let me go forward, if I may, to this current budget year, the budget
year 2000. In the budget year 2000, 34 percent has been allocated for
demand reduction, 51 percent for domestic law enforcement, and 14.4
percent for international interdiction efforts.
We are slowly moving in the right direction. Even in this year's
budget we have a long way to go, with only 14.4 percent for
international interdiction efforts. We have more work to do, more work,
such as the assistance package for the Colombians that we are debating
on the floor today. But we are starting to see some modest progress.
But what really matters is what these numbers get you, what they buy
us as a country, what they buy in terms of resources. The hard truth is
that our drug interdiction presence--the ships, the air, and the
manpower dedicated to keeping drugs from reaching our country--has
eroded dramatically over the course of the last decade. We are just now
starting to restore those valuable resources.
In fact, with the modest improvements we have made in our
international drug fighting capability, we have seen progress. In 1999,
for example, the U.S. Coast Guard seized 57 tons of cocaine with a
street value of $4 billion. By the way, that is more than the total
operational costs of the Coast Guard. These operations demonstrate we
can make a big difference, a very big difference, if we provide the
right levels of material and the right levels of manpower to fight drug
trafficking. It worked before. It can work again.
The emergency assistance package we are talking about today, along
with investments included in the Senate-passed military construction
appropriations bill, is designed to build on that success. The
amendment of the Senator from Minnesota, while it is very well
intentioned, simply, effectively robs Peter to pay Paul just as Paul is
getting back on his feet again. Just look at the example I mentioned
earlier.
Through my visits to the Caribbean, Colombia, and Peru in the last
several years, I have seen firsthand the dramatic decline in our
eradication and interdiction capability. The results of this decline
have been a decline in cocaine seizures, a decline in the price of
cocaine, and an increase in drug use in the United States.
We have to turn this around. This is why we need emergency assistance
to Colombia. We need to dedicate more resources for international
efforts to help reverse this trend. We have to restore the balance.
I want to make it very clear, as I have time and time again, that I
strongly support our continued commitment to demand reduction and to
law enforcement programs in the United States. No one is a stronger
supporter of these. It has to be a balanced program where we have money
for treatment, where we have money for education, where we have money
for domestic interdiction and law enforcement.
My concern is not that this amendment is not well intentioned, not
that we should not be putting more resources in this area. My concern
is what this does to the other side of the component, and that is
international drug interdiction.
Let me make it clear. We do need this balanced program. I believe
that reducing demand is the only real way to permanently end illegal
drug use. However, this is not going to happen overnight. That is why
we need a comprehensive counterdrug strategy that addresses all
components of this problem.
Let me say again, if the United States does not make an effort to
stop drugs before they reach our borders, no one else will. It is the
Federal Government's responsibility. I remind my colleagues that our
antidrug efforts here at home are done in cooperation with a vast
number of public and private interests. Only the Federal Government has
the ability and the responsibility to help deal with the problem at the
source level overseas. Only the Federal Government has the ability to
stop drugs in the transit routes. This is our responsibility; the buck
stops with us.
It is not only an issue of responsibility. It also is an issue of
leadership. The United States has to demonstrate leadership on an
international level, especially in our own hemisphere, if we expect to
get the full cooperation of source countries where the drugs originate,
countries such as Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, as well as countries in the
transit zones, including Mexico and Haiti.
In conclusion, ultimately what we are striving for is a balanced,
effective antidrug strategy. I agree with the Senator from Minnesota;
we can and should do more to reduce demand but not at the expense of
our sole responsibility to stop drugs abroad. That would not result in
the balanced approach we are looking for today. That is what we need to
aim for, balance and effectiveness. It worked before; I believe it can
work again.
[[Page S5495]]
If my colleague from Kentucky will indulge me, I will respond to a
couple comments that have been made by my colleague from Minnesota.
This bill is full of human rights, if I may say it that way. It is full
of attempts by the U.S. Government to condition the money we send to
Colombia and the money that will be spent in the antidrug effort. We
have doubled the money for human rights monitoring. We have established
conditions before the money can be released, including the fact that
human rights violations must be prosecuted in civilian courts pursuant
to Colombia law; troops will be vetted for abuse.
Ultimately, the question my colleague from Minnesota is raising is a
fundamental question: Will we back away from our responsibilities in
this hemisphere--our responsibility to a fellow democracy, our
responsibility to our own citizens to protect us from drugs coming from
Colombia into the United States? Will we back away from that, wash our
hands of it and say we don't want to get involved in this, or will we
become involved only in the sense that we condition the money that we
send to Colombia on very tough conditions, great respect for human
rights, and see what we can do in that arena?
I think we are better off staying. We can have more impact; we can
have more influence; and it is the right thing to do. It is in our
national interest. With this bill, my colleague from Kentucky brings to
the floor a balanced approach, a logical approach, an approach that is
very concerned about human rights, a bill that is concerned about our
obligations to ourselves and our obligations in this hemisphere.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Ohio for his important contribution to this debate. He is a real expert
on the drug war. He has demonstrated that expertise over the 5 years he
has been here. I thank him for his important contribution.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 27\1/2\ minutes
remaining.
1Amendment Nos. 3476, 3164, And 3514, Recalled
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in the package of amendments submitted
earlier today, three amendments currently filed at the desk were
included. I ask unanimous consent that amendment Nos. 3476, 3164, and
3514 be recalled.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. The distinguished Senator from Illinois is here and
wishes to speak, as well as the distinguished Senator from Delaware. I
have 27 minutes remaining. How much does my friend from Illinois
desire; 10 minutes? I yield to the Senator from Illinois 10 minutes.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, since there are a lot of Senators here
on the other side, I will take 2 minutes to respond to the Senator from
Ohio.
Mr. McCONNELL. As long as it is on the time of the Senator from
Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased for it to be on my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to the Senator from Ohio, this effort to deal
with the demand side and to get some substance abuse prevention and
treatment moneys to our States and our communities, I have no doubt the
Senator from Ohio is very committed to that. I look forward to working
with him on this because, frankly, I think it is a scandal. We have so
much evidence--Bill Moyers, the impressive journalist, has done such
fine work on this--that we can treat this addiction, that we can make a
huge difference. Senator Moynihan has spoken with such eloquence about
the whole history of our efforts to constantly try to militarize and go
for interdiction and not deal with the demand side. It is a completely
one-sided proposition. I look forward to enlisting the support of my
colleague from Ohio on this question. I know he will be there.
I will wait to respond to other Senators. I know Senator Durbin is
going to speak and Senator Biden. As I listen to my colleagues, what I
am hearing--and I think we should be explicit about this--is that this
is not just a question of a kind of war on narcotics. Otherwise, we
would be doing more on the demand side. This is a question of basically
saying that we can't just focus on the police. We can't just provide
help to the government for police action and building democratic
institutions and economic development and every other kind of
assistance possible. We have to directly provide the money for the
military to basically conduct their anti-insurgency campaign in the
southern part of Colombia with American advisers and support. I believe
that means we are taking sides. If we are taking sides and we are now
in the middle of this war, so be it. That is what I am hearing on the
floor. I wanted to comment on that.
I retain the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Kentucky for yielding.
Sunday afternoon, 3 days ago, I was in southern Colombia in a
Blackhawk helicopter. We spent an hour going over the treetops of a
jungle and looking down. A general from the Colombian army was pointing
out to me the fields of coca plants, the plant that ultimately produces
cocaine. After a few minutes, I told him he could stop because we could
literally see them in every direction. I am talking about 600 square
miles of coca plants growing a product which has one use: to create an
addictive narcotic. Where will it be sold? Right here, most of it in
the United States.
I think we all know the devastation it wreaks on this country. The
likelihood that one will be robbed or murdered is usually connected to
narcotics. The safety of American homes, neighborhoods, and communities
is usually connected to narcotics. The prisons of America are bursting
at the seams primarily because of narcotics. Eighty percent of the
cocaine consumed in the United States comes from one country: Colombia.
That is a reality; that is a fact.
The Senator from Minnesota is one of my favorite colleagues. I say
this in all sincerity. Thank God Paul Wellstone is in the Senate. He
stands for principle on so many issues and reminds all of us of the
issues of conscience which should be part of every debate.
I am honored so many times to stand as his ally. This is one of the
rare occasions when I am on the opposite side and will oppose his
amendment. As some would like to construct it, this amendment is a
Faustian choice, an impossible dilemma. Should we allow drugs into the
United States? Certainly not. Should we support a Colombian military
that has a record of human rights abuse? Well, certainly not. But we
have to make a choice here.
The Clinton administration has come forward, working with the
President of Colombia, and said we think we can find a way to reform
the military and we can also reduce the narcotics coming into the
United States.
I might add that I salute Senator McConnell and Senator Leahy for
this fine bill they have brought to us. They went further than the
administration. Please read the section on Plan Colombia, and you will
see page after page of efforts by Democrats and Republicans here to
address the very real human rights concerns raised by Senator Wellstone
of Minnesota.
Time and again, they come forward and say we are going to do more and
make certain, as best we can, that before money comes from our Treasury
down to Colombia to eradicate narcotics, the people receiving the money
are not going to collaborate with the narcotraffickers who are guilty
of things that have been proven in the past.
I salute the committee. For friends of mine in the human rights
community in the United States, I hope they will read what has been
done here by Senators Leahy and McConnell. It is very positive.
Imagine, for 40 years Colombia has been involved in what has been
called a civil war or an internal conflict. What does that mean? Forty
years ago, groups on the left who were inspired either by Moscow, or
Beijing, or whatever, came to the front and said, we are going to push
for reform in this country so that the poor people of Colombia
[[Page S5496]]
have a better chance. That sort of revolution was taking place all over
Central and South America.
But things changed over 40 years. What started off as a leftist-
inspired, popular uprising to improve life for the poor people in
Colombia quickly became subsumed and taken over by the narcotics trade.
The World Bank estimates that there is a billion dollars in money
coming into Colombia to sustain the narcotics trade. That money is
going to the leftist guerrillas and the right-wing group, the terrorist
paramilitaries. They all use the same tactics. They don't go into
villages and beg for soldiers; they stick a gun to their heads and say,
``You are now part of our paramilitary group.'' They enslave them. If
they don't cooperate, they kill them. And they are involved in
kidnapping.
The President of that country has been kidnapped. His father-in-law
was kidnapped and murdered. When we met Saturday morning, the Defense
Minister said his brother was kidnapped. Everybody there told stories
about kidnapped people. If you think this is a typical civil war where
the left is moving for poor people and the government is against it, it
doesn't fit the description. When we sat down with the human rights
groups, they said the guerrillas on the left and the paramilitaries on
the right are just as guilty of human rights abuses in this country as
any other group. No question about it.
