U.S. State Department Press On Proposed Aid Package for Colombia

Good afternoon.

I am Charles Silver. I am the director of the State Department's Washington Foreign Press Center. Our guests today are Mr. Peter Romero, acting assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Mr. Rand Beers, assistant secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement; and Mr. Arturo Valenzuela, special assistant to the president for Inter-American Affairs. Our guests today will brief on the record regarding the announcement of a new aid package to Colombia. Mr. Beers will make an opening statement on behalf of all three of our guests, and then they'll take your questions.

Sir?

Thank you very much.

We are here today to talk about a nearly $1.6 billion assistance package that the president is announcing and asking Congress to approve. It involves approximately $300 million in regular appropriations in the 2000 and 2001 budget, a $954 million emergency supplemental in fiscal year 2000, and $318 million of additional funds in fiscal year 2001. This represents an historical opportunity within the region, and in Colombia in particular, to deal with the serious counternarcotics problems that exist on a regional basis, and also an opportunity for Colombia to deal with several difficult situations that it has, in addition to drugs, in association with the peace process, with the economy, and with the whole issue of social development and human rights.

This is a comprehensive and an integrated package. It is balanced among its several elements. While it starts primarily from the counternarcotics area, there is a major new initiative in the areas of alternative development, human rights and judicial reform. It is also a regional package. There are modest regional additions to our regular budget in this, in recognition that we cannot deal with this problem exclusively in Colombia but that it is a regional issue. In addition to it, the government of Colombia will be contributing approximately $4 billion toward the $7.5 billion effort.

In addition to the United States, we are expecting support from the international financial institutions and other donors. To date, the IMF has already made available $2.7 million in a lending facility. And there are expectations of possibly as much as an additional $3 billion from the other international financial institutions, although not necessarily directly in support of Plan Colombia.

This effort has five general areas.

It will involve a push into southern Colombia by Colombian security forces, as well as alternative development in that area. It will involve a major interdiction effort, both in the air, on the ground and on the river systems, both in Colombia and more broadly in the region. It will also involve an alternative development effort, which will relate both to Colombia and Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. And it will involve boosting the government's capacity to deal with human rights and judicial institutions within Colombia, as well as general support for the peace process.

Let me stop there, and we'll be open to questions from you all.

Okay. Since we have three guests, let me ask if you would wait for the microphone, please identify yourself, indicate to which of our three guests your question is directed.

Questions?

We do not have a precise break out --

I've actually got some numbers here, okay --

Oh, okay, fine. Go ahead.

-- they don't give you percentages, they just give you numbers. Okay. In terms of the campaign into southern Colombia, and this also involves purchase of Black Hawks, Hueys, et cetera, we're talking about $600 million. For the purposes of enhancing interdiction, and that's amplifying airstrips, purchasing aircraft, radars, et cetera, $340 million. For the purposes of coca eradication -- that's Mr. Beers' air wing in Colombia, the spraying air wing -- and we're talking about $96 million.

No. No. That comes next. Alternative development at about $145 million. And then what Mr. Beers was referring to by way of good governance, strengthening government capacity, judicial reform, money laundering, et cetera, about $93 million.

That will only add up to about $1.3 billion. The other $300 million are regular INL, regular DOD programs that are already existing in the base budget. This is the new part of this package.

The fifth piece there has also some funding, but it's a smaller amount, that's the peace process.

Ah, excuse me. I left that out.

Right, it's actually included in the last total that Peter gave you.

It's about $5 million.

A question over there.

There is an element of this package which will strengthen the human rights capacity of the government of Colombia overall. The dollar amount is on the order of -- and I don't have the exact figure -- about $10 million over the two-year period. It will support the government's judicial system and the prosecutors and the police to investigate human rights abuses, which will, as you quite correctly point out, look heavily in the direction of the paramilitaries, since that's where most of those activities are taking place.

As opposed to?

We would miss an extraordinary historic opportunity to actually deal with the drug problem in the supply side, in the Andean region. The circumstances that the current situation offers us is basically three countries in which the leadership of the countries are committed to undertake this effort. In two of those countries, Peru and Bolivia, we have successful activities which have reduced the overall prevalence of coca cultivation by over 50 percent in both of those countries. And we have the opportunity now in Peru to complete that process by capping and beginning to reduce coca and opium poppy cultivation in the third country.

Could I add --

This is historic.

Eighty percent of the cocaine entering the United States comes from Colombia.

Because it moves there from the others countries, to be processed --

Moves there from the other countries, and now it's being produced also as well in that particular area, as we've cut back on the production in Peru and in Bolivia. And the other thing, if I might also add to your first question, the counternarcotics battalions that are in there to try to protect the police as it goes in to eradicate the coca fields may tangle with some paramilitary elements that are supporting the narco-traffickers. This is not -- the narco-traffickers are not being supported only by guerrilla elements, but also in some cases by paramilitary elements. There is a --

I'm sorry. I've got to go -- (off mike).

Let me just take off on what Randy was talking about earlier and what Arturo alluded to. This is a historic opportunity for us. When you look at what preceded the current president in Colombia, you had a narco-tainted president, one that did not take leadership, and allowed human rights abuses -- gross human rights abuses -- to go unpunished. This is a president who has taken the issue of human rights abuses inside of his military very seriously, has removed general officers and colonels and others from posts because of their suspected collaboration with paramilitaries. He has bitten the bullet on extraditions. Operation Millennium arrested over 30 narco-kingpins in Colombia. He has moved -- been as flexible as any human being could possibly be, to continue to move the peace process ahead and to keep that peace process alive. This is a historic opportunity. This is the first comprehensive, integrated plan that I have ever seen -- certainly Dr. Valenzuela will share that with me -- in Colombia to deal with all of the problems that Colombia faces in an integrated, holistic way. And it's an opportunity, more than anything else, that we shouldn't let pass.

We have a question over here.

Yeah, let me say that there is a portion of this overall package for other countries as well. One of the elements that's there -- we're looking at Colombia, but also we're looking at the regional counternarcotics picture, and there's about $118 million that is actually going to support some of the efforts in Bolivia and in Peru, as well as there's some amounts of money in the overall package, not necessarily in the supplemental, but also in some of the money that's already been put into some of the agencies' base budget to address the forward-operating locations, which is a way of trying to deal with interceptions within the region as a whole. I think it's important to maintain the gains that we've had in Peru and in Bolivia, and we intend to do so. If you want to refer to the other -- what did the other -- it had to do with Peru and -- ?

Well, I think they're very different situations. I think that you referred to the low level of sort of popular support that Pastrana has. Let me just say that we understand the situation that often leaders have with taking difficult decisions. We think that this particular package of support will be of assistance to Pastrana. But let me emphasize that this is not a support for a particular president or a particular government. It is support for Colombia and for a process in Colombia that Colombians generally and across the board really believe in and want. We've seen the human rights -- the peace demonstrations in Colombia that have taken place over the last few weeks, a massive outpouring among people who want the peace process to work. I think that this is the signal we're sending. This is support for a process in Colombia, generally.

I think what Peru faces are very -- I mean, I think in Peru, what we can say about both Peru and Bolivia, is that there has been notable success in the whole question of eradication and cultivation of -- a cutback on the cultivation of coca. There's been notable success on interdiction in the area. This is one of the reasons why there is so much of a focus on Colombia now, is with the success in Bolivia and in Peru, you see a quantum increase in the cultivations in Colombia. Peru has a difficult election coming up this year, and, you know, our concern not only in Peru and other places is that the progress that has been made in building democratic institutions be maintained.

Well, this package is designed to support counternarcotics and good governance and interdiction, alternative development, et cetera. We would hope also that it would support the peace process. Certainly, the government has been disappointed at the amount of time that it has taken to commence real negotiations. I think that there is an opportunity now, looking at it. There's a 12- point agenda, there have been meetings that have been ongoing over the last several weeks, and I think the prospects look better than they've ever looked for peace negotiations to begin in earnest. But it's obvious that the guerrillas have embarked, ever since the beginning of the Pastrana administration, on a talk-fight strategy. That is, they are willing to talk but at the same time they have engaged in deliberate attacks throughout the country. What we are doing here, hopefully, is to try to strengthen those government institutions to deal with the kind of lawlessness inherent in Colombia, but also to be able to increase government presence on the ground in areas that have been virtual vacuums for civilian authority -- police-civilian authorities -- and the military. If the guerrillas believe that this is a threat, then I guess my only suggestion would be that they begin to look seriously at negotiations as a real "salida," as the only real course to take, and engage in them seriously.

If I might just add, to complement what the ambassador has said, and that is that there is no intention on the part of the United States to get involved in a counterinsurgency effort or in a counterinsurgency operation at all. We made it very, very clear from the outset that our concern and interest is to cut back on the capacity of the narcotraffickers to produce, to ship, in Colombia. But let me say that there is substantial evidence that certain guerrilla groups have derived a significant amount of income from the narcotrafficking operations. With a significant success in combatting the narcotrafficking operation, you are going to see a reduction in the income that paramilitary, as well as guerrilla, organizations have. And you know, this may be an incentive for them to think about coming to the table. But that's not the purpose right here. Let me made clear about -- the purpose is a very focused one, and that is that we are looking towards counterdrug operations. There is not going to be any significant increment of U.S. military presence in Colombia as a result of this. The support is through training, it's through equipment, it's through intelligence and that sort of thing. That needs to be very, very clear.

Okay. Let's take a question.

We are obligated, under force of law in the United States, something that we call the Leahy Amendment, to only provide training and assistance to those units which do not have in their ranks, violators of human rights. And we have continued to abide by that. And this package will be very much underneath that force of law. The bulk of this, if you look at it, particularly as it relates to the push into Southern Colombia and to the Putumayo area, centers around the creation of three counternarcotics battalions. One has already graduated, graduated in December -- is in the process of being deployed now. The other two will be trained over the next year. And when we work with the Colombians to create these battalions, the officers and enlisted men are vetted for human rights before they go into them. And we will continue to support other units, but only as long as those units do not have in them officers and enlisted who have engaged in gross violations of human rights, as per our law. The other part of it you need to remember too is that the effort that we will be supportive of Plan Colombia is the push into the Putumayo, into southern Colombia, where there does not exist the kind of nexus between paramilitaries and narcos, et cetera. Most of that is in the Choco, up in the northern area, with Venezuela, et cetera, and is not at least -- at least not to the present -- a phenomenon, by and large, in southern Colombia. And finally, we think that the prospects for continued human rights strengthening is very good, because President Pastrana has done as much as he's done already to put certain militaries on notice that the collusion with paramilitaries will not be accepted in any form.

Well, the counternarcotics battalions will be the ones that make use of those helicopters. There will be approximately 30 Blackhawks, and I think we're in the process of providing 33 of these UH-1Ns, the two-motor Hueys -- the two-engine Hueys. And they're provided to these counternarcotics battalions that have been vetted, et cetera, and who will be deployed in southern Colombia in the principal narco-area in the coca-growing region.

Whether they sign it or not, there will be a very strong understanding that this is what they use them for, because they will be going to units whose sole creation has been to fight counternarcotics. I don't exactly know where you're going with all of this, but I think that what I'm saying is that we have had zero push-back from the Colombians in terms of our support for the creation of three counternarcotic battalions, and the terms under which our support continues, and that is under the Leahy law. And there's been excellent cooperation, not just with President Pastrana, who sets the tone, but also with Minister Ruiz or Ramirez and General Tapias.

Yeah. Well, I'd like to know what's "loose." I consider it to be something that we adhere to and take very, very seriously, and so do the Colombians.

I think we have time for one more question. Let's take it from over here.

Could you identify yourself?

Let me say that this program has not only been, as Ambassador Romero said earlier, carefully developed over a long period of time in terms of the technical side of it, it's also been something that we've been working at some length with the various leaders on the Hill, both Republican and Democrat, on for some time. And it is our expectation that we will be able to work through a bipartisan process to be able to get approval for this. There has been a significant amount of consultation on the package already, with the leadership and other relevant members of the Hill and we expect and we hope that the Congress will approve this in an expeditious fashion.

Okay, I'd like to thank our guests. It's been a long day for them, and they have been doing a lot of briefings. Thank you for coming by and thank you, ladies and gentlemen. ________________________________________________________________ **************************************************************** * CLM-NEWS is brought to you by the COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR at * * http://www.prairienet.org/clm * * and the CHICAGO COLOMBIA COMMITTEE * * Email us at clm@prairienet.org or * * Dennis Grammenos at dgrammen@prairienet.org * * To subscribe send request to listproc@prairienet.org * * subscribe clm-news Your Name * ****************************************************************