Excerpts from Press Briefing with Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters, August 13, 2002

Excerpts from Press Briefing with Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters, August 13, 2002
MR. WALTERS: It's a pleasure to be here again with you. It was my honor to attend the inauguration of the new democratically elected leadership in both Colombia and Bolivia. I was glad to be a part of the delegation in Colombia, where the new president, Uribe, was sworn in. I was able to meet with some of his new Cabinet. It was a unique opportunity for our two countries to work together on the common threats of terror and on narco-terror in particular. I was also pleased to be able to attend that ceremony at a time where Congress had passed and the president has signed new trade legislation to allow us to expand opportunities in legal trade and exchange between our two countries. Security and prosperity are key foundations of democracy, and the commitment of President Uribe and his Cabinet and the people of Colombia is impressive. They face an enormously difficult task, but I found them to be some of the bravest, smartest and most dedicated people it's ever been my pleasure to work with in government.

We also -- I also was pleased to be able to represent the United States in Bolivia at the inauguration of a new president, at the same opportunity to discuss expanded trade opportunities with our two countries, as well as the amazing achievement that Bolivia has realized in reducing the cultivation of coca there. While certainly key issues of security and development remain, Bolivia is a major recipient of U.S. aid and development, and we hope to expand the trade through both the existing legislation and some of the new opportunities -- among them, natural gas -- that are now being exploited by Bolivian economic leaders, to increase the investment and prosperity of that nation as well. Because of the poverty there, the need is obviously great, and we continue to support development programs there as well.

I was joined in these two inaugural ceremonies by Congressman Mark Souder, who is a key legislator on our programs in regard to drug control, both supply and demand, and by Adolpho Franco, an AID administrator who helps to oversee many of the programs that we do not only for development but for things like strengthening institutions of justice and others. I'd like to also mention what I said in those countries, to make clear how we understand this problem. President Bush believes that we should not ask other nations to do what we are unwilling to do ourselves. We understand that American demand for drugs is the single biggest funder of anti-democratic forces in this hemisphere, and we believe that is unacceptable.

We have made that point clearer than ever before to Americans and to American young people in particular, with the advertising campaign that this government funds, and we will continue to do that in the weeks ahead. If you buy drugs, some of the money that you're providing may fund terror, and all too many organizations that use terror in the United States, in the nations between South America and the United States, and in South America itself receive funding from American drug consumers.

That is not acceptable. The president has made the cornerstone of how we will judge our performance the reduction of drug use in this country, period -- a 10-percent reduction by teenagers and adults in two years and a 25-percent reduction in five years. We will treat more people than ever before with $1.6 billion in additional spending on treatment over the next five years at the federal level. A total of 3.8 billion has been requested for that purpose for next year. We will increase, as we have already begun, prevention efforts.

And we are going to also increase pressure on those who are non- addictive users. They are the way the drug plague spreads. No one looks at an addict and says, "That's what I would like to be." They see peers who think drugs are fun, and the great lie is that it's a nightmare. So we intend to reduce the means by which this disease of addiction is spread -- that is, the non-addictive user.

We intend to work as never before with our partners in this hemisphere and throughout the world in not only reducing the supply and attacking the market that is the drug trade, but also in sharing technology about the consumption, because no nation in the countries I've visited have seen this -- has ever been a major source of production of trans-shipment without developing serious consumption problems in their own borders. Many of them have, as Mexico does, for example, extensive research that's useful to us, and we are sharing information. } But we're also sharing our own technology and research with those countries to help on their demand side. We don't intend to just look at the United States' problem alone; this is a global problem, and it's tied directly to the global threat of terrorism now and will be in the future. And we intend to attack it effectively across all key points. With that, I'll be happy to take your questions.

MODERATOR: Okay. Take your questions. Mr. Iqueda (sp).

Q Ernesto Iqeda (sp) from the Associated Press. As you know, one of the main component of the drug fight in South America is the surveillance flight in Peru, Colombia. Do you have any schedule for restarting those flights?

MR. WALTERS: Yeah, we're working now to train personnel in both Peru and Colombia, as well as coordinate the operational activities with their personnel, and ours will fly the surveillance flights. We hope to have them restarted in the fall. We don't have at this point a precise date, but I think mid-fall's a reasonable -- is a reasonable timeframe at this point. It'll depend on how rapidly the training proceeds, and then we'll have some operational exercises to make sure that we have procedures in place that make this as safe as possible and we don't have repeats of the problem we faced before.

We understand this is not a risk-free activity, that there always will be some risk, but we want to minimize to the absolute extent possible the risk of innocent lives being put at jeopardy or being lost as a result of this activity. And we understand the necessity to do that. So, we're going to carefully train, carefully coordinate. But we do also understand this is an important tool, both for our efforts and for the efforts in Peru and Colombia, and we'll try to restart them as soon as possible when the training's done. And, again, I think it'll be about mid-fall.

…

Q Hi. Sergio Gomez from El Tiempo of Colombia. The aftermath of the attacks on Bogota on the 7th, which you witnessed, and other actions by guerrilla recent (sic), was the declaration of a state of emergency in Colombia yesterday.

Many agree that that state of emergency is needed because of the widespread violence in the country, but many critics also say that it might lead to abuses. There are already restrictions to the press and some restrictions of civil liberties and interception to telephone and wiring of telephones. Could you give us your thoughts on this state of emergency?

MR. WALTERS: I can say that all the Colombian officials that I met with, and I met with President-elect Uribe here in Washington before the inauguration, but the officials I met with there spent some time at length saying they understood the need to provide security and to preserve democracy in Colombia had to be done with the strengthening and preserving of human rights and civil liberties.

There is a war. There are some matters and circumstances that have to be taken before a war. We have strengthened certain security measures in the United States because we're at war, but that there is, I think, unilateral commitment on the part of the Colombian government and it's unanimous across the institutions and the people I talked to that the preserving of democratic institutions -- in fact, the president has been very clear, I think, about the need to extend the institutions of civil society into parts of the cou1ntry that are not protected now. And he means by that courts as well as security forces to provide lawful order in areas that have been neglected and been subject to violence and human rights abuses.

I also think it's important to remember, and I don't think -- I know this is clear to people in Colombia, but I don't think it's clear to many people in the United States, and I don't know about the rest of the hemisphere. The amount of violence and abuse being done by the guerrillas here -- the government is not -- is frequently talked about because we expect our government institutions to stand and represent justice, but the forced conscription of teenagers into the FARC, the use of violence as a form of intimidation, the assassination of mayors in towns as a systematic effort to destroy the ability of government to function in these -- in parts of Colombia is a blatant and flagrant and brutal example of rule by terror.

And so, yes, we use appropriately wiretaps here. We use some restrictions at times on what we can talk about in the press for the purposes of security. It's a matter of, are those legitimate and prudent? And I believe the new government in Colombia has made clear that it is both sensitive to and trying to systematically protect those interests.

I also think one of the -- I would also -- (inaudible) -- one other thing that I think Americans don't understand, and I don't know whether this is more broadly understood in the hemisphere. The new government has set not only a secure -- an ambitious security agenda for itself, but an ambitious domestic reform agenda, spreading the burden of taxation throughout society, in addition to raising revenues, reforming public institutions of education, of health and social welfare.

It really is a dramatic agenda that will be ambitious and difficult. But the new government understands that this is not just a security matter; it's about reestablishing the cohesiveness of Colombian society and making the institutions work for everybody, and that's the right answer.

MODERATOR: (Off mike.)

Q Maria Elena Mateus (sp), El Universal, Venezuela. Talking about the Colombian conflict spreading to the Andean region or the neighboring countries particularly, how did you foresee this? Is this is danger to -- for narco-terror to spread throughout the region? During your recent visits to these two inaugurations, did you perceive more -- a wider tendency to collaborate with the U.S. government in the fight against narco-terror in the region?

MR. WALTERS: Yes. I think that there is a common understanding that especially the revenues of the drug trade are particularly susceptible to support of terrorist organizations and organizations that undermine the lawful order in countries. I had a bilateral meeting with President Toledo of Peru while I was in La Paz, and I saw President Chavez in Bogota. Both of them expressed their desire to work more closely with us on counternarcotics matters and the need to provide a regional attack, if not a hemispheric attack, on the trade.

We understand this is a market. It has supply and demand as crucial elements in making the market work. We intend to reduce demand. We know that if we also don't work on supply in the United States and with our allies, that the demand reduction achievements that we are -- we want to achieve will not be sustainable when large quantities of cheap and potent drugs flood into the country. So we need to help reduce the supply as well, both for security reasons and for drug control reasons, in this country and throughout the hemisphere.

I think -- I've traveled now to Mexico. I've met, as I say, most of the key leaders in the hemisphere, not all, and the new leadership, and I think there is, if anything, a wide, wide consensus that this is a regional problem. We need to be able to attack it in a successful effort regionally. And if we don't, we have a tendency to make the problem spread and cause more threats to more nations and to severe -- and to make the threats more severe in the nations where it exists.

MODERATOR: The gentleman -

Q Just to -- (off mike) -- the ATPA would make it easier for the guerrillas to move around the region. Is that your perception?

MR. WALTERS: No. I think that the ATPA has in fact enhanced our ability to combat drug trafficking by allowing legitimate employment opportunities to the countries where it has stood.

It's created many jobs, it's created many new ties, many new opportunities for trade between the United States and the Andean countries, as well as from economic development within the region of the Andes. I think if you also look to the -- to NAFTA as an example, yes, we have more trade flowing across the border with Canada and Mexico, but we're doing a better job of cooperating today against the movement of drugs, the threat of terror, the illicit movement of persons than I think we've ever done. We have more seizures, we have also more cooperation on intelligence, which is the key to making these work. So trade and our other efforts go together.

We want to have economies that are growing. There has been a world recession that we are trying to pull the United States, as well as, we hope, the rest of the world pulls out of quickly, and that will create jobs and licit activity. There is no nation, the United States or any other nation in this hemisphere that I've seen or talked to leaders of, that believes the future of the nation is properly or can be realistically directed toward a narco future. Everybody understands that democracy, prosperity, human rights has one direction and that is through legitimate economic development, through trade, through fostering and building democratic institutions, and through strengthening the democratic process. } … } MODERATOR: Lady in the red -- had her hand up for a long time.

Q (Name inaudible) -- from Agence France Presse, AFP. The leader of the coca growers in Bolivia, Evo Morales, that almost won the presidency of Bolivia, ordered a confirmation of self-defense units of coca growers recently to -- (inaudible) -- the anti-drug policy of government. What do you think of that? And what do you think is the alternative for thousands of poor coca growers in Colombia and Bolivia and the rest of the region?

MR. WALTERS: Yeah, I think that from the beginning, the United States -- and I served in President Bush's father's administration -- has understood the supply-control problem in source countries as one of trying to disrupt the market but also providing legal and profitable alternative forms of economic activity through development. I think it's remarkable coming back into government that the level of support in Bolivia, given the large decline in cultivation, the level of economic support, the expansion of trade support, has continued and been substantial, even thought the coca -- the basic estimate is the coca grown in Bolivia today is not coming to the United States. It's going largely to Brazil and to Europe. So we have stayed at this as a regional partner.

And the goal is not to drive poor peasants into starvation. The goal is to drive them through our policies and the support to move them rapidly as possible into prosperous agricultural and other kinds of economic activity, to secure democratic institutions in those countries and to share the benefits of democracy and economic prosperity as widely as possible throughout the hemisphere. Again, I repeat: I think this debate is important, and -- but it also has a kind of fundamental bottom line. No nation can see a prosperous future being a supplier of illegal drugs. Being a producer crates consumption at home. It makes you the supporter of a substance that largely maintains its profit on the basis of enslaving other poor people in other nations: the United States, Mexico, in these other source countries. No responsible and moral regime can fail to see that drug trafficking uses terror as a tool of regular business.

No nation has been a major drug-trafficking nation without having democracy shattered. No nation has become a major drug-trafficking nation without having economic prosperity and future hope of prosperity shattered. There is a false promise on the supply side that is a parallel to the false promise on the demand side: This is going to be great, this is going to be easy, you can handle it. And it's a lie. It's a nightmare. It's something you can't get away from. It distorts persons, it distorts countries and institutions, it denies opportunity and future possibilities.

These are all in this hemisphere rich nations with enormously promising not only human populations, but natural resources and institutions that, if they are allowed to develop and mature, offer enormous promise for the future. President Fox understands that, President Uribe understands that. All the presidents I met with in this region understand that, and certainly the United States has always believed that that's the future. And I think we have a unique consensus today about how we need to work together to seize the future.

Q (Name and affiliation off mike.) You just spoke about narco-terrorism, and also Mr. Asa Hutchinson expressed his concern for the situation to become more serious in Mexico. Do you think the conditions are in place in Mexico for this to happen, and how serious is this?

MR. WALTERS: Yeah, I didn't speak to Mr. Hutchinson about those comments. I actually see the situation as differently, if those comments represent his current views. I think the circumstance in Mexico is much more promising. The institutional reforms that President Fox has put in place to attack corruption, to make cooperation among agencies that have to work together on the criminal justice side, security agencies as well as those that are responsible for adjudication and trials and criminal proceedings are, again, historic.

The thing that has been most, I think, impressive to me in visiting Mexico, that in addition to handling the very real threats that Mexico has faced on the day-to-day basis from the terror and violence of drug traffickers and criminals, that they also have not been consumed with dealing with those threats, but built institutions. I was there for the dedication of the new AFI building, a new institution dedicated to investigating crime in Mexico. The efforts to increase measures to remove corruptions from institutions that have been plagued with them. I don't think anybody, and certainly the people I talk to in Mexico least of all, are satisfied that they're where they want to be. But the enormous progress that's been made and the enormous success against these organizations is a very striking achievement, and also one that reduces the threat of terror in the future.

Yes, these are violent organizations, but when they are broken, when they are made -- when it's made more difficult for them to operate and where therefore they don't have as much money and where they don't have the same kind of intimidation -- I've spoken to people in Mexico who say in many of the communities where the organizations intimidated the population and made them protect them, made them not give information, they have people coming forward and saying, "These are where the traffickers are. These are who these people are. This is what they're using as places of operation." So, the population of Mexico itself is turning and feeling the freedom from being out from under the kind of threats of terror to the degree they had been in the past from some of the traffickers. That's good, and that needs to be pursued. But I think the bottom line is that the threat to the institutions of democracy in Mexico are less as this problem diminishes, and the problem is less and therefore the threat is less.

MODERATOR: We'll take one more question. Over here.

Q (Name and affiliation inaudible), Venezuela. As you know, Venezuela is a transit country for psychotropic substance. Do you have any plan to cooperate with Venezuela, or Venezuela is already cooperating? In which way? I just want some more details about the cooperation with Venezuela.

MR. WALTERS: Yes, Venezuela has been cooperating, continues to -- the DEA, for example, has had a good relationship and continues to have a good relationship with officials in Venezuela. We are working to improve those, obviously, with the change of government in Colombia and the huge area of land border between the two countries. We're looking at trying to ourselves work with both countries on attacking the transit through Venezuela. President Chavez invited me to come to Caracas and talk about further cooperation, and we'll look at the possibility of doing that sometime in the future.

But, yeah, I think, in fact, while there's been a number of issues that have been public discussions of some differences of opinion, in fact, on significant parts of drug investigations, cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of Venezuela and ours have been pretty good, and it hasn't been talked about much. But I think, sure, we'd like to strengthen cooperation across the board, but I don't -- I think there's a reasonably good story here as well.