Excerpt from State Department Daily Briefing, March 15, 2002

Excerpt from State Department Daily Briefing, March 15, 2002
Daily Press Briefing
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 15, 2002

MR. BOUCHER: Okay. I also want to address two topics off the top. One is the anniversary of the Halabja massacre in Iraq, and the second is Colombia.

...

And then, if I can, I'd like to go on to Colombia. I know everybody is writing stories about Colombia. I wish some of them would call us before they write stories. But just in case anybody is going to write some more wrongs, I thought I would take the opportunity to go through the question of authorities.

QUESTION: W-r-i-t-e.

MR. BOUCHER: He gets it.

QUESTION: We thought it was just for the laugh.

MR. BOUCHER: I know. President Pastrana's February 20th decision to end his longstanding efforts at a peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia has put a new focus on counterterrorism in Colombia. We have provided Colombia the $1.7 billion in assistance since year 2000 to help Colombia's democracy fight narcotics trafficking and terrorism, to strengthen governmental institutions, and to promote social and economic development.

We requested $570 million in the Fiscal Year 2003 budget to sustain these programs, which includes a new proposal for $98 million to enhance the Government of Colombia's capacity to defend a key oil pipeline from terrorist attacks.

Colombia is not part of the global war on terrorism, but terrorist attacks are a serious threat to Colombia's democratic institutions. The FARC, the National Liberation Army, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, are Foreign Terrorist Organizations under US law. They are responsible for a conflict which has claimed 40,000 lives over the past decade. They have kidnapped 50 US citizens and killed ten since 1992, and they are heavily involved in narcotics trafficking.

Following President Pastrana's decision to end the FARC peace process, the US responded to Colombia's request for help by increasing intelligence support and expediting the delivery of Colombian-purchased spare parts for aircraft.

We have been consulting with Congress to discuss the new situation in Colombia and our desire to respond more fully to Colombian requests for support in defending democracy. Members in these consultations, Members of Congress, expressed support for the administration's goals, but asked that we not stretch current counter-narcotics legislation to support new missions.

Therefore, we determined to seek new and more explicit legal authorities for State and Defense Department assistance to Colombia, to support the Government of Colombia's unified campaign against narcotics trafficking, terrorist activities and other threats to its national security. If we get these authorities, that will put us in a position to consider some of the additional requests from Colombia, such as using existing US equipment or US-trained brigades in a joint role against counter-narcotics and terrorism.

I want to make absolutely clear -- and this is one point not picked up in some of the articles -- we will continue to observe the requirements of the Byrd and the Leahy amendments to the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. These concern limits on US civilian and military personnel in Colombia, and, second of all, in the Leahy amendment, ensuring that US assistance is not provided to military units whose members violate human rights.

We will review carefully any additional requests from the Government of Colombia for counterterrorism support, and we'll consult with our Congress as we address these issues.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) US brigades, you say? Well, I haven't written it yet so it can't be wrong.

MR. BOUCHER: That's the absolute thing -- no, no, that's the absolute thing.

QUESTION: Well, because you said that State has just assured Congress there's no change in the US --

MR. BOUCHER: Barry, I'm sorry. I just spent five minutes reading something and it had nothing about US troops being used in combat in Colombia.

QUESTION: You said brigades, if I'm not mistaken.

MR. BOUCHER: US-trained brigades.

QUESTION: Oh, US-trained brigades.

MR. BOUCHER: We have equipped and trained Colombian brigades, Colombian military people, whose job it has been to protect counter-narcotics operations. And if we get this authority, we would be able to consider allowing them to be used in other roles.

QUESTION: And you think you'll have this ready next week, to include --

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I have a specific target for when we'll go forward with this, but it should be soon.

QUESTION: The Post story said that you want to end restrictions on --

MR. BOUCHER: Which is not correct.

QUESTION: -- restrictions on use only for counter-narcotics, and conditionality vis-à-vis human rights -- that whole paragraph was wrong?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes. We intend to continue to abide, to respect not to change the Byrd and the Leahy amendments. The Byrd amendment says that in support of Plan Colombia, the United States can send a maximum of 400 military and 400 civilian personnel to Colombia at any given moment. We intend to abide by that. The Leahy amendment says that US assistance can't be given to brigades or to military elements that contain human rights violators. We also intend to abide by that. Both of these are aspects of the program that are I think an important part of what the United States wants to accomplish down there, which is to help train Colombian military to act professionally in fighting counter-narcotics, and we'll be able to consider requests for them to be used in counterterrorism as well.

QUESTION: I'm very interested in Colombia, but could you tell us -- could you address the bombing in Yemen, please?

MR. BOUCHER: Let's finish Colombia.

QUESTION: Was there anything in the Post story that was correct?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes, if you read far enough.

QUESTION: I just have two quick questions. Under the changes you'd like to see in the law, will you still be making human rights certifications for the Colombian military, which is separate than whether or not the brigades that you give money to have ties to the paramilitaries? Will you still be doing this checklist?

MR. BOUCHER: Let me check with the lawyers on that one. I'm not exactly sure what the tie-in would be.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. BOUCHER: Whether there is any at all, frankly. Whether this would effect it one way or the other.

QUESTION: Could you -- I understand that from this podium you don't discuss intelligence matters, but will there be expanded levels of how you can share intelligence? Can you say anything about the kinds of information you can give to the Colombian militaries now?

MR. BOUCHER: I can't say anything about the kinds of information that we might give, but this is one of those few instances where I've used the word "intelligence" to say that we have expanded information-sharing, intelligence information-sharing with the Colombians, at their request.

QUESTION: Will this allow all of the array of anti-narcotics equipment, helicopters -- all of that stuff, will that now be possible to use against the FARC?

MR. BOUCHER: As I just mentioned for the third time, that having this new authority will put us in a position to consider a request like that from the Colombian Government. But until we have the authority, we can't really tell you yes or no.

As of March 18, 2002, this document was also available online at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2002/8794.htm