Excerpts from State Department Daily Briefing, March 20, 2001

Excerpts from State Department Daily Briefing, March 20, 2001

DAILY BRIEFING
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 20, 2001

Q: On Colombia, there is an article in today's Washington Times talking about the links between the FARC and drug trade, and they talk about exporting cocaine from Colombia to Brazil produced by the FARC. And if you have any comment on that?

MR. BOUCHER: I think this is something we have talked about before. You will remember the Mexicans arrested some people -- what was it, six months or so ago -- that demonstrated some of the links between the FARC and the narco-traffickers. As the Colombian Government has gone forward with their counter-narcotics program, they continue to identify evidence of deep involvement by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the narcotics industry. This is longstanding and well-known. It is not the first time that we have seen credible evidence of FARC personnel directly participating in drug transactions.

In the past, the FARC's leadership has denied these charges in the press, despite the evidence, and we would call on them to demonstrate their claim of non-involvement in narcotics trafficking by in fact severing all their ties with the narcotics industry.

As of April 6, 2001, this document was also available online at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2001/index.cfm?docid=1489