Speech
by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), March 29, 2000
Mr.
YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining 4 minutes of our time
to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker
of the House.
Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman,
I rise today in respectful opposition to the amendment of the gentleman
from Wisconsin. I want to speak in favor of U.S. assistance to the government
of Colombia to fight the war on drugs.
I do not take this well in
a frivolous way. First of all, the supplemental that we are considering
today is about our children and whether we want our children to grow up
in a society free from the scourge of drugs. Now, does that mean that
we can do this just by doing something in Colombia? No, and I want to
pursue that.
The gentleman from Missouri
(Mr. Skelton), my good friend, talked about Peru. I have been to Peru
several times, more times than I want to count. But when President Fujimori
came in there on the Shining Path and controlled the drug trade in the
Upper Huallaga Valley, and they did bring the shoot-down policies because
they were moving drugs from Peru to Colombia, he was successful. He was
successful because he was able to address the problem of the narcoguerillas
in Peru and the transportation of drugs from where it was grown to where
it was being remanufactured in Colombia.
Then the new president of
Bolivia came in, and I have been to Bolivia more times than I want to
count, and he was able to do the drug suppression there where drugs were
going into Brazil and Argentina by crop substitution, but also by being
able to stop the drug trade from moving from Bolivia to Colombia. I say
to my colleagues, the problem is, all of the drugs that we stopped from
Peru and Bolivia are now grown in Colombia. How do we address that?
[TIME: 1530]
The Colombian police officers
have been fairly successful. They have a great human rights record. They
have been able to do a credible job. But the police force in Colombia
does not have the manpower, it does not have the ability to get into southern
Colombia, an area the size of Switzerland, to be able to stop drug trade
and drug growing and drug transportation and drug manufacturing.
The Colombians need help.
But I want to focus for a few minutes about why. Colombia is the source
of 90 percent of the cocaine that comes into this country. Colombia is
the source of 65 percent of the heroin that reaches our neighborhoods,
our schools, and our children.
Over 52,000 Americans die
every year, every year from illegal drug use, and others from gang- and
drug-related violence, thousands, and tens of thousands of lives are ruined.
I could tell Members stories from my own experience. Thousands of families
are destroyed because of what Colombian drugs and others, but mainly Colombian
drugs, are doing in this country.
They are our real casualties
of a quiet, deadly battle that is waged on the streets of our cities,
our towns, our rural areas, our neighborhoods, and our schools.
Some of my colleagues have
said that this package is not the answer. They are correct, stopping drugs
in Colombia is not the only answer. We have a responsibility to stop drugs
in Colombia, to stop them in transit, to stop them at our border, to stop
them in our streets and in our schools.
We also have a responsibility
to teach our children to say no, and to educate them as to the dangers
of drugs, and keep them from trying drugs in the first place.
Finally, we have the responsibility
to provide meaningful and effective treatment to those who are addicted
to drugs. I know the gentleman before me talked about that. This year
alone we will spend close to $6 billion, or one-third of our drug control
budget, on treatment and prevention.
I am personally committed
to working with this Congress, the gentleman from Wisconsin, the President
of the United States, to implement an effective and balanced strategy
to win the war on drugs.
My friend, the gentleman from
Wisconsin, asked, he said, have we ever had this debate? Since I have
been in this Congress, especially the last 6 years, we have debated this
every year. We have had hearings. We know what the problems in Colombia
are. We know of the ineffectiveness of the previous administration in
Colombia fighting drugs.
We were somewhat askance when
the President opened up the territory in southern Colombia, but now our
administration and the administration of Colombia are in concert. Our
administration has listened to what this Congress has said for 5 or 6
years: that we need to do something about it, that we cannot put our head
in the sand; that we cannot say, well, we cannot do anything about it,
so we ignore it.
Mr. Chairman, I say to my
colleagues, and I speak to Members today as my colleagues, we cannot ignore
this issue. We cannot ignore it in this Congress, we cannot ignore it
on our street corners, and we cannot ignore it from the place that this
stuff comes from.
I ask Members today, and again,
respectfully, because I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman
from Wisconsin, and I understand that we do not want to get in a prolonged
war. But we helped Peru and we did not get in a prolonged war because
we did not have our troops down there. We are not going to do this here.
We helped Colombia, and they were able to stop it. We did things, and
if we are constant and vigilant in this Congress, we can do a great deal.
We can do a great deal together.
I ask the gentleman from Wisconsin,
I am willing to reach out my hand and work with the gentleman. I do not
want to see us escalate. A lot of this is for the beginning helicopters,
so they can get into the territories, they can get into the places where
they grow the drugs; that they can stop the transit, the riverine problems
that they have.
But Mr. Chairman, we have
to solve this problem. We cannot solve the problem by ignoring it.
I ask Members again respectfully
to reject this amendment. Let us get on with this job, and let us do it
right.
As of March 30, 2000, this
document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: