Speech by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), June 22, 2000

Speech by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), June 22, 2000
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the fiscal year 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, which has been moved to third reading.

Most immediately, the supplemental emergency funding for Assistance to Plan Colombia--requested by the President at the beginning of the year, and passed by the House months ago--can finally be included in the Military Construction Appropriations bill already in Conference.

In Colombia, we have a real opportunity to work with a democratically-elected government which is committed to combatting drug production and trafficking in a country which supplies most of the heroin and about 80 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States.

Mr. President, I recently visited Colombia to assess what our aid could accomplish. I went to see the scope of drug crop cultivation and processing, to look into the political context, the human rights situation, the goals of the Pastrana Government, and to assess the capabilities of the military and the police.

I went with an open mind, though I was concerned about the horrendous abuses of human rights and with the effects of Colombian cocaine and heroin on the streets of New Jersey and other states.

I left Colombia convinced that we can help Colombia and help America by cooperating in the fight against drug production, trafficking, and use. Let me briefly share a few of my observations and conclusions:

Aid for Plan Colombia is strongly in the U.S. interest. While there can be legitimate differences of opinion about the exact content of the aid package, we must use the opportunity to cooperate with a fellow democracy to fight the scourge of drugs which harms both our people.

This is a genuine emergency and should be funded as such. Drug crop eradication, training, and counter-narcotics military and police operations have been curtailed for lack of funds. Other elements of the package--like helicopters and alternative development aid--have longer lead times, but the process cannot start until the funds are passed.

Every week we delay, 1,000 more acres of coca are planted, so the problem grows ever larger and narcotics-trafficking groups grow stronger.

Colombia's political will is strong. While the political situation in Colombia is uncertain, President Pastrana and the Colombian Congress have backed away from forcing early elections and appear to be working out their differences. But the Colombian people and their elected representatives want an end to the violence.

They support peace negotiations with the FARC and ELN guerrillas. And they know the violence will not end as long as it is fueled by drug trafficking and its dirty proceeds.

The U.S. and Colombia have a symbiosis of interest in combating drug production and trafficking.

While the Colombians mainly want to end financial support for various armed groups, they are highly motivated to cooperate with our main goal--eliminating a major source of narcotics destined for the United States.

Colombia's military and police need reform and assistance. I was appalled to learn that any conscript with a high school education is exempt from combat duty, so only the poorest, least-educated people serve in front-line units.

Moreover, the standards of training for most military personnel are quite low, and the NCO corps is particularly weak. Colombia needs to accelerate military reforms, some of which require legislation.

But the U.S. can also help a great deal by providing sound training to the Counter-Narcotics Battalions which will be most directly involved in operations supporting the Colombian National Police as they eradicate crops, destroy laboratories and processing facilities, and arrest traffickers.

We need to improve protection for human rights in Colombia. The Colombian people face very real risks of murder, kidnapping, extortion, and other heinous crimes, so they always live in fear. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the violence. The Colombian Government--including the military and the police--take human rights issues very seriously.

We need to hold them to their commitments to make further progress, as the Senate bill language Senators Kennedy and Leahy and I authored would do. I was particularly impressed that the independent Prosecutor General's Office--known as the Fiscalia --is firmly committed to prosecuting criminals, particularly human rights violators.

But in meeting with Colombian human rights groups, I learned that the overwhelming majority of human rights abuses are committed by the paramilitary groups, followed by the guerrillas. Colombia must sever any remaining ties between its military and the paramilitary groups and treat them like the drug-running outlaws they are.

On the whole, winning the war on drugs in Colombia should do more to improve security and safeguard human rights than anything else we or the Colombian government can do.

Mr. President, I reluctantly opposed the Amendment offered by the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone.

I share his conviction that we as a country must do more to reduce the demand for illegal drugs in our society.

In 1998, the most recent year for which I have these statistics, more than 5 million Americans were chronic, hard-core users of illegal drugs.

Just over 2 million--less than half of them--received treatment. I firmly believe that we should provide drug treatment for every drug addict willing to make the tremendous effort to overcome his or her addiction. In my view, we should ensure that no one leaves our prisons--whether federal, state, or local--addicted to narcotics.

We absolutely must do more to reduce demand and thus reduce the use of dangerous drugs and reduce the terrible toll drug use and related crime takes on our society.

Where I differ with the Senator from Minnesota is that I do not believe we should undermine our Assistance for Plan Colombia to pay for increased domestic drug treatment and prevention programs.

Even if we were to fully fund the President's request for Assistance to Plan Colombia, our international programs would account for only about one-tenth of our counter-narcotics budget.

In Colombia, we have a real opportunity to work with a democratically-elected government which is committed to combating drug production and trafficking in a country which supplies most of the heroin and about 80 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States.

In short, Mr. President, I opposed the Wellstone Amendment because I believe we need to keep working to reduce demand for drugs here in America, but not at the expense of cutting efforts to eliminate a major source of drugs to our country.

I also opposed the Amendment offered by the Senator from Washington, Senator Gorton. I voted against a similar Amendment in the Appropriations Committee, and my subsequent visit to Colombia leaves me more convinced than ever that I was right to do so.

Our vote on the Gorton Amendment was, quite simply, a vote on the proposed Assistance to Plan Colombia. We all know that President Pastrana's Plan Colombia--which includes an aggressive counternarcotics effort--could not go forward with only one hundred or two hundred million dollars in U.S. aid.

Even if the Gorton amendment had merely delayed funding, as its sponsor has argued, it would have prevented President Clinton from seizing the opportunity to act now. In my view, we have waited too long already to address a major source of the narcotics which bring so much harm on the American people.

We have a tremendous opportunity--if we are willing to devote a reasonable level of funding--to drastically curtail the production cocaine and heroin in Colombia while supporting democracy and the rule of law in that country.

I am concerned that other emergency needs have not been met.

The President requested emergency supplemental funds for Kosovo and the Southeast Europe Initiative to help bring peace and stability to that troubled region, but those funds have not been provided.

Funding for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, or HIPC, multilateral debt relief trust fund also was not provided, so we cannot fulfill our goals to help relieve the world's poorest countries from the crushing burdens of debt. I hope we will be able to address these deficiencies in Conference with the House on emergency supplemental appropriations.

Let me turn now to the underlying Foreign Operations Appropriations for fiscal year 2001.

As I noted when we considered this bill in Committee, I believe Subcommittee Chairman McConnell and Ranking Member Leahy, working with other Senators and aided by their capable staff, have done a good job of allocating the resources available to them.

I particularly appreciate their help to include revised language to ensure our aid in Bosnia and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia is used to help bring war criminals to justice. I also support the creation of an account for Global Health, with increased funding for tuberculosis, AIDS, and other health challenges. And the bill fully funds support for our ally Israel and peace in the Middle East.

That said, Mr. President, I am deeply concerned that the funds provided for the Foreign Operations Subcommittee simply are not sufficient to sustain America's global leadership as we begin a new century.

President Clinton requested increased funding for international programs in fiscal year 2001, though still far less in real terms than we spent in the mid-1980s.

But the bill before us today falls about $1.7 billion short of the President's request.

Let me cite just a few examples of the cuts:

Funding for the Global Environment Facility is more than $125 million below the President's request, so our arrears will continue to mount and environmentally-sustainable development projects in poor countries will not be funded. Even the International Development Association, or IDA--the main institution known as the World Bank--is funded below last year's level and more than $85 million below the Administration's request.

While I appreciate Chairman McConnell's strong funding for Central and Eastern Europe, it's not nearly enough to make up for the Kosovo supplemental which was apparently not funded.

Meanwhile, assistance to the Independent States of the former Soviet Union--many of them still at a critical stage in their economic and political transition--is $55 million below the level requested by the Administration.

The International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement and Non-Proliferation, Anti-Terrorism and Demining accounts are each cut by nearly $100 million from the President's request.

I don't want to waste the Senate's time citing all the examples, but I hope I've made my point.

President Clinton sought a more responsible level of international affairs spending within his balanced budget, but this bill is more than 11 percent below the Administration's request.

Mr. President, I believe we need to strengthen Foreign Operations funding as this bill goes to Conference with the House. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the subcommittee to make that happen, so we can avoid having this bill vetoed.

We need to work together to achieve a responsible Foreign Operations funding level which will advance America's interest and reflect America's values around the world.

I thank the chair and yield the floor.

As of June 25, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:S22JN0-125: