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

Speech by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), March 29, 2000
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Pelosi amendment, and I rise to express serious questions about this aid package.

First, this is not the way to win the drug war at home. Over and over today it has been emphasized, every dollar spent here at home on drug treatment and prevention is 23 times more effective than a dollar spent on cutting production at the source.

Second, this aid will not stop coca targeted for the United States. Coca is profitable and easy to grow. In Colombia it is grown by thousands of peasant farmers who have no other viable economic crop. Even if we were able to eradicate their coca crops, cultivation will only move to other regions in Colombia or in the Andean region.

As long as Americans demand cocaine and heroin, the supply will be there. Drug-dealing is market-driven capitalism in its purist form.

Third, Colombians do not support fumigation and crop eradication. It has been tried before in Colombia and failed. I am sure my colleagues know that in February, the governors and mayors of two provinces where the U.S. plans to target its crop eradication efforts asked the national government to suspend all aerial spraying. I am sure my colleagues also know that on March 12, the general director himself of the regional office of Colombian Ministry of the Environment for the Amazon suspended all aerial spraying of illicit crops in the southern departments of Putamayo and Caqueta, exactly where U.S. action is focused.

Fumigation was suspended because small farms growing food crops are being poisoned, the water is being poisoned, the Amazon headwaters are being polluted, and the Amazon rain forest itself is being degraded. Yet, in this package today, the U.S. is proposing a significant escalation of crop eradication.

Fourth, Colombian civil society has raised serious questions about the U.S. aid proposal. Every single Member of this House received several letters signed by scores of Colombian churches, women's organizations, human rights organizations, academics, trade unions, indigenous groups, farmers' unions, jurists, community organizations, members of the government-appointed National Peace Council, and humanitarian groups. They sent us these letters at great personal risk to themselves. We should show some respect to the concerns that they have raised.

Fifth, millions of Colombians have taken to the streets demanding an end to the violence. The only result this aid package could guarantee is to increase the violence and dislocation in Colombia.

Sixth, this plan offers a U.S. embrace to a brutal antidemocratic and corrupt military that often works hand in hand with right-wing paramilitary groups who are themselves deeply implicated in the drug trade, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. According to a February report by Human Rights Watch, half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units are linked to paramilitary activity. Military support for paramilitary activity remains national in scope and includes the areas where Colombian units are receiving or will receive U.S. military aid.

There are dozens more reasons for opposing this package, but I would like to conclude with one other observation.

Many of my colleagues insist that Colombia is not El Salvador, and as someone intimately familiar with the Salvadoran war and its peace process, I could not agree more; the two countries are different. However, what other Members have been stressing is that the response and justifications voiced by supporters of this policy, both in the administration and in the Congress, are hauntingly familiar. If my colleagues do not think so, go back and read the record of the debate during the 1980s.

On top of all of this is the overlay of the drug trade in which all sectors in Colombia are involved. The FARC and the ELN guerillas are involved, the paramilitaries are involved, the Colombian military is involved, and key financial government officials must be involved, or the drug trade would not be able to flourish.

Then there are the criminal drug dealers and the traffickers themselves. This is the situation into which we want to throw our military resources? Give me a break.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the Pelosi amendment and to reject this ill-conceived aid package.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: