Speech by Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana), May 23, 2002

Speech by Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana), May 23, 2002

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the comments of my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). We have traveled to Colombia together. We have some agreements and some disagreements.

I think it is important that if each one of us got up and extended our remarks, we will not be following House order. It is not from any objection to the comments of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) or the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.

[Page: H3001]
Delahunt), though I may not agree. I assume that I will stick to my 5 minutes as well; if not voluntarily, then forcibly.
I think the first fundamental question here is do we have a compelling national interest. When we look at an issue like this, if we do not have a compelling national interest in Colombia, where would we have a compelling national interest?

Clearly, it is in our hemisphere, Colombia; clearly, the drugs on our streets that are resulting in deaths from cocaine and heroin in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in Massachusetts, in Florida, and North Carolina, throughout our Nation, are predominantly coming from Colombia.

[Time: 18:45]
Clearly we have a threat to the democracy in Colombia. As even the past speaker acknowledged, it is certainly exacerbated by our drugs, and we must accept responsibility. If it were not for our drug habit, quite probably Colombia could handle their problems.

Fourth, we clearly have a terrorist threat as the international terrorist groups interconnect and as the drug money provides support for terrorist groups around the world, not only within their country but in international networks. We have a terrorist threat. Clearly we have a trade threat. In fact, if the pipeline in Colombia collapses, Colombia has less ability with which to defend itself, not because they could not have protected their pipeline themselves, but if it is our cocaine and heroine money that threatens their pipeline, clearly that has complicated their ability to protect themselves and we have multiple products that are critical to trade with Colombia, and it has been one of the more stable countries historically in South America, both democratically and economically.

Clearly there is a threat and a potential threat to the Panama Canal, where now that we have turned it over to the Panamanians which, remember, was cut out of Colombia, and as we have seen the drug traffickers move into the Darien Peninsula and put many of their facilities in Panama, we have a direct threat to potentially cutting off our trade ability if the drug cartels get more control over Panama.

Clearly we have an energy threat. Colombia is either our seventh or eighth largest supplier of oil. Our economy depends on that. We already have instability in the Middle East. We have more compelling reasons to be involved in Colombia than almost anywhere else in the world.

Direct on our streets 16,000 deaths minimum last year because of illegal narcotics compared to the other categories of direct threat to the United States. They all pale in this area. So we have a bill before us today that reflects the truth, which we all have acknowledged and we realize was developing, that is, that there was a revolutionary movement that was, you can argue what their predominant roles were, but it was the FARC and other groups there, they were at one time revolutionary. As they progressed and as they funded themselves, they increasingly started to provide narcotics protection. So did the paramilitaries that were initially designed to protect the people from other revolutionary groups to provide protection to individuals and families and businessmen. As they evolved, they started to look for drug money for protection.

So we have seen the paramilitary groups, we have seen the FARC and other groups basically move to protection for drug cartels and increasingly as we saw in the DMZ to actually protecting the people who were growing it, distributing it and processing it.

So what we are recognizing, increasingly that we just cannot fight narcotics, we have to also be able to fight the terrorist efforts in Colombia if we are going to have an effect on narcotics, if we are going to have an effect on protecting the democracy, if we are going to have an effect on protecting the trade, the Panama Canal, the oil pipelines, and most importantly the people in my neighborhoods who are being attacked by drugs.

This amendment, if it passed, would in effect start the repeal of our ability to help protect American citizens from illegal narcotics and our ability to help our friends in Colombia who have stood with us.

This is not Vietnam. This is not us going in to fight. This is whether we are going to adequately equip them and train them to fight their own battle, a battle they would not be having in Colombia were it not for our drug habits in the United States. They have some drug usage in Colombia, but Western Europe and the United States are the primary places that have funded these terrorist groups.

When they see these different people who are undermining the democracy in terrorizing the communities, they do not say, we are the drug division. We are the terrorist division. They cannot poll each one.

We have worked hard with the government in Colombia, and we will continue in the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources and the other committees of this Congress, to make sure that they follow human rights, that they follow human rights policies, that we monitor to make sure that they are doing the best they can, that as we work through trying to make sure that these groups follow the human rights and they get vetted units and they make sure that they are fighting both their battle and our battle, if they are successful, it is not just for the people of Colombia, it is for the people of Indiana. It is very important that we continue to support them and acknowledge what is going on on the ground, or we will lose Colombia and this Congress will have sat there and put our kids more at risk and our families at risk if we do not defeat this amendment.

As of June 19, 2002, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r107:@FIELD(FLD003+h)+@FIELD(DDATE+20020523)