[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17186-17195]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            COLOMBIA AND THE ANDEAN INITIATIVE ON NARCOTICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
to include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order this 
evening.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Indiana?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).


                          The State of Africa

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the 
distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for his kindness, 
because I am joining the Congressional Black Caucus in their Special 
Order regarding the State of Africa.
  It is this time, Mr. Speaker, that many of us have come to the floor 
of the House to discuss foreign policy issues that have great concern 
to us, and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) for his 
leadership over the years as the chairman and ranking member of the 
Subcommittee on Africa on the Committee on International Relations, and 
for his leadership and consciousness about the continent of Africa. 
Likewise, let me thank the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus 
for his wisdom in having us be pointed this evening, pointedly speaking 
about these very vital issues.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise on this floor tonight to speak globally about 
what the continent represents to the United States of America. Besides 
the historical perspective of Africa's desire to be an ally and a 
friend with the United States over the years, throughout the 20th 
century, from World War I to World War II, it should be known that 
after 9/11, as many of us were quite aware of, some of the loudest 
voices in opposition to the horrific incidents that occurred in New 
York on 9/11, in Washington, and in Pennsylvania was the continent of 
Africa. Their voices were those of support of the United States in our 
fight in the war against terrorism. So this bond with Africa and the 
United States is deep, it is strong, and it needs to be further 
cultivated.
  Clearly, President Clinton established one of the strongest bonds in 
his long and extended visit just about 4 years ago. It was a visit to 
not only develop friendships, but to develop economic partnerships in 
the fight against HIV/AIDS. So I rise today to say that this momentum 
has not been carried forward, and it disturbs me that we are now 
debating why a friendship with Africa; why the intrusion, if you will, 
or the assistance in the issue of Liberia. Why? Because there are 700 
million individuals, and that number is growing, who desire a strong 
and related friendship.
  I am very impressed with the Global Business Council, headed by 
Ambassador Holbrooke, that brought together businesses from the private 
sector to fight the devastation of HIV/AIDS. I think it is important 
for Americans to be aware of the fact that so goes the continent of 
Africa, so goes many of the issues here in the United States. Of the 42 
million people infected worldwide, over half, 29 million of them, live 
in sub-Saharan Africa. Also a higher proportion of women are living 
with HIV infections or suffering from AIDS than men in Africa. As of 
2002, women in sub-Saharan Africa represent more than half, 
approximately 58 percent, of all adults living with HIV/AIDS.
  We can applaud the work that has been done here in this country, as I 
said, with the Global Business Council; also with the work in this 
Congress, where we passed legislation in a bipartisan manner to give 
$15 billion in aid, as well supporting the Millennium Fund to help in 
our fight against HIV/AIDS and to help in Africa. But it cannot be 
continued if we do not embrace the momentum and embrace it in a 
collaborative way. The President needs to consult with the members of 
the Congressional Black Caucus and the African American community and 
others on policies dealing with Africa.
  It is sad that on this trip we have not found an opportunity to 
collaborate and not recognize the voices being raised in the media 
proclaiming that Africa is a strategic partner. So I rise today to be 
able to reinforce the fact that we are stakeholders in the continent of 
Africa. One of the largest oil-producing nations is Nigeria, and just a 
week ago I hosted the chairman of OPEC, the distinguished chairman from 
Qatar, who responded that Nigeria and Africa is a very vital partner, 
just as Iraq is an important partner, as relates to oil production in 
the world.
  There was no hesitancy, no question of whether there should be a vote 
as related to going into Iraq. And now, not recognizing or maybe 
failing to recognize the strategic relationship we should have with the 
continent, and particularly Liberia, there seems to be some debate. I 
happened to have been one who opposed the war in Iraq, and I can 
distinguish this. I would hope these troops would be peacekeeping. I 
would hope they would be a collaboration with the United Nations. I 
would hope they would be a collaboration with African troops. And I 
would hope we would recognize that Liberia has asked for us to come.
  So I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, as we discuss the state of 
Africa that we discuss and say that Africa has had many successes; that 
we have seen the growth in Nigeria. We understand their stock exchange 
gives a 30 percent recovery on investments. We have heard from the 
President of Botswana just a few weeks ago speak about democratization 
and stability, and that country has been a stable government for more 
than 25 years.
  We realize we have work to do, and that means to help them fight in 
the war against terrorism, help them fight in the war against HIV/AIDS, 
and help them fight, as our distinguished colleague in Rome, Eva 
Clayton, has said, help them fight with the issues of food and 
nutrition. And, yes, we must help Africa build its growth and its 
opportunities for jobs and give resources for the young people who want 
to be educated.
  There is much that we can do as partners with Africa. Let us not 
stand a distance back while many are slaughtered and ask the question, 
why Africa? I would hesitate to say, Mr. Speaker, that it should not be 
a question of

[[Page 17187]]

race, whether or not Africa happens to be a continent that is filled 
with Africans, people of color, black people. I hope that is not the 
dividing line that gives us reason to question when we ran without 
being invited to Iraq.
  So I hope that as we look at this, and I thank the distinguished 
gentleman once again as I close, let me just simply say the state of 
Africa is good, it is a partner, it is a friend. And I would only hope 
that we look at Africa in our fight on the war against terrorism, in 
our fight, of course, for the opportunities to fight against HIV/AIDS, 
and, yes, to fight for peace and stability, and, of course, Mr. 
Speaker, to be able to say that Africa is our friend because it has 
stood with us. It is now time for us to stand with Africa and as well 
to stand with it as it fights for peace and stability for its people.
  I thank the distinguished gentleman for his kindness.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, for calling this special order to discuss 
the very important issues that are facing Africa. The most perilous of 
those issues is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has 
claimed more than 28 million lives in Africa. Current estimates suggest 
that 42 million are living with HIV in Africa.
  Sadly, as a region, Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of 
individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Of the 42 million people 
infected worldwide, over half 29 million of them live in Sub-Saharan 
Africa. Also, higher proportions of women are living with HIV infection 
or suffering from AIDS than men. As of 2002, women in Sub-Saharan 
Africa represented more than half, approximately 58% of all adults 
living with HIV/AIDS. The infection rate is particularly high among 
young girls.
  In some African nations, infection rates are five times higher in 
young women then young men. What is more, AIDS now ranks as the number 
one cause of death in Africa and the fourth leading cause of death 
globally. These numbers are staggering and should strike a nerve in you 
each time you hear them. You have likely heard these figures before. 
However, these facts should constantly be reiterated in order to 
emphasize the dire situation that Africa is in today.
  We must recognize that AIDS is not only a threat to the health of 
populations; it is a threat to the social, economic, and political 
stability of nations as a whole. In the past, what we had failed to do, 
particularly in Africa, was to chart a plan of action to address HIV/
AIDS as a social crisis that affects all spheres of everyday life. Now 
we have allocated funds to provide for the prevention of the disease in 
Africa. Now is the time for a targeted response that aims to address 
the multiplicative effects of HIV/AIDS in each sector. This includes 
making sure that young girls have access to educational opportunities 
and trying to develop methods by which women do not have to rely on 
their husbands for their economic stability. It is time to stop placing 
old bandages on fresh wounds and to begin the process of healing our 
beloved Africa.


                     conflict resolution in liberia

  Mr. Speaker, another great challenge facing the continent of Africa 
is armed conflict. Clearly, many countries have the need for effective 
conflict resolution. Liberia is one of the countries. It is on the 
front page of our paper and it should be at the front of our minds.
  Liberia was founded during the nineteenth century by freed American 
slaves. Once a nation founded on the premises of freedom and 
opportunity, the Liberia of today is wrought with political upheaval 
and social unrest. Liberia has been the site of intense devastation and 
profound loss due to years of civil war. The latest war has lasted for 
approximately three years and has caused immense disruption to the 
social and political fabric of the region.
  The health infrastructure in Liberia has crumbled, schools have 
become refugee camps, and people have taken the law into their own 
hands. Nearly half of the Liberian population has been forced to flee 
to neighboring countries or to internationally assisted refugee camps 
in Liberia. Large numbers of innocent, young children are being made 
into child soldiers. Those children that are able to escape the life of 
forced military service are often left with little to no options aside 
from living on the streets. This conflict has brought about political 
destabilization on a mass scale, increased economic disparity, and what 
can only be described as societal chaos. And although a cease fire was 
recently agreed upon, fighting and civil disobedience within the 
country has yet to subside.
  The United States has had a long historical relationship with Liberia 
dating back to its original founding. Liberia has served as an 
important ally for the U.S. particularly during the Cold War era. It is 
in recognition of this long-standing relationship that the U.S. should 
serve as a vigilant presence in the efforts to bring calm and civility 
to this war ravaged country.
  The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) should work 
diligently to ensure that the basic human rights of those seeking 
refuge from the war in Liberia are preserved at all costs. A consistent 
supply of humanitarian aid in the form of shelter, food, water, and 
medical care should be supplied to the region as well. We must do all 
we can to ensure that peace and stability return to Liberia.


                     trade and economic investment

  On the matter of economic development, Africa is a continent rich 
with some of the most sought after natural resources in the world. Yet, 
this region has not been able to use its natural resources for 
activities that will stimulate growth in domestic economies and 
generate increases in national profit. Mr. Speaker, to create a stable 
Africa we need to promote the competitiveness of African goods and 
services. We need to create avenues by which these products can become 
profitable in the global market economy.
  Mechanisms need to be established to promote increased working 
partnerships between U.S. and African businesses and organizations. 
Ideally, these initiatives should be directly targeted through existing 
trade and investment programs like the African Growth and Opportunity 
Act (AGOA) but other possibilities also exist. Established in 2000, 
AGOA offers tangible incentives for African nations to continue their 
efforts to open their economies and create free markets. If we hope to 
encourage our partners in Africa to strive for economic strength, then 
we need to ensure that they receive the training necessary to comply 
with the rules and regulations of both AGOA and the World Trade 
Organization (WTO).
  Finally, in regions where conflict and civil war have decimated local 
economies, efforts should be made to provide the necessary technical 
assistance to help troubled African states, like Liberia and Sudan, 
transition out of conflict by fostering feasible economic activities 
that may ultimately lead to effective resolutions.

                              {time}  2115


                                Colombia

  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, tonight's Special Order is going to be on 
Colombia in particular and the Andean Initiative on Narcotics. I 
appreciate the gentlewoman's assistance over the years and having gone 
on a Codel with us down in the Caribbean last summer when we worked on 
the narcotics issue, and while we may have nuances of differences on 
the African question, Members are aware we cannot have superficial 
involvement in any area of the world anymore; and Africa is, indeed, a 
key area.
  The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), chairman of the 
Committee on Government Reform, and myself as chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Drug Policy and the co-chair the Speaker's Drug Task 
Force and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) just returned 
yesterday from Colombia, and I would at this time yield to the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) 
mentioned, this past weekend I had the pleasure of going to Colombia by 
invitation of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and the gentleman 
from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis). I am a member of the Speaker's Drug Task 
Force, and we are going to celebrate the third anniversary of the 
Colombia Plan. We have spent a lot of money in Colombia; and we have 
tried to thwart the growing production and distribution of drugs, 
primarily heroin and cocaine. I really wanted to see firsthand if we 
were being effective, if we were spending our money wisely.
  What I saw was beyond my expectation. I think we are doing very, very 
well in that area. The Colombians, with our help, are working very hard 
to eliminate the illegal drug production. They do this by spraying, by 
intercepting drugs by land, sea and air, and are actively breaking up 
drug laboratories, places of production.
  I had an opportunity to ride in the boats that they use to intercept 
the drug traffic on the high seas. These are little speed boats. They 
will basically

[[Page 17188]]

be watching the radar and they will see a little blip. They run out and 
jump in the boat and race out and intercept the ship, the boat, 
whatever. We had an opportunity to do this, and it was a lot of fun to 
see these guys in action, and they did a great job. I was very, very 
impressed with their professionalism and the fact that they were doing 
such a good job. And yet after we left, after the Americans left, the 
Colombians were there and went about their business. Since then, they 
have intercepted trafficking in cocaine, heroin, whatever.
  The Colombians are fighting this battle. Certainly we are providing 
some help and resources. We were able while I was there to go to a 
Colombian hospital and see some of the soldiers that had been injured 
in the last few weeks. One of them had lost a leg. One of them had 
shrapnel blow up in his face and lost an eye and part of his face. But 
their spirits were high. The young man that lost his leg was talking 
about going ahead and trying to remain in the military and continue to 
fight the battle.
  So the Colombians are making great headway. They are taking back 
their country from the terrorists and thugs that are financing this 
effort by kidnapping their own people and ransoming them and producing 
illegal drugs. I think what I like about the way that the Colombian 
Plan is structured is in the sense we have an exit strategy. We are 
providing a lot of resources, a lot of know-how, but the Colombians 
have done a tremendous job of picking up on that.
  I have a good friend that is an ophthalmologist, an eye doctor; and 
he will go to Africa and he will work on the natives and do cataract 
surgery and glaucoma surgery. And while he is there, he will help a lot 
of people; but where he really helps is while he is there, he teaches 
the surgeons there how to do the procedures so when he leaves, the 
surgeons that are there go on about their business and continue to care 
for people, continue to do a good job.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for 
asking me to go on the trip. I appreciate the gentleman's leadership in 
this area, and I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) for 
taking on this scourge that is a problem to America and so many other 
places in the world. I really feel like the Colombia Plan is doing just 
what we want it to do.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Boozman) and thank him for his leadership in the meth issue. I know 
that is very important in northwest Arkansas. We are trying to work out 
doing a hearing on a new initiative on that possibly next week partly 
because of the gentleman's leadership in encouraging us to do that. We 
are all trying to deal with cocaine and heroin, meth, and Oxycotin 
hitting our districts.
  Mr. Speaker, let me put this in context. From the world map, Members 
can see South America just south of the United States. Panama is 
connected to Colombia, and at one time in the Andean countries, which 
include Peru and Bolivia straight south of Colombia, that was at one 
point nearly 100 percent of the world's coca production and a large 
percentage of the heroin production. The other parts of the world that 
heroin is predominantly coming from, a little bit from Mexico and a 
little from the Golden Triangle, that is still significant in 
Afghanistan and that region kind of northwest or to the left of India, 
the far part of the map, that Hamas and Hezbollah are using to finance 
their efforts. Most of the heroin on that side of the world is flowing 
to China and Europe. But all of the coca in the world is coming out of 
this region. At one point it was fairly evenly split between Peru, 
Bolivia, and Colombia with Colombia being mostly a processing country; 
but it is increasingly concentrated in Colombia, taking one of South 
America's oldest democracies and turning it into a battle zone.
  One other thing we can see from this is why we have a Plan Colombia 
and an Andean Initiative. If we look at that as a funnel, as it comes 
out of Colombia, if we do not get it when it is being grown and it gets 
to the border, it can go to the north side of Colombia into the 
Atlantic or to the southwest side of Colombia into the Pacific. Once it 
gets up to the United States border, it becomes even harder to stop. Or 
it can go across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, across the Pacific Ocean 
to Asia, and the farther one gets from the actual poppy and coca 
fields, the harder it becomes, which is why we have dedicated and made 
Colombia the third largest recipient of foreign aid in the United 
States behind Israel and Egypt because the drug problem in the world 
right now is centered in that zone; and if we cannot tackle it there, 
it becomes far more expensive and far harder to tackle the problem as 
it moves out of Colombia.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), who 
has been leading an effort for Members of Congress to learn Spanish. 
The gentleman has taken an aggressive interest in that region along 
with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger), the 
subcommittee chairman.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Souder) and commend the gentleman for his leadership and efforts to 
eradicate the threat of narcotics coming onto American soil. I commend 
and am thrilled to participate tonight in this Special Order.
  Imagine this here in the United States, if our judges were 
assassinated, our candidates for Congress, our candidates for President 
were threatened with kidnapping and assassination. Imagine if our 
elected officials were threatened and ordered to resign their positions 
at gunpoint, and this threat emerged from narcotraffickers here in the 
United States. Imagine how the American people would feel about the 
need to deal with this threat to our democracy and such a threat to our 
Nation's security.
  Well, the people of Colombia have been threatened with these types of 
threats for decades where you have narcoterrorists organize military 
groups, in fact three groups, two left wing, one right wing, who are 
funded through the trafficking of narcotics, cocaine and other drugs. 
And, of course, they threaten something we hold very dear, which is 
freedom and democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, Colombia is a wonderful country. It is a country of 
great history, great heritage; and today its democracy is threatened at 
gunpoint by those who make their means through the trafficking and 
production of narcotics.
  I support Plan Colombia. I support President Bush's Andean Regional 
Initiative. Colombia is important to the United States. Not only does 
Colombia share our values of freedom and opportunity and free 
enterprise, but Colombia is an important partner in the western 
hemisphere for the United States. It is a trading and economic partner. 
We share a culture and heritage. Latin America is important to us, and 
Colombia is an important part of Latin America. Colombia continues and 
has always been a strong ally and friend of the United States. It is a 
significant U.S. trading partner and supplier of oil.
  In fact, Colombia, as I noted, is today the longest-standing 
democracy in Latin America, and it is currently under siege by a number 
of guerrilla and paramilitary groups that we in the United States have 
designated as terrorist organizations, designated terrorist 
organizations by the United States Government. These terrorist groups 
today obtain their primary means and monetary support by the 
destructive drug trade.
  Unfortunately, our friends in Colombia suffer from this; and today 
Colombia serves as a source of 90 percent of the cocaine and a majority 
of the heroin found on the streets of America, significantly 
contributing to the 19,000 drug-induced deaths in the United States 
each year. And many of those 19,000 drug-induced deaths here in the 
United States are children, kids in our home communities back in 
Illinois and Indiana and Arkansas and all 50 of our great States.
  Today, Congress needs to support Plan Colombia. We also need to 
support President Bush's Andean Regional Initiative, legislation that 
recognizes the

