[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8427-8430]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN HAITI

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, as we prepare to begin the debate 
concerning the provisions within the fiscal year 2001 foreign ops 
appropriations bill, I would like to call my colleagues' attention to 
an event scheduled to take place this Sunday, May 21, referring to the 
parliamentary elections of Haiti.
  The openness, the fairness, the transparency of these elections that 
will be held on Sunday are critical to Haiti, and really place the 
country and its people at a crossroads. These are the elections that 
have been postponed, postponed, postponed, and postponed. Finally, it 
appears as if they will actually take place this Sunday.
  The world is watching to see how Haiti conducts these elections. The 
international community and the United States will be judging Haiti 
based on these elections. I think it is a fair statement to say that 
future assistance, future aid from the international community, from 
the private sector, private organizations, as well as governments, as 
well as the United States, will depend certainly to some extent on how 
these elections are conducted. Not how they turn out but how they are 
conducted. The world will be looking on Sunday to see the amount of 
violence connected with these elections; to see whether or not the 
elections are fair, transparent, and open; to see what kind of 
participation takes place among Haitian people.
  We have every right to be concerned about these elections. We have a 
right to be concerned because of the investment the United States has 
made in Haiti, which I will discuss in a moment. We have a right to be 
concerned because these elections have been postponed, postponed, and 
postponed. We have a right to be concerned because we want to see 
whether or not this fledgling democracy is, in fact, making progress.
  So, yes, the world will be watching. We are concerned, quite 
candidly, about these elections because of the action and because of 
the inaction of Haiti's political elite, its upper class, what they 
have not done and what they have done during the past 5 years.
  We all had high expectations for Haiti when the United States sent 
20,000 U.S. troops to that island in 1995 to restore President Aristide 
to power. At that time, we understood it would take time for Haiti to 
become politically stable. We understood it would take time to 
establish a free and open market system in that country. We understood 
it would take time to invoke the rule of law and privatization of 
government-run-and-owned industries. And we understood it would take a 
while to establish a fair and impartial and functioning judicial 
system.
  Quite tragically, time has passed and very little, if anything, has 
changed. The phrase ``Haitian Government'' is an oxymoron, given 
President Preval has been ruling by decree without a democratically 
elected Parliament since January 1999. Political intimidation is 
rampant, with violence and killings increasing as the elections 
approach. Furthermore, the Haitian economy is, at best, stagnant. Haiti 
remains the poorest nation by far in our entire hemisphere, with a per 
capita income estimated at $330 per year per person, where 70 percent 
of the people are either without jobs or certainly underemployed.
  When we deal with Haiti, the statistics don't matter. We are not even 
sure how reliable they are. Anyone who has visited Haiti--and I have 
had occasion to visit Haiti nine different times in the last 5\1/2\ 
years--sees where that economy is and sees the years of wrenching, 
unbelievable poverty in Haiti, a country that is just a short trip from 
Miami.
  Absent a stable and democratic government, Haiti has no hope of 
achieving real and lasting economic nor political nor judicial reforms. 
That is why Haiti is finding itself stuck in a vicious cycle of 
despair. It is a cycle in which political stalemate threatens the 
government and judicial reforms, which, in turn, discourages investment 
and privatization.
  Caught in this cycle, the economy stands to shrink further and 
further until there is no economic investment to speak of at all. With 
no viable law enforcement institutions in place, and given the island's 
weak political and economic situation, drug traffickers operate with 
impunity.
  I have talked about this on this floor on several different occasions 
in the last few years. I predicted several years ago that we would see 
the amount of drug transportation in Haiti, the amount of drugs flowing 
through that country, go up and up and our own Government has estimated 
today that prediction has, tragically, come true. Our Government 
estimates Haiti accounts for 14 percent of all cocaine entering the 
United States today. Haiti is now the major drug transshipment country 
in the entire Caribbean. We estimate 75 tons of cocaine moved through 
Haiti in 1999. That represents a 24-percent increase over the previous 
year.
  Quite frankly, Haiti has become a great human tragedy. While the 
decade of the 1980s witnessed unbelievable changes in Central America, 
with countries moving from totalitarian regimes to democracies, that 
was the great success story of the 1980s. Many of us hoped in the 
1990s, and into the next century, we would see that same progress made 
in Haiti. Tragically, that has not taken place. Haiti now stands as a 
missed opportunity for reform, a missed opportunity for progress, for 
growth, and for development. The true casualties, the real victims of 
all the turmoil and instability are the children. They are the victims 
because the small band of political elite in Haiti has not moved 
forward and taken seriously the need for reform. They have missed their 
opportunity.
  The economy is worse, human rights are being violated, and there is 
very little optimism today in Haiti. These dire conditions are every 
day killing children. Haiti's infant mortality rate is approximately 15 
times that of the United States. Because Haiti lacks the means to 
produce enough food to feed its population, the children who are born 
suffer from malnutrition, malnourishment. They rely heavily on 
humanitarian food aid. Additionally, because of the lack of clean water 
and sanitation, only 39 percent of the population has access to clean 
water. It is estimated only 26 percent have access to sanitation. 
Diseases such as measles and tuberculosis are epidemic.
  Given this human tragedy, we can't turn our backs on these children 
as mad as we may get at the political leaders of that country, as 
frustrated as we may become with the political leaders of that country. 
Haiti is part of

[[Page 8428]]

our hemisphere, and what happens in our hemisphere, what happens in our 
own backyard, is very much our concern. If we ignore the situation, we 
risk another massive refugee exodus for our shores, and drug 
trafficking through Haiti will continue to increase and increase and 
increase.
  We must seek ways to foster democracy building in Haiti and promote 
free markets in the rule of law. We also must fight drug trafficking 
through Haiti and expand agricultural assistance through 
nongovernmental organizations. Let me say there are good nongovernment 
organizations that are in Haiti working to make a difference in spite 
of the Haitian Government. I must also say I have personally seen and 
visited a number of Americans in church groups who are down in Haiti 
risking their lives, making a difference every day to save the lives of 
children.
  Finally, most important, I believe we must ensure that humanitarian 
and food assistance continues to reach the Haitian people, especially 
the children. We cannot just sit back and let the political elite in 
Haiti starve these orphan children as well as the elderly and the 
destitute.
  Ultimately, though, Haiti will not really progress until its 
political leaders and the elite of the country take responsibility for 
the situation and commit to turning things around. The tragedy of the 
last 5 years is that the elite in Haiti has not made a decision that it 
is in their interests and in the interests of their country to change 
things. Until the elite of Haiti decides to make these changes, it is 
going to be very difficult, no matter what we do, to have any 
significant progress made in that very poor country.
  Haiti can succeed as a democracy if, and only if, the elite has the 
resolve to hold open elections, create free markets, reduce corruption, 
improve its judicial system, respect human rights, and learn how to 
sustain an agricultural system that can feed its people. Nothing the 
United States does with regard to Haiti can provide long-term permanent 
solutions unless and until the Haitians take democratic and societal 
reforms seriously and work in earnest to create a stable political 
system in a free and democratic market economy. That is why the world 
is watching to see how these elections are conducted this Sunday.
  Let me turn to another portion of the foreign operations 
appropriations bill. There is language, as I have just talked about, in 
regard to Haiti in this bill. I wanted to speak about Haiti this 
evening on the Senate floor because of that language in the bill but 
also because of the upcoming elections.
  There is another provision in the foreign operations appropriations 
bill we hope we will be taking up shortly. This provision has to do 
with our neighbor to the south, Colombia.
  Let me first commend the chairman and ranking member on the 
subcommittee, Senator McConnell and Senator Leahy, and also the 
chairman and ranking member of the full committee, Senator Stevens and 
Senator Byrd, for working with me, for working with Senator Coverdell, 
Senator Grassley, Senator Graham of Florida, and so many others on the 
Colombia/Andean emergency antidrug assistance package which is now part 
of this bill.
  This assistance to Colombia would provide approximately $934 million 
to support Colombian efforts to eliminate drugs at the source, to 
improve human rights programs, to improve rule of law programs, and to 
increase economic development--$934 million is what is contained in 
this bill. Passage of this assistance package is crucial to helping 
keep drugs off our streets here at home and to bring stability to our 
hemisphere.
