Speech by Rep. Thomas Sawyer (D-Ohio), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. Thomas Sawyer (D-Ohio), March 29, 2000
AMENDMENT NO. 6 OFFERED BY MR. SAWYER
Mr. SAWYER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

The text of the amendment is as follows:

Part B Amendment No. 6 offered by Mr. Sawyer:

Page 8, line 13, before the period insert the following: `: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading, not less than $50,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for internally displaced persons in Colombia'.

The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sawyer) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sawyer).

Mr. SAWYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, let me say that the struggle that is going on in Colombia is going on not only for the sake of drugs but for the sake of an important nation in our hemisphere. And for that reason, I would submit that any new U.S. aid package to Colombia should allocate a modest but substantial amount of money to directly deal with displaced communities and persons and bring about humanitarian aid for resettlement, reintegration, and development assistance.

Displaced people in Colombia live in fear. They receive little or no assistance from their own government or the international community. I am concerned that U.S. aid will have little effect if this refugee crisis is not addressed.

The common dimension when we are talking about Kosovo or Bosnia or Rwanda or Liberia or so many other places on Earth is one that is shared with Colombia, and that is the extraordinary number of displaced persons who themselves are a destabilizing force within the country that we are trying to stabilize.

The refugee crisis is even bigger than that which was experienced in Kosovo. A million and a half people are streaming towards borders and to the outskirts of cities where camps are themselves destabilizing. This has become not only a symptom of Colombia's instability but is a cause of Colombia's instability. It is something that, for a modest investment, we can make the dollars that are going in other programmatic areas pay off many times over.

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