[[Page 17189]]

importance of Colombia. Today, as we approach the 3-year anniversary of 
Plan Colombia, it is important tonight to review the progress being 
made by the United States' support for the freely elected government of 
Colombia.
  I am proud to say and pleased to say that our support of Plan 
Colombia has given us positive results that we can point to. In fact, 
there are many strong indicators that Plan Colombia and the Andean 
Regional Initiative programs are beginning to bear fruit.
  Eradication of coca plants has led to major decreases in cocaine 
production, and purity of the drug has dropped as well. Law enforcement 
efforts have led to increased seizures on land and sea. Extraditions of 
drug traffickers to the United States is at an all-time high, and I 
note something that is so important for us, and that is the 
professionalism and the performance and the human rights record of 
Colombia's armed forces, and in particular that the counterdrug 
battalions and the Colombian National Police have shown tremendous 
improvement, as well as getting results.

                              {time}  2130

  I would also note that alternative economic development programs are 
also beginning to show great promise, and utilization of expanded 
authorities are being fully leveraged by our friends in Colombia to 
more effectively attack both drugs and terrorism. These are positive 
things that we can report happening right now today in Colombia, and 
there are many others. But the job is not done yet, and that is why we 
stand here tonight to continue our support for Plan Colombia as well as 
the Andean Regional Initiative. Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional 
Initiative has put Colombia on the road to success, but as I noted, the 
road is long, and we must continue to support Plan Colombia.
  I would note that Colombia today is in much better position to win 
this fight against narcoterrorism than they were 3 years ago, not only 
because of U.S. support, but also because of Colombia's freely elected, 
democratically elected President Uribe. Since taking office in August 
of 2002, President Uribe has shown an unwavering commitment to 
achieving democratic security and has brought new hope to Colombia. He 
has acted quickly and decisively to address terrorism and narcotics 
trafficking while also promoting human rights. His national security 
strategy shows his determination to deny terrorists the drug-related 
resources they use to finance their operations against the people of 
Colombia. And President Uribe has made tough decisions necessary to 
improve Colombia's economic prospects, moving forward and ahead on tax, 
pension and labor reforms.
  Overall President Uribe has energized Colombia, receiving high praise 
and high job-approval ratings from his own people, the Colombian 
people. No doubt with President Uribe's leadership, Colombia is on the 
right track to restoring security and prosperity, and we in Congress 
applaud Colombia's efforts of late and recognize the sacrifices that 
Colombian people have made over the last few decades.
  Again, Colombia matters, Latin America matters, and I know there are 
meetings that will soon be held in Europe, and my hope is our friends 
in Europe will join the United States in supporting the people of 
Colombia and supporting the freely elected democratic Government of 
Colombia. And again, I note that no Latin American country has a longer 
history of democracy and freedom than Colombia. They are our friends. 
They are our allies. They stand with us in the values that we as 
Americans stand for, freedom and democracy and free enterprise. We in 
this Congress want to ensure that the people of Colombia continue to 
have freedom and opportunity, and that democracy grows and flowers and 
blooms, and that the people of Colombia have the opportunity to enjoy 
economic freedoms and free enterprise. So I would urge our European 
friends to join with the United States in supporting Colombia in its 
war against terrorism and to support Colombia's war against 
narcoterrorism which is threatening democracy right in our own 
neighborhood.
  I again thank the gentleman from Indiana for his leadership in the 
war against drugs which finances, and let us remember the primary 
source of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere is narcotrafficking. That 
is why his leadership is so important, my good friend from Indiana.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois, 
and as he knows, as a long-time close personal friend of the Speaker, 
from the State Legislature in Illinois, and since we have been to 
Congress that our Speaker has been a leader on this issue, and he asked 
us to do this Special Order tonight. He asked us to go last weekend 
down to Colombia and has stood firm in making sure that this initiative 
was funded, make sure that we stayed focused on the narcotics issue. 
And it is our appreciation for his leadership in addition to each of us 
trying to take responsibility and work to help solve these problems 
that are big. Whether it is the streets of Joliet, Illinois, or the 
streets of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and throughout the rural parts of his 
district and the rural parts of my district, we see that drug problem, 
along with alcohol, as being the number one problem of crime and 
breakup of families, the reason people lose jobs. It is a problem that 
is not only a world problem, but it is a problem back home where the 
people are talking about it at their dinner tables, they are talking 
about it with their kids hopefully, but they are certainly talking 
about the byproducts of illegal narcotics. So I thank him also for his 
leadership.
  What I would like to do is lay a little bit further out how we got 
into the Andean Initiative and the Colombian problem, how some of it 
has evolved over the years here in Congress and with our funding, some 
of the primary questions that have been coming up often in the news 
media, but with my colleagues here in Congress and address some of the 
myths that have been plaguing us in these debates.
  First, let me describe a little bit what our Criminal Justice, Drug 
Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee was working with. When the 
Republicans took over Congress in 1995 and reformulated the committee 
that I now chair to focus on drug policy so we had one committee that 
pulled together oversight from what was 23 different committees looking 
at the narcotics problem, as we looked at this, we saw certain basic 
things that needed to be addressed. One was eradication. Two was 
interdiction. If we failed to eradicate it, we had to try to intercept 
it before it got to our borders. If it got inside the United States, we 
needed to do law enforcement, which explains the DEA, local police 
forces, State police. Then if we could tackle the problem at either end 
through prevention or treatment, we could try to reduce the demand 
side, too.
  So there were five prongs: Eradication, interdiction, enforcement, 
along with prevention and treatment. And in that part it became 
apparent that the Andean region and the Colombian region was most in 
danger because of the drug habits of the United States and particularly 
Western Europe.
  Myth number one is that there is a civil war going on in Colombia. 
There is not a civil war going on in Colombia. The FARC as well as the 
ELN, and even counting the paramilitaries, we are talking about a 
percent of the population that is, quite frankly, less, far less, than 
the prison population in the United States. What we are basically 
talking about are terrorists and criminals who have not been captured. 
Some of them early on may have started with the revolutionary idea that 
they wanted power and did not want to get it through a democratic 
process.
  We have already heard from my colleagues that this is the oldest 
Latin American democracy, that has had many stable elections. They have 
had a history of some violence for numerous geographical reasons and 
others, but so have we in the United States. So have we in other parts 
of Western Europe. But a few dissidents that are a tiny minority of a 
country do not constitute a civil war. It is a rebellion of people who 
want to take the law into their own hands.
  Over time, as we had the ELN which used kidnapping as its main route, 
we

[[Page 17190]]

saw the FARC, which was the largest of the groups, decide to finance 
themselves by providing first protection and then actually running the 
growing operations after some of the big cartels were broken up; the 
Medellin and the Cali cartels, for example. Then we saw communities try 
to form a contract with so-called paramilitaries. Sometimes they were 
former members of the military. Sometimes they dressed like military 
and they were really kind of like Pinkerton detectives on steroids, 
that people wanted to protect themselves, so they hired them. Pretty 
soon that group got corrupted as well by narcotics, at least much of 
them, whatever their original intention was, to protect themselves from 
others because they could not establish order in the community, and the 
government was not strong enough to do so or whatever. Now we have 
three groups, still a tiny percentage, maybe numbering 40,000 in a 
country of 28 million, a tiny percentage of the country. It does not 
constitute a civil war. Their motives are not civil war. Their motives 
are to make money on narcotics.
  Some of them now would like to buy peace and get power without having 
to go through a democracy, but President Pastrana, who more than bent 
over backwards, who turned every cheek times three to try to negotiate 
with them and wound up with what? Nothing. He had the right motives. I 
and others backed him in that effort to try to do that as we tried to 
rebuild and organize the Colombian military and the Colombian national 
police. But the bottom line is they did not want to come to the peace 
table. They are not interested in peace. They are terrorists, they are 
interested in selling narcotics, protecting narcotics and terrorizing 
villages.
  We were sold to the United States Congress that Plan Colombia and the 
Andean Regional Initiative was going to be a joint effort, and while I 
have talked about the United States using the narcotics, the truth is 
we only consume about 50 to 60 percent of the cocaine production coming 
out of Colombia. Europe is consuming huge quantities of that, but also 
Canada, the region itself, and others, and Asia, because that is where 
they are getting their cocaine, and this should not all be the United 
States' problem. But some of the European countries and other countries 
who in the beginning promised huge amounts of dollars to help Colombia 
have not followed through. Their argument was they did not want to 
spend money on the military and law enforcement violations.
  Okay. Let us accept that premise, which I do not think it was a very 
good premise, but let us accept that premise. Now as we are making 
progress in Colombia, and as villages are finally getting stabilized 
where people are again ready to be a judge or to be a mayor, where is 
Europe? Where are the alternative development dollars that they said 
were coming? Where is the help with setting up those law enforcement 
systems? If the United States has been willing to bear, along with 
Colombia, 100 percent of the burden even though 50 percent of the 
problem is not ours, and none of this basically is Colombia's, these 
groups would not be armed if it was not for drug abusers in the United 
States, and Western Europe, and Japan, and Canada and other places 
using cocaine and heroin.
  We stimulated and funded the terrorism that is occurring in Colombia, 
the thousands of deaths, the police who are getting massacred, the 
individuals who are getting massacred. They are getting massacred with 
our money. It is our problem, not Colombia's problem. They need the 
help with it. Their people are using this. Their people are growing it. 
But they met our market demand. We have an obligation to help put order 
back and to help them reestablish their country.
  The United States is helping Colombia, and Colombia has taken 
tremendous efforts, particularly under President Uribe, to go after the 
eradication, to go after the law enforcement, to get some stability in 
these areas. We need partners around the world now to follow through on 
their commitments, because if we cannot provide alternative 
development, if we cannot provide jobs, if we cannot make decent 
schools, if we cannot get a legal system that works with local police 
and mayors, we will go back to chaos with our money, because we have 
been the drug abusers and we need allies around the world.
  Let me step back again and illustrate. Earlier I talked about the 
funnel, and let me in particular here show one of the problems that we 
face in the United States before I get into some specifics. My 
subcommittee has been holding hearings on the borders in the north and 
south border. We just did a hearing in El Paso. We spent 3 days here in 
this region of Texas. We did a hearing over here in Sells. We have had 
a hearing over here at San Isidro. We did a hearing and visited 
multiple times in Nogales and the area of Douglas, Arizona.
  Let me guarantee the Members something. If the American people are 
saying it is not working, and we are not getting it stopped in 
Colombia, let me assure the American people something. We cannot get 
control of that border, and this is the easiest border to control in 
the south. We have virtually no control over the water coming in from 
the Caribbean. We have had to pull our boats in for homeland security, 
but once they are coming in water and going up the coast, it has been 
very difficult in the Caribbean region. It is even worse in the 
Pacific. As they come in with little boats up the California coast and 
out into that water, it has been very difficult to intercept.
  We have 1 million plus illegal immigrants making it across the border 
every year in the south border, 1 million. That is a huge number. Some 
of them are running small amounts. Most of them are not. But it shows 
how porous the border is. We have thousands of Border Patrol. We are 
doing everything we can to control that and will continue to try to 
close it, but as we start to close the border, let me tell the Members 
about a hearing we had here in the Tohono O'odham Reservation. That day 
while we were having a hearing, one person was interdicted. It is a 
town of maybe 2,500 on an Indian reserve, the Tohono O'odham. Their 
police did one seizure of 200 pounds, one seizure of 300 pounds, one 
seizure of 500 pounds, and one of 400 pounds; a total of 1,500 pounds 
in 1 day. Then seven SUVs went through later in the day, of which one 
got through, but they managed to catch a number of them. They found a 
hole in this zone. A National Park Ranger was killed in the Organ Pipe 
National Monument, and as we squeezed other parts of the border, they 
moved to that hole. This is important because the previous 3 months 
they had 1,500 pounds, the previous year they had 1,500 pounds, and in 
that day between 9 and 2 o'clock, they got 1,500 pounds even though we 
had Federal people around.
  There is so much stuff moving across, we cannot even intercept it 
all, even though we keep boosting the number of Border Patrol people. 
We will continue to make the efforts because when that comes in, the 
two biggest cocaine busts in my district's history, or it appears to be 
two of the biggest, if not the two biggest, occurred last 3 weeks in 
Fort Wayne, Indiana.

                              {time}  2145

  One of them came from Texas, and I believe the other through Arizona, 
and it was Colombian.
  Now, as that moves through, it is not a theoretical exercise we are 
talking about here. When you are driving down the road at night and you 
do not know whether somebody is whacked out on coke or whether they 
have injected themselves with heroin or are high on this high-grade 
marijuana, that has nothing to do with the historic marijuana that you 
hear about from the sixties and the news media jokes about. That is not 
what we are talking about in marijuana. We are talking about THC 
content; in my hometown a lot of the marijuana is selling for more than 
coke and heroin. This stuff is potent.
  Think about it. When you get behind the wheel, whether you want to 
legalize drugs and whether you think we should back off from the drug 
war, do you feel safe? Does your family feel safe, knowing that the 
more that pours across there, the cheaper it is, the more of it there 
is, the more you could be killed driving home or there could

[[Page 17191]]

be a robbery at the bank where you get caught in the shoot-out, or 
watching neighborhoods in your communities get sucked under, or people 
operating a bus or truck or equipment as they are building, using this 
drug?
  Harmless crime? Harmless drug? Baloney. This is the biggest threat to 
the United States, 30,000 people dying because of illegal narcotics. We 
talk a lot, and I am on the Committee on Homeland Security, but the 
numbers we are looking at on an annual basis dwarf what we have seen 
yet.
  Yes, one nuclear weapon and we could all be destroyed; but the fact 
is, while we are talking about that, we are watching people get killed 
every night. Tonight, in every city of the United States, somebody is 
going to be impacted. Maybe shot in some cities; in other cities it 
will be a dad or mom who use their money for drugs when they should 
have been supporting their family, or not being with their kids or 
abusing their kids or spouse abuse or not making their child support 
payments because they used it on illegal narcotics. Those are the real 
problems with that, and we are not going to be able to control, no 
matter how hard we try, enough of our borders; but we will improve 
that, but we have to get it at the source.
  Now, let me deal with a couple of other questions. We heard a little 
bit from my colleagues about is it working? Let me start out with, 
first off, how do you define ``working''? I constantly hear Members 
saying, well, there is still drugs.
  Well, should we stand up when we deal with spouse abuse and say, you 
know, we funded spouse abuse last year and there is still spouse abuse. 
In fact, we funded spouse abuse programs for the last 10 years, and 
there is still spouse abuse. In fact, we have tried to deal with spouse 
abuse ever since the American Republic was started, and there is still 
spouse abuse, so we should give up?
  On child abuse, when we come down here on Labor-HHS later this week 
and talk about funding for child abuse, could you imagine if somebody 
stood up and said, well, you know, we have been fighting child abuse 
the last few years. We spent hundreds of millions of dollars over 
decades here, and there is still child abuse here in America.
  Of course there is. There will always be drug abuse. The root problem 
in my opinion is sin. It may be different variations and different 
people have different problems; but every day, somebody is newly 
exposed to the temptations of narcotics, and no matter how much we try 
to prevent it, and treatment is after the fact, and treatment is very 
important and I am pretty much on most treatment bills that are moving 
through Congress, but the truth is, that is treating the wounded.
  We cannot just treat the wounded; we have to get into prevention. But 
there is a funny thing about prevention. You can convince people they 
should stay off drugs, and then they break up with their girlfriend and 
go to a party and all of a sudden they forgot everything they learned 
in the drug prevention program. They lose their job. Somebody packages 
something more potent or they are smoking cigarettes or having a beer 
and somebody says you want a little bit bigger high? And all of a 
sudden, at the very least, they are psychologically addicted, if not 
physically addicted. New people are exposed by the minute and by the 
hour. It is not something that you can ever fully eliminate.
  But we can control it. And we have made successes. Even though we had 
a surge between 1992 and 1994, of which we are only making a little 
progress, the truth was that its peak was at 1994.
  Let me briefly mention another method. ``Just Say No'' does not work. 
Under Just Say No under the Reagan administration, we had 8 straight 
years of decline that carried through the first 2 to 3 years of the 
Bush administration, 11 years of decline.
  In that 11 years of decline, it went down so far that even in the 
surge up in 1991 to 1994, in the last year of the Bush administration 
and the first two of the Clinton administration, where now we would 
have to have a 50 percent reduction to get back to Reagan, even that 
peak in the United States was less than the peak in 1980 before Just 
Say No. So it is a myth that Just Say No did not work. It worked, 
because it was not Just Say No. That was one part. We did treatment, we 
did interdiction, we did eradication where necessary, but we fought and 
we had a consensus of how to fight it.
  When we lost the consensus, the problem ``upped'' again. Now we have 
had a couple of years of success. But now they are better funded.
  So among the things we are hearing about Colombia is, for example, 
everybody violates human rights. It is simply not true. There are 
degrees of violations of human rights, that human rights are not 
respected much at all by the FARC and the ELN. Kids are kidnapped, they 
use 14-year-olds in their military, they terrorize people. They do not 
respect human rights at all.
  There have been problems with the paramilitaries, and the question 
is, are they too tied to the military? The answer is we have worked 
hard in this government. Uribe's government is committed to trying, for 
once and for all, to prosecute them all.
  When you go and talk to the counternarcotics brigades of the Defense 
Department, off to the side what they will tell you is literally when 
there is a firefight with the terrorists, they have to have an attorney 
there. They cannot move the bodies so they can identify and make sure 
they were not shot in the back, and they do things we do not do.
  We are holding Colombia to a different standard even than the United 
States. Now, that is because we are putting money in. They have had a 
historic problem with human rights and there is an accountability with 
it.
  But it is just wrong for anybody on this floor or anywhere in the 
world to imply that there has not been tremendous progress, that we 
have not vetted these brigades better than we have ever in the past, 
and there is not accountability, and that when you go to a Colombian 
military camp, their prisons will have a number of people in it who are 
being held for possible violations, something that is stricter than any 
other process we are doing; and it is important they have that, because 
if the American people are going to put the money in, they want to know 
we are doing human rights.
  But we have been making progress and have made dramatic progress on 
human rights, and those who want to criticize the Colombian military 
and the government, I have asked people in my district too, sometimes 
they are criticizing what we do and sending our money down to violence. 
Why do they not criticize the FARC? Why do they not criticize the FARC? 
Why do they not criticize the ELN? Why is it always the government or 
the paramilitaries?
  The FARC are the ones who started it, who have violations. I am not 
defending any human rights, but let us at least acknowledge that they 
are the primary perpetrators of human rights violations, that there is 
still violence, therefore the program has not worked because there is 
still violence in Colombia.
  Yes, there is still violence. You know what? There is going to be 
violence for quite a while. They have got a lot of dollars from the 
American Government to work with. They can buy weapons. And one proof 
we are successful is they are getting more violent.
  When we were down there, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) 
and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Boozman), and I this last weekend, 
we went to a hospital. There we talked to a bunch of young soldiers, 
basically 22- to 24-year-olds. One of the solider's eyes was gone and 
his leg was gone; and he was in pretty bad shape, generally. A number 
of them were dead; he was in better shape than them.
  They died because they were trying to eradicate the drugs Americans 
wanted to buy and Europeans wanted to buy. It was not predominantly 
Colombians who want to buy it. It was our money.
  They were attacked from both sides. A number of them said it was the 
worst firefight they had ever been in. It was homemade bombs, screws 
coming at them, going into their eyes and their bodies. It was 
terrorist-type bombs, not traditional.
  Now, they have traditional weapons too. For the first time we are 
seeing it

[[Page 17192]]

looks like some arms-for-drugs shipments coming in from some of the 
arms negotiating sales places in Eastern Europe and some of the Mafia-
type around it, not the traditional definition of the word, that are 
shipping arms in there.
  We are going to see more sophisticated weapons. This myth that if we 
suddenly legalize this, that there would not be this conflict, oh, 
yeah. They are making $3 billion a year; and if we say we are going to 
legalize something, forget a second that I do not want to be driving 
down the highway worried about whether somebody is whacked out on 
drugs.
  Let us say it was not that. But they are going to suddenly give up? 
Are you going to legalize cocaine and heroin? Are you going to legalize 
whatever the next thing is? Of course not. They are not going to give 
up their market. They are going to continue to step people up to more 
potent drugs.
  They are making money on this. They are making buckets, trucks and 
boatloads of money on this, and they are not suddenly going to say, oh, 
they legalized marijuana, I think we will quit. We will just retire.
  I mean, give me a break. There is going to be violence because there 
is tremendous money; and to the degree we try to cut off the source of 
their money, they are going to continue to become more violent.
  Another question that comes with this is, yes, but you have not 
stabilized any villages. I have heard my colleagues on the floor 
testify that they have been to villages where there still is not order.
  We all know that. When you have a place in a country where people, 
judges are getting shot, mayors are getting shot, we have a president 
of Colombia whose father was assassinated, we have a vice president of 
Colombia who himself was kidnapped for 9 months, they know what it 
means.
  Quite frankly, I was sitting there in the presidential palace along 
with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) with the delegation 
for the inauguration of President Uribe, and we heard this big boom, 
and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) said I never heard a 
one-gun salute.
  They blew off part of the corner of the presidential palace. They 
were trying to aim with their howitzer, blew up a housing complex, 
killed many innocent people, shot to the left, shot to the right. They 
did not care that there were thousands of troops around. They were 
shooting from a mile and a quarter away with sophisticated equipment. 
This is a tough battle, and they do not care who they hit. Even 
President Chavez, who you would think would have some connections, was 
in the building they were shooting at.
  It is an equal-opportunity terrorist. They will hit anybody if they 
are trying to threaten their money. And we have to understand that this 
is not something you can just sit down and have a nice negotiation, 
maybe we can give them some trinkets and they will give us some 
trinkets and everybody will pat each other on the back and say, yeah, I 
will give up my $3 billion business.
  We have to establish order in those communities. The plan under Plan 
Colombia, quite frankly, is taking a little longer than we thought, 
because they have chosen to fight, because another myth is that it is a 
balloon: if you squeeze Colombia, it is going to go back to Peru and 
Bolivia. The truth is that that is hard.
  We have made progress in those countries. Some seem to be coming back 
a little bit, but it is nothing like it was, and they are trapped.
  In Colombia, if you look at this map, much of the progress is being 
made a long the Putumayo. If we squeeze in from the south, and this is 
a big coca region, the heroin is in the higher elevations. Those 
mountains, by the way, are up to 18,000 feet. I thought the topography 
here was important, because you can see most of the people are on this 
side of the mountain range. That side is the Amazon basin.
  They kidnap and harass people and terrorize people on this side, but 
most of the growing is over there. And as we start to put the pressure 
on, they move more out in the jungle. This is not an easy task. When 
you fly over, you cannot see the stuff. And the coca fields are at 
least big. The heroin poppy, you cannot see it.
  Furthermore, I have heard people say, well, they are spraying 
legitimate crops. Walk on the ground. They are smart. They can make 
more in coca than they can make in palm heart; and unless you convince 
them that you are going to provide stability and protection for them 
and there is going to be an alternative crop, they just grow it 
underneath.
  We are spraying where there is evidence that there is coca or heroin 
poppy; but as they move further in the jungle, you are farther and 
farther from any air base, you are farther and farther from re-fueling 
places, you are farther and farther from any roads. If you have a 
helicopter crash, guess what? They go in and capture your pilots, which 
they have right now with three Americans.
  The farther out we go, they are going to get there. But the farther 
out they go, guess what? They are longer in the air and we can see them 
longer. They have more risk that we are going to interdict.
  It is not true that we do not make progress by moving them. It just 
is that we are not going to eliminate the problem by moving it. We 
reduce the problem, we manage it. To the degree we reduce the amount of 
cocaine coming into the United States, we change the price and purity 
questions. They do not package it with marijuana as easily. It is 
watered down. It does not have the same potency. Addicts are not as 
difficult. You make step-by-step progress; you do not make huge 
progress.
  Now, back to the villages. They have been able to establish a 
reasonable amount of order in about half the villages. The goal was to 
establish it in more than that.
  Now what are some practical implications of that? Let me first show 
you something here. On the spraying of poppy crops, there is a 
discussion of why is this so hard to spray. First off, you have to hit 
it several times. Heroin poppy is one of the cases. They can replant 
it, so you need to do it multiple times a year.
  But, do you know what? They try to shoot down those planes. This have 
taken more hits in the last couple weeks than they had in a long time, 
because they realize the more heroin poppy that we eradicate and the 
more coca we eradicate, the more they can predict where the planes are 
going to go for eradication, because there are fewer fields to 
eradicate. So they can take their armaments and focus better on where 
we are coming.
  Another thing is that you have to have ground protection. My first 
trip there in 1996 and 1997 when we were doing some of this, I went out 
to one, I think it was in the Guaviare area, but I talked to some 
pilots whose concern was this: one of their partners had been killed 
because they would string up line that you could not see and their 
plane went through and it crossed their neck as they tried to 
eradicate.

                              {time}  2200

  So now you have groups of soldiers on the ground trying to protect 
the planes to eradicate.
  A couple of other illustrations. You can see here when you are flying 
the plane over, you have people in the fields on all sides. In 
different countries we use different things. In Bolivia and Peru, some 
were ground eradication, some were air eradication, but in that effort, 
every place you went, whether you are going after labs or field 
eradication, you have to be protected. As I have gone into the field 
and seen some of this, you have to be protected.
  I want to illustrate one other point as to why this becomes 
important. There are somewhere in the vicinity of over 200,000 
displaced people in Colombia. These people in these rural villages, as 
they are out in the villages, what started often is that the FARC will 
come in, they will say, grow coca. They can make a lot of money, they 
will bring the planes to it, and they will provide protection and 
forcibly push them into coca. Then the

[[Page 17193]]