There are very few good guys in this story. But from the U.S. point
of view, I think the President is right, and I think this bill is right
to say we cannot stand idly by and let these drugs flood into the
United States with all of the negative consequences.
I totally support Senator Wellstone's premise that if we just stop
the supply of drugs coming into the United States, that is not enough;
we have to deal with the demand side of it. America is a great consumer
of narcotics. That is why those plants are being grown thousands of
miles away. When Senators Wellstone and DeWine come to the floor and
say put more money into drug prevention and rehab in the United States,
they are right. But it is not an either/or situation; we need both.
This bill addresses reducing and eliminating the supply of narcotics
coming into the United States. Senator Wellstone believes the military
in Colombia has a record of human rights abuses, and he is right. The
State Department stands behind that. This bill addresses that and says,
we will bird-dog you every step of the way, demand reforms in the
Colombian society, and we will demand that you not be engaged in human
rights abuses to be part of this partnership to reduce narcotics in
Colombia.
I might also add, to suggest we will give money to the police and not
to the army really doesn't tell the whole story. They are together in
Colombia. The national police and the army are together. When I sat
down with the Minister of Defense, I sat across the table from General
Gilibert, who is head of the police, and General Tapias, head of the
army. They work together. We want to use helicopters to secure areas
where we can send down planes to spray with Roundup these coca plants
and kill them, so that coca is not turned into paste and white powder
and sold on the streets of Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL, addicting
people and sending them to prison after committing crimes. That is a
good thing to do. I support the administration in their efforts to
achieve that.
It is true that Senator Wellstone says we may be taking sides. I hope
we are taking sides against narcotics and saying to the leftist
guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries: We have no use for either one
of you.
As said to me by the President of Colombia, ``They are both our
enemies. We have to deal with both of them.'' We should view it that
way. As I met with the Army and Marine Corps personnel from the United
States advising these troops in Tres Esquinas, a remote location in the
Putumayo Province, it is clear that these men in the Colombian Army
were prepared to put their lives on the line to stop the
narcotrafficking that ultimately will corrupt and kill so many
Americans. I think we have to stand behind them. We have no other
choice. To step back and say we will do nothing now is unacceptable.
This bill makes it clear that we have not forgotten the poorest
people in Colombia. I commend again the subcommittee for saying that
additional assistance is given to the Agency for International
Development, so that once that coca planter in Colombia has his crop
sprayed, we can give him an alternative, find some other agriculture in
which he can be involved. That is the humanitarian and sensible way to
approach this. This bill does that; it tries to make sure some
alternative, legal agriculture is available to the people there.
Is it worth a billion dollars to America to send this money to
Colombia? I will use my State as an illustration. In 1987, we had 500
people in Illinois prisons for the possession of a thimbleful of
cocaine. Today, we have 9,000 prisoners in Illinois for the possession
of a thimbleful of cocaine. It costs us about $30,000 per prisoner a
year. The taxpayers of Illinois are spending $270 million a year and
the story can be repeated in every other State. That is $270 million a
year in Illinois because of what is growing in Putumayo Province in
Colombia.
I think we have to have a coordinated effort of interdiction and stop
it at its source, to do everything in our power not to let these drugs
come into the country. Then we can deal with the demand side of it and
see that drug rehab is available--a sensible and a balanced approach.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. McCONNELL. Does the Senator from Minnesota want to respond?
Mr. WELLSTONE. That is right, yes. I will just be a few minutes.
Mr. McCONNELL. All right.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague for his courtesy. I know Senator
Biden wants to speak.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Boxer be allowed to speak after
Senator Biden.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, since we
are setting a lineup here, I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Coverdell from Georgia come after Senator Boxer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague from Illinois for his very
gracious remarks. A lot of times there is unnecessary flattery on the
floor that may not seem sincere. I appreciate what he said. At the
personal level, I thank him.
I was thinking about what my colleague from Illinois said. I want to
raise a couple of quick questions as long as we are having this debate.
First of all, in terms of the explosion of the number of men and
women incarcerated, I couldn't agree more.
This legislation, which is all about how to deal with the drug
problem and is being billed as legislation that deals with trafficking
of narcotics and trying to protect people in our own country, is very
one sided. I am trying to take a portion of it and say let's deal with
the demand side in our country.
Soon in this debate I will lay out all of the studies that have come
out. It is a real scandal.
In the State of Illinois and my State of Minnesota, the big part of
the problem is that people are not getting treatment. I am simply
saying: Can't we take a portion of this legislation, which is all about
trying to protect our citizens and trying to deal with this drug
trafficking, and deal with the demand side? There is no real
disagreement. I think most people in our country would say: Why don't
we put money in the demand side and treating people right here?
My second point is that President Pastrana has made his own judgment
about what he needs to do. I have tremendous respect for the President,
but I think we also need to make our own judgment. In all due respect,
again if we are talking about moving from police to military in a
pretty dramatic way, and talking about putting ourselves right in the
middle of this conflict, let's understand that we should be having a
policy debate about our taking sides in this civil war.
I couldn't agree more about the left or the right. You have an
unbelievable number of atrocities and murder being committed by both
sides. There is no
[[Page S5497]]
question about it. The question is whether or not we have now decided
we are going to be there with aid and our people supporting the
military in this counterinsurgency effort. Are we going to take sides
in this military conflict?
I hear my colleague from Delaware say yes. I always respect his
directness. But I think that is really what the debate is about. I
think probably all of us need to understand, since some who have come
to the floor have said they are against this amendment, if they are for
the war against drugs, this is not a debate about only a war on drugs,
obviously from what colleagues have said. We have been down this road
before. Now we are going to say we have decided that we have to support
the southern Colombia military, and we are going to put the money into
this military effort. If we are going to have Americans there
supporting it, we are taking sides. OK. As long as that is clear.
Third, my colleague from Illinois said that the police and the
military are in this together, and that they work together. I do not
know. Again, I didn't have a chance to visit Colombia. But I do know,
at least from sort of the one time I was in Latin America and in my own
study, that I always saw in these countries a great difference between
the police and the military. You see the police. They are low-level
guys who do their job. The military are the ``Rambos.'' There is a
difference in the groups. They are an entirely different group of
people and entirely different people.
In all due respect, the evidence we have right now by one human
rights organization after another after another after another, much
less the State Department report, is that about 70 percent of the
violence has been committed thus far by paramilitary groups to which
the military quite often is linked. We haven't been able to vet that.
All of a sudden, we are going to be able to vet it, monitor it. We are
going to be able to control it. I think that is a dubious proposition.
I think by militarizing this aid package we make a big mistake. I
think we could support this amendment which permits extensive
assistance to Colombia while safeguarding U.S. interests and avoid
entanglement in a decades-old civil conflict and partnership with an
army that is implicated in human rights abuses. Moreover, I think we
could take some of the resources and put them where they could do the
most good, which would be providing drug treatment programs at home.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, is the Senator from Kentucky able to yield
time to me?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 28 minutes, and he has 17
minutes remaining.
Mr. McCONNELL. How much time does the Senator from Delaware need?
Mr. BIDEN. I understand the Senator's dilemma.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an
additional 10 minutes on this side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from Delaware 12 minutes.
Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Senator. I thank the Senator from Minnesota,
knowing he was about to give me time, which is his nature. I appreciate
that.
Mr. President, my mom had an expression. Occasionally, when I was a
kid, I think she had a good idea and was well intentioned. She would
say, ``Joey, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.''
I have no doubt about the intentions of my friend from Minnesota. I
know he knows that as the author of the drug czar legislation for the
past, I guess it is about 14 years, I have issued every year a drug
report or an alternate drug report laying out a drug strategy for the
United States, usually as a counterbalance on the Republican
administration and criticism or one of agreement with the
administration.
This debate reminds me a little bit of the position in which
Democrats have always been put. The Democrats get put in a position
where we are told there is a dollar left and it can be distributed
among the hearing impaired, the sight impaired, and those children
needing emergency medical care. So we have to choose. We have the blind
fighting the disabled fighting the hearing impaired. Instead of saying
we can choose between building a highway and taking care of all the
needs of those in desperate need, or we cannot build a submarine, or an
air base, whatever, we are debating about whether or not we can walk
and chew gum at the same time.
There is no disagreement. I have, as well as my colleagues, pushed--
pushed in the early days when I was chairman of the Judiciary
Committee--for major increases in treatment. I have issued a total of
seven major reports on treatment, its value, its efficacy, and why we
should be doing more.
I take a backseat to no one in arguing that we do not give enough
treatment here in this drug war.
I point out that the President's budget, unrelated to the Colombian
aid package, has $6 billion in it for drug treatment and drug
prevention. That total includes $300 million in funding increases in
this area. We don't have to take away from the money that, in fact,
would have a significant impact on the reduction of product here. That
is the bad news.
The good news is that, as we have debated the Andean drug policy for
the past 12 years, we used to have to deal with the idea that Colombia
was a transiting country as well as a country that turned raw product
into the materials sold, and the laboratory work and product used to be
produced in Bolivia and Peru.
The good news is, because of eradication programs, because of U.N.
leadership, I might add in this area, essentially there has been an
elimination of the crop in those two countries.
The bad news is that it has all moved into Colombia. They now are a
full-service operation. The product is there, the narcotraffickers are
there, the laboratory laboratories are there, and the transiting is
there. That is the bad news.
The good news is it is all in one spot for us to be able to hit it.
It is all in one spot for us to have a very efficacious use of this
money.
I spent days in Colombia. I spent 2 days, 24 hours a day, with the
President of Colombia. I ended up actually going with him on his Easter
vacation by accident to his summer residence. This is a guy, as my
friend from Illinois points out, that is the real deal.
For the first time, we have a President who understands that his
democracy is at stake. He is willing to risk his life--not
figuratively, literally. I went to dinner with he and his children. He
has seven bodyguards around his children because of the death threats.
This is a guy who is risking his life. He is willing to do it because
he understands what is at stake for his country, unlike previous
Presidents.
The next point is, we are making this distinction between police and
military. With all due respect to my friend from Minnesota,
historically the thugs in South America have been the police. Police
are not like police here. There is a national police; we have no
national police. The Federales in Mexico were police, not army. Often
the police in South America are the biggest abusers of human rights.
What did we do? We gave the Colombian National Police aid, $750
million in aid. What did we say? Purge this police department, purge
the national police, and they did. And guess what. If I stood on this
floor 5 years ago and said the Colombian police are going to crack the
Medellin and Cali Cartel, no one would have said that is possible. No
one.
Guess what. They cracked the Medellin Cartel. They cracked the Cali
Cartel. They put them in jail. They are extraditing the police. Why?
Because we trained their police; they purged 4,000 of them.
Where are we on military? I met here with every major human rights
group from Colombia, including the bishops who came up. When we push
them to the wall and say to them: By the way, you want us out?
No, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that. You have to
stay in. You have to be involved. We don't like the balance the way you
have it here.
I say: Fine. No problem.
Tell me, bishop, you want us in or you want us out?
Stay. Stay.
Now, civil war. There is no civil war. We are so caught up in the old
logic of
[[Page S5498]]
how we deal with things. There is no civil war. Less than 5 percent of
the people of Colombia support the guerrillas. Every other guerrilla
movement, every other civil war, you go into the village to recruit
people. They go in, as my friend Illinois said, to shoot people. There
is no popular sentiment at all. This is not a civil war.
With regard to the paramilitaries, I called President Pastrana a few
weeks ago. I said, a lot of the criticism of the plan is you have to be
sure that you are only focusing on the FARC and the ELN and only
focusing on the guerrillas. What about the paramilitaries? I said, I
want a letter guaranteeing that you will, in fact, move on the
paramilitary simultaneously. You must change.
He changed it. Here is the letter. I ask unanimous consent the letter
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
Santefe de Bogota, May 8, 2000.
Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.,
Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S.
Senate.
Dear Joe: Thank you again for your visit to Colombia and
your support of my country. I greatly enjoyed our discussions
and valued your insights.
I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate, as I
did personally during your visit here, the commitment of my
government to attack drug trafficking and cultivation in all
parts of the country and not only in the south, no matter
what individual or organization may be promoting them.
This policy has been in effect since the beginning of my
administration, generating very important results. In 1999,
51,415 hectares of coca and poppy were sprayed, 31 tons of
coca and 691 kilos of heroin were seized, and 166 labs and 44
airfields were destroyed. Just this past weekend, in an
extraordinarily successful operation in Norte de Santander on
the border with Venezuela, we were able to destroy 44
laboratories and capture 20 persons, in an area linked to
illegal auto-defense organizations, but where guerrilla
groups and organized drug traffickers also operate.
Plan Colombia is an integral plan for peace designed, among
other goals, to eradicate drug cultivation and to address the
social problems created by the violence associated with drug
trafficking in all the producing regions with an emphasis on
the areas where there is the greatest cultivation and/or a
marked increase in cultivation in the recent past--areas
close to the Ecuadorian border in the south and to the
Venezuelan border in the north. Our priorities and the
sequence of eradication will depend on the resources
available to us, but you are correct in stating the principle
that we want to demonstrate that no trafficking organization
is immune.
Indeed, as you may know the initial effort of the plan
marks combined police, military, civilian operations in the
Department of Putumayo in the south where not only FARC but
also auto-defense organizations are present. In that regard,
the coordinated effort at drug eradication alternative
development, support for the internally displaced, human
rights protection, democratic governance, judicial reform and
promotion of the rule of law will work to diminish drug-
trafficking and violence in this fragile amazon region. We
enjoyed your visit and hope to have you again as our guest.
Your interest and that of your government in my nation's
future strengthens our commitment and gives us crucial
international support.
Sincerely,
Andres Pastrana Arango,
President of Colombia.
Mr. BIDEN. When I said, do we take sides? The answer is, yes, we take
sides. We are not putting anybody in the field. What are we doing? We
are training three battalions. Why are we training them? For the same
reason we train the police. We want to open up the eyes of the
Colombian military, who in recent years have been accused of fewer
human rights abuses. They have been accused of turning their heads.
They hear the paramilitary coming, they lift the gate, the paramilitary
comes through, the paramilitary terminates people, and they go back
out.
Then they ask, what happened?
That is what they are doing.
Plan Colombia does not only involve U.S. participation. This is a
$7.5 billion plan. The Colombians are coming up with $4 billion; the
Europeans, about $1 billion and the international financial
institutions about $1 billion. If we take out our piece, it all falls
apart. We are not the only game in town. But we are the catalyst. What
will happen? The whole world is going to be looking to the Colombian
military, from Japan to Bonn, because they are all in the deal. They
are all in the deal. If you want to clean up anybody, anything, any
institution, listen to the dictates of a former Supreme Court Justice:
The best disinfectant is the clear light of day.
There will be a worldwide spotlight shined upon this military. I have
never personally testified on the floor that I have faith in an
individual leader, but I have faith in President Pastrana. He is the
real deal. What is at stake is whether or not Colombia becomes a
narcostate or not. This is not in between. Keep in mind, folks, when
the Supreme Courts of Colombia several years ago extradited some, they
blew the Court up; they blew the building up and killed seven Justices.
When a Presidential candidate took them on, they shot him dead.
This is the real stuff. It is not like a Member of this body. The
worst thing that happens to us is we get a drive-by shooting
politically and we lose office. There, you jump in the sucker and you
lose your life. This is for real. These are courageous people who
finally have said: We will take them on.
I am convinced--knowing the chairman, and my friend from Kentucky is
a hard-nosed guy--he made a judgment whether these guys are real. He is
not about to give $1 billion to anybody.
My colleagues, it is very basic. There is a lot at stake. We have a
significant increase in funding for treatment and prevention. It should
be more. But we have an obligation, in the interests of our children
and the interests of the hemisphere, to keep the oldest democracy in
place, to give them a fighting chance to keep from becoming a
narcostate. Folks, if they lose, mark my words, we are going to reap
the whirlwind in this hemisphere on matters that go far beyond drugs.
It will include terrorism, it will include whole cadres of issues we
have not thought about.
I thank the chairman for his time. I truly appreciate the motivation
of my friend from Minnesota. At the appropriate time, unless the
chairman of the committee does not want me to, I move to table. I am
not trying to cut off discussion.
Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the Senator from Delaware for an important
contribution and assure him at the appropriate time it would be
appropriate for him to make a motion to table.
How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 17 minutes remaining.
The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Minnesota for
this amendment and for this time.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, listening to the Senator from Delaware,
one would think the Wellstone amendment is taking away all the funding
from Colombia. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Senator from Minnesota is leaving in place the funding for
Colombia; that makes good sense. Here is what is left in this bill
after the Senator's amendment: Funding for interdiction; funding for
the Colombia police; funds for alternative development and internally
displaced people; funds for human rights; funds for regional
assistance; funds to rehabilitate soldiers under the age of 18 who have
been involved in armed conflict.
The only thing the Senator from Minnesota is doing in his amendment
is making sure this country doesn't get involved in a conflict that
could hurt our people eventually. The Senator from Minnesota is saying
we are going to help President Pastrana, we will help this country, we
will help this region, but we are not going to get involved with the
military.
I thank the Senator from the bottom of my heart for this amendment. I
don't care if the Senator gets 2 votes or 22 votes; he is doing the
right thing.
I clearly understand the threat that illegal drugs pose to our
country, to my State of California, and I clearly understand that
Colombia is a major supplier of the cocaine and heroin that reach our
shores. But let me tell my friends in the Senate, we need a balanced
approach to this horrible problem of drug abuse. You could have a big
supply, but if no one wanted to buy it, it would not hurt anyone. The
fact is, the people in this country want to buy it. And there is not 1
cent in this bill, out of $1 billion--not 1 cent to help us with
education, treatment on demand, prevention. This is a lost opportunity.
What my friend from Minnesota is saying is, if we in this Chamber are
sincere
[[Page S5499]]
about fighting drugs, and a war on drugs, then we do not put $1 billion
into a foreign country and ignore what is happening here at home.
Let me tell you what happens in California and all over this country
when someone is arrested for a violent crime. Mr. President, 50 percent
to 75 percent of those perpetrators of this violence are high on drugs.
I cannot tell you how many times when I have been in my State--maybe it
is because my State is a large State--that I have someone come up to
me, a parent, saying: I have a son or a daughter who wants to get off
drugs; there is no room in a treatment center; we don't have money; we
have to spend a lot of money; what are we going to do?
I look at that person and all I can say is: Send me a letter and let
me see if we can help you find some treatment program that might have a
slot.
Does it make sense to spend $1 billion, as this bill does, and ignore
the emergency here at home? We are so quick to find the money to send
somewhere else, but what about our people who are ready, perhaps, to
take that step to get off drugs? Telling them they have to wait 6
months to get into a program is consigning them to more months of
addiction. What happens if we can stop this whole thing before it
starts, with education, with prevention? I do not quite understand the
enthusiasm for a bill that does not spend a penny here at home.
My friend from Delaware is as eloquent as anyone on this floor. He
says, ``Yes, we are spending more.'' Yes, we are spending more in our
regular appropriation, but if we are facing such a horrible emergency
that we have to go in, with $1 billion, I have to say to my friend, why
can't we see this emergency here at home, when people cannot get
treatment on demand? You don't have a sale if you don't have a willing
buyer. Unfortunately, the addicts are here, in this country.
Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I am happy to.
Mr. BIDEN. Why doesn't the Senator have an amendment to take $1
billion out of the highway trust fund or $1 billion out of the
education budget or $1 billion out of NIH or $1 billion out of the
Department of Energy?
Mrs. BOXER. I will be glad to answer it. Because this is $1 billion
to deal with the drug problem specifically. That is the point of it.
The Senator made that point. The Senator from Illinois made that point.
This is money that we are spending because we are stunned at the drug
trafficking that is going on--and we should be. All the Senator from
Minnesota is saying in his amendment, which I am proud to support, is
we will leave 75 percent of that money intact to do the things we want
to do to help the good President of Colombia. But all we are saying is
before we get our advisers caught in a situation over there--you know,
you may be right. Maybe nothing will ever go wrong with it. But all we
are saying is, how about fighting a drug war here at home for a change
instead of always spending the money outside of this country?
Mr. BIDEN. Will my distinguished colleague yield for another
question, just 10 seconds?
Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I am happy to yield.
Mr. BIDEN. The Senator is aware the President's budget calls for
spending $6 billion in drug treatment and prevention, including $31
million for substance abuse block grants; that is $54 million on
targeted capacity expansion programs, $37 million for research and
treatment, $5 million--the list goes on. The Senator is aware of that?
Mrs. BOXER. If I may take back my time, and I will not be able to
further yield because I have such a restriction, I stated that. I gave
my friend absolute assurance I understand that. We are not doing enough
when 50 percent----
Mr. BIDEN. I agree.
Mrs. BOXER. Of the addicts in my State are not getting treatment.
Only 50 percent can get treatment. The other 50 percent, unless they
are rich, cannot get the treatment on demand.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for a moment?
Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I will.
Mr. WELLSTONE. For my colleague from California, just so she knows,
the particular program we are talking about, which is the block grant,
the SAMHSA block grant program to our States and communities for
treatment programs, is $1.6 billion.
My colleague's figure lumps everything and anything together.