  No one questions there is a real emergency that currently exist in 
Colombia. Colombia is a democratic success story that is now in crisis. 
Thanks largely to the growing profits from illicit drug trafficking, 
Colombia is embroiled in a destabilizing and brutal civil war, a civil 
war that has gone on for decades with a death toll that continues to 
rise and that we estimate is at least 35,000 people. We have seen and 
continue to see the tragedy of Colombia unfold in our newspapers; we 
see the violence that is occurring there. Members of the army, members 
of the police are killed on a daily basis at an unbelievably alarming 
rate.
  Just this week we saw a graphic, horrible picture in our newspapers 
of a bomb necklacing, where one of the terrorist groups, one of the 
guerrilla groups, placed a bomb around a woman's neck, asked her family 
for money, locked the bomb so it could not be removed, and told the 
family the bomb would go off at 3 in the afternoon. The bomb squad came 
in, the army. For 8 hours they tried to get the bomb off. Tragically, 
the bomb went off. The bomb killed the woman and killed the young man 
who was working to try to free her. That is just a graphic example of 
what is occurring, in one form or the another, in Colombia every single 
day.
  Many of us on the floor were in Congress in the 1980s when we worked 
so hard to give assistance to the countries in this hemisphere, 
particularly in Central America, to drive communism out to allow these 
countries to become democratic. The 1980s are a true success story for 
this hemisphere. We paid a very heavy price, but I think most of us 
believe that was a price worth paying. We brought democracy, we brought 
opportunity to our hemisphere.
  Today the drug trade has emerged as the dominant threat to peace and 
freedom in the Americas. Communism was the threat in the 1980s. Today 
the drug trade is the threat. It threatens the sovereignty of the 
Colombian democracy and the continued prosperity and security of our 
hemisphere.
  We have devoted a good portion of this week to discussing the threat 
that is involved in the whole situation in the Balkans, specifically in 
regard to Kosovo. I think we should have; it is very important. But I 
believe what we are seeing right here in our own hemisphere, what is 
happening in Colombia, is certainly equally important and maybe more 
important than what is going on in the Balkans.
  Tragically, it is America's own drug habit that is fueling this 
threat in our hemisphere. It is our own drug habit that is causing the 
instability and violence in Colombia and in the region. Let's just look 
at what is happening in my own home State of Ohio, in Cincinnati, OH. 
In 1990, there were 19 heroin-related arrests in Cincinnati--1990, 19 
heroin-related arrests. Last year, there were 464 arrests. Law 
enforcement officers in Cincinnati understand the reason for this 
surge. Colombia produces low-cost, high-purity heroin, making it more 
and more the drug of choice. And because of our Government's inadequate 
emphasis on drug interdiction and eradication efforts, that Colombian 
heroin is making its way across our borders and in my case, to the 
State of Ohio.
  We may say, sure, Cincinnati is just one urban area, one metropolitan 
area. But if there is a heroin problem in Cincinnati, you can bet there 
is a heroin problem in New York City and Chicago and Los Angeles and 
throughout our country. The fact is that drugs from Colombia are cheap 
and plentiful in this country, so our children across America are using 
them. In fact, more children today are using and experimenting with 
drugs than 10 years ago--many more than did 10 years ago. The facts and 
statistics are startling. According to the 1999 Monitoring the Future 
Study, since 1992 overall drug use among tenth graders has increased 55 
percent, heroin use among tenth graders has increased 92 percent, and 
cocaine use among tenth graders has increased 133 percent.
  The ability of our law enforcement officers to succeed in keeping 
drugs off our streets and away from our children is clearly, directly 
linked to our ability to keep drugs produced in places such as Colombia 
from ever reaching our shores. To be effective, our drug control 
strategy needs to be a coordinated effort that directs and balances 
resources and support among three key areas: Domestic law enforcement, 
international eradication and interdiction efforts, and demand 
reduction. This means we must balance the allocation of resources 
towards efforts to stop those who produce drugs, those who transport 
illegal drugs into this country, and those who deal drugs on our 
streets and in our schools.

[[Page 8429]]

  The sad fact is, the cultivation of coca in Colombia has skyrocketed, 
doubling from over 126,000 acres in 1995 to 300,000 in 1999. Poppy 
cultivation has grown to such an extent that it is now the source of 
the majority of heroin consumed in the United States. Not surprisingly, 
as drug availability has increased in the United States, drug use among 
adolescents also has increased.
  To make matters worse, these Colombian insurgents see the drug 
traffic as a financial partner to sustain their illicit cause, only 
making the FARC and ELN grow stronger. The sale of drugs today not only 
fuels the drug business, but also the antidemocratic insurgents in 
Colombia.
  Why does Colombia matter? It matters to us, first of all, because of 
what I just talked about, and that is the drugs Colombia ships into the 
United States.
  Why else does it matter? The drug trade in Colombia is a source of 
rampant lawlessness and violence in Colombia. It has destabilized that 
country and stands to threaten the entire Andean region. Fortunately, 
in the last few years, Congress has had the foresight to recognize the 
escalating threats, and we have taken the lead to restore our drug-
fighting capability beyond our borders off our shores.
  Many of my colleagues who have worked so hard on this Colombia 
assistance package also worked with me just a few short years ago to 
pass the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, a $2.7 billion, 3-
year authorization initiative aimed at restoring international 
eradication, interdiction, and crop alternative development funding.
  With this law, we already have made an $800 million downpayment. We 
have appropriated and spent $800 million, $200 million of which 
represented the first substantial investment in Colombia to 
counternarcotics activities.
  I stress to my colleagues that the emergency assistance package 
before us is based on a blueprint that Senator Coverdell and I 
developed and introduced last October, 3 months before the 
administration unveiled its proposal.
  Like our plan, the emergency assistance package before us this 
evening goes beyond counternarcotics assistance and crop alternative 
development programs in Colombia. This plan targets Latin American 
countries, including Bolivia, Peru, Panama, and Ecuador.
  This is a regional approach, and a regional approach is crucial. Peru 
and Bolivia have made enormous progress to reduce drug cultivation in 
their countries, and they have done it with our assistance. What has 
taken place in those two countries has been a success story.
  An emphasis only on the Colombian drug problems risks the spillover 
effect of Colombia's drug trade shifting to other countries in the 
region. That is why resources are needed and provided in this bill for 
countries such as Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, and Peru.
  I also note the positive contributions to our antidrug activities 
made by the chairman and ranking member, Senator Burns and Senator 
Murray, of the Military Construction Subcommittee. We passed today the 
military construction bill which includes investments in equipment and 
support activities as part of our Colombia-Andean region antidrug 
strategy.
  That bill also includes funding for the Coast Guard to provide 
supplies, reduce the maintenance backlog, and for pay and benefits for 
Coast Guard personnel.
  Funding in that bill also was provided for six C-130J aircraft, which 
give critical support to our counternarcotics efforts.
  That bill also contains funding for forward operating locations which 
will provide the logistic support needed for our aircraft to conduct 
detection and monitoring flights over the source countries. The closure 
of Howard Air Force Base in Panama, as part of the Panama Canal 
transfer treaty, severely diminished this capability. That is why we 
need these forward operating locations, and that is why the money 
provided in this bill is so important.
  As I stated a moment ago, a balanced approach is critical to the 
success of our counterdrug policy. We must continue to invest resources 
in our law enforcement agencies--Coast Guard, Customs, and the Drug 
Enforcement Agency. They are our front line of defense against drugs 
coming into the United States. They also work with law enforcement 
agencies of other countries to eradicate and interdict drugs. These 
agencies need additional resources to ensure the increase in illicit 
drug production in Colombia does not result in a corresponding increase 
in drugs on the streets and in the schools of our country.
  Addressing the crisis in Colombia is timely and necessary. It is in 
the national security interest of Colombia and the United States to 
work together and with our other partners in the hemisphere to curb the 
corroding effects of illicit drug trafficking. The bottom line is that 
an investment in the Andean region to help stop the drug trade and 
preserve democracy is a direct investment in the peaceful future of our 
entire hemisphere. It is in our national interest.
  I know there are some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle who 
have expressed some hesitancy and reluctance about the provision in 
this bill concerning Colombia. I want to take a moment to direct my 
comments specifically to them.
