President Clinton, excerpts from remarks, August 23, 2000

President Clinton, excerpts from remarks, August 23, 2000

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release August 23, 2000

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
UPON DEPARTURE FOR NEW JERSEY

The Rose Garden

10:53 A.M. EDT

Q Mr. President, on Colombia, you signed a waiver yesterday so that the aid could start flowing. There are still some problems of human rights violations and Congress has a lot of doubt. You're going to be there next Wednesday.

THE PRESIDENT: I did sign the waiver, but the Congress also passed the aid package and they expect it to go forward. I did it because I believe President Pastrana is committed to dealing with the human rights issues about which we're still very concerned. He has submitted legislation to the Colombian Parliament, for example, for civil trials, for allegations of military abuses of human rights. And we also have a system in place for specific case-by-case investigation of serious allegations.

So I think that we've protected our fundamental interest in human rights and enabled the Plan Colombia to have a chance to succeed, which I think is very, very important for the long-term stability of democracy and human rights in Colombia, and for protecting the American people and the Colombian people from the drug traffic.

Q Are you -- human rights in favor of the money?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. First of all, the money is designed to help combat the drug-trafficking and to help alleviate a lot of the social problems, to help to develop alternative economic development, and also to build the civil institutions in Colombia which will help to protect human rights.

So what I did was to permit Plan Colombia to go forward and be implemented because I'm convinced that the President is committed to the proper course in human rights -- he submitted legislation which is evidence of that -- and because we haven't given up our ability to look into case-by-case allegations of human rights violations dealing with specific military units who can be kept from getting any of this assistance if they have, in fact, committed human rights violations.

As of September 6, 2000, this document was also available online at http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/8/23/7.text.1