Excerpts from press conference with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Peter Romero, May 7, 2001

Excerpts from press conference with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Peter Romero, May 7, 2001
Q Arturo -- (inaudible). Mr. Secretary, could you give us an update on the implementation of Plan Colombia, please?

MR. ROMERO: Thank you. The question was, can I give an update on the implementation of Plan Colombia. Certainly there has been remarkable progress on both training counternarcotics battalions to take the field against regular forces or guerrilla groups that are engaged in narcotrafficking. There have been three battalions of 1,100 men that have graduated now, and two of which are in the field.

There has been remarkable progress in eradication of the coca cultivation in the centers where you have seen virtual explosion happen over the last couple of years. There has been about 40 to 45 percent of the coca cultivation in the Putamayo department that has been eradicated just since December. There has been a winning back, if you will, of that area back into the fabric of government control, government presence, for the first time, probably, in the history of Colombia. So "winning back" is not exactly an accurate term, but I would say that there is a government civilian presence and law and order beginning to move into these areas as never before.

Luckily, the decreases in Peru and Bolivia continue to go down and, as a result, we are focusing our next efforts not only on helping the Colombians finish the job in Colombia, but also trying to, as the secretary mentioned, do preventive maintenance with Colombia's neighbors. We will be dusting off a program of about $900 million; about 45 percent of it will go to Colombia. The rest will go to Colombia's neighbors -- Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Panama and Venezuela, to try to inoculate them against the spillover. That will be our major effort over the next couple of years, and finishing what we've set out to do in Colombia.

Certainly there's a lot to be done. Essentially, when you get right down to it, when you're eradicating or you're trying to eradicate coca, it is an economic problem. Fulano (ph) needs to have an alternative source of income, and if he can make $200 a month as a "cocalero", he has to be given an alternative. And that's essentially where we're working. It's tough stuff, it's difficult, because you have to not only convince local farmers that they have an alternative -- and we already have about 1,500 families signed up in the Putumayo area for voluntary eradication, manual eradication, but you have to keep them from growing coca and keep others from moving into the area and taking their place in terms of coca cultivation.

I can't guarantee you that this is going to be successful, but I have to tell you that for the first time in my memory, every effort has been made to make this a holistic, integrated approach by the Colombian government, by ourselves. We've enlisted the Europeans on board. I think you saw that the Europeans came up with about $300 million last week; they're supporting it, all of Colombia's neighbors. I think that for the first time, we know what works, we know what's got to be done, and we're doing it. It's going to be a long slog, but I don't see progress being made on that unless we do more in terms of the demand side in the United States, not separately, but parallel; it's got to be done and it's got to be more than just simply spending money to build more jails.

MR. PRYCE: I think we have time for one more question, if there is one.

Right over here. Gary? Please identify yourself.

Q Yeah, Gary (Jade ?), Laredo National Bank. What's happening to the street price of cocaine in the United States as you see these successes that you have alluded to in reducing the crop production or distribution from Colombia?

MR. ROMERO: You know, I don't follow that as closely as I should. (Laughter.) Would anybody like to raise their hand and tell me what the street price might be? (More laughter.)

Q It seems to me like it's not a funny matter.

MR. ROMERO: No, it's a very important indicator. It is not.

Q It seems to me that it's directly related and you should follow it.

MR. ROMERO: Absolutely, yeah, I should. What I tend to follow more is the price overseas in various countries, and I do know that the price in Colombia remains stable, but the price in Bolivia and Peru has gone down dramatically, and largely because it's too difficult -- or becoming increasingly more difficult to get their crop to market.

That's what you want -- to make it so difficult to get their crop to market that basically peasants abandon the crop or readily accept alternative crops in their place.

Colombia is -- provides about 80 percent of the coca that comes into the United States and almost 100 percent -- pardon me -- almost 100 percent of the coca that comes into the United States and about 80 percent of the heroin that comes in the United States. It is a grower that is, I think, much more difficult to contain, largely because there are such huge swatches of Colombia that have never had government control in them. And the key to Plan Colombia is trying to fill these vacuums, to try to have a government control, not just the military, but the military, followed by the police, followed by judges, followed by human rights promoters, followed by alternative development and infrastructure and that sort of thing. And that's the only way you're going to be able to stop it.

And in terms of -- again, I didn't want to answer -- being facetious and answer your question; it's very important, the street price of drugs in the United States -- but let me just reiterate that I think probably one of the things that Hollywood has done over the last couple of years is in the movie "Traffic," because for the first time Americans see what is happening to societies outside of our borders in coping with this threat that we are responsible for.

Most of -- through the '80s and the early '90s, people who used drugs were people who basically thought that what they were doing was their own business and that it was a victimless crime. "I'm not hurting anybody." And when you work the way we do overseas and you see the children who are left orphans and the women who are left as widows from the literally thousands of law enforcement officers who are killed yearly in this hemisphere, in trying to defend their own societies against the scourge of drugs and drug trafficking, you only begin to get a sense that this is a corrosive business, one that bores into the very foundations of democratic institutions and law enforcement in our hemisphere.