Testimony
of Peter W. Rodman, Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs,
Department of Defense, Senate Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, April 24,
2002
STATEMENT
OF MR. PETER RODMAN ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
AFFAIRS)
BEFORE THE SENATE
FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE on WESTERN HEMISPHERE, PEACE
CORPS, NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
APRIL 24, 2002
Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee. I want to associate myself
with the testimony of my distinguished colleague, Under Secretary of State
Grossman. I am honored to provide the Defense Department's perspective
on threats to Colombian democracy and the Bush Administration's proposed
initiatives to assist the Government of Colombia in addressing those threats.
Policy That Adapts
to Changing Circumstances
The Administration
has wrestled with developing a more effective policy and strategy to address
terrorism as well as narcotics trafficking-the twin challenges posed by
Colombia's illegal armed groups.
Both the U.S. and
Colombian governments recognize that the threat has evolved and now requires
new thinking and new programs. President Pastrana's decision to terminate
the FARC safe-haven and this Administration's request for new authority,
as described by Ambassador Grossman, reflect our shared assessment that
terrorism and narcotics trafficking are inextricably linked in Colombia
today.
For the past decade,
U.S. aid has focused almost exclusively on counternarcotics. Although
counterdrug programs remain an important part of the security equation
in Colombia, our assistance has not yet had a decisive impact on the political
and security challenges that continue to threaten both Colombian democracy
and U.S. interests. Therefore, President Bush has asked Congress for:
-- expanded authority for Colombia to use U.S.-provided support in its
unified campaign against narcotics trafficking and terrorist activities;
and -- new funding in Fiscal Year 2003 that would provide assistance to
train and equip units to protect critical economic infrastructure.
These authorities
will provide the Government of Colombia with the flexibility and resources
needed to combat violent and formidable narco-terrorist threats to Colombia's
national security. Over the past several years, these groups have increased
their involvement in illicit drug operations. These drug revenues contribute
to their war chests and have enabled them to increase their terrorist
activities, placing further pressure on Colombia's democracy. This critical
assistance will allow the Colombian security forces to confront more vigorously
the increasing narco-terrorist attacks by the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) and deal more effectively
with the narco-terrorist paramilitary groups, like the United Self Defense
Group of Colombia (AUC).
These three groups
-- the AUC, ELN, and FARC -- already are designated under U.S. law as
terrorist organizations. Although not considered terrorists with global
reach, they threaten regional stability and U.S. interests through transnational
arms and drug trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion. Together, these
groups are responsible for more than 90 percent of the terrorist incidents
in this hemisphere. The changes in authorities described by Ambassador
Grossman will help Colombia fight these groups more effectively, not only
in traditional coca-growing regions such as Putumayo and Caqueta, but
throughout Colombia.
Beyond the toll in
Colombian lives and treasure, these organizations have kidnapped and murdered
U.S. citizens with impunity and damaged major U.S. commercial interests,
such as oil pipelines. Accordingly, the Administration's strategy is to
provide the Colombian government with the wherewithal and incentive to
confront these groups throughout the national territory, whether or not
individual units or combatants are engaged directly in drug-related activities.
This is because, as we have learned, Colombia's major terrorist organizations
both enable the drug trade and are financed in significant part by the
revenues drugs provide. Attempting to segregate drugs and terrorism into
distinct and severable threats is both politically unrealistic and militarily
futile. Colombia urgently needs to establish the rule of law in its many
regions that are presently ruled by lawless violence. A crucial component
in this objective is a stronger, more effective security presence.
Today, the political/military
situation in Colombia has reached a stalemate. Taken together, the FARC,
ELN and AUC effectively control over 40% of Colombian territory. This
stalemate works to the advantage of those groups, whose acts of terror
and narcotics trafficking continue unabated even though the overall military
contest remains inconclusive. Hence, this situation compounds all of Colombia's
problems: -- It delegitimates the democratic state. -- It undercuts any
real possibility of negotiation with the guerrillas on better-than-surrender
terms. -- It places a ceiling on what can be accomplished with the counternarcotics
effort. -- It creates a security vacuum that is filled in part by the
rightist paramilitaries. It is a vicious circle.