paramilitaries would come through their villages and say, you put up 
somebody from the FARC, you are cooperating with the FARC; we are going 
to kill you; we are going to terrorize you. Then the FARC would come 
back in town and say, you cooperated with the paramilitaries; we are 
going to kill you. And these poor villages just decide: I am not 
staying here. I do not care if my family has had a farm here for 100 
years. I do not care if my family has had a business here. I do not 
want to get myself and my family killed.
  We visited the Nelson Mandela village just outside of Cartagena. Mr. 
Speaker, 35,000 people live in basic shacks with these kinds of 
streets. Right now Indiana is flooding a lot, and it looks a little 
like this, but underneath there is actual, real streets. Here, it just 
turns into mud. AID has tried to develop some alternative development 
in this area. I had two, I do not think it was these two young girls, 
but two young girls came up to me and wanted to talk to a Congressman. 
I had drifted off from the group. I quick got back after they talked to 
me. But they said, even in this camp, the FARC is hunting them down, as 
are the paramilitaries, if they believe they cooperated with the other 
side. They go right in to where we have an AID plan where it might be 
100 miles or 200 miles away from the village and terrorize them. The 
person I was with, the photographer and I decided we were going to go 
back to the rest of the group because we had not banked on them being 
in the same camp that we were.
  But these kids deal with this every day. They cannot escape. They do 
not have the type of protection that a U.S. CODEL has, a congressional 
delegation, when we go in. They have to live with it. One young girl 
sang a song as opposed to just telling a story, sang a song about how 
she was in her home and the FARC came in and shot her husband right in 
front of her and her son, the little kids wandering around in this type 
of environment.
  Now, part of the solution to that is, bluntly put, we can only do so 
many tar-paper shacks around the world. What we have to do is get their 
villages safe to the degree we can establish order and security in 
their villages. They did not want to leave their farms. They did not 
want to leave their businesses. Yes, some of them did not have 
employment and came to the cities. In Rio and in Lima and Buenos Aires 
and all over the world, you see at the edges of the cities some of 
this. But Colombia has a middle class. It is not Guatemala. It is not 
Venezuela. They have a relatively stable middle class and democracy.
  The question is, how can we reestablish it? How do we do this? That 
is why we not only need at this point to finish off what we are doing 
in Plan Colombia and the Andean Initiative, we need to have the 
Europeans follow up with their commitment to help us now to get these 
people back to work and back to their villages if we can get those 
villages safe.
  Now, another part of this is I met an amazing man. His name was 
Rudolfo Gedeon. He is president of PETCO. But he is doing one of the 
initiatives that has been so successful in Bangladesh, and that is 
microloans. In this pattern in Bangladesh, they gave little loans to 
try to build little capitalism that moves into a little bit bigger 
capitalism, that moves into a little bit more, because in so many of 
these countries you have the very wealthy people and the very poor 
people. In Medellin they started, and now they are doing in the 
Cartagena areas, a number of these businessmen working with AID are 
starting these loan processes with AID. Some AID capital, but the real 
success here is having local people be the monitors. Their loans, $1.5 
million, 8,000 loans over the last year; average loan, $200, some a 
little bit bigger, some are $60. But do my colleagues know what? 
Ninety-eight percent, two percent default rate. No bank anywhere has 
that, except in Bangladesh and a couple of these microloans, because 
they are the people themselves monitoring them.
  Now, how does this relate to the broader question?
  In this village AID has a project where they are teaching some people 
metal working, some people how to sew, how to bake, how to make crafts. 
So they teach them that. Where do they go? What are they supposed to 
do? Mr. Speaker, it is amazing: $80, $100 you can start to sew in your 
neighborhood. Pay that back, like a credit union, which is really kind 
of how this is functioning, because your neighbors are all part of 
this, and you are watching each other, and there is accountability. 
Then you can get justified for maybe a $400 loan, then an $800 loan. 
You crawl, you take baby steps, you walk, but that is how you build a 
middle class.
  But to do that, you have to have order. Some people do not 
understand, you can not give somebody $400 or $10,000 or $50,000 to 
start a business if they think their family is going to be murdered or 
kidnapped the next week.
  Somehow, we have to establish order. We have to establish credible 
government units that are not involved in human rights violations, 
which this government is committed to do. Some people say, well, I 
cannot make as much growing soybeans as I can selling coca or growing 
coca. I cannot make as much in palm heart. Do my colleagues know what? 
The kids on American street corners cannot make as much at McDonald's 
as they can being a lookout either, but that does not mean we are going 
to pay them $400 an hour if they give up being a lookout. There are 
things that are not legal to do and that are destructive, and there are 
things that are legal. We need to work to give people a living wage, 
where they can work to support their family with their income, and we 
need to help the Government of Colombia, which has been undermined.
  For example, they were the eighth largest supplier of oil in the 
world. There has been so much oil spilled in attacking that pipeline 
that it would be 8 Exxon Valdezes pouring into the north part of 
Colombia.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
Indiana, my friend, who has demonstrated a commitment that is 
extraordinary in terms of this particular issue and to the people of 
Colombia. I hope that everyone that is watching tonight and listening 
to the gentleman's Special Order takes note.
  Much of what the gentleman said, practically all of what the 
gentleman said I agree with. And I think it is important to understand 
that the commitment to Colombia has to be a sustained commitment. 
Unfortunately, those of us who enjoy the benefits of this country are 
sometimes susceptible to a lack of patience. This is not a problem that 
is going to go away overnight in Colombia, but I think that the 
gentleman made the link that absolutely cries for patience by the 
American people and by the Congress, and that is that here in the 
neighborhoods of the United States, there are young people and people 
of middle age that have been addicted to narcotics and have led lives 
that reduce them to hostages and prisoners in their own body. And if we 
are ever going to address that problem and the link that it has to 
crime and violence in the United States, our commitment has to be 
sustained.
  I felt the need to say that. I know the gentleman has been on the 
floor. I am here with some colleagues to address a separate issue, but 
I want to applaud the gentleman's efforts. We have worked a long time 
on this particular issue, and I believe that the Colombian Government 
is making great strides. The gentleman pointed out that the Colombian 
Government is making strides in terms of human rights.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, as we near the 3-year 
anniversary of Plan Colombia, it is important to reaffirm our 
commitment to this program, to the people of Colombia, and to American 
citizens. I have led three congressional delegations to Colombia over 
the past 5 months. I can say firsthand that our significant investment 
is beginning to pay dividends. Together with the strong commitment of 
the Uribe Administration and historic levels

[[Page 17194]]

