Speech by Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), July 24, 2001

Speech by Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), July 24, 2001
Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out one thing. First of all, this bill contains $152 million of police aid. There is $72 million in police aid from last year that is still in the pipeline. Nobody here is advocating that we surrender. What we are saying is send a signal to the military that we want them to sever ties with the paramilitary. That is what this is about.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to make clear a couple of points here. First of all, we are not abandoning Colombia. This foreign aid package still includes $299 million in aid for Colombia for alternative development, the police, and judicial reform. It includes another $276 million in economic and security assistance for the other countries in the Andean region. It does not affect any of the military aid that will be coming before us in the defense appropriations bill.

We are emphasizing the funding in our amendment that supports peace, development and an end to poverty that leads to drug cultivation. We are eliminating funding that further militarizes the conflict. That is the purpose of our amendment. We are eliminating the aid for a strategy in southern Colombia that has failed in every country where it has been tried and which is opposed by all 13 mayors of Putumayo and all six governors of southern states of Colombia.

What we are trying to do is send a strong, clear signal at last that the Colombian military must cut its ties to the paramilitaries. My concern, and the concern of a lot of us who are supporting this amendment, has been that we talk the talk when it comes to human rights but we do not walk the walk. We put in language in our Colombia aid package, conditionality language on human rights; and yet when the Colombian military does not abide by those guidelines, we simply waive those guidelines. That is the wrong signal to send.

I do not know how continuing to support a military, continuing to send a signal that we are going to turn a blind eye to human rights violations does anything to deal effectively with the drug problem in our country or deal with illegal growth of coca plants in Colombia, or deal with strengthening civilian institutions. The fact of the matter is, continuing to support the Colombian military without insisting they abide by human rights criteria, I think sends the wrong signal and it adds instability, not stability, to the region.

As of October 3, 2001, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/B?r107:@FIELD(FLD003+h)+@FIELD(DDATE+20010724)