  The Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act that Congress passed 
several years ago was an attempt to change the direction of our drug 
policy. What do I mean? I consistently said during this speech and 
other speeches on the floor that we need a balanced drug policy. We 
have to have treatment, education, domestic law enforcement, and we 
have to have international law enforcement and interdiction. We have to 
do all these things. We have to have a balanced approach.
  We found 3 years ago when we looked at what had happened in our 
antidrug effort over the last decade that beginning with the Clinton 
administration, that administration began to reduce the percentage of 
the money we were spending on international drug interdiction.
  When George Bush left the White House, we were spending approximately 
one-third of our total Federal antidrug budget on international drug 
interdiction, basically on stopping drugs from ever getting inside the 
United States--spending it either on law enforcement in other 
countries, on Customs, on DEA, on crop eradication, stopping drugs from 
ever reaching our shores. That was about one-third of our budget. That 
is what we were spending when George Bush left the White House.
  As of 2 years ago, after 6 years of the Clinton administration, that 
one-third has been reduced to approximately 8 to 10 percent, a dramatic 
reduction in the amount of money we were spending on international drug 
interdiction.
  Some of us in this body--Senator Coverdell, myself, and others--
decided we had to change that, so we introduced the Western Hemisphere 
Drug Elimination Act. A corresponding bill was introduced in the House 
of Representatives. Then Congressman Hastert, now Speaker Hastert, 
played a major role in working on that bill, as did others.
  The bottom line is, we passed the bill, it became law, and we have 
begun to change that direction. The initiative for that came from this 
side of the aisle. We saw what the administration was doing. We said 
the policy has to change; we need to put more money into interdiction, 
and we need to begin to do that. We did do that.
  Fast forward a couple more years as the crisis in Colombia continued 
to get worse and worse. Again, Senator Coverdell, Senator Grassley, 
myself, and others put together a new package. It was a package aimed 
specifically at dealing with the crisis in Colombia. We introduced that 
package last October. After we introduced that package, a few months 
later the administration finally came forward and said: Yes, we have to 
do something about Colombia. But it was our initiative that started it.
  It brings us now to where we are today. The initiative that Senator 
Coverdell, Senator Grassley, and others introduced has now been

[[Page 8430]]

wrapped into this bill. The good news is that the administration is on 
board.
  The administration also came forward with a proposal to deal with 
Colombia and has stated their understanding of the severity of this 
problem. So that is where we are today.
  I ask my colleagues to look at the big picture and to think about 
what is in the best interests of the United States. This package is not 
put together for Colombia. It is not put together for the Colombians. 
It is put together for us. It is put together because Colombia is our 
neighbor, and what happens to our neighbor, in our neighbor's country, 
affects us.
  Why? Trade. Colombia is a major trading partner of the United States. 
What happens in that country affects our trade. The drugs that come 
into this country, as I have already demonstrated in this speech, come 
from Colombia to a great extent. The drugs that are killing our young 
people come from Colombia.
  So we have a very real interest in stabilizing that country, keeping 
that country democratic, keeping that country a trading partner of the 
United States, and to help that democratically elected government in 
Colombia help themselves to beat back the drug dealers, to beat back 
the guerrillas.
  They face a crisis that is different than any crisis that any other 
country has probably ever faced. Many countries have faced guerrilla 
movements throughout history. But I do not know any other country that 
ever faced a guerrilla movement that was fueled with so much money. 
There is this synergistic relationship now that has been created 
between the drug dealers and the guerrillas. Each one benefits the 
other. Each one takes care of the other. The end result is that the 
guerrillas are emboldened and enriched by the drug dealers' money. So 
it is a crisis that Colombia faces, but it is a crisis that directly 
impacts the United States.
  I ask my colleagues to remember how we got here, to remember what 
role this side of the aisle played in trying to deal with the Colombia 
problem and deal with the problem in Central America, South America, 
what role we played in trying to increase the money that we are 
spending and resources we are spending on stopping drugs from coming 
into this country.
  If we recall that history, and recall what the situation is in 
Colombia today, we will be persuaded that this is the right thing to do 
and that this provision in this bill that deals with an aid package for 
the Colombia-Andean region is clearly in the best interests of the 
United States and is something that we have to do.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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