of support from the Colombian people, U.S. involvement in Colombia is 
beginning to hit narco-terrorists where it hurts.
  We are seeing tremendous results in illegal crop eradication, and 
Plan Colombia's efforts have produced record reductions in coca 
production and in the destruction of drug labs. Each week brings news 
of new seizures of cocaine and heroin--interdictions that are usually 
the result of U.S.-supplied intelligence. In fact, just this last 
weekend, Colombian officials seized over a ton of cocaine from a drug 
trafficking boat off the Caribbean coast. The Colombian government is 
reestablishing state presence in areas of the country that for decades 
lacked it. Criminals who have remained at bay for years are being 
captured and extradited to the United States for prosecution. During 
the 11 months of President Uribe's tenure, 68 individuals have been 
extradited from Colombia to the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, Plan Colombia is working. I have just returned from a 
trip to Colombia with Chairman Souder and have seen first hand the 
devastation that drug production and trafficking has on this country. 
To those who question our investment, I would ask them to visit, as I 
have, Colombian soldiers who have lost their limbs or eyesight or 
sustained permanent disabilities in their battle to return peace to 
their nation and keep drugs off American streets. I would also ask them 
to visit Barrio Nelson Mandela, a USAID sponsored facility for 
internally displaced people who have been forced from their homes by 
drug traffickers and guerillas. This facility showed me how our work on 
behalf of Colombia's millions of internally displaced people is 
offering men, women, and children a second chance at a violence-free, 
productive life.
  The United States, however, should not have to do this alone. An 
increasingly significant amount of Colombian cocaine and heroin is 
being trafficked through Europe for consumption. I would like to urge 
our European allies to recognize their responsibility to do their share 
in supporting Colombia in the battle to reduce the supply of drugs 
entering the world market. The war on drugs cannot be won without 
appropriate funds, resources and tools. Every contribution possible is 
needed to disrupt the market and make the drug trade less profitable. 
The battle going on in Colombia against narco-terrorism is Europe's 
battle as well. A European contribution to fighting the war on drugs 
could provide these innocent people with a better life by strengthening 
the rule of law, protecting human rights, and providing security for 
all Colombians.
  During my recent visit to Colombia, it was evident to me just how 
effective U.S. assistance is to their government. Colombia's ability to 
combat both drugs and terror has been strengthened due in large part to 
our support as well as the will and determination of the Colombian 
people. With such promising results over the last 3 years, it is 
important to continue our support and sustain the momentum. Goals are 
being met, and new goals need to be set. Of course obstacles remain, 
and progress is slower than we would like it to be. But now is not the 
time to turn our backs on this battle that is so intrinsically tied to 
our war on terrorism and illegal drug use. In light of the strong 
progress being made in Colombia, I urge all of my colleagues to 
continue their support of Colombia's unified campaign against narcotics 
trafficking and terrorist activities and their effort to bring 
democratic security to the country.
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to offer some 
views as part of this evening's Special Order recognizing the third 
anniversary of Plan Colombia.
  As a senior Member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services 
Committees, I wanted to take note of the significant gains that have 
been made since Plan Colombia was announced in July of 2000 in 
strengthening the rule of law and enhancing the stability of this 
important democratic ally. As important, the strategy set forth in Plan 
Colombia has achieved major positive results in initially slowing and 
now reducing Colombia's cocaine production during the past 3 years.
  A recent U.S. Government assessment of global coca production trends 
notes the recent progress achieved under the Plan Colombia strategy: 
``Coca cultivation in Colombia (in 2002) declined by 15 percent--the 
first decline in Colombia's coca crop in a decade. . . . This reduction 
was largely because of a sustained aerial eradication campaign in what 
had been the country's densest coca growing areas. . . . Cultivation in 
the Putumayo--site of the country's most intensive eradication effort--
declined by 80 percent.'' Nevertheless, the U.S. and Colombia 
Governments assessed in 2002 that Colombia's coca production zones 
totaled nearly 362,500 acres with the potential to produce 680 metric 
tons of pure cocaine.
  With respect to Colombian heroin production, the latest assessment is 
that in 2002, Colombia's opium poppy production zones totaled some 
12,200 acres with a potential yield of some 11.3 metric tons of pure 
heroin. According to the DEA, Colombian heroin captures approximately 
70 percent of the U.S. marketplace and virtually all of Colombia's 
heroin production is intended for export to the United States. Unlike 
the aggressive strategies being applied against Colombia's coca 
production, the bilateral efforts to locate and eradicate opium poppy 
under Plan Colombia have lacked a consistent strategy and adequate 
resources and personnel. Both the U.S. and Colombian governments need 
to work much more effectively to apply new technologies to combat and 
defeat the heroin industry.
  I wanted to briefly cite two initiatives that are elements of the 
Plan Colombia strategy, which have real potential to improve Colombia's 
security and to enhance the rule of law within Colombia's borders. With 
Plan Colombia funding, the United States Southern Command provided 
resources and training for the establishment of a Military Penal 
Justice Corps within the Colombian military. Since the establishment of 
Colombia's Military Penal Justice Corps in August 2000, over 300 
military, police, and civilian attorneys have received professional 
legal education and training focused on military justice, international 
humanitarian law, and operational law. This legal training has had a 
direct and positive impact on the Colombian military's performance in 
the field against terrorists and narco-traffickers as well as on its 
adherence to international legal standards in very difficult combat 
environments.
  A second initiative under Plan Colombia is the reestablishment of the 
binational airbridge denial (ABD) program, which is designed to 
interdict illegal aircraft engaged in transporting narcotics. The ABD 
program merits close oversight, but it has real potential to reduce 
narco-trafficking and to limit illicit weapons support to terrorists 
and other criminal organizations in Colombia. When I was in Bogota last 
November, I had the opportunity to discuss this issue at some length 
with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. President Uribe was very clear 
about the urgency of implementing the ABD program. I am concerned that 
legal disputes over the ABD program's implementation have delayed the 
renewal of this important interdiction program. I strongly urge the 
Bush administration to resolve any outstanding issues affecting ABD 
implementation immediately, and to provide the Colombian Government 
with the appropriate support to carry out an effective and accountable 
ABD program.
  While these recent trends are somewhat encouraging, it is equally 
clear that our two governments need to maintain their focus on the Plan 
Colombia strategic objectives by intensifying ongoing narcotics 
eradication and interdiction programs, and by restoring security and 
essential government services to areas threatened by terrorists and 
narco-traffickers. I am convinced that Colombia's fight is also our 
fight--as the terrorism and the narco-trafficking that are 
destabilizing Colombia's democratic institutions pose real threats to 
America's people and our national security.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to contribute to this evening's 
Special Order commemorating the third anniversary of Plan Colombia.
  As Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 
I wanted to discuss the significant and measurable progress that has 
been made in the past 3 years in Colombia on a variety of fronts as a 
product of improved coordination and bilateral cooperation between the 
governments of Colombia and the United States.
  Four years ago, the security situation within Colombia was extremely 
unstable--some were saying then that Colombia was unraveling into a 
failed state where the national government exercised control of less 
than 50 percent of its territory. Leftist guerrillas from the FARC and 
the ELN and rightist paramilitary groups were growing rapidly and 
expanding their reach throughout much of Colombia. These terrorist 
groups were financed by the surge in cocaine and heroin production in 
the unsecured areas of Colombia as well as by other widespread criminal 
activities, such as mass kidnappings, extortion, murder for hire, and 
money laundering. The rule of law in much of Colombia during that time 
was uncertain at best; judges, public defenders, prosecutors, and 
police were being terrorized and killed at unprecedented rates. The 
political, economic and security future of Colombia was clearly and 
increasingly at stake.
  Given Colombia's economic and political importance as a major 
democratic ally within our Hemisphere, it was critical that Colombia 
and its friends jointly develop and fund an effort to enhance 
Colombia's security, strengthen the rule of law, interdict and 
eradicate narcotic crops, and grow its economy. During the past

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3 years, the Plan Colombia initiative has provided a comprehensive 
strategy to reassert government control of Colombia's territory as well 
as to restore public confidence in the viability of Colombia's 
democratic institutions. Since the inauguration of Colombian President 
Alvaro Uribe in August 2002, the Colombian Government has stepped up 
its implementation of a wide variety of Plan Colombia programs 
affecting narcotics eradication and interdiction, enhanced law 
enforcement and other security-related measures, and alternative 
development efforts.
  A recent United Nations study estimates that Colombian coca 
production has been reduced by 40 percent since Plan Colombia was 
begun. With the strong support of President Uribe and improved mobility 
and capacity of Colombia's military and police forces, there is an 
excellent opportunity in 2003 for our bi-national coca eradication 
program to eradicate 100 percent of Colombia's coca production zones, 
an area that encompasses over 150,000 hectares. While this is very good 
news in the short term, our two governments will have to pursue this 
nationwide eradication and interdiction strategy for at least the next 
several years as coca growers are forced out of their illegal business 
and the Colombian Government is able to establish a stable and 
effective security presence in numerous coca production zones across 
Colombia.
  While the coca eradication trends show promise, I am concerned that 
insufficient attention has been given to developing and implementing an 
effective strategy to locate and eradicate Colombia's opium poppy crop. 
Our latest U.S. Government poppy crop data estimates that Colombia 
produced 14.2 metric tons of export quality heroin in 2002; virtually 
all of this Colombian heroin was exported to the United States and 
represented the large majority of all heroin consumed by Americans in 
2002.
  Despite the clear statutory direction and funding guidance in both 
Plan Colombia and in related Congressional authorizations and 
appropriations measures during the past 5 years, our bilateral effort 
against Colombian heroin has been so far insufficient. Given the lethal 
effects of the heroin trade on both our countries, this key element of 
Plan Colombia demands senior-level attention by both governments, 
appropriate resources, and the application of a new, more effective mix 
of eradication and interdiction technologies to locate and kill the 
opium poppy on the 12,000-15,000 hectares where it has been grown in 
Colombia's high Andes mountains.
  Plan Colombia has registered some notable successes in the past 3 
years. We need to stay committed to this important fight with our 
Colombian allies--not just for our national security, but for the 
safety of countless Americans who are threatened by the linkages 
between narco-trafficking and international terrorism. We need to 
redouble our efforts to stem the production and export of heroin and 
coca from Colombia, which harm and kill thousands of Colombians and 
Americans every year.
  I commend the leadership of Speaker Hastert in this important 
national security initiative. It was his foresight and concerted effort 
that has brought us this far. I look forward to working with the 
Speaker on this effort, and continuing to build upon the success of 
Plan Colombia as it enters its fourth year.

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