Senate Foreign Relations Committee Transcript
6 October 1999This Month's News | CSN Home
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Senate Foreign Relations Committee Transcript6 October 1999This Month's News | CSN Home |
This is an abridged transcript. For the full transcript, contact the Colombian Labor Monitor at clm@prairienet.org .
SEN. HELMS: (Sounds gavel.) The committee will come to order. Today's hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee will focus on Colombia. Weakened by an economic recession, Colombia is virtually alone in fighting guerrilla terrorists allied with the global drug cartels. And because Colombia is the source of more than 80 percent of the cocaine and much of the heroin flooding America's streets and schoolyards, what happens there is certainly a primary interest, or should be, to every one of the rest of us.
Without U.S. help Colombia could lose this war; or the sad alternative of seeking to appease the narco-guerrillas. Either scenario would spell disaster for Colombia, her neighbors and, most important to us, the American people.
Since taking office, President Pastrana has pursued peace. The guerrillas have responded with a relentless campaign of violence. These guerrillas thrive on lawlessness, collecting more than $1 billion a year from drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion and ransoms.
The guerrillas obviously stand to profit from prolonged war and chaos, and they will never surrender at the peace table what they cannot lose on the battlefield. Until the Colombian government has the resources and training and intelligence capability to raise the cost of war for the guerrillas, peace will remain out of reach.
What is the United States government doing to help? Too little -- and maybe too late. We must pray that the latter is not the case. In any event, almost all the support the U.S. sends to Colombia goes to the anti-drug efforts of the Colombian national police, and only recently has the United States finally begun to provide some meager support to a new army counter-drug battalion. Now, while it is true that Colombia is now a large U.S. foreign aid recipient, the vast majority of this anti-drug assistance approved by Congress last year, over the administration's objections I might add, has yet to reach Colombia. The United States government can and must do better. First, just as the United States delegitimized the corrupt Samper regime, the United States must now mobilize international support behind Colombia's new government, its democratic institutions, and most of all the rule of law.
Secondly, we must bolster Colombia's security forces, beginning with its counter-drug battalions to fight the well- armed narco-terrorists. And I note that the United States law justifiably requires that any military units receiving U.S. aid must be -- and I use the word carefully, because it's official -- must be scrubbed for human rights violations. And if the United States fails to act, Colombia will continue to hurtle towards chaos, and that will jeopardize not only the human rights of all Colombians, but those of the American victims of Colombia's poisoned, peddling drug lords.
The ranking member is not yet here, so we will proceed with a senator whom I greatly admire since the first day I saw him in the United States Senate. Senator Coverdell chairs the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee, and he does a remarkable job with it. And we will later be joined by Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, who is working with Senator Coverdell to draft a Colombia anti-drug bill.
Our second panel -- (thumping noise off mike) -- I get nervous when I hear something like that -- sounds like a pistol, doesn't it?
(Laughter.)
I think maybe the Colombians have come to town. Our second panel will consist of the drug czar, as he is called, a fine gentleman, General Barry McCaffrey; and then Ambassador Thomas Pickering, undersecretary of State for political affairs. Paul, Senator Coverdell, we welcome you. Please proceed.
[.....] For more of the transcript, contact the Colombian Labor Monitor at clm@prairienet.org.
From CLM-News