Excerpts from Speech by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), May 18, 2000

Excerpts from Speech by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), May 18, 2000
There is another provision in the foreign operations appropriations bill we hope we will be taking up shortly. This provision has to do with our neighbor to the south, Colombia.

Let me first commend the chairman and ranking member on the subcommittee, Senator McConnell and Senator Leahy, and also the chairman and ranking member of the full committee, Senator Stevens and Senator Byrd, for working with me, for working with Senator Coverdell, Senator Grassley, Senator Graham of Florida, and so many others on the Colombia/Andean emergency antidrug assistance package which is now part of this bill.

This assistance to Colombia would provide approximately $934 million to support Colombian efforts to eliminate drugs at the source, to improve human rights programs, to improve rule of law programs, and to increase economic development--$934 million is what is contained in this bill. Passage of this assistance package is crucial to helping keep drugs off our streets here at home and to bring stability to our hemisphere.

No one questions there is a real emergency that currently exist in Colombia. Colombia is a democratic success story that is now in crisis. Thanks largely to the growing profits from illicit drug trafficking, Colombia is embroiled in a destabilizing and brutal civil war, a civil war that has gone on for decades with a death toll that continues to rise and that we estimate is at least 35,000 people. We have seen and continue to see the tragedy of Colombia unfold in our newspapers; we see

the violence that is occurring there. Members of the army, members of the police are killed on a daily basis at an unbelievably alarming rate.

Just this week we saw a graphic, horrible picture in our newspapers of a bomb necklacing, where one of the terrorist groups, one of the guerrilla groups, placed a bomb around a woman's neck, asked her family for money, locked the bomb so it could not be removed, and told the family the bomb would go off at 3 in the afternoon. The bomb squad came in, the army. For 8 hours they tried to get the bomb off. Tragically, the bomb went off. The bomb killed the woman and killed the young man who was working to try to free her. That is just a graphic example of what is occurring, in one form or the another, in Colombia every single day.

Many of us on the floor were in Congress in the 1980s when we worked so hard to give assistance to the countries in this hemisphere, particularly in Central America, to drive communism out to allow these countries to become democratic. The 1980s are a true success story for this hemisphere. We paid a very heavy price, but I think most of us believe that was a price worth paying. We brought democracy, we brought opportunity to our hemisphere.

Today the drug trade has emerged as the dominant threat to peace and freedom in the Americas. Communism was the threat in the 1980s. Today the drug trade is the threat. It threatens the sovereignty of the Colombian democracy and the continued prosperity and security of our hemisphere.

We have devoted a good portion of this week to discussing the threat that is involved in the whole situation in the Balkans, specifically in regard to Kosovo. I think we should have; it is very important. But I believe what we are seeing right here in our own hemisphere, what is happening in Colombia, is certainly equally important and maybe more important than what is going on in the Balkans.

Tragically, it is America's own drug habit that is fueling this threat in our hemisphere. It is our own drug habit that is causing the instability and violence in Colombia and in the region. Let's just look at what is happening in my own home State of Ohio, in Cincinnati, OH. In 1990, there were 19 heroin-related arrests in Cincinnati--1990, 19 heroin-related arrests. Last year, there were 464 arrests. Law enforcement officers in Cincinnati understand the reason for this surge. Colombia produces low-cost, high-purity heroin, making it more and more the drug of choice. And because of our Government's inadequate emphasis on drug interdiction and eradication efforts, that Colombian heroin is making its way across our borders and in my case, to the State of Ohio.

We may say, sure, Cincinnati is just one urban area, one metropolitan area. But if there is a heroin problem in Cincinnati, you can bet there is a heroin problem in New York City and Chicago and Los Angeles and throughout our country. The fact is that drugs from Colombia are cheap and plentiful in this country, so our children across America are using them. In fact, more children today are using and experimenting with drugs than 10 years ago--many more than did 10 years ago. The facts and statistics are startling. According to the 1999 Monitoring the Future Study, since 1992 overall drug use among tenth graders has increased 55 percent, heroin use among tenth graders has increased 92 percent, and cocaine use among tenth graders has increased 133 percent.