The Colombian State's
weakness in many parts of the country leads many citizens to believe that
the paramilitary groups are more effective in promoting security. In turn,
these groups receive greater support and legitimacy, making the state's
ability to fill the vacuum even more difficult. -- The activities of the
paramilitaries, of course, also undercut political support for Colombia
in the United States.
The United States
cannot solve all of Colombia's problems with increased levels of aid,
and given Colombia's human and capital resources, we need not do so. Currently,
the government devotes approximately 3.5% of GDP to combating the narco-terrorists.
Colombia must shoulder more of the burden by funding its security structure-meaning
both military and police-at levels that are more appropriate for a wartime
footing.
We are encouraged
by President Pastrana's recent decision to increase the force structure
by 10,000 soldiers and provide an additional $110 million for military
operations related to elimination of the FARC safe-haven. But current
funding for security forces is simply inadequate to meet the current threat,
and Colombian forces are simply too small and poorly equipped to provide
basic security to large areas of the country. At the end of the conflict
in El Salvador, the military had 50 helicopters while Colombia, fifty
times larger, has only roughly four times as many. The Colombian military
has roughly an 8:1 soldier advantage over the narco-terrorist, an inadequate
ratio if the military is to seize the initiative in the conflict.
The Colombian military's
situation is partly due to the evolving nature of the threat, partly due
to a lag in the Colombian public's learning curve, and partly due to lingering
hope that numerous peace proposals would be successful.
As Ambassador Grossman
pointed out, after three years of FARC duplicity at the negotiating table,
on 20 February 2002 President Pastrana eliminated the FARC safe-haven.
Frustrated at the FARC's lack of good faith, the Colombian public appears
to be gaining a more realistic understanding of the security challenges
their country faces. But Colombia's difficulty in providing for its own
security is due in no small part to its inability to protect significant
revenue-producing infrastructure such as oil pipelines, which leads us
back to the imperative for expanded authorities that Ambassador Grossman
has described.
Effective Sovereignty
and Basic Security
If U.S. aims in Colombia
are cast solely in terms of reducing the production and export of drugs
to the United States, important aspects of the violence there and the
inability of the government to respond effectively will be ignored. As
a practical matter, we cannot view Colombia as a country in which we either
adhere to a counterdrug program or slide unwittingly into a Vietnam-style
counterinsurgency. More realistically, we must pursue policies and fashion
programs that permit Colombia to meet the challenge of the narco-terrorists
so that U.S. forces are not called upon to do so. There is a strong moral
and strategic impetus behind this support for one of the United States'
oldest and most reliable hemispheric allies.
Virtually all experts
concur that the problems of narcotrafficking and guerrilla violence are
intertwined. Both the United States and the government of Colombia hold
that reducing drug exports can serve important political and security
objectives by reducing drug-related income available to illegal armed
groups. Nevertheless, though drug-related income is an important factor
in sustaining insurgents and paramilitaries, it is doubtful that even
effective counternarcotic operations in specific areas within Colombia
can, on their own, be decisive in disabling illegal armed groups or forcing
them to negotiate seriously for peace.
Continuing to link
U.S. aid to Colombia to a narrow counternarcotics focus means that, by
law, we must refrain from providing Colombia certain kinds of military
assistance and intelligence support that could immediately strengthen
the government's position throughout the country. Hundreds of attacks
by the ELN and FARC have been directed at electrical, natural gas and
oil infrastructure. As Ambassador Grossman has noted, the guerrillas'
sabotage of oil pipelines alone has cost the Government of Colombia lost
revenue on the order of $500 million per year. The pipeline was bombed
170 times in 2001, spilling 2.9 million barrels of oil -- eleven times
the amount of the Exxon Valdez.
The Administration
has proposed to Congress $6 million in FY02 supplemental funding and $98
million in FY03 Foreign Military Finance funding to train and equip vetted
Colombian units to protect that country's most threatened piece of critical
economic infrastructure -- the first 170 kilometers of the Cano-Limon
oil pipeline. This segment is the most often attacked. U.S. assistance
and training will support two Colombian Army brigades, National Police
and Marines operating in the area. These units through ground and air
mobility will be in a better position to prevent and disrupt attacks on
the pipeline and defend key facilities and vulnerable points such as pumping
stations. These units will also send a message that the Colombian State
is committed to defending its economic infrastructure -- resources that
provide sorely needed employment and revenue -- from terrorist attacks.
