Excerpts from State Department Daily Briefing, January 19, 2001

Excerpts from State Department Daily Briefing, January 19, 2001

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Friday, 19 January 2001

REGULAR BRIEFING
Briefer: Richard Boucher, Department spokesman
STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING ROOM, Washington, D.C.

Q Yesterday you referred to the report on human rights in Colombia. Could you tell us whether that's ready yet and how we can get access to it?

MR. BOUCHER: When it is finally signed, it will be transmitted from the White House, so that when it is -- when that happens, I'm sure they'll make it available in public. My understanding as of this moment is that it may not have been signed yet. The decision, as I talked about yesterday, to submit a voluntary report has been made, but the actual transmittal of the report itself has not happened yet.

Q Richard, again yesterday -- and I'm not sure if any -- I know I certainly wasn't very aware of what exactly you were talking about. Having looked into it a little bit further yesterday afternoon, it seems that there is quite a bit of opposition to this decision. First, the determination that you do not have to certify or grant a waiver to the Colombians for this second tranche of aid to be released -- the argument is that just because this money in the second tranche is an emergency supplemental and not part of the so-called regular money that was already approved -- the argument against your determination is that all of this money, once it gets to Colombia, is put into the same pot

And it's basically the same money being used for the same kinds of things as the other money and, therefore, it should not be treated -- shouldn't have different conditions -- or, rather, no conditions on it.

Two senators, Wellstone and Harkin, have written to the president, or wrote to him last week, telling him that they thought not only should the certification be required, but also that waivers should be denied and that, in fact, the earlier waivers granted be revoked.

What do you say to those arguments?

MR. BOUCHER: I think all I can say is that the White House -- I assume the White House lawyers know that they have made the determination, they have determined that this certification is not a requirement. I suppose one can argue, you know -- you say some people argue it's where the money is going, others might argue it's where the money comes from in terms of the conditions that are attached to specific legislation that the money comes from. So I don't -- I'm not the lawyer to try to sort this out. But the legal staff, the White House, has decided that it is not required. But that nonetheless, we feel it's important to maintain contact, keep talking to Congress. And therefore, we want to report to Congress on where things stand vis-a-vis human rights, and we'll be sending that report forward.

…

Q Colombia -- two questions. First of all, how much of an achievement is the Operation White Horse in terms of the quantity -- amounts of heroin that gets to the United States from Colombia? And the second one is, on Sunday, FARC and the Colombian government are finally going to get together and try to end a gridlock for the peace talks, right after two years of doing nothing. Are you still supporting a DMZ not only for that, but for the ELN? And what is going to happen next?

MR. BOUCHER: Without trying to accept your characterizations of some of the past history of this, I think our basic attitude towards the Colombian government's efforts to bring peace, to talk to rebel group. is still the same, that we basically support their efforts to bring peace to the country, and we support their efforts for development against narcotics.

In terms of the Operation White Horse, it's pretty significant because it's moving against a major organization that was trafficking heroin between Colombia and the United States. Colombia is the source for most of the heroin, the overwhelming majority of the heroin that ends up in the East Coast in the United States. And this group, of which 50 individuals were arrested, had distribution in New York and Philadelphia. So it is a very significant step forward in terms of the counter-narcotics effort. You know, that said, there are still others who traffic and others who will have to be pursued and dealt with.

I think you'll see in the statement, as well, other information about the counternarcotics strategy and some of the other things that we've accomplished with Colombia.

Q And it is after just a month of starting to -- eradications -- aerial eradication, is my understanding, right?

MR. BOUCHER: After --?

Q A month ago, the air eradication started on the Plan Colombia program; right?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, I mean, they have been aerial spraying for something like 10 years, so I don't -- we've talked before about the government of Colombia's program for aerial spraying and how they've -- you know, what they're doing and what they're not doing. But this has been part of the program for a long time.