[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 133 (Saturday, August 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4204-S4205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                COLOMBIA

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, on August 7, Colombia's newly elected 
President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Marquez will begin 
their 4-year term. Their election represents a sharp break from the 
past.
  The new government is inheriting every imaginable problem. 
Regrettably, the country has made minimal progress since the signing of 
the 2016 Peace Accord that ended five decades of armed conflict with 
the FARC, and in some parts of the country, narcotics-related violence 
is worse. The previous government failed to make a dent in the number 
of assassinations of social leaders or to hold members of the armed 
forces and police accountable for past atrocities. Compounded by the 
public health and economic shocks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and a 
flood of Venezuelan refugees, Colombia remains a highly polarized 
society, divided between urban elites and the impoverished countryside. 
It will take many years to reverse decades of deeply rooted neglect, 
discrimination, poverty, and lawlessness.
  Since 2020, the United States has invested more than $11 billion in a

[[Page S4205]]

counter-drug strategy in Colombia that was never sustainable and has 
largely failed, as it has failed in Mexico and Central America. As long 
as the demand for illegal drugs in this country remains high, the only 
solution in source countries like Colombia is a strategy based on 
sustainable social and economic development, a professional, 
accountable police force, and a judiciary that is independent, 
accessible, and that the people trust.
  Colombia has the advantage of being a democracy with exceptionally 
talented people and extraordinary geographic and biological diversity. 
But if the underlying causes of conflict and poverty are not addressed, 
the country's future stability is far from assured. I urge the White 
House, the State Department, and the Defense Department against 
pursuing the same old failed strategies. With a new government in 
Bogota, there is the chance to avoid repeating past mistakes and to 
measure progress not in the short term by the amount of money spent or 
the number of hectares of coca destroyed, but by long-term investments 
in institutions and local communities. The people of rural Colombia 
need our support, but not in the form of myopic approaches that have 
consistently failed to get at the root of the injustice, impunity, and 
inequality they have been struggling with for generations.
  The U.S. Congress will do its part to support a strategy designed by 
the Colombians that is not just more of the same, that is consistent 
with the peace accord, that has the support of civil society, and, most 
importantly, that has the support of rural Colombians who have paid the 
highest price of past policies that have failed them.

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