Basic security throughout
Colombia's national territory is the essential but missing ingredient.
The Pastrana administration's Plan Colombia was an admirable start toward
resolving Colombia's interrelated problems, of which the security component
is only one part. But there can be no rule of law, economic development
and new job creation, strengthening of human rights or any other noble
goals, where there is no basic security.
Therefore, our policy
in Colombia should augment traditional counterdrug programs with programs
to help Colombia enhance basic security. A friendly democratic government
in our hemisphere is struggling to preserve its sovereign authority under
assault from extremists of both left and right. U.S. policy towards Colombia
requires a bipartisan consensus at home for a long-term strategy aimed
at strengthening Colombia's ability to enforce effective sovereignty and
preserve democracy. The new and more explicit legal authorities that the
Administration is proposing are intended to serve these goals.
Human Rights Concerns
The Administration
is concerned, as are many Members of Congress, about human rights in Colombia.
President Pastrana has instituted important reforms. The practices and
procedures that the U.S. government has put in place, often at the behest
of concerned Members of Congress, and the example set by the small number
of our U.S. troops training Colombian forces, have also had an impact.
Professionalism is, after all, what we teach. Human rights violations
attributed to the armed forces dropped by 95% during the period of 1993-1998,
to fewer than three percent of the total reported abuses.
Armed forces cooperation
with the civilian court system in prosecuting human rights violations
committed by military personnel has improved. Over 600 officers and noncommissioned
officers have been relieved of duty under a 2000 Presidential decree that
provides military commanders a legal means for removing personnel suspected
of human rights violations and collusion with the paramilitaries. Officers
have been dismissed for collaboration with or tolerance of paramilitary
activities, while others face prosecution. The armed forces have demonstrated
aggressiveness recently in seeking out and attacking paramilitary groups.
Indeed, as already
stated, the problem of the paramilitaries is itself partly a function
of the vacuum left by the weakness of the national government and the
Colombian military. By bolstering the democratic government and its effective
assertion of national sovereignty, we weaken the paramilitaries.
Colombians Must Make
the Main Effort
Although a policy
cast in terms of basic security should enhance overall prospects for peace
and for more effective counternarcotics, neither goal is assured without
a firm and enduring commitment by the Colombian government and Colombian
people to devote a greater share of their own national resources to the
effort. The key principle should remain that the Colombian people bear
the ultimate responsibility for their own security and must demonstrate
their national will through a commitment of resources.
The Colombian military,
by its own admission, is not optimally structured or organized to execute
sustained operations. The Colombian military has greatly improved in many
respects over the last several years -- especially in the areas of tactical
and operational effectiveness, increased professionalism, human rights
training and awareness, and has realized a modest but sustained increase
in force structure. But the military continues to suffer from limited
resources, inadequate training practices, significant shortfalls in intelligence
and air mobility, and lack of joint planning and operations. They need
to better coordinate operations among the services and with the Colombian
National Police. Adequate funding and restructuring of the military are
essential if Colombia is to have continuing operational success against
its national threats.
The adoption of Plan
Colombia demonstrates that Colombia is moving forward aggressively, exercising
its political will to address, and ultimately solve, domestic problems
that have persisted for decades. The U.S. has an enormous stake in the
success of this plan.
Victory in Colombia
can only come -- and U.S. interests in Colombia can best be served --
once the Government of Colombia asserts effective sovereignty over its
national territory. It is time for the United States to reinforce its
commitment to Colombian democracy.
CONCLUSION
President Pastrana
has asked for both international and U.S. support to address an internal
problem that has international dimensions -- fueled in part by our country's
and the international demand for cocaine. It is time to move forward,
in partnership between the Administration and Congress. Mr. Chairman,
members of the Committee, I again thank you for the opportunity to discuss
these issues with you.
As of July 10, 2002,
this document was also available online at http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ar/colombia/02042402.htm