Speech
by Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Arizona), June 9, 2006
Mr. KOLBE.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in the strongest possible opposition to this amendment
offered by the gentleman. There are few things in this hemisphere that
are more important for us than the Andean Counterdrug Initiative. In
our effort to try and fight drugs abroad we can fight drugs here at
home.
The gentleman has suggested this money would go to the International
Refugee and Migration account, and we believe we have funded that in
a fair and reasonable way and will have accounted for the needs of that
account.
Let me tell you why my concern is more not that we couldn't use more
money in ERMA; my concern here is taking this money out of the Andean
Counterdrug Initiative. Let me tell you why I think this is the wrong
thing to do at this time.
We have rewarded in this bill good performers and taken action against
those who have not done so well. As I described in my opening statement,
we have restructured the accounts that go to Colombia. They are an important
strategic partner in the region, and our bill recognizes that by normalizing
how we fund Colombia. We move funds for the Colombia Alternative Development
programs to the ESF account and to the other accounts; we have moved
funds for Colombia rule of law to the INCLE account, the narcotics account.
These are the accounts we use to fund similar activities for all of
our other strategic partners.
So we have basically said to Colombia, you have graduated. It is time
for you to become a strategic partner and for our funding of foreign
assistance to fall into normal categories.
I firmly believe that, contrary to what the gentleman said, that Colombia
stands as the most successful model of democracy in this region. It
is not without its problems, but I think it has made enormous and positive
strides in recent years. With our support it has been transformed into
a much more secure democratic and economically prosperous country.
So why do I say that? How do I measure the success that we have had?
Well, we have got more than 200,000 acres of legal crops that have been
planted, 64,000 farm families provided legal farming options, coca eradication
through spraying has gone from 47,000 hectares of the first year of
Plan Colombian to 138,000 last year, and manual eradication also increased
substantially. An additional 1,600 hectares of poppies were eradicated
in the year 2005. We have regained Colombian sovereignty over most of
the air space, and that has led to a 56 percent decrease in suspected
trafficker flights. The drug flow by air to the United States has dropped
by about 7 percent. Kidnappings are down 51 percent. Homicides are down
13 percent. All 1,098 Colombian municipalities have a permanent government
presence. These are just some of the measures of the things that we
have done that I think are very significant.
The bill from which this would take funds also rewards Peru by increasing
the funds allocated it by $10.5 million. And I did this because we have
decreased over the years the funds to Peru and we have experienced the
balloon effect of having drug production move from one part of the region
to another part, and that is why we have proposed a $7 million increase
to Peru's interdiction and eradication program. The last thing in the
world we should be doing right now is making a reduction in these overall
accounts.
On the other hand, we have reduced some of the funds provided to Bolivia.
We have reduced the President's request by 44 percent. Of course, that
request was drafted very early in this year before the problems that
we are seeing with the current government in Bolivia have occurred.
There, the eradication efforts have gone absolutely the wrong direction,
from an historic high in 1999 of 17,000 hectares of coca eradicated,
to a goal in 2006 of only 5,000; and they are not on track to even meet
that very reduced goal in Bolivia.
And so those are just some of the reasons why we are, as I said, trying
to reward those who are doing the right thing in the region, but also
make sure that our money is not used inappropriately in countries that
are not doing the right thing.
So these are just some of the reasons why I think that this amendment
would be absolutely the wrong signal at the wrong time and could be
the best possible message that we could send to drug traffickers to
reduce this Andean counterdrug initiative by the amount that the amendment
calls for. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
...
Mr. KOLBE.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to
what the gentlewoman from Illinois said.
First of all, with regard to the accounts. It is true that the total
amount in here for Colombia is above where the President requested.
But in the ACI, that is absolutely not true.
I would just remind the gentlewoman from Illinois that the amount we
have in this bill is $384 million. If you cut another $30 million, you
would be at $354. The President requested $506 million for the ACI account.
So the gentlewoman is absolutely incorrect in stating the amount that
goes for the ACI. She just had her figures incorrect because she wasn't
aware, I think, of the restructuring that we have done of this account.
Now, I want to just respond to what she was saying about the failures
that we have had. I would stipulate to the gentlewoman from Illinois
that our eradication programs have not been as good as we would like.
She is wrong about the interdiction. We are having success with the
interdiction. And we are having success with the interdiction because
we have a president down there that is committed to making it work,
committed to making Colombians more secure, and committed to providing
people with economic well-being in the country.
Now, do bad things happen still? Yes. There are still too many homicides
and there are still too many kidnappings. Sadly, we know our own troops
have sometimes strayed and done things wrong. We know in our own cities
that police departments sometimes stray and do things that are not right.
But things are getting better in Colombia. There is more security in
Colombia. There are fewer homicides. There are fewer kidnappings. The
presence of the government in municipalities, of police in municipalities
has increased. Roads are open and commerce is moving again in the country.
What a time to send a signal to them that we are going to cut them;
that we are going to say you are not successful. What we have done in
this bill is to restructure the accounts so that much of the aid now
flows through traditional accounts of the Economic Support Fund, the
Development Assistance, the INCLE funds, and those kinds of accounts.
And we are saying to Colombia, you are a strategic partner. We believe
that you are succeeding and we are going to put the aid, as we do with
other countries, in these kinds of categories.
But this is not the time to be cutting the funding for drug interdiction.
And I hope this body will reject this amendment very soundly.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
...
Mr. KOLBE.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just want to respond to one thing that the gentlewoman said before
I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas. I just want to respond
to what she said about the Migration and Refugee account and Darfur.
She made a reference to the fact that food rations in Darfur might be
cut in half. We have provided in the fiscal year 2006, the current year's
bill, we have $320 million for Darfur for food programs. When the United
Nations said they might still have to cut the rations in half, the President,
out of Public Law 480, pledged another $200 million. That is $520 million
that the United States has pledged for food in Darfur. You know what
the next largest country is? Libya at $4 million.
So I hardly think the United States has been delinquent in the amount
of money that we have provided in Darfur.
Meanwhile, we have problems in our own hemisphere and we have problems
on our own streets. We have problems in our schools and in our families
with drugs that run rampant in our society. We do have an obligation
to ourselves to try to prevent that from happening. We have a partner
in Colombia that is attempting to do that.
This amendment is a signal to that partner that we do not believe his
country should be a partner in our attack on drugs in this country.
This would be the wrong thing for us to do at this time.
...
Mr. KOLBE.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to just correct, for the record, a couple of comments that the
gentleman from Wisconsin made for whom I have the greatest respect.
He talked about a $107 million cut in these accounts. Let me just make
it clear what we are really talking about. There is an $82 million reduction
in the migration refugee assistance account. That $82 million, however,
has nothing to do with refugees abroad. That is for admissions to the
United States. And the numbers, 55,000 persons that are coming in, are
exactly the same as last year. So we are continuing the program exactly
as we have it.
...
Mr. KOLBE.
Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the point that I am trying to make
is that it is the processing of refugees inside of United States. We
are not talking about people who are in camps overseas, who might not
have food, might not have sanitation. That is not what is being cut.
The other account that is being cut $25 million is the ERMA account.
And that is because they have a carryover of about 15 million. The 30
million that we have provided here brings them up to 45 million, and
that is the average of what they have spent. It is an emergency drawdown
account and they have spent that amount each year. So we are adequately
covering the migration, the refugee and migration issues in our bill.
...
Mr. KOLBE.
Mr. Chairman, I won't take the time, but I yield myself the balance
of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I think we have had a thorough debate on this. I will
be very quick in my close here simply to say this is the wrong policy
and the wrong message at the wrong time. This is not what we need to
be doing with Colombia. This is not what we need to be doing on drug
interdiction. We need to be saying to this country which has stood strong,
to this country which has been courageous in its efforts to provide
security for its own citizens, to provide for drug eradication, to provide
for drug interdiction, we need to say to this country, to its leadership,
to its president who was just elected by the largest margin in modern
history in Colombia, we need to say to them, we stand with you. We support
you in your efforts, because what you are doing in Colombia is on behalf
also of the American citizens in the United States that we can save
our children from drugs. This is not the time to send the signal that
we do not believe that Colombia is doing what it needs to be doing.
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