Mr. BIDEN. On treatment.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I am talking about direct treatment out in the
community. When 80 percent of the adolescents in this country get no
treatment whatsoever, and 60 percent of the adults get no treatment
whatsoever, it is hard to come out on the floor and say we have already
made this tremendous commitment, there is no reason to talk about some
additional resources.
Mrs. BOXER. Again, I represent the largest State in the Union. My
friend represents a smaller State. I would just say, maybe it is my
State, but when I see these figures coming back--and my friend is a
leader in the whole issue of crime prevention and being tough on crime
and all the rest, and he knows it is true that if you look at the
arrests for violent crime in our country--I could say particularly in
California, 50 to 75 percent of the perpetrators are high on drugs. So
all my friend from Minnesota is saying in his amendment is everything
the Senator said about President Pastrana, everything he said about the
need to help his country--I don't argue with that. That is why I am
proud of this amendment. Everything is left in except getting us
involved in this counternarcotics insurgency, which may well put us in
a situation where we find ourselves between two bad actors: the FARC on
the one hand, with a horrible story of violence and human rights
violations, and the paramilitary on the right-hand side here, with the
same horrible record. Unfortunately, it ties to the military in
Colombia.
So here we are, giving us a chance to do all the good things in this
appropriations bill that we are happy are in there, but to take out the
one for $225 million, that could lead us into trouble.
Here is the Boston Globe. They talk about targeting addiction. They
say:
The Clinton proposal for U.S. intervention in Colombia's
Civil War----
And that is what is being supported on this floor. They say it really
isn't going to work. They finish saying:
History suggests that increased funding for treatment of
addicts and programs for prevention--treatment on demand for
drugs--can accomplish more to ameliorate the individual and
social pathology associated with the endless war on drugs.
This is the Boston Globe. We have a number of editorials that are
very strong on this point.
This is the St. Petersburg Times. We have these from all over the
country:
Have we forgotten the lessons of our involvement in Central
America in the 1980s . . .?
They talk about the fact:
In an attempt to contain communism, our government provided
support to right-wing governments and paramilitary groups
that used the aid to slaughter thousands of innocent
civilians. This time, America's stated public interest is
stopping drug trafficking.
But, it says:
It could, however, draw us into a brutal civil war in which
civilians are a target.
This would be a tragedy if we repeated that kind of scenario. We have
to learn from history. I think the amendment of the Senator is
protecting us from just this problem.
Washington should have learned long ago that partnership
with an abusive and ineffective Latin American military
rarely produces positive results and often undermines
democracy in the region.
That is from the New York Times. It talks about the fact that
President Pastrana is well intentioned, but all of the programs he
faces, we are going to be faced with them as well.
Then, from the Detroit News:
Colombia: The Next Quagmire?
The Clinton Administration's proposed aid package intends
to break the choke hold of the guerrillas by training and
arming Colombia's military. The hope is that returning
control to a legitimate government will help curb the
illegitimate narcotrade. But this is a naive hope that
ignores the other half of Colombia's gritty ground reality.
The military is a corrupt institution with close links to the
outlawed paramilitary groups that control the drug trade in
urban areas.
It goes on. This is not Senator Boxer speaking or Senator Wellstone.
These are editorial boards from all over the country.
We have others from California that I wanted to have printed in the
Record. I ask unanimous consent they be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S5500]]
[From the Sacramento Bee, View Related Topics July 31, 1999]
Five American soldiers were killed in a plane crash the
other day in a mountainous region of Colombia. They were on a
reconnaissance flight as part of an escalating U.S. effort in
support of the Colombian government's war against heavily
armed narcotics traffickers.
The deaths call attention to a U.S. aid program that has
grown rapidly, partly because Washington has more confidence
in Colombia's new president, Andres Pastrana, than in his
corrupt predecessor, and partly because of a perception that
the threat to this country posed by Colombian traffickers is
increasing.
That perception is strongly held by Gen. Barry McCaffrey,
President Clinton's anti-narcotics chief, who says cocaine
production in Colombia has doubled in three years, that 80
percent of the cocaine and heroin entering the United States
comes from Colombia and that traffickers have amassed so much
wealth that they can buy all the weapons and recruit all the
fighters they need, especially in a time of economic hardship
for most Colombians, to fend off poorly trained and
underarmed government forces.
McCaffrey has called for $1 billion in emergency U.S. aid
to combat the drug trade in Latin America, most of it for
Colombia, which is getting $289 million this year--triple
last year's total. (Colombia now ranks third, behind Israel
and Egypt, as a U.S. aid recipient.) The money would pay for
technical and intelligence assistance, and training by U.S.
advisers of a newly created anti-narcotics army battalion
whose mission is to attack guerrilla units, clearing the way
for police (who get most U.S. aid) to move in and eradicate
coca crops.
But there are serious obstacles. For one thing, U.S. aid
has been meager in the past not only due to corruption but
because of rampant human rights violations by soldiers and
right-wing paramilitary groups. Thus the new battalion has
been carefully recruited and will receive human rights
training.
A larger problem is that U.S. aid is meant to target only
Colombia's narcotics traffickers, not a 35-year-old leftist
insurgency. Yet the two have become virtually
indistinguishable as guerrillas extort tribute from coca
growers and traffic in drugs as well. The largest guerrilla
group now controls much of the southern half of the country
thanks to Pastrana's policy--deemed naive by many Colombians
and by some U.S. officials.--of keeping troops out of the
region as an inducement to the rebels to negotiate a peace
settlement. But the rebels, while enjoying their immunity,
have stalled negotiations.
Despite such troubling signs, McCaffrey appears to have
strong support in Congress, and to some extent from the White
House, for increasing U.S. aid even as drug prevention and
treatment programs at home are given only minimal funding.
Those priorities are misplaced.
The Pentagon insists that U.S. combat troops will not be
used in Colombia. Good. But Americans have heard that before,
about Vietnam, and rebels say they regard U.S. advisers as
targets. While it may be premature to sound an alarm, it's
not too early to begin a debate about U.S. interests in a
conflict that has at least the potential to suck Americans
into another quagmire. Congress and the administration owe it
to the country to clarify what's at stake, what is
contemplated and what is not, and the sooner the better.
____
[From the Fresno Bee April 5, 2000]
Anti-Drug Folly: U.S. Aid Plan Would Raise Stakes in Colombian Conflict
By a wide margin, the House of Representatives has approved
$1.7 billion to aid Colombia in its fight against drug
traffickers who supply the bulk of the cocaine and heroin to
the United States. The aim is laudable, but the chances of
success seem slight. Before the Senate takes up the measure,
which the Clinton administration strongly supports, there
must an intensive national debate.
The legislation bans the use of U.S. combat troops, but
allows that U.S. advisers be sent to train Colombian forces
in the use of U.S. helicopters and other equipment and to
ensure that American aid is used properly--in particular,
that human rights are respected by specially trained
Colombian anti-narcotics battalions. Such constraint is
important.
But staying within those limits will be difficult, given
the immense terrain involved, the history of human rights
abuses in Colombia and the legislative mandate that aid can
be used only against drug traffickers and not against leftist
guerrillas who often collaborate with them. And if right-wing
death squads that have been closely linked to elements of the
Colombian military continue to operate, some of the blame
will inevitably accrue to the U.S. program, fairly or not.
Add to that Colombia's endemic corruption, deadly political
intimidation and the ease with which drug crops can be
shifted from areas eradicated and the task seems
overwhelming.
Undaunted, U.S. officials want funding to be expedited.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott objects, not to aid for
Colombia but to folding it into a $12.7 billion supplemental
appropriations bill that includes other military aid,
domestic flood relief and various pork-barrel projects. He's
right; the Colombian program is too critical to be obscured
by typical election-year log-rolling.
Opponents fear, reasonably, that the United States could
become ensnared in a foreign civil war that is not a vital
U.S. interest and that is probably unwinnable without far
more intervention than most Americans would support. Backers
say that Colombia's plight is a vital U.S. interest because
of the impact among drug-addicted Americans. But every study,
and common sense, tell us that the solution lies mostly at
home--in prevention, treatment and rehabilitation programs
that badly need more funds.
In short, the onus is on the administration to persuade
Americans that this program is not the beginning of an open-
ended commitment.
U.S. aid to Colombia may be justified, but only if it is
carefully defined and performance-based in terms of military
success and democratic reform. Otherwise, it could turn out
to be another nightmare that might have been avoided had we
paid closer attention going in.
____
[From the Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2000]
Colombia Aid Bill Would Escalate a Failed Policy; Drugs: Treatment and
Reducing Cocaine Consumption is a Better Way To Go
(By Robert Dowd)
U.S. demand created the drug crisis situation in Colombia,
and our military intervention there merely places American
troops and civilian contractors in harm's way in an effort to
salvage our failed drug policy.
The Clinton administration has proposed, and congressional
Republicans seem prepared to accept, a $1.7-billion military
aid package to Colombia. This formiable expenditure builds on
existing aid--Colombia is already the largest recipient of
U.S. military aid outside the Middle East--and involves us
more deeply in a 4-decades-old civil war, as well as
perpetuates programs that have failed to control drug
production.
As a veteran, I know the importance of a clear military
objective, of having the resources needed for success, and a
clear exit strategy. In Colombia, we are sending a handful of
helicopters and a few hundred of troops. Yet we were unable
to control a smaller Vietnam with hundreds of helicopters and
half a million troops.
The Colombia military intervention seems poorly planned,
unrealistic and doomed to fail. After a few years of military
support, we will face the choice of accepting defeat or
gradually being pulled into an expensive military quagmire in
which victory is unattainable.
The reason the U.S. is becoming more involved in Colombia's
internal affairs is that our government's efforts to reduce
cocaine availability have failed miserably, and drug money
has strengthened the rebel armies. We already spend hundreds
of millions of dollars annually to eradicate crops in South
America, especially in Colombia. According to a 1999 report
by the General Accounting Office, ``Despite two years of
extensive herbicide spraying, U.S. estimates show there has
not been any net reduction in coca cultivation--net coca
cultivation actually increased 50%.''
Rather than escalate a failed policy, we should recognize
that the present strategy cannot succeed and look for new
approaches.
According to the Rand Corp., eradication is the least-
effective way to reduce drug use. Rand's research found that
$34 million spent on drug treatment in the U.S. would have
the same effect as $783 million in eradication expenditures.
Naturally, the less cocaine the U.S. consumes, the less
incentive growers in Colombia will have to grow coca. That
would be the best eradication policy.
Further, we need to face the difficult and politically
controversial question of whether prohibition enforced by the
drug war provides better control of the drug market than
regulation enforced by administrative law. If we want to get
international cartels and urban gangs out of the drug market
we must determine how to control the market through civil law
rather than criminal law.
The administration's most frequent rationale for pumping
millions of dollars in aid and tons of military equipment
into Colombia is the need to fight ``narco-guerrillas.'' In
fact, there are reports that all sides--including the side
the U.S. supports, the Colombian military--have been tied to
the drug trade. It seems that we are supporting one group of
drug traffickers while opposing another group.
The Colombian aid package is nothing more than an
introduction to a quagmire and an escalation of failed drug
policy.
The administration and Congress should step back and
formulate goals they want to achieve in Colombia and then
determine how best to achieve them without promoting
bloodshed and lawlessness.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Does my colleague need more time?
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask the Senator from Minnesota for an additional 5
minutes.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield my colleague an additional 10
minutes.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator.
[[Page S5501]]
I will continue reading from some of these editorials. These are
newspapers that have very different editorial policies, usually, from
one another.
The Sacramento Bee:
A larger problem is that U.S. aid is meant to target only
Colombia's narcotics traffickers, not a 35-year-old leftist
insurgency. Yet the two have become virtually
indistinguishable as guerrillas extort tribute from coca
growers and traffic in drugs as well. . . .
The Pentagon insists that U.S. combat troops will not be
used in Colombia.
The newspaper says that is good.
But Americans have heard that before, about Vietnam, and
rebels say they regard U.S. advisers as targets.
We have the rebel groups already saying U.S. advisers will be
targeted.
This is what the Sacramento Bee says. I associate myself with their
conclusion:
While it may be premature to sound an alarm, it's not too
early to begin a debate about U.S. interests in a conflict
that has at least the potential to suck Americans into
another quagmire. Congress and the administration owe it to
the country to clarify what's at stake, what is contemplated
and what is not, and the sooner the better.
The L.A. Times says:
The administration's most frequent rationale for pumping
millions of dollars in aid and tons of military equipment
into Colombia is the need to fight ``narco-guerrillas.'' In
fact, there are reports that all sides--including the side
the U.S. supports, the Colombian military--have been tied to
the drug trade. It seems that we are supporting one group of
drug traffickers while opposing another group.
Let's look at this one. What are we doing? We have the left wing on
one side killing people, human rights violations, and violent. We have
the right wing on the other side, with which the Colombian military
oftentimes sides, and they are doing the same thing from the right. In
comes the United States of America advisers--and I know we have some
advisers there already; I am aware of that, but this is clearly an
escalation of our involvement through the donation of these helicopters
and advisers--and they are going to become targets in the middle
between the left and the right wings.
Even though we say they are there to fight drug trafficking, which is
laudable, they may well go into the jungles and encounter some of the
left-wing guerrillas and find themselves in a pretty horrible
situation, which is something about which we need to be clear and why I
am so proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment and why, quite frankly,
I am a little surprised there is not more concern in the Senate.
There is a Fresno Bee editorial that is excellent. It says in part:
[This amendment] allows that U.S. advisers be sent to train
Colombian forces in the use of U.S. helicopters and other
equipment. . . . And if right-wing death squads that have
been closely linked to elements of the Colombian military
continue to operate, some of the blame will inevitably accrue
to the U.S. program. . . .
That is another fear. What could be more important to us as Members
of the Senate than making sure people do not get hurt in our country,
in the world, that we work for peace and all the right things? If
somehow our dollars wind up helping paramilitary groups and they commit
human rights abuses and killings--and we know the list of these abuses;
they are horrible--somehow it is definitely going to come back to us.
It is going to come back to us, and I do not want that on my hands. I
do not want that on the hands of the people from my State.
The Senator from Minnesota is giving us today an opportunity to do
all the good things we should do in Colombia. I will go through them
again. There are important things he has left in this bill.
He is only taking out 25 percent of this money and transferring it to
this country to help us in a war on drugs in our Nation.
He is leaving in interdiction, $132 million to pay for new aircraft,
upgrades for existing aircraft, secure communications, sea- and river-
based interdiction.
He is leaving in $93 million for Colombian police to pay for spray
aircraft, helicopter upgrade, communications, ammunition, equipment.
He is leaving in funds for alternative development for internally
displaced people, $109 million--funds to help displaced people.
He is leaving in human-rights-boosting government capabilities. This
funding would provide for the protection of human rights workers,
judicial reform, training of judges, prison security--all the things
President Pastrana needs to strengthen the institutions in Colombia.
He is leaving in regional assistance for Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru.
This funding would be used for alternative development programs in
these nearby countries.
He is leaving in $5 million to help rehabilitate child soldiers,
children who got involved in this conflict.
For people to talk against this amendment as if it is eviscerating
aid to Colombia, eviscerating aid to President Pastrana, they have not
read the Wellstone amendment. The only thing he is taking out is this
involvement on the ground with this counterinsurgency against the
narcotics.
As I look around my State and I read the studies from my State--for
example, in Ventura County, CA, a beautiful part of our State where
there is a lot of agriculture and open space and it looks like
paradise, 40 percent of the county's homeless population is related to
drug abuse or alcohol abuse. A San Francisco study found in 1998 that
drug abuse was the leading killer of the homeless. There are over
500,000 drug-related emergency room episodes every year.
In 1995, nationwide, drug abuse cost $12 billion in health care--$12
billion in health care costs--and the good Senator is suggesting $225
million so we can cut down on those expenses. It is an investment to
cut down on these costs.
The loss of productivity in 1992 has been calculated at $69.4
billion. That is a 1-year loss of productivity.
In summing up, I consider myself someone who is good at solving
problems, and the way one solves problems is not putting blinders on
and going in one direction, but looking at the whole problem. With the
Wellstone amendment, taking $225 million and putting it in this country
so we can stop people from becoming addicts and, if they are addicts,
help them get off drugs, this is going to be a really good and balanced
bill, one that I will be proud to support.
Again, I thank him for leaving in this package the kinds of things we
need to do to build democracy in Colombia, to make sure that regime
succeeds, to train the people who need to be trained in judicial
reform, to help human rights, to help the child soldiers, and to take
that $225 million that will involve us, unwittingly, in what I consider
to be a civil war, to take that out, bring it home--bring it home to
California, bring it home to Georgia, bring it home to Minnesota, bring
it home to New Hampshire, bring it home to our cities and our
counties--and let people get the help they need, the help they deserve.
So I say to my friend, thank you for your courage in offering this. I
am proud to stand with you.
I reserve the remainder of my time and yield it back to the Senator
from Minnesota.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
Mr. WELLSTONE. I know the Senator from Georgia is here. I just want
to thank the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of New Hampshire). The Senator from
Georgia is recognized.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I yield myself up to 10 minutes of our
time and, of course, reserve the remainder of the time when I conclude
my remarks for our side.
We have heard a lot of interesting remarks. I rise against the
amendment of the Senator from Minnesota. I associate myself with the
remarks of the Senator from Delaware.
I would like to try to not repeat everything that has been said but
try to underscore several fundamental basic points with regard to these
issues.
The first is that over the last 8 years, funding for drug treatment
and drug prevention has increased by $1.6 billion. I repeat, it has
increased over the last 8 years. The amendment of the Senator from
Minnesota would increase it even further.
On the interdiction side of the ledger, during the same 8 years,
there has been a decrease in the funding for interdiction. So
interdiction is dropping and treatment and prevention is growing.
What happens when the Federal Government moves away from its
responsibilities to protect our borders and to
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engage international narcotics entities? I can tell you what happens.
The United States is flooded with more drugs--because there is nothing
there to stop that--the price of those drugs plummets, and more of our
children become addicted to narcotics. Almost the reverse of what this
amendment seeks to achieve happens.
As of Friday, June 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
gave us these alarming figures. In 1991--so this is the same timeframe
I have been talking about--14.7 percent, about 15 percent, said they
used marijuana. Who is ``they''? They are 9-year-olds to 12-year-olds--
children 9 years old. By 1999, the figure was 27 percent.
This is the period we are all talking about here, where our
interdiction dropped and where we increased treatment and prevention.
What has happened? We have had more and more youngsters--kids,
children--using drugs.
In 1991, 31 percent of students reported they tried marijuana at
least once. By 1999, when we cut off the interdiction, it had grown to
47 percent.
In 1991, 1.7 percent of students said they used cocaine. By 1999, 8
years later--no interdiction--4 percent said they used cocaine. It
doubled.
What we have essentially seen is that, while we have increased the
prevention, while we have increased the treatment, and lowered
interdiction, more and more kids have taken up using drugs.
I have to tell you, the greatest prevention program in the world and
the greatest treatment program in the world is to keep the student--the
child--from using them in the first place.
Point No. 2, our borders and our work with international partners,
whether it is Colombia or Bolivia, or Peru, or Panama--you name it--is
the sole responsibility of the Federal Government. No other entity can
practice the interdiction. Georgia cannot do it. California cannot do
it. Minnesota cannot do it. Only the U.S. Federal Government can
exercise the muscle to protect our borders and to work with our
alliances.
Prevention and treatment require Federal support, which has been
growing rapidly, with State support and community support. It is a
multifaceted effort and should be there. But only the Federal
Government can do what this underlying bill suggests has to be done.
Point No. 3, the battle in Colombia is not an ideological battle. It
started out that way, but it isn't anymore. This is a battle against a
narcotics insurgency. They have 3 percent support in the entire
country. In that country, 33,000 people have been killed fighting this.
And 800,000 Colombians are displaced, as in Kosovo, and we are going to
turn our back?
Colombia sits in the center of the Andean region and has already
pushed its trouble into Panama, into Ecuador, and into Peru. The entire
region is being affected by this struggle to maintain a democratic
government in Colombia. War is a very ugly thing. It is particularly
ugly when it is driven by narcotics and narcotics money, by people who
care for no life, none of these 9- to 12-year-olds, no person, not even
their own citizens who would be laced with armaments and blown up.
Will this be a perfect exercise? No. It isn't a perfect world. And
this is a very imperfect circumstance.
We have told the people of Colombia--the President of the United
States; his representatives, from Ambassador Pickering to General
McCaffrey--that we understand the scope of this problem, both its
relationship to Colombia, the United States, and the entire hemisphere,
and that we are going to help, and that we are going to join the
Europeans, and we are going to join the Colombians in the struggle;
that we are going to train; that we are going to work on human rights;
that we are going to work on social institutions and the fundamentals
of law and the judiciary.
Legislation to do that was introduced last October. The President and
the White House endorsed their version of it--it is very similar--in
February. Here we are in nearly July and we are tied up in knots. You
can only say, ``The cavalry is coming'' for so long.
The funds for drug treatment and prevention that the Senator from
Minnesota seeks have been growing and growing rapidly. The interdiction
has been collapsing. When it collapses, more drugs are available. The
number of kids using drugs has almost doubled--9-year-olds, 10- and 11-
and 12-year-olds.
The Federal responsibility is to not allow that into our country, and
no State can do that. This amendment undermines the sole purpose the
Federal Government has on this issue. This amount of money can be
sought in 50 different States in 1,000 different communities, which
they ought to contribute.
Interdiction has collapsed; utilization by our children has doubled.
It is a Federal responsibility to address this problem. We better get
on with it. Colombia is the heart of it. If we lose there, we lose
everywhere. You can't win a war by just treating the wounded.
I retain the balance of my time for the chairman of the committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? If neither side yields time,
the time will be run off equally from both sides.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I have a parliamentary inquiry. Would
the time be equally divided in a quorum call?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time will be equally charged if neither side
yields time. However, if the Senator suggests the absence of a quorum,
it will come off of his time, unless there is a unanimous consent
request otherwise.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time will now run equally.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this year's foreign operations bill
provides $934 million in emergency supplemental funding toward the
administration's request for plan Colombia.
I again want to express my appreciation to Senator McConnell, and
other members of the Appropriations Committee, for supporting
provisions in the bill that will help protect human rights and
strengthen the rule of law in Colombia.
I have repeatedly expressed concerns about the administration's
proposal, particularly the dramatic increase in military assistance. I
am troubled about what we may be getting into. The administration has
yet to give me sufficient details about what it expects to achieve, in
what period of time, what the long-term costs are, or what the risks
are.
What the administration has said is that in addition to reducing the
amount of drugs supplied from abroad, Plan Colombia is intended to
prevent increases in drug addiction, violence, and crime here at home.
Those are goals that I strongly support, and I commend Senator
Wellstone for his amendment. It would provide $225 million for
substance abuse prevention and treatment programs in the United States.
According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, drug abuse
kills 52,000 Americans each year. It costs our society nearly $110
billion annually. It has strained the capacity of our criminal justice
system and our medical facilities, and brought violence and tragedy to
families, schools, and communities throughout this country.
As of 1996, there were more than 13.6 million illicit drug users in
the United States. Some 50 percent of adults in immediate need of drug
treatment are not receiving it, and many treatment programs have lines
out the door.
Eighty percent of adolescents who need treatment--those who will, if
not provided treatment, sustain the demand for drugs in the future--
cannot get it.
We should help Colombia. I support President Pastrana's efforts to
combat the violence, corruption, and poverty which plagues his country.
But I am not convinced that the administration's request for Plan
Colombia will effectively address those problems, nor is it likely to
reduce the flow of drugs into our country or ameliorate the drug
problem here at home.
We do know, however, that substance abuse treatment and prevention
programs work. A frequently cited Rand study showed that, dollar for
dollar, providing treatment to cocaine users is 10 times more effective
than drug interdiction efforts, and 23 times more cost effective than
eradicating coca at its source. Scientific advances promise to make
future treatment and prevention programs even better.
[[Page S5503]]
Ultimately, reducing the demand for drugs--which is what these
programs do--is the only long-term solution to reducing the flow of
illegal drugs from Colombia and elsewhere.
Mr. President, I commend Senator Wellstone for his leadership on this
issue and I urge other Senators to support his amendment.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to address the situation in
Colombia and the question of the U.S. role there.
The situation in Colombia has been correctly described as grave. To
the extent that ``grave'' can be considered an understatement, however,
that is the case with respect to the ongoing conflict in that strife-
torn country. The issue ostensibly before us involves the war on drugs.
What is being contemplated, however, should under no conditions be
considered a simple extension of that struggle. What is being
considered is nothing less than an escalated U.S. role in what has
increasingly become an all-out civil war. The relationship between the
narcotics trafficking that we seek to curtail and the insurgency that
we oppose but dare not engage has become dangerously blurred. To
contemplate engaging one but not the other is to labor under an
illusion of alarming dimensions.
Mr. President, the conditions on the ground in Colombia are not in
doubt. A large, highly motivated, well-armed and funded guerrilla army,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the smaller but equally
lethal National Liberation Front, have emerged over the last two years
as a serious threat not just to Colombia, but to the entire Andean
region. The FARC, in particular, has evolved into a large-scale threat
to regional stability. Look carefully at the operations the FARC has
carried out over the past two years. What you will see is impressive
and alarming. Sophisticated battalion-size operations against Colombian
military and police units, including coordinated multi-objective
operations spread out across Colombia have become the norm. The March
1998 battle at El Billar, for example, demonstrated the FARC's ability
to conduct battalion-size operations employing refined tactics like
maneuver warfare against Colombia's best trained units. In a separate
operation, a 1,200-strong guerrilla force successfully carried out
simultaneous attacks on an anti-narcotics police installation and the
army base at Miraflores, overwhelming both.
This should give us pause. The Colombian government's position is
precarious. Already, the fighting has touched Colombia's neighbors.
Panama, which lacks a military as a result of the post-invasion
structure the United States imposed on that country, is now threatened
by cross-border incursions by guerrillas, whose main arms pipeline
crosses its border with Colombia. Colombia's other neighbors in
Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela are all feeling the heat from the war in
Colombia, the latter in the form of refugees escaping the fighting.
I point all of this out, Mr. President, because no one here should be
under any doubt that the path down which we are heading is potentially
fraught with peril. I don't know anyone who actually believes that Plan
Colombia is the answer to that country's problems; we support it
because we are at a loss for viable alternatives. But a guerrilla army
as capable as the FARC will not be defeated by three specially-trained
and equipped battalions. Much more is needed, including fundamental
reform and restructuring of the Colombian armed forces to reverse the
ratio of combat units to rear-area units--a key reason an army of
140,000 is stretched so thin against guerrilla armies numbering around
20,000.
And the army and police must be thoroughly inculcated with the need
to respect human rights. This not just a moral imperative, but a
practical one as well. Human rights abuses by government forces
increases sympathy for guerrilla armies that otherwise lack serious
popular support. It is never easy, as we learned in Vietnam, to fight a
guerrilla army that can melt into civilian surroundings and build an
infrastructure of support, through force and intimidation if necessary,
that government forces are hard-pressed to defeat without inflicting
civilian casualties. But Colombia's army and police must not
underestimate the importance of maintaining constant vigilance in
respecting the rights of the people they purport to defend.
The United States role in Plan Colombia is, to date, limited to
training the aforementioned special battalions and equipping them with
modern helicopters. Toward this end, we are sending special forces
teams into the field in the midst of that civil war. The primary role
of U.S. Army Special Forces is the provision of such training. But we
must be assured that their role will not extend to that of active
combatants. The bond that will surely develop between our soldiers and
those they are training must not extend to a gradual expansion of their
role in Colombia.
And with respect to the issue of helicopters, Mr. President, I find
it deplorable that the question of which helicopter should be provided
to Colombia should be decided on the basis of any consideration other
than operational requirements. Blackhawks were selected for the
capabilities they provide, capabilities that are not inconsequential in
terms of the Counter-Narcotics Battalions' ability to deploy to the
field with the speed and in the number required to confront opposing
forces. Their substitution by the Appropriations Committee with Super
Hueys goes beyond the usual fiscally irresponsible approach to
legislating that permeates Congress. It is, in fact, morally wrong. We
are talking life and death decisions here: the ability of soldiers to
fight a war. That decisions on their equipment should be decided on the
basis of parochial considerations is reprehensible.
Let me return, though, to the fundamental issue of a counter
narcotics strategy that is imbued with an inherent flaw: the misguided
notion that the war on drugs in Colombia can be separated from the
guerrilla and paramilitary activity that is the threat to Colombia's
existence. If, as has been suggested, the FARC is reconsidering its
involvement in the drug trade, it is possible that surgical counterdrug
operations can be conducted without expanding into counterinsurgency.
That the guerrillas control the very territory where the coca fields
are located, however, should continue to cause us concern. To quote one
unnamed U.S. official in the Christian Science Monitor, ``If the
guerrillas [so] choose, they don't have to continue to protect the
narcos, [but] if they do. . .this [aid] will be used against them.''
This, Mr. President, is precisely the problem. Plan Colombia is
perhaps a last desperate hope to save a nation. But it carries with it
the seeds of greater U.S. involvement in a civil war of enormous
proportions. Those of us who have been witness to our country being
gradually mired in a conflict in another region, in another time,
should not fail to bear witness to the choices we make today. Funding
for this plan will go forward, but the Administration and the
government in Bogota should not be surprised that many of us will be
watching the situation there very carefully. To do less would be to
acquiesce in the possible materialization of that most feared foreign
policy scenario, another Vietnam.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I reluctantly oppose the Wellstone
amendment to transfer $225 million from the military purposes of Plan
Colombia to domestic substance abuse programs. The passage of this
amendment would endanger the success of the Administration's plan to
attempt to prevent the democratic government of Colombia from being
destroyed by narco-traffickers. While I strongly support the goal of
allocating additional funding to substance abuse prevention and
treatment programs, this cannot be achieved at the expense of the
effectiveness of Plan Colombia.
In solving the difficult problem of drug abuse and its many negative
effects, the United States must seek a balanced approach. This approach
must include funding for not only drug abuse prevention and treatment
programs, but also for international eradication/interdiction and local
law enforcement. Plan Colombia, which stresses eradication and
interdiction of narcotics at their source, is a useful part of our
nation's overall strategy to end drug abuse.
Colombia now supplies approximately 80 percent of the cocaine and
heroin consumed in the United States. The Plan Columbia aid package,
which has been designed by the Administration and the Colombian
government, is
[[Page S5504]]
a comprehensive attempt to stem this flow of narcotics. The package
includes important funding for counter-narcotics support, economic
development, and human rights programs.
A particularly important goal of this initiative is the promotion and
protection of human rights in the Andean Region. In this respect, the
Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations bill makes important
contributions. The bill provides approximately $138 million in funding
for efforts to protect human rights, strengthen the judicial system in
Colombia, and support peace initiatives. In addition, all assistance to
Colombian armed forces is contingent on a screening of security forces
to ensure that they have not been implicated in human rights
violations.
Drug abuse has taken a terrible toll on our country. It has led to
increased levels of crime, a clogged judicial system, and most
dramatically, the ruined lives of our nation's citizens and their
families. It is for this reason that I am committed to effective drug
abuse and treatment. I have worked hard to win Senate passage of
legislation which would enable qualified physicians, under strict
conditions, to prescribe new anti-addiction medications aimed at
suppressing heroin addiction. I have also strongly supported government
funding for state and local community-based programs for drug
treatment. In Fiscal Year 1999, the federal government spent
approximately $5.6 billion on domestic programs directed at the
reduction of drug demand.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in reluctant opposition to the
amendment offered by the Senator from Minnesota.
While I share his conviction that we as a country must do more to
reduce the demand for illegal drugs in our society, I do not believe we
should undermine our assistance for Plan Colombia to pay for increased
domestic drug treatment and prevention programs.
Mr. President, I recently visited Colombia to assess what our aid
could accomplish. I went to see the scope of drug crop cultivation and
processing, to look into the political context, the human rights
situation, the goals of the Pastrana Government, and to assess the
capabilities of the military and the police.
I went with an open mind, though I was concerned about the reported
abuses of human rights and with the effects of Colombian cocaine and
heroin on the streets of New Jersey and other states.
I left Colombia convinced that we can help Colombia and help America
by cooperating in the fight against drug production, trafficking, and
use.
Mr. President, aid for Plan Colombia is strongly in the U.S.
interest. While there can be legitimate differences of opinion about
the exact content of the aid package, such as what kind of helicopters
should be provided, we must use the opportunity to cooperate with a
fellow democracy to fight the scourge of drugs which harms both our
people.
Colombia's political will is strong. While the political situation in
Colombia is uncertain, President Pastrana and the Colombian Congress
have backed away from forcing early elections and appear to be working
out their differences. But the Colombian people and their elected
representatives want an end to the violence. They support peace
negotiations with the FARC and ELN guerrillas.
And they know the violence will not end as long as it is fueled by
drug trafficking and its dirty proceeds.
The U.S. and Colombia have a symbiosis of interest in combating drug
production and trafficking. While the Colombians mainly want to end
financial support for various armed groups, they are highly motivated
to cooperate with our main goal--eliminating a major source of
narcotics destined for the United States.
Mr. President, we absolutely need to improve protection for human
rights in Colombia. The Colombian people face very real risks of
murder, kidnaping, extortion, and other heinous crimes, so they always
live in fear. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the violence.
The Colombian Government--including the military and the police--take
human rights issues very seriously.
We need to hold them to their commitments to make further progress,
as the Senate bill language Senators Kennedy and Leahy and I authored
would do.
Mr. President, was particularly impressed that the independent
Prosecutor General's Office--known as the Fiscallia--is firmly
committed to prosecuting criminals, particularly human rights
violators. But in meeting with Colombian human rights groups, I learned
that the overwhelming majority of human rights abuses are committed by
the paramilitary groups, followed by the guerrillas.
Colombia must sever any remaining ties between its military and the
paramilitary groups and treat them like the drug-running outlays they
are. On the whole, winning the war on drugs in Colombia should do more
to improve security and safeguard human rights than anything else we or
the Colombian government can do.
To return to the amendment now before us, Mr. President, I believe we
need to keep working to reduce demand for drugs here in America, but
not at the expense of cutting efforts to eliminate a major source of
drugs to our country.
We have a tremendous opportunity--if we are willing to devote a
reasonable level of funding--to drastically curtail the production of
cocaine and heroin in Colombia, while supporting democracy and the rule
of law in that country. And, since Colombia is the source of most of
the heroin and 80 percent of the cocaine sold in the United States,
this is a real opportunity to help address the drug problem in our own
country.
I agree with the Senator from Minnesota that America must do more to
reduce the demand for drugs, particularly by helping those already
addicted. But we should not take away from our support of Colombia's
efforts in the process.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I remind my colleagues that the
amendment I have introduced with Senator Boxer takes nothing away from
interdiction. It does not take away from this package. We are focused
on the support for the military in the southern part of Colombia. That
is what this is about. This is an amendment that would transfer $225
million from aid to the Colombian military for the push into southern
Colombia into domestic drug treatment programs. It is that simple. It
is not about not providing assistance to Colombia. It is not about not
focusing on interdiction.
A number of different questions have been raised. To respond to some
of what has been said, I will respond to the comments of my friend from
Delaware.
It is important to note that right now in our country, according to
ONDCP--General McCaffrey and others have talked about this quite a
bit--there are about 5 million people in need of treatment and only
about 2 million receive it, private or public. That means about 3
million people, more than half of the people who need treatment, don't
get any at all. Why aren't we dealing with the demand side?
We have a bill out here, almost a billion dollars, and the majority
leader comes to the floor and says this is all about the war on drugs.
I am saying, how about a little bit that focuses on the demand side in
our country. Let us have some funding for drug treatment programs for
people in the United States. Yes, we have some money in the budget, but
it is vastly underfunded.
The 2000 budget for SAMHSA altogether is $1.6 billion. This is the
block grant money that goes to drug treatment. The States, which are
down in the trenches using a different methodology, report that close
to 19 million people in our country are going without any treatment.
The ONDCP estimates, moreover, that 80 percent of the adolescents in
our country who are struggling with this problem are getting no
treatment at all. For women who are struggling with substance abuse
problems, 60 percent of them get no treatment at all. In some regions
of the country, the waiting list for treatment is 6 months long or
longer. The overall cost to our country for elicit drug use is about
$110 billion a year, according to the ONDCP. Right now we are spending
$1.6 billion on a block grant program that gets money down to the
communities for treatment.
If anybody thinks this is just an inner-city problem, consider a COSA
report entitled ``No Place to Hide,'' which showed that drug use,
drinking
[[Page S5505]]
and smoking among young teens, is higher in rural America than our
Nation's urban centers. According to this report, eighth graders, 13-
year-old children in rural America, are 50 percent more likely to use
cocaine than those in urban areas--I remember when I heard Joe Califano
say this; I was stunned--and 104 percent more likely to use
amphetamines, including methenamine. Drug treatment is needed to treat
addiction and to end the demand for drugs. This is not just an urban
problem.
We are talking about taking $225 million out of this almost-billion-
dollar package for Colombia. We are saying, cannot any of this be put
into treatment, if this is going to be called the war on drugs
legislation, as the majority leader identified it. I think we have had
a different debate on the floor. What I am saying as a Senator from
Minnesota is, can't we take some portion of that and deal with the
demand side? Can't we put some money into the war on drugs in our own
country? If 80 percent of the adolescents aren't receiving any
treatment and need some help, can't we get some help to them?
This amendment is supported by Legal Action Center, National
Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, National Council
on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Partnership for Recovery, and State
Association of Addiction Services.
Again, I say to my colleagues, this amendment, when all is said and
done, is basically saying to Senators that we can provide assistance to
Colombia, and we should.
We should provide extensive assistance, including interdiction, but
at the same time we ought to avoid entanglement in a decades-old civil
conflict and we ought to avoid partnership with an army implicated in
severe human rights abuses. Moreover, I am saying we can take at least
a small portion of the resources and put it where it will do the most
good, and that is in providing funding for drug treatment programs at
home.
I just want to echo the words of my colleague from California. It is
quite incredible to me that we can find the money for the war on
drugs--close to a billion dollars--for Colombia, but we can't take $225
million and put it into community-based treatment programs in the war
on drugs in our own country.
Moreover, we have in this legislation--and I think in particular this
may interest the Chair--a shift via a 7-to-1 ratio from money for
police to military. This is particularly worrisome because, right now,
one human rights organization after another--and we have our own State
Department report on violations of human rights abuses by paramilitary
groups. It points out that we have a country where civilians make up 70
percent of the casualties in that horrible war, and paramilitary groups
linked to the army commit over 75 percent of the abuses.
I say to my colleagues, again, President Pastrana has made the
political decision that he wants to conduct a military campaign in the
southern part of the state. All of a sudden, this debate has shifted
because Senators have come out here and have said: Yes, Senator
Wellstone, we are taking sides and we should take sides. If President
Pastrana says he needs money from us to support his military in this
counterinsurgency effort in the southern part of Colombia with U.S.
supporters on the ground with them, and if we don't stop this in
Colombia, then, God forbid, for the whole future of South or Central
America--I have heard this before--at least let's have this debate out
in the open.
I know this is a debate about a war on drugs, in which case I would
say, yes, yes, yes. I would say, we have in this package support for
the Colombian Government, but if we are going to have a war on drugs,
do it in our country and deal with the demand side and put more into
community treatment programs. I think we win that argument. I am sure
the vast majority of people in Minnesota agree. If you are going to
spend money on the war on drugs, put some money into our own country.
We have a package out here that basically says, for the first time, we
are going to be directly aligned with the military campaign in
Colombia, in the southern part of Colombia.
I have some very real doubts that militarizing this conflict is going
to somehow be a successful war against drugs. Moreover, as I have said
earlier, I have some very real doubts, which are expressed by human
rights organizations and religious organizations and a whole lot of
people in our country and in Colombia, that we should be taking sides
and we should be supporting a military which, as recently as this year,
has been unwilling to change its practice and stands accused by all of
the reputable human rights organizations of human rights violations.
Do we want to align ourselves with this military, with these
paramilitary groups that have committed such terrorism against
civilians and are responsible for most of the violence in that country?
I have not a shred of sympathy or support for the guerrillas, the left-
wing, the right-wing, any of them.
The question is, If it is a war against drugs, don't we want to put
some money into the war against drugs here? Other than that, do we want
to take sides in this military conflict? That is what my colleagues
have been talking about today, and they say we have to. They say that
if we do, we will be able to--we have language in this legislation that
will safeguard against human rights violations by the military, that we
will be able to invest this money in the military operation in southern
Colombia and make sure everything will be above board. Frankly, I think
that is problematic at best.
I am not sure people in Colombia or in the United States have the
faintest idea what we are about to do. We haven't been able to stop any
of these human rights abuses over the years. But now, all of a sudden,
we are going to be right in the middle of this and take sides, and we
are going to be aligned with this military campaign in southern
Colombia, and we say we are going to vet it and make sure there aren't
any human rights violations.
Never mind that all the human rights organizations on the ground say
that will not work and the religious community says it is a profound
mistake; that all sorts of government organizations in Colombia with a
tremendous amount of credibility say, don't do this; don't align
yourselves with this military campaign in southern Colombia. We are
being told, no problem; we can vet this now.
I also want to say to my colleagues I don't think we have taken these
human rights abuses, either directly by the military or the military
assigned with these paramilitary groups, very seriously. Again, that is
a declaration from social and human rights nongovernment organizations
in Colombia; there must be 45, 50 organizations, or more. We just
disregard them. They are saying, yes, interdiction, give us the
package. But they are saying don't align yourselves with this military,
with such a horrendous, horrific record of violence, murder, violation
of human rights--alignment with the worst of the atrocities that have
been committed Colombia--just as we don't want to side with the left-
wing guerrillas.
Why are we now taking sides?
Again, some of my colleagues come out here and say this amendment is
basically taking away assistance to Colombia. It is not. Senator Boxer
did a great job on that point. We can take a couple hundred million
dollars and put it into the war on drugs in our own country. We deal
with the demand side. It is so naive to believe that all of what we see
in our inner cities and our rural areas and suburbs, all of the
addiction, all of the substance abuse which destroys people's lives--it
is so naive to believe that if we now put money into a military
campaign in southern Colombia, this is the way to fight a successful
war on drugs. We have been down this road forever and ever and ever and
ever. When are we going to get serious about dealing with the demand
for drugs in our own country and the treatment programs? I don't know.
My colleagues just sort of give the human rights question the back of
the hand in this debate. I have here the annual Human Rights Watch
Report World 2000--I will read it again--talking about the paramilitary
killers and how stark they are in their savagery, and all the ways in
which the military has turned a blind eye to it, and sometimes it is
connected to these groups. And now we want to put several hundred
million dollars into supporting this military directly in a campaign in
southern Colombia with some of our people on the ground with them?
[[Page S5506]]
I have to be concerned about the path we are taking. I am not going
to bore my colleagues with the statistics.
Let me ask the Chair how much time I have.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has approximately 15 minutes
remaining.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this amendment is a sensible approach
which permits extensive assistance to Colombia while safeguarding U.S.
interests and avoiding entanglement in a decades-old civil conflict and
partnership with an army implicated in serious human rights abuses.
Moreover, it moves resources to where they will do the most good; that
is, providing funding for drug treatment programs at home.
In my State of Minnesota, according to the Department of Human
Services, there are 21,277 people who have requested treatment for
substance abuse and have not been able to receive it. An additional
4,000 received some treatment but then were denied further treatment
because resources weren't available. Most cited lack of funds to pay
for the treatment, or they were put on a long waiting list when they
needed the treatment the most. Others said treatment services were not
appropriate for their needs--women with children, people with
transportation problems, people who were trying to find jobs and needed
treatment. This amendment calls for some balance.
When we started this debate several hours ago, the majority leader
came out on the floor and in a very heartfelt way said this is about
the war on drugs; this is about what is going on in Colombia and the
ways in which that country is exporting their drugs to this country;
they are killing our children.
If it is about the war on drugs, then let's make it balanced. Let's
support efforts to have a war on drugs in Colombia. But let's also
support the war on drugs in our own country. Some of this money ought
to be put in treatment programs.
It is absolutely naive to believe we are going to be able to deal
with the substance abuse problem in our country without dealing with
the demand side. It is shameful that we have so little for the
prevention and the treatment programs. This amendment takes just a
little over $200 million and puts it into community-based treatment
programs.
I doubt whether there is a Senator, Democrat or Republican, who
either does not know a friend or even a family member who struggles
with alcoholism or drug abuse. We ought to be doing a much better job
of getting the treatment to people. This war on drugs is focused on
interdiction. It is focused on a military solution in Colombia. I argue
that it is one-sided. I would argue it is naive.
Second, I have today read from about five different human rights
organizations' studies, human rights organizations that I believe
command tremendous respect, I hope, from all of us. I read excerpts
from the State Department report of this past year. I read a letter
signed by 70 nongovernment organization, human rights organizations,
and people who were down in the trenches in Colombia. They all said it
would be a tragic mistake for our Government to now move away from
supporting police, supporting interdiction, supporting a lot of efforts
in Colombia, and shift a considerable amount of money to a direct
military campaign in southern Colombia--a military aligned with
paramilitary groups and organizations that have committed most of the
violence in the country, a military with a deplorable human rights
record. It would be a tragic mistake for us now to become directly
involved in this civil war. It would be a tragic mistake for our
Government to support this military with Americans on the ground with
them in southern Colombia. What are we getting into?
I conclude this way: I do not agree with some of my colleagues who
have said that if we don't do this, it is the end for Colombia, and
watch out for all of South America and Central America. I have heard
that kind of argument before. It is eerie to me. It has an eerie sound
to me.
I do not agree that we should take sides in this military conflict.
Instead, I think we should be providing all of the support we can to
President Pastrana in his good-faith effort to deal with drugs in this
country, to build democratic institutions, and to have economic
development. I do not believe we should turn a blind eye away from the
blatant human rights violations of the military. I think it is
extremely one-sided to ``fight a war on drugs'' which won't work, which
will militarize our foreign assistance to Colombia, which will have our
country directly involved in this military conflict, away from at least
providing a small amount of money for community-based treatment
programs.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Florida.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, Senator McConnell is controlling time, but
he is not here. Could I ask how much time is under Senator McConnell's
control?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator McConnell has 5 minutes remaining, and
Senator Wellstone has 8 minutes remaining.
Mr. GRAHAM. May I request 3 minutes of the remaining time of the
opponents of this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 3 minutes.
Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair.
I strongly support the approval of this assistance for Colombia.
For the past 8 months I have chaired, together with General Brent
Scowcroft, a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Colombia. This
bipartisan Task Force released an Interim Report in March of this year
which recommended that Congress approve the administration's aid
request for Colombia, with two modifications. The first, that
additional support should be provided to Bolivia, Peru, and other
countries in the region, has been incorporated into the bill by the
Appropriations Committee. The second modification, that additional
trade benefits should be part of the package, I will address with the
introduction of separate legislation later this week.
Let me explain why I, and the Task Force, feel so strongly that this
assistance package for Colombia needs to be approved.
There is a crisis in Colombia that demands our immediate attention.
While Colombia has experienced violence and guerrilla insurgencies for
many years, the current crisis is unique in several important ways.
First, Colombia is experiencing record violence which is killing over
25,000 Colombians each year. More than half of all kidnapings in the
world occur in Colombia. The FARC and ELN guerrilla forces and the
paramilitary groups are escalating their violence in ways that have not
been seen before.
Second, our success in reducing coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia
has shifted the production and cultivation of coca to Colombia, with an
explosion of coca cultivation in southern Colombia in the past five
years. Over 90 percent of the cocaine on our streets comes from
Colombia. More importantly, the guerrilla forces operating in Colombia
have become directly involved in narco-trafficking. Where they once
provided protection for drug traffickers, they now are directly
involved in the production and transport of illegal drugs. This
provides them with an almost limitless source of revenue. For the first
time we have a guerrilla organization that does not rely on external
sources of funding.
Third, the Colombian economy is experiencing its worst recession
since the 1930s. An unemployment rate of over 20 percent is
exacerbating social and political tensions. The violence is deterring
investment making economic recovery more difficult.
Fourth, Colombians are leaving Colombia at record rates. Last year
over 100,000 Colombians moved to my State of Florida alone. Hundreds of
thousands more have come to other parts of the United States to escape
the violence and instability.
It is this combination of factors that led President Pastrana,
working closely with our administration, to propose Plan Colombia. To
many, Plan Colombia is only about drugs, but in reality it is a broad
plan that addresses five key areas: the peace process; the Colombian
economy; the counter-drug strategy; justice reform and human rights;
and democratization and social development. It is this broad based plan
to rebuild the Colombian state that needs our support.
[[Page S5507]]
Some have said that Plan Colombia is only about providing military
equipment to Colombia. Indeed, Plan Colombia is much more comprehensive
and far-reaching. But, the United States contribution to Plan Colombia
is heavily weighted toward military equipment. There is a good reason
for this. Plan Colombia is a $7.5 billion plan, of which the Colombians
themselves will provide over $4 billion. They are looking to the United
States to provide about $1.6 billion and to international community for
the remainder.
It is appropriate that the portion of the funding being provided by
the United States focus on the counter-drug part of Plan Colombia since
this is of particular interest to us and since we are the only country
that can supply that type of support. It is also the part of Plan
Colombia that is most compelling for U.S. involvement, since it
involves keeping drugs off of our streets.
Some have argued that there are risks associated with providing this
type of support to Colombia. That is true, but there are also risks
associated with doing nothing, and I believe that the risks associated
with doing nothing are far greater than the risks involved with helping
the Colombian Government and the Colombian people.
We have important national interests at stake in Colombia that would
be critically harmed were the current situation in Colombia to
continue. First, Colombia is the oldest democracy in South America and
has been an important partner in bringing democracy and democratic
values to all of our hemispheric neighbors, with the exception of Cuba.
We must act to preserve democracy.
Second, the entire Andean region is threatened by instability and
Colombia is the center of that instability. Failure to stem the crisis
in Colombia could lead to increased instability in Ecuador, Bolivia,
Peru, Panama, and Venezuela. A stronger Colombia means a stronger
region and a stronger Western Hemisphere.
Third, a complete breakdown in Colombia would make it even more
difficult to control the drug trafficking. And the illegal networks
that are set up by drug traffickers also involve other illegal
activities that threaten our security, such as money laundering and
financial crimes, arms trafficking, human smuggling, cargo theft, and
terrorism.
Fourth, Colombia is an important trading partner for the United
States. It is South America's fourth largest economy and the fifth
largest export market in Latin America for the United States. Colombia
has the potential to be an economic engine for the Andean region and an
even bigger market for U.S. goods. The violence and instability in
Colombia are preventing economic growth, including the exploitation of
large, newly discovered oil fields that would help to reduce gasoline
prices in the United States.
Fifth, the exodus of Colombians, nearly 1 million in the past 5
years, further exacerbates our own immigration problems. A further
downturn in the Colombian situation could lead to an immigration crisis
that would directly impact the United States.
Finally, for those concerned about human rights, and I consider
myself in that category, the deteriorating human rights situation in
Colombia can only be reversed through the implementation of Plan
Colombia, with the government gaining affective control over its
national territory. President Pastrana has demonstrated his will to
improve the human rights situation in Colombia, and has taken concrete
steps, including dismissing senior military officers, to demonstrate
his determination.
With all of this at stake it is hard to understand why we have not
been able to move faster to approve this assistance package. And there
are direct costs associated with this delay. Last December I visited
the first of the Colombian counternarcotics battalions that are to be
trained and equipped by the U.S. as part of Plan Colombia. The U.S.
Special Forces soldiers who were training them reported that their
moral was excellent and they were as capable at their tasks as any
soldiers they have ever trained.
Unfortunately, this battalion has been doing very little other than
calisthenics since my visit, largely because of our failure to move
this assistance package. They are limited to where they can reach by
foot, since they have no mobility capability. They have no fuel for the
helicopters they were given on an interim basis by the State
Department. The valuable training they received is wasting away, and
their skills are fading from lack of practice.
In addition, the second Colombian counternarcotics battalion has been
vetted but are unable to begin training. Eradication of coca and opium
poppy has been halted. Crop substitution and alternative development
programs are also on hold, as are the human rights and judicial reform
programs that are included in the legislation. Meanwhile, the
guerrillas and the drug traffickers continue to strengthen and expand
their operations. The peace process has floundered and the violence has
escalated. Each day we wait the situation worsens, the regional
instability increases, the drugs flow out of Colombia, and the money
and effort required to turn the situation around increases.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to act now and support this vital
package of assistance for Colombia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 2 minutes
remaining.
Mr. McCONNELL. I reserve the remainder of my time.
____________________