Statement
of Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state, Bureau for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, April 4, 2000
Statement
of Rand Beers
Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau for International Narcotics and
Law Enforcement Affairs
Before the Senate Armed Services Committee
April 4, 2000
Mr. Chairman and Members of
the Committee:
I want to thank you for this
opportunity to speak to you today about the threat that drug trafficking
in Colombia and the surrounding region poses to U.S. national security
interests and democratic stability in South America.
We have just completed a year
in which we have seen a continuing, steady decline in the Andean coca
crop, the source of all the cocaine destined for the United States. This
achievement is a direct result of our counternarcotics alliance with two
major Andean drug producers, Bolivia and Peru. It is also a tribute to
the political will which these countries have demonstrated in meeting
the challenge of a very difficult adversary with considerable resources.
Even taking into account a marked expansion of cultivation in Colombia,
overall Andean coca cultivation totals are at a new low. The most dramatic
declines occurred in Peru and Bolivia, formerly the world's two principal
coca producers. They now rank a distant second and third behind Colombia.
With continuing support, I
believe that we can consolidate the gains made in Bolivia and Peru so
that Bolivian and Peruvian drug traffickers no longer pose a threat to
the national security of the United States. In order to do that however,
we must assist the government of Colombia in creating the same economic
and law enforcement environment that is allowing the governments of Bolivia
and Peru to succeed against drug trafficking. Otherwise, the continued
existence of resilient Colombian drug trafficking organizations will pose
a constant threat of resurgent drug trafficking to the entire region.
The government of Colombia
has risen to this challenge and is confronting these threats. The "Plan
Colombia" is a package of mutually reinforcing policies to revive
Colombia's battered economy, to strengthen the democratic pillars of society,
to promote the peace process and to combat the narcotics industry. The
strategy combines existing Colombian policies with ambitious new initiatives
in forging an integrated approach to that nation's most pressing challenges
by strengthening government institutions, promoting economic recovery,
carrying out social reform, and boosting counternarcotics efforts. The
United States did consult with the Colombian leadership throughout the
plan's development, but the plan was formulated, drafted and approved
by President Pastrana and his team in Colombia.
Plan Colombia cannot be understood
simply in terms of the U.S. contribution. In all, Plan Colombia is a $7.5
billion program toward which President Pastrana has pledged some $4 billion
of Colombia's own scarce resources. He called on the international community
to provide the remaining $3.5 billion. In response to this request, the
Administration is proposing a $1.6 billion assistance package. A significant
share of our package will go to reduce the supply of drugs coming into
the United States by assisting Colombia in its efforts to confront the
cocaine and heroin industries. This focus on enforcement-related assistance,
the so-called "stick", will allow other sponsors to provide
support for the "carrot," the developmental and humanitarian
assistance projects for which they have special interests and expertise.
That said, we still intend to provide Colombia $240 million dollars to
support administration of justice reform, strengthening human rights mechanisms,
humanitarian assistance for the internally displaced and alternative development
crop substitution programs.
The essential point of this
effort is to establish Colombian central government authority over narcotics-producing
sanctuaries. The country's many social and economic problems cannot be
successfully resolved while narcotics-financed armed groups flourish in
these lawless zones. Estimates of guerrilla income from narcotics trafficking
and other illicit activities are undependable, but the drug trade is definitely
their largest single source of income. Paramilitary groups also have clear
ties to important narcotics traffickers and obtain much of their funding
from them. Like his FARC counterparts, paramilitary leader Carlos Castano
has publicly admitted taxing the drug trade. As a result, these groups
are well-funded and well-armed. The strength of Colombia's armed insurgent
groups has limited the effectiveness of joint U.S.-Colombian counternarcotics
efforts. In order for our counternarcotics programs ultimately to be successful,
we cannot allow certain areas of the country, like the Putumayo region,
to be off-limits for counternarcotics operations.
There is also a need to re-establish
government order in Colombia for human rights purposes. According to the
Colombian NGO Pais Libre, guerrilla, paramilitary, and other criminal
groups kidnapped 2,945 people last year, including 51 foreigners. This
is a 33 percent increase from 1998, with the two busiest groups, the FARC
and the ELN, combining for half of the abductions. Kidnapping is neither
an insurgent nor a political statement. It is a crime. Colombia must disrupt
the narco-financing of these groups, regardless of any political orientation
they may claim, if any comprehensive solution to Colombia's problems is
going to succeed.
In doing this, we cannot ignore
the rest of the region. For example, Bolivian and Peruvian successes against
the trafficking trade are unprecedented. With U.S. assistance, both countries
have been able to reduce coca production dramatically. This was achieved
through successful efforts to re-establish government control and bring
government services to former drug producing safehavens. Both Bolivia
and Peru combined vigorous eradication and interdiction efforts with alternative
development incentives for small farmers to switch to legal crops and
other licit ways to make a living. Colombia's aim is to achieve a similar
record of success.
But these successes are also
tenuous against the seductive dangers of the narcotics trade. This is
why our Plan Colombia support package includes $46 million for regional
interdiction efforts and another $30 million for development in Peru,
Bolivia, and Ecuador. These countries deserve our continued support to
solidify the gains they have striven so hard to attain. We have no intention
of allowing cultivation and production of narcotics simply to relocate
in an international game of cat-and-mouse.
Over the last year, Colombia
has been a major topic of discussion in my conversations with senior officials
from the region. More often than not, these officials are the first to
raise the subject expressing concern over the expansion of coca and opium
cultivation; the potential projection of the Colombian narco-guerrilla
threat into their own countries; and finally, how the U.S. intends to
support not only Colombia, but also their own countries against a potential
narco-guerrilla spillover across Colombian borders. Our dialogue with
Peru is well-advanced in this area, and President Fujimori has deployed
military units along the Colombian-Peruvian border to stop FARC and drug
trafficking incursions into Peruvian territory. Already, Peru is seeing
an increase in the number of cocaine refining labs within its territory,
a possible effect of Colombian-influenced changes in regional trafficking
patterns. Bolivia fears that Colombian success in eradicating coca and
opium will bring renewed trafficker pressure that will undermine its alternative
development efforts in coca-growing areas. Ecuador, which is in a precarious
economic state at the moment, is preoccupied with the potential trafficker
and refugee spillover across its northern border with Colombia, should
the Colombians bring pressure to bear on the Putmayo region. Similarly,
Brazil and Venezuela are in close consultation with us on ways to support
the Colombian government and minimize their roles as major narcotics transit
countries to the U.S. and Europe.
The intent of the Administration
is to provide for a strengthened regional counternarcotics effort, with
Colombia at the center. Moreover, beyond budgetary contributions, we are
committed to lending our political influence to engage European and Asian
donor countries in the effort to buttress Latin American counternarcotics
efforts. We have already done this for Peru and Bolivia, and are working
to engage them as sponsors for Colombia as well. As these efforts come
to fruition, and individual countries' drug strategies are implemented,
we anticipate that we will meet the challenge of closing off trafficking
"escape routes," which will make our support for Colombian counternarcotics
efforts that much more important in the next few years.
(end text)
As of April 5, 2000, this
document was also available online at http://usinfo.state.gov/admin/011/lef204.htm