Speech by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), March 29, 2000
[Page: H1489]
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a gentleman who served with me in El Salvador.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply disappointed that the majority refused to allow debate on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) to add $1.3 billion for drug treatment and prevention here at home.

Sadly, Mr. Speaker, today we will be given very limited debate on a number of important amendments to the Colombia aid package. I strongly oppose this Colombia aid package as it is currently constituted.

Like every Member in this House, I want to support President Pastrana in his efforts to negotiate peace and end the 40-year civil war and to provide economic development for the Colombian people. And like every Member in this House, I want to reduce drug use in the United States. Unfortunately, this package will not further either of those goals.

The three antidrug battalions and related aircraft in this bill are to be deployed in two southern provinces to root out guerillas that have been entrenched there for 40 years and to eradicate coca crops grown by peasant farmers. The futility of spending billions on eradication should be obvious to anyone who has studied this question, whether those studies are from the Rand Institute or our own GAO.

Coca is so profitable and easy to grow that short-term success has always proven an empty victory. Like mercury hit with a hammer, coca cultivation attacked in one location simply scatters elsewhere.

So what will this package achieve? In the most violent country in the hemisphere, it will only result in more violence. It will ally the United States with the most brutal military in the hemisphere.

Read the Human Rights Watch report. Read the reports of the Colombian Commission of Jurors. Read the reports by the United Nations and the OAS. They paint a picture of the Colombian military that I doubt any Member of this House would want to be associated with. And the victims, and there will be victims, will be the civilian population.

My colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), says that Colombia is not El Salvador. He is right in one respect. Colombia is 20 times the size of El Salvador.

I think one of the things that we need to do is we need to learn from the lessons of El Salvador and our other interventions in Central America to make sure we do not repeat the mistakes. Better to spend this money on treatment, education, and law enforcement here at home.

The best way to fight drugs is to reduce demand, something this bill does not even attempt to do. Defeat this rule and rethink the Colombia package.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-104: