Speech by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-California), March 6, 2002

Speech by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-California), March 6, 2002

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution. I commend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. HYDE), the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, for bringing forth this measure in such a calibrated and thoughtful fashion. I would also like to express my appreciation to our colleague on the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. DELAHUNT), for his enormous contributions to this effort.

Mr. Speaker, Colombia has entered a new and brutal phase in its history. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, better known by their Spanish acronyms, the FARC and the AUC respectively, and other illegal paramilitary groups have launched unprecedented campaigns of terror against the people and the democratically elected Government of Colombia.

I strongly deplore these criminal acts of murder, abduction, and extortion that the terrorist organizations have inflicted upon the people of Colombia and which the resolution and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. HYDE) so richly describe. I wish to extend our friendship and our support to President Pastrana and his administration as they confront this menace.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution also calls upon the President to submit his legislative proposals for addressing the crisis in Colombia to Congress for our consideration and deliberation. Let me be clear with regard to this point. While I appreciate the horror of the vile acts which the FARC and the AUC are committing almost on a daily basis in Colombia, I believe that any substantial change in U.S. policy toward Colombia must occur only after we in Congress have had an opportunity to add our voices and our concerns.

Thus, while we have not made any ultimate conclusions on how to assist the Colombian Government better to deal with terrorism and narcotics, we certainly look forward to an active and spirited debate on this floor.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that future U.S. policy toward Colombia should be conditioned upon the Government of Colombia dealing with two very stubborn issues: first, the Colombian Government must decisively break all links with illegal paramilitary organizations, and it must launch a serious effort to combat them. According to the Colombian Commission of Jurists and international human rights groups, the paramilitaries account for over 75 percent of all concombatant killings in Colombia. The just-released human rights report of our State Department echoes this fact and states: ``Members of the security forces sometimes illegally collaborated with paramilitary forces last year.'' This link must be completely severed.

Second, the Government of Colombia must dramatically increase its own contribution to both the war and the peace effort. By most estimates, the army would need to at least triple in size to take on the FARC and the AUC effectively. Currently, the Colombian Army has about 130,000 members, but only 40,000 of them can be deployed into battle. The rest are at desk jobs or tied down to guarding static infrastructure like pipelines and power lines. The United States cannot fill this need alone, and we would be foolish to try.

Complicating matters, there are reasons to doubt the commitment of some of Colombia's political and economic elite to sacrifice for the war effort. For example, currently Colombian law excludes high school graduates, meaning all but the poor, from serving in combat units. I think that is an outrage.

Furthermore, U.S. policy toward Colombia should include more than counternarcotics and, potentially, counterterrorism support. Colombia's long-running war is deeply rooted in historical, social, and economic causes that must also be addressed if any sustainable peace is to be achieved. Here, dramatic expansion of support to the provision of basic services to the Colombian people, but particularly in the long neglected rural areas, is absolutely paramount.

Mr. Speaker, Colombia and U.S. policy toward that country is at a crossroads. How we choose to help the people of Colombia confront not only terrorism but its sources as well will determine the quality of the lasting peace we hope will be able to help them build in the region. I urge all my colleagues to support this resolution.

As of March 7, 2002, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r107:@FIELD(FLD003+h)+@FIELD(DDATE+20020306)