• Support of air operations;
• Support of riverine operations;
• Support of coca eradication programs; and
• Two mobile x-ray machines, with operation and maintenance support.

• $3 million ($1 million per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) for "enhanced support for the Brazilian Federal Police Training Center."

• $36 million ($12 million per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) "for the buildup of local coast guard and port control in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua."

• Support and maintenance of Colombian National Police (CNP) helicopters and airplanes;
• DC-3 transport planes for the CNP;
• To provide "resources needed for prison security";
• Minigun systems for the CNP;
• 6 UH-60L Blackhawk utility helicopters for the CNP, plus funding for their operation and maintenance, plus training related to the helicopters;
  • The committee report which accompanied the 1998 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (P.L. 105-118) instructed that the INC account pay for three Blackhawks for the CNP. The State Department declined to send the helicopters, arguing that it was a poor use of scarce funds. Click here to read more.
• Upgrades of 50 of the CNP's UH-1H "Huey" helicopters to the "Huey II" configuration, with miniguns;
• Repair and re-building of the CNP anti-narcotics base in Miraflores, which was destroyed by a guerrilla attack in August 1998; and
• "Sufficient and adequate base and force security for any rebuilt facility in southern Colombia" as well as other anti-narcotics bases of the CNP anti-narcotics unit (DANTI).

Section 821(b) would prohibit the delivery of this and any other counternarcotics assistance to Colombia "if the Government of Colombia negotiates or permits the establishment of any demilitarized zone in which the eradication of drug production by the security forces of Colombia, including the Colombian National Police antinarcotics unit, is prohibited."

This provision is significant because the Colombian government has agreed to a precondition for dialogue with the FARC, Colombia's largest guerrilla group. The FARC has demanded the removal of security forces from five municipalities in Caquetá and Meta departments, a region in which coca is grown, so that guerrilla leaders may appear in public to participate in discussions with Colombian government representatives. The pullout of forces, which will last for a period of ninety days, began on November 7, 1998.

The demilitarization of the five municipalities would trigger a cutoff of counternarcotics aid to Colombia under the new law. However, the law allows this assistance to continue to flow for 90 days if the President submits a finding that the assistance is in the national interest of the United States.

• $1,500,000 ($500,000 per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) "for the buildup of local coast guard and port control."

• $3 million ($1 million per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) "for the buildup of local coast guard and port control in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas."

• Members of Panama's National Police force would be eligible to receive training through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.
  • Section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits IMET from paying for police training. This provision allows police training, however, in "countries which have longstanding democratic traditions, do not have standing armed forces, and do not engage in consistent patterns of gross human-rights violations." Panama has no armed forces.

Through the Transportation Department (Coast Guard) (Section 842(c)(1)):

• $3 million ($1 million per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) to locate and operate Coast Guard assets "so as to strengthen the capability of the Coast Guard of Panama [National Maritime Service (SMN) of Panama's National Police force] to patrol the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Panama for drug interdiction activities."

• Establishment of a third drug interdiction site in Peru "to support air bridge and riverine missions." $3,000,000 goes toward establishment of the new site, and $1,000,000 for each of the next three years will pay for its maintenance. Two similar sites, staffed by U.S. and Peruvian military personnel, already exist in the jungle towns of Iquitos and Pucallpa. Earlier versions of this legislation had directed that the new site be located at Puerto Maldonado.

Through the Defense Department (Sec. 822(b)):

• A study of Peru's aerial counternarcotics interdiction needs, which "shall include a review of the Peruvian Air Force's current and future requirements for counternarcotics air interdiction to complement the Peruvian Air Force's A-37 [aircraft] capability."

• $3 million ($1 million per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) to support the Venezuelan Joint National Guard and Judicial Technical Police Counterdrug Intelligence Center.

Through the Transportation Department (Coast Guard):

• $15 million ($7.5 million for purchase, $2.5 million per year for maintenance and support in 1999, 2000 and 2001) for "a vessel for international maritime training, which shall visit participating Latin American and Caribbean nations on a rotating schedule in order to provide law enforcement training and to perform maintenance on participating national assets." (Section 841(b))

• $9 million ($3 million per year for 1999, 2000 and 2001) to the Departments of Transportation (Coast Guard) and Treasury (Customs Service) to establish, operate and maintain a center at San Juan, Puerto Rico "for training law enforcement personnel of countries located in the Latin American and Caribbean regions in matters relating to maritime law enforcement, including customs-related ports management matters." (Section 841(a))

Through the Department of Justice:

• The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is empowered to grant non-lethal equipment (i.e. equipment not on the U.S. Munitions List), valued at less than $100,000, to foreign law enforcement organizations for counternarcotics purposes. (Section 843)