The ability of our law enforcement officers to succeed in keeping drugs off our streets and away from our children is clearly, directly linked to our ability to keep drugs produced in places such as Colombia from ever reaching our shores. To be effective, our drug control strategy needs to be a coordinated effort that directs and balances resources and support among three key areas: Domestic law enforcement, international eradication and interdiction efforts, and demand reduction. This means we must balance the allocation of resources towards efforts to stop those who produce drugs, those who transport illegal drugs into this country, and those who deal drugs on our streets and in our schools.

The sad fact is, the cultivation of coca in Colombia has skyrocketed, doubling from over 126,000 acres in 1995 to 300,000 in 1999. Poppy cultivation has grown to such an extent that it is now the source of the majority of heroin consumed in the United States. Not surprisingly, as drug availability has increased in the United States, drug use among adolescents also has increased.

To make matters worse, these Colombian insurgents see the drug traffic as a financial partner to sustain their illicit cause, only making the FARC and ELN grow stronger. The sale of drugs today not only fuels the drug business, but also the antidemocratic insurgents in Colombia.

Why does Colombia matter? It matters to us, first of all, because of what I just talked about, and that is the drugs Colombia ships into the United States.

Why else does it matter? The drug trade in Colombia is a source of rampant lawlessness and violence in Colombia. It has destabilized that country and stands to threaten the entire Andean region. Fortunately, in the last few years, Congress has had the foresight to recognize the escalating threats, and we have taken the lead to restore our drug-fighting capability beyond our borders off our shores.

Many of my colleagues who have worked so hard on this Colombia assistance package also worked with me just a few short years ago to pass the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, a $2.7 billion, 3-year authorization initiative aimed at restoring international eradication, interdiction, and crop alternative development funding.

With this law, we already have made an $800 million downpayment. We have appropriated and spent $800 million, $200 million of which represented the first substantial investment in Colombia to counternarcotics activities.

I stress to my colleagues that the emergency assistance package before us is based on a blueprint that Senator Coverdell and I developed and introduced last October, 3 months before the administration unveiled its proposal.

Like our plan, the emergency assistance package before us this evening goes beyond counternarcotics assistance and crop alternative development programs in Colombia. This plan targets Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Peru, Panama, and Ecuador.

This is a regional approach, and a regional approach is crucial. Peru and Bolivia have made enormous progress to reduce drug cultivation in their countries, and they have done it with our assistance. What has taken place in those two countries has been a success story.

An emphasis only on the Colombian drug problems risks the spillover effect of Colombia's drug trade shifting to other countries in the region. That is why resources are needed and provided in this bill for countries such as Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, and Peru.

I also note the positive contributions to our antidrug activities made by the chairman and ranking member, Senator Burns and Senator Murray, of the Military Construction Subcommittee. We passed today the military construction bill which includes investments in equipment and support activities as part of our Colombia-Andean region antidrug strategy.

That bill also includes funding for the Coast Guard to provide supplies, reduce the maintenance backlog, and for pay and benefits for Coast Guard personnel.

Funding in that bill also was provided for six C-130J aircraft, which give critical support to our counternarcotics efforts.

That bill also contains funding for forward operating locations which will provide the logistic support needed for our aircraft to conduct detection and monitoring flights over the source countries. The closure of Howard Air Force Base in

Panama, as part of the Panama Canal transfer treaty, severely diminished this capability. That is why we need these forward operating locations, and that is why the money provided in this bill is so important.

As I stated a moment ago, a balanced approach is critical to the success of our counterdrug policy. We must continue to invest resources in our law enforcement agencies--Coast Guard, Customs, and the Drug Enforcement Agency. They are our front line of defense against drugs coming into the United States. They also work with law enforcement agencies of other countries to eradicate and interdict drugs. These agencies need additional resources to ensure the increase in illicit drug production in Colombia does not result in a corresponding increase in drugs on the streets and in the schools of our country.

Addressing the crisis in Colombia is timely and necessary. It is in the national security interest of Colombia and the United States to work together and with our other partners in the hemisphere to curb the corroding effects of illicit drug trafficking. The bottom line is that an investment in the Andean region to help stop the drug trade and preserve democracy is a direct investment in the peaceful future of our entire hemisphere. It is in our national interest.

I know there are some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle who have expressed some hesitancy and reluctance about the provision in this bill concerning Colombia. I want to take a moment to direct my comments specifically to them.

The Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act that Congress passed several years ago was an attempt to change the direction of our drug policy. What do I mean? I consistently said during this speech and other speeches on the floor that we need a balanced drug policy. We have to have treatment, education, domestic law enforcement, and we have to have international law enforcement and interdiction. We have to do all these things. We have to have a balanced approach.

We found 3 years ago when we looked at what had happened in our antidrug effort over the last decade that beginning with the Clinton administration, that administration began to reduce the percentage of the money we were spending on international drug interdiction.

When George Bush left the White House, we were spending approximately one-third of our total Federal antidrug budget on international drug interdiction, basically on stopping drugs from ever getting inside the United States--spending it either on law enforcement in other countries, on Customs, on DEA, on crop eradication, stopping drugs from ever reaching our shores. That was about one-third of our budget. That is what we were spending when George Bush left the White House.

As of 2 years ago, after 6 years of the Clinton administration, that one-third has been reduced to approximately 8 to 10 percent, a dramatic reduction in the amount of money we were spending on international drug interdiction.

Some of us in this body--Senator Coverdell, myself, and others--decided we had to change that, so we introduced the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act. A corresponding bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. Then Congressman Hastert, now Speaker Hastert, played a major role in working on that bill, as did others.

The bottom line is, we passed the bill, it became law, and we have begun to change that direction. The initiative for that came from this side of the aisle. We saw what the administration was doing. We said the policy has to change; we need to put more money into interdiction, and we need to begin to do that. We did do that.

Fast forward a couple more years as the crisis in Colombia continued to get worse and worse. Again, Senator Coverdell, Senator Grassley, myself, and others put together a new package. It was a package aimed specifically at dealing with the crisis in Colombia. We introduced that package last October. After we introduced that package, a few months later the administration finally came forward and said: Yes, we have to do something about Colombia. But it was our initiative that started it.

It brings us now to where we are today. The initiative that Senator Coverdell, Senator Grassley, and others introduced has now been wrapped into this bill.

The good news is that the administration is on board.

The administration also came forward with a proposal to deal with Colombia and has stated their understanding of the severity of this problem. So that is where we are today.

I ask my colleagues to look at the big picture and to think about what is in the best interests of the United States. This package is not put together for Colombia. It is not put together for the Colombians. It is put together for us. It is put together because Colombia is our neighbor, and what happens to our neighbor, in our neighbor's country, affects us.

Why? Trade. Colombia is a major trading partner of the United States. What happens in that country affects our trade. The drugs that come into this country, as I have already demonstrated in this speech, come from Colombia to a great extent. The drugs that are killing our young people come from Colombia.

So we have a very real interest in stabilizing that country, keeping that country democratic, keeping that country a trading partner of the United States, and to help that democratically elected government in Colombia help themselves to beat back the drug dealers, to beat back the guerrillas.

They face a crisis that is different than any crisis that any other country has probably ever faced. Many countries have faced guerrilla movements throughout history. But I do not know any other country that ever faced a guerrilla movement that was fueled with so much money. There is this synergistic relationship now that has been created between the drug dealers and the guerrillas. Each one benefits the other. Each one takes care of the other. The end result is that the guerrillas are emboldened and enriched by the drug dealers' money. So it is a crisis that Colombia faces, but it is a crisis that directly impacts the United States.

I ask my colleagues to remember how we got here, to remember what role this side of the aisle played in trying to deal with the Colombia problem and deal with the problem in Central America, South America, what role we played in trying to increase the money that we are spending and resources we are spending on stopping drugs from coming into this country.

If we recall that history, and recall what the situation is in Colombia today, we will be persuaded that this is the right thing to do and that this provision in this bill that deals with an aid package for the Colombia-Andean region is clearly in the best interests of the United States and is something that we have to do.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

As of May 19, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:S18MY0-389: