<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:96408.wais]
THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS AND THUGS: A STATUS REPORT ON PLAN COLOMBIA
SUCCESSES AND REMAINING CHALLENGES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 17, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-214
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
96-408 WASHINGTON : 2004
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 17, 2004.................................... 1
Statement of:
Moreno, Luis Alberto, Ambassador to the United States of
America, Republic of Colombia; Roger F. Noriega, Assistant
Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department
of State; Robert B. Charles, Assistant Secretary,
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S.
Department of State; Thomas W. O'Connell, Assistant
Secretary of Defense, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict; General James T. Hill, U.S. Army Commander, U.S.
Southern Command; and Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, Drug
Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice..... 46
Plotter, Carlos, former political commander, Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); Marc W. Chernick,
professor, Department of Government and School of Foreign
Service, Georgetown University; and Adam Isacson, director
of programs, Center for International Policy............... 176
Walters, John P., Director, U.S. Office of National Drug
Control Policy............................................. 14
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Charles, Robert B., Assistant Secretary, International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of
State, prepared statement of............................... 105
Chernick, Marc W., professor, Department of Government and
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, prepared
statement of............................................... 185
Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 4
Harris, Hon. Katherine, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 8
Hill, General James T., U.S. Army Commander, U.S. Southern
Command, prepared statement of............................. 137
Isacson, Adam, director of programs, Center for International
Policy, prepared statement of.............................. 192
Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 204
Moreno, Luis Alberto, Ambassador to the United States of
America, Republic of Colombia, prepared statement of....... 82
Noriega, Roger F., Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere
Affairs, U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of... 95
O'Connell, Thomas W., Assistant Secretary of Defense, Special
Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, prepared statement
of......................................................... 127
Plotter, Carlos, former political commander, Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), prepared statement of..... 179
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, information concerning the Colombian
conflict................................................... 47
Tandy, Karen P., Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration, U.S. Department of Justice, prepared
statement of............................................... 158
Walters, John P., Director, U.S. Office of National Drug
Control Policy, prepared statement of...................... 17
THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS AND THUGS: A STATUS REPORT ON PLAN COLOMBIA
SUCCESSES AND REMAINING CHALLENGES
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2004
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:50 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis of
Virginia (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tom Davis of Virginia, Souder,
Duncan, Harris, Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, Watson, Van
Hollen, Ruppersberger, Norton, and McCollum.
Staff present: David Marin, deputy staff director and
communications director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Robert
Borden, counsel and parliamentarian; Rob White, press
secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications;
Susie Schulte, professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief
clerk; Brien Beattie, deputy clerk; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief
information officer; Michael Yeager, minority deputy chief
counsel; Anna Laitin, minority communications and policy
assistant; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; Richard Butcher,
minority professional staff member; Cecelia Morton, minority
office manager; and Christopher Davis, minority investigator.
Chairman Tom Davis. Good morning. I want to welcome
everyone to today's oversight hearing on Plan Colombia, an
important component of U.S. foreign and counternarcotics
policy. Today we'll examine the U.S. Government's support and
contributions to the progress being made in Colombia in
fighting drug trafficking and international crime, and in
improving economic and social conditions.
Since its inception in 1999, Plan Colombia has been an
integrated strategy to meet the most pressing challenges
confronting the country today promoting the peace process,
combating narcoterrorism, reviving the economy and
strengthening the democratic pillars of society. The combined
efforts of several of our Government agencies, who are here
testifying today, are providing assistance to meet these
challenges and improve the stability and future of Colombia.
Not only is Colombia one of the oldest democracies in our
hemisphere, but it is also home to three terrorist groups who
fund their guerrilla activities with drugs smuggled into the
United States for American consumption. Colombia is a
significant source of cocaine and heroin for the U.S. market.
As many of us are well aware, the drug trade has a terrible and
destructive impact on Americans through addiction, drug related
crimes and death. Because drug trafficking and the guerrilla
insurgency have become intertwined problems, Congress has
granted the United States expanded authority and increased
flexibility to fight narcoterrorism and reduce the flow of
illicit drugs into the United States.
I led three congressional delegations to Colombia last year
and can say first-hand that our significant investment, after
years of effort, is beginning to see returns on the time, money
and resources spent in Colombia. Together with the strong
commitment of President Alvaro Uribe and historic levels of
support from the Colombian people, U.S. involvement is
beginning to hit narcoterrorists where it hurts.
Some European left wing politicians and human rights groups
claim the Uribe administration has failed to honor commitments
on human rights. They've also criticized new Colombian anti-
terrorism laws passed in December. But I think the view from
Bogota looks very different. And I think the European left may
be guilty of clinging to an overly romantic, naive opinion of
the guerrillas. The mask is off the Lone Ranger. These are not
idealistic liberators. They're thugs and terrorists, funded by
the illicit drug trade.
The fact is, President Uribe continues to enjoy
unprecedented support from the Colombian people because his no-
nonsense strategy is producing results. He's popular because
Colombians feel safer. Men, women and children once afraid to
hit the road to visit family and friends for fear of kidnapping
or worse are now doing so. A publicly recognized state presence
now extends to towns and villages that for decades had been
rebel territory.
We are seeing tremendous results in illegal crop
eradication, and Plan Colombia's efforts have produced record
reductions in coca production and in the destruction of drug
labs. Net coca production in Colombia dropped from 355,347
acres in 2002 to 280,071 acres in 2003, a stunning 33 percent
decline from the peak growing year of 2001. Interdiction
efforts by the Government of Colombia have increased
significantly and each week brings news of seizures of cocaine
and heroin, interdictions that are usually the result of U.S.
supplied intelligence. Eradication, coupled with increasingly
successful interdiction efforts, is a key to our war on
narcoterrorism, reducing profitability and slowly but surely
leading farmers to abandon coca in favor of other, legitimate
crops. Ultimately that in turn will mean less cocaine on
American streets.
Criminals who have remained at large for years are being
captured and extradited to the United States for prosecution.
Colombia extradited 90 suspects to the United States in the
first 16 months of the Uribe administration, quite an
accomplishment considering that 5 years ago it offered up just
one of its citizens to the U.S. justice system. The
extraditions illustrate the unprecedented cooperation and
partnership between our two nations, and the fact that public
opinion on extradition in Colombia has changed, due largely to
the political will and persistence of President Uribe.
Last month, Attorney General Ashcroft announced the
indictment of nine top leaders of Colombia's largest drug
cartel, an organization responsible for as much as half of all
the cocaine smuggled in the United States. This cartel has
exported more than 1.2 million pounds of cocaine to the United
States through Mexico since 1990, a load worth more than $10
billion. To put that number in perspective, it's approximately
the combined annual budgets of the FBI, DEA and the Bureau of
Prisons.
Our continued support of Colombia's unified campaign
against drug trafficking and terrorist activities and their
effort to obtain democratic security is a wise investment.
Although U.S. assistance to the Colombian Government has led to
meaningful sings of success under the strong leadership of
President Uribe, challenges remain. Complete realization of
U.S. policy goals requires a concerted Colombian strategy and
effort sustained by continuous U.S. assistance. Our panels of
witnesses today will provide an update on the current status of
U.S.-Colombian programs, progress that has been made in recent
years and an assessment of remaining challenges in the war
against narcoterrorism.
I look forward to our discussion today and I again want to
welcome our witnesses and their important testimony.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6408.002
Chairman Tom Davis. I will now yield to any Members wishing
to make opening statements. Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you for holding this important oversight hearing, and I
also want to thank the Chair for the manner in which he
conducts the work of this committee. It's much appreciated.
This hearing is important because Plan Colombia is a $3.2
billion failed foreign operation. The war on drugs has not been
won, nor is it being won. Drug usage at home has not decreased.
Aerial eradication efforts in the targeted southern provinces
have not eliminated coca production as intended; rather, crop
cultivation has shifted to other regions. In the Department of
Putumayo, for example, coca production decreased by 82 percent
1999 and 2002. During that same period, however, coca
cultivation rose by 163 percent in the Department of Guaviare.
This is ironic, considering that aerial eradication efforts
in the Guaviare region in the mid-to-late 1990's shifted
production to the Putumayo region in the first place. Coca is
one of the easiest and most profitable crops to grow, and
simply put, people are going to continue to grow it if it will
bring them money. For the past 15 years, despite several
programs aimed at eradicating coca cultivation, crop supply has
never ceased to meet demand. And this will not change.
What Plan Colombia has succeeded in, however, is in the
funding of rightist paramilitaries, groups that have been named
terrorist organizations by our own State Department for their
heinous human rights crimes. This has occurred because the
Colombian military and paramilitary units have a close working
relationship. According to the Human Rights Watch World Report
2002, military units have been found to ``promote, work with,
support, profit from and tolerate paramilitary groups.'' The
relationship between military and paramilitaries has included
active coordination during military operations, the sharing of
intelligence, the sharing of fighters and the sharing of
resources such as vehicles, bunkers and roadblocks. Active duty
soldiers have served in paramilitary units, paramilitary
commanders have lodged on Army bases and Army trucks have been
used to transport paramilitary fighters. For their cooperation
and support, military officers have received payments from
paramilitaries.
Most atrocious, however, is that these right wing
paramilitaries, such as the United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia, that's AUC, have been routinely assassinating labor
organizers, making Colombia the most dangerous country in the
world for unionists. Since the mid-1980's, over 4,000, over
4,000 trade unionists have been assassinated. According to the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, in 2002 alone
of the 213 trade unionists killed in the world, 184 were killed
in Colombia. Of those, 70 percent were public sector workers.
Why are so many trade unionists being killed? There's a
disturbing correlation between the assassinations and
intimidations of public sector unionists by paramilitary groups
associated with right wing business interests and the rampant
privatization in Colombia. U.S. multi-national corporations are
benefiting from the privatization and de-unionization of
Colombia.
What a terrible irony it is that taxes paid in the United
States are being spent to defeat the basic human rights to
decent wages, job security and the right to organize in
Colombia under the guise of a war on drugs. We have a big
problem with the Government of Colombia, and it starts with the
president. In a speech delivered in September 2003, President
Uribe described unions and human rights non-government
organizations as working ``in the service of terrorism.''
So I think that it's going to be useful to hear a
discussion on how the use of war on drugs funds for the de-
unionization of Colombia and the assassination of union
supporters serves the cause of the United States of America. It
is not authorized by Congress, it is not U.S. policy and it
should not be tolerated. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Do any other
Members wish to make opening statements? The gentlelady from
Florida and then Mr. Souder.
Ms. Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for holding this hearing today as well as for providing me the
opportunity first-hand to view the coca eradication going on in
Colombia. I also want to thank the distinguished panel of
members that we have today for their testimony. I've had the
pleasure of working with several of you on improving U.S.-
Colombia relations now for several years. Up to a half million
Colombians reside in my State of Florida, where they make a
tremendous contribution to our economic and cultural dynamism.
In addition, Colombia consistently ranks as one of
Florida's top 10 trading partners. Under the extraordinary and
adept leadership of President Uribe, his domestic approval
ratings have remained above 70 percent. Since August 2000 and
2002 Colombia has made great strides toward eradicating illicit
drug production and trafficking, lowering general crime rates
and reviving the domestic economy. Indeed, the GDP growth this
year is expected to reach 4 percent, which is the highest in 7
years. Exports have reached record levels and the return of
confidence within the private sector ensures that increased
investment will continue to spur the economy.
Moreover, the definitive peace agreement with the national
liberation army terrorist group, the ELN, appears to be drawing
closer. In this vein, it's our sincere hope that Mexico's offer
to mediate these talks will expedite the resolution to
hostilities. Yet we are reminded of the difficult path ahead.
Just yesterday, 34 campesinos were apparently killed by the
FARC terrorist organization.
This should only steel our collective resolve to continue
to provide Colombia and President Uribe with the support
necessary to pacify their nation, bringing opportunity and
prosperity to its 45 million citizens. Furthermore, the
proposed free trade agreement to be singed among Colombia, the
United States, Ecuador and Peru should significantly bolster
the process in this region to a much greater level.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Katherine Harris follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6408.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6408.006
Chairman Tom Davis. I thank you very much.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for this
hearing. I'm on the subcommittee and our chairman has held
hearings on Colombia and the Colombian approach. I believe it
merits the full attention of the committee that you are giving
it today.
Mr. Chairman, particularly those of us who live in big
cities often hear the simplistic notion that, you know, go
after the supply and maybe we can settle this matter. Well, I
think Colombia shows that going after the supply is not an easy
matter, it's a very difficult matter, and just how difficult
this entire approach is. The approach we're using in Colombia
is essentially a bipartisan approach. It was begun in the last
administration, I'm not sure there's any other real approach
available to us.
I am very concerned that Colombia continues to be the
leading supplier of cocaine and heroin to the United States. I
do note with some optimism that there have been some recent
decreases in those numbers. I also note what our subcommittee
has also found, that Afghanistan is quickly becoming a
competitor, a real competitor to Colombia in the provision of
these drugs in our country, something that is particularly
worrisome for other reasons.
The new flexibilities seem to be warranted by conditions on
the ground. I have been particularly hopeful, because of some
progress in civilian institution building and the attention
that the new president had been able to get for that approach,
and I continue to be optimistic that he will be able to build
the civilian institutions, the justice institutions and other
civilian institutions in the country. I am very disturbed,
however, at reports of human rights abuses. We would hate to
see one kind of abuse, drug abuse, be replaced by human rights
abuses in order to pacify the country.
And I am concerned, today's New York Times reports the most
serious massacre since President Uribe took office, 34 coca
farmers killed by FARC. Apparently, they were all farmers who
were employed by the paramilitary commanders. All of this has
led to the notion that President Uribe's efforts to in fact
negotiate with the paramilitaries could bring FARC, could
escalate FARC violence. I cite this because of how difficult it
is, not because I have an answer for all of this or because
there are a dozen things the administration could be doing.
But I think that the emergence of these human rights
violations and the continued leading place of Colombia in
supplying cocaine and heroin will be worrisome because of the
amount of attention we have placed on this one country and
people therefore want to see some progress that the money and
the attention and the military focus has brought.
I guess we shouldn't even think that there should be an
exit strategy. We can't find an exit strategy out of places
that we should find them. I think the way we're going now,
we're going to be in Colombia for a very long time, and if
we're not there, even given the fact that we don't see huge
progress, even the small progress that we are seeing is enough,
I think, to keep us there for a time to come and to build
relationships with the new administration there, so that we
don't go off on some detour, for example, involving bringing
pacification to the country by violation of human rights.
Thank you very much again, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing.
Chairman Tom Davis. I thank you very much.
I would recognize the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing.
I want to thank Delegate Norton for her comments, as well
as the ranking member of our subcommittee, Mr. Cummings, and
others, for the bipartisan way we've been approaching the
Colombian question. Because it's very difficult, it isn't
enough just to lock up kids in Washington, DC. or other places
around the country, because of their abuse. We have to get to
the bigger traffickers, the people who are behind the growing
of this, the distribution of this, coming into our country, not
just the users. We also have to be aggressive toward the users
in the United States, because it's our problem, that it's
caused the problems in Colombia, the market explosion in
cocaine and heroin is because of domestic consumption.
But the fact is, the more that comes in, the cheaper the
price, and the more the purity is. We have to pursue all
strategies simultaneously: eradication, interdiction, border
control, the networks to the United States and reducing demand
and treating those who are abusing. We have had a tremendous
internal battle since I was elected in 1994, over how we should
fund the Colombia National Police, then the vetted units in
Colombia and how we handle difficult human rights questions
when there are major U.S. dollars involved.
I believe the progress in Colombia has been tremendous. It
isn't perfect, but it's been tremendous. The pressures of the
so-called Leahy Rule have led the military in Colombia to go
through major reformation, and we hear repeatedly from their
units that often an attorney will be in the field with them.
They examine with pictures when there's been a battle to see
whether there's been abuse. We have had two different groups
from the right and two from the left who are committing these
violations. The poor campesinos who are growing it, they get
killed by one side and killed by the other side.
The Uribe government has gone in after all of them. It has
made tremendous progress. The oldest democracy in South
America, Colombia, has something to buildupon. As I pointed out
before, and I think it's important for us to understand, we're
seeing the tremendous difficulty in Iraq to get their police
force to stand up. We're doing most of their fighting for them.
In Afghanistan, we have, in my opinion, a near disaster
right now. Our Government is doing the best it can, but we
don't control this tremendous explosion of heroin poppy that is
occurring in Afghanistan. In Colombia, they're doing the
fighting. We're having a debate over whether we should have a
few hundred more advisors, not 100,000 people going into their
country. So while we're at a critical tipping point, as
Director Walters has said, and watching very closely, can we
actually get a reduction for all this money and see the price
rise and the supply go down and the purity drop in the United
States? It is a very critical period.
The fact is, Colombia is a tremendous success story.
Policemen and military people are dying on the ground because
of our habits. We have a few hundred advisors there, and maybe
we need a little bit more, but we are rebuilding their
institutions. We're rebuilding their police forces. We're
rebuilding their military. We're getting vetted units. They're
learning more what human rights is, and this is a success story
when compared to the rest of the world.
I want to thank each of our witnesses who are here today
for coming up to the Hill on a regular basis, for giving us the
Colombia story, and for their work over many years. Each one of
you have been involved in different ways. It has been a success
story when those success stories are so rare around the world.
Not a perfect story, just as Delegate Norton says. Drugs aren't
going to go away. This isn't something where it's suddenly
going to dry up and disappear, any more than our battles
against rape, against spouse abuse, against the other evils of
the world.
But we can control it more. We don't always have to stay at
this level. If we do our job right and if we're organized, we
can reduce the level of problems on the streets, and then start
to deal with prevention in the schools and treatment in a more
manageable form. Because right now, when it's so prevalent and
so cheap and so common, we can't get control and make our
prevention and treatment programs work.
So I thank the chairman for convening the hearing and I
look forward to the questions and the testimony today.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Any other Members wish to make opening statements?
Let's move to our panel. We have our first witness, who is
the Honorable John Walters, the Director of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. Thank you very much. Director
Walters will provide the committee with a report on how we're
achieving the President's counter-drug objectives by reducing
the production of cocaine and heroin in Colombia and the Andean
region. It's our policy that we swear you in before you
testify, so if you would rise with me.
[Witness sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. I think you know
the rules, the light will turn orange after 4 minutes. Your
entire statement is in the record. When it's red, 5 minutes are
up, and then you could move to summary. Questions will be based
on your entire statement. We appreciate the job you're doing,
and we welcome you here today, and look forward to your
testimony. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JOHN P. WALTERS, DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE OF NATIONAL
DRUG CONTROL POLICY
Mr. Walters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the many members
of this committee. Some of them are not here now, but have
worked very hard on this issue, and we appreciate it very much.
I also appreciate the committee's particularly longstanding
support for the Andean Counter-Drug Initiative. And I'm pleased
to report today that the news is very good. For the first time
in 20 years, thanks to the unprecedented efforts of the Uribe
administration and support of the U.S. Congress for the Andean
Counter-Drug Initiative, we are on a path to realize dramatic
reductions in cocaine production in Colombia and a
complementary reduction in the world's supply of cocaine.
My written testimony discusses a number of areas which
affect the success of our drug control efforts, and I request
that the full statement be put into the record.
Chairman Tom Davis. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Walters. My opening remarks today will focus on the
progress that's been made in Colombia, most appropriate for
this hearing, the good news of our eradication and interdiction
efforts against cocaine and heroin. The United States and the
Government of Colombia have developed a strategy which focuses
on three items: one, eradicating almost the entire illegal drug
crop each year, regardless of replacing efforts; two,
interdicting and arresting drug shipments and the traffickers
involved; three, pressuring trafficking organizations through
extradition and other organizational attack initiatives.
Today, the United Nations released its latest numbers for
coca cultivation and we have seen more good news, a 15 percent
decrease in coca cultivation over the last year in the Andean
region, according to the U.N. numbers. For 2 years in a row, we
have seen record decreases in coca and poppy cultivation, due
in part to the unprecedented commitment to aerial eradications
through the spraying campaign. In 2003, Colombia sprayed about
127,000 hectares of coca and manually eradicated another 8,000
hectares.
At our current pace, coca cultivation should drop to as
little as 80,000 hectares by the end of this year, compared to
144,000 in 2002. In 2002, Colombia had as much as 4,900
hectares of opium poppy under cultivation. U.S. supported
eradication programs sprayed an excess of 3,300 hectares and in
2003, Colombia sprayed nearly 3,000 hectares of opium poppy and
about 1,000 more were eradicated voluntarily in connection with
alternative development programs.
Our eradication efforts have led to double digit percentage
decreases in total cultivation of both coca and poppy. Most
importantly, the same good results are holding true throughout
the Andean region. Total coca cultivation for Peru and Bolivia
declined from an estimated 61,000 hectares in 2002 to 59,600
hectares at the end of 2003, a combined reduction of 1,400
hectares, countering any significant concerning regarding the
so-called balloon effect.
Thanks to increased Government of Colombia efforts in 2003,
Colombian anti-drug forces destroyed 83 HCL labs, the
conversion of coca plant product into what we see as powdered
cocaine, captured 48 metric tons of cocaine base, 1,500 metric
tons of solid precursors and 75,000 gallons of liquid precursor
chemicals. We have seen increased success at sea, where the
greatest amount of cocaine was interdicted last year ever. We
have taken advantage of improved intelligence and cooperation
with the United Kingdom and Colombia to interdict a high
portion of the boats carrying illicit drugs as they depart
Colombia, the principal means of transit to the United States.
We expect to see a substantially disrupted cocaine
production capacity with coca cultivation reduced to about one
half its peak level from 2 years ago. In disrupting the market,
we need to continue our success in eradication, maintain our
interdiction performance and keep up the pressure we have
placed on major traffickers. An unprecedented number of
extraditions from Colombia has helped fan these efforts
referred to by you, Mr. Chairman. In addition, there have been
significant reductions in all indicators of human rights abuses
in 2003. Homicide is down over 20 percent, massacres down 33
percent, kidnappings down 26 percent, and forced displacement
of individuals were cut by 49 percent.
A key indicator of this historic progress is that
allegations of human rights violations committed by the
military has dropped from an excess of 40 percent of all
allegations 7 years ago to less than 2 percent of all
allegations in 2003. As a result of these advances, Colombia's
citizens are safer and democracy in Colombia is more secure.
The good news that we have seen in the Andean region and
particularly in Colombia is a product of sustained funding by
this Congress for the Andean Counter-Drug Initiative, the
strategic use of resources, our commitment and the commitment
of the Government of Colombia.
Domestically, we have also seen very good news. We have
surpassed the President's 2 year goal of a 10 percent reduction
in drug use among our Nation's youth, an 11 percent actual
reduction between 2001 and 2003. With the continued support of
this committee, we fully expect to meet the President's 5 year
goal of a 25 percent reduction in the number of drug users in
the United States.
I commend the House for providing full funding for our
counter-drug efforts, and not placing burdensome, restrictive
conditions on those dollars. However, continued full funding in
accord with the President's fiscal year 2002 request of $731
million is necessary now, more than at any time in our history,
to advance this historic success. We have the opportunity to
make a real change in the world drug market and we need your
continued commitment and support as we have had in the past.
I look forward to working together to ensure that our goals
are met in Colombia and the Andean region and of course, here
at home. Last, I'd like to ask to be able to provide for the
record, given the opening statement by Congressman Kucinich, a
detailed breakdown of eradication province by province to
correct the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walters follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Let me start the questioning. I heard Representative
Kucinich's opening remarks. Is it possible that as we eradicate
in Colombia, it's moving to other countries?
Mr. Walters. It is possible, and it is a great concern, and
in the past this has happened, that cultivation was once much
greater in Peru and Bolivia. It's been reduced dramatically.
During that reduction, cultivation moved to Colombia. That's
why we've tried to make sure that we continue the pressure
working with the Governments of Peru and Bolivia. Fortunately,
over the past 2 years, we have been able to sustain that
reduction and we have not seen the spread.
And not to belabor the point, but as the New York Times
reported on June 9, 2004, ``The overall decline in coke in
Colombia and the rest of the Andes is indisputable, and the
strategy appears to have controlled the so-called balloon
effect, the recurring phenomenon that once saw huge fields of
coca pop up in one region after being stamped out in another.''
So we have our own estimates, we have the U.N. estimates, and
we have the New York Times. They don't usually line up, all
three, on such a point.
Chairman Tom Davis. Could you share with me some of the
links we've seen in the evidence that the administration has
collected that detail the relationship between drugs and
financing for terrorist groups in the Andean region?
Mr. Walters. Yes. Our current estimates, and we're trying
to refine some of the dollar amounts, are that substantial
operational resources are provided both for the extreme right
and extreme left groups, the FARC, the ELN and the so-called
AUC. The precise amount that they get from drug trafficking is
hard to identify, but they could not operate at current levels
without the resources they receive. They also take money, as
you know, from kidnapping and from some other criminal
activities.
But the bulk of that money, there's no question about it,
has come from drug trafficking. We have various estimates of
the relative amounts. But both for the violence that they cause
in Colombia and the violence that we see through armed groups
in Mexico, those organizations that are most dangerous and most
violent make their money and remain under arms and remain able
to put armed, dangerous people in the field because of what
they make from the U.S. drug consumer.
Chairman Tom Davis. Are there any other cartels or cabals
or drug lords operating independently of the three groups
you've described in Colombia?
Mr. Walters. Yes, there are. We have identified a number of
organizational leaders that are facilitators, organizers,
sometimes they use the armed groups and pay them for
protection. Sometimes the armed groups in different areas
provide certain levels of product for final processing and
distribution. Basically the large scale distribution and
shipment to the United States is not run by the armed groups,
although there have been some of them involved in a few cases
of distribution. But basically, those are run by trafficking
organizations, both in Colombia and Mexico today, and they use
both the Central American-Mexican route to move the drugs to
the United States and the Caribbean.
Chairman Tom Davis. So let me just understand. What percent
of the cocaine, let's talk about cocaine for example, and the
coca crop, is controlled by the paramilitary groups and what
percent by these other independent operators or cartels? Any
idea?
Mr. Walters. I can't give you a precise percentage, because
in some cases they're mixed.
Chairman Tom Davis. Sub-contracting and everything else?
Mr. Walters. Yes. They are involved in out stages and later
stages, yes. We're trying to get a better handle on that. We
also believe frankly that some of what we've seen in the large
number of desertions I referred to in my written testimony of
the armed group participants are a result in difficulties of
financing because of the magnitude of the eradication and the
disruption of the market for cocaine.
Chairman Tom Davis. I'm just trying to figure out, OK,
we're going, the Colombian Government with help from us is
going after some of the paramilitary groups down there now, and
we wipe those out, there are still others standing that are
going into the trade, is what you're saying?
Mr. Walters. Yes. They are working very closely together,
and how it might transform itself in the future. Again, what
happened was, the drug cultivation moved to Colombia and these
armed groups became involved by controlling countryside,
keeping government forces, the rule of law from that area so
they could grow and produce cocaine. As the government takes
control of the country, and I think that's important, we're not
just eradicating, the Government of Colombia is systematically
taking back the country, as you know, providing government
presence and rule of law in all municipalities of the country
for the first time in more than two decades.
Chairman Tom Davis. What do you think is the major obstacle
and challenge that we face in Plan Colombia at this time?
Mr. Walters. Follow-through. We can and have and do make
this problem smaller by pushing back. What happens is, we
frequently don't stay at it. I think that everyone is rightly
concerned that what are the limits of commitment. This is a
large dollar amount, we know that. But when you look at the
investment in terms of the $12.5 billion that we spend on drug
control at the Federal level, and many times greater amounts
that we spend in trying to pick up the pieces from the
consequences of substance abuse, this is a cost-effective
investment.
It obviously only is cost-effective if it makes a
difference. I think that's what the historic opportunity is
that the commitment and leadership of Colombia, where most of
the effort is being applied, that the resources that we are
supplying to support them there and in the other parts of the
Andean region are making a difference and systematically
shrinking in historic allotments the amount of cocaine coming
into the country.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. Thank you very much.
Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walters, am I correct in understanding that $93 million
in funding has been provided this year to protect the
Colombian, to help the Colombian army protect the Cano Limon
oil pipeline?
Mr. Walters. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Can you explain to me how that expenditure is
justified as part of a program whose primary priority mission
is narcotics control?
Mr. Walters. Yes, we tried to work carefully with Congress
in the original request over a year ago for these funds. It's
designed to be a component to our effort to prevent terror
organizations from destroying the institutions and economic
opportunities in Colombia. The oil pipeline was systematically
attacked, as you probably know, by the ELN and the FARC and a
significant portion of both gross domestic product of the
foreign earnings of Colombia, as well as a significant amount
of the energy, some of this energy goes to the United States.
What this allowed Colombia to do when protecting the pipeline
is to maintain those earnings at a time when they are trying to
grow the economy and for constructive ways.
Mr. Tierney. Explain for us, if you will, exactly how the
protection is being provided. Who is providing it and in what
manner?
Mr. Walters. Off the top of my head, I may not know all the
details. We're essentially providing airlift and helicopters,
and we're providing training to Colombian military personnel to
be able to protect the pipeline at this point.
Mr. Tierney. And this is a private company's pipeline, am I
correct?
Mr. Walters. Yes, it is.
Mr. Tierney. And what financial commitment are they putting
into this?
Mr. Walters. I don't know what the company is putting into
the program. In the past, we've worked on the basis of the
concerns of the Colombia Government here, obviously.
Mr. Tierney. I'm concerned with that. It seems to me we're
moving well beyond our, you know, Plan Colombia is the business
of going after drugs and now expanding over to a pipeline,
getting more involved, putting more money in there. That
bothers me in terms of our exit strategy and our involvement
growing on that.
Mr. Walters. If I may, if we didn't consult properly with
your office, I apologize. But we were very careful when this
proposal was initially made to make clear what it was
specifically and to include it in the appropriations process. I
want to make clear we did not intend to say we have a whole
bunch of money over here and we're going to slide this in on
the side. This was up front, because we knew there could be----
Mr. Tierney. I don't mean to imply that you did. I just
want to address it as a policy question. I think we should
consider whether this is wise policy and whether there is the
kind of connection that should exist there, and whether or not
we're getting into an expansion here that might not otherwise
be somewhere we want to go or should go.
But changing the subject for a second, there was a recent
New York Times article, June 9th of this year, last week in
fact, and it basically was trying to put the 2003 coca
eradication estimates into some sort of historical perspective.
What they essentially said in the article was that although
there has been a reduction this year, it gets us back to where
we really were back in the 1990's, so that we're pretty much
back to where we started.
Are you comfortable now or are you confident that this
downward trend in cultivation is going to be sustained with the
resources that you have?
Mr. Walters. Yes, if we follow through. What's happened is
the cultivation grew after a decline, as a result of the
decline in cultivation in Peru basically some in Bolivia, and
the shift was to Colombia. We did have a balloon problem. What
we've done is held the line in those other two countries and it
looks like as Colombia eradicates at over 100,000 hectares a
year, the ability to replant and reconstitute is broken and we
begin to have systematic declines. That's what's happened.
Mr. Tierney. But there was part of that same article that
talked about it being a race, it was a quote of one of the
individuals, I think somebody from the State Department was
saying that it's a race. We eradicate, they build somewhere
else, we eradicate, they build somewhere else and we just try
to get ahead of them. When it is that you think we'll get ahead
of them to the degree that we can start to see some effect on
the price and purity? I understand they're now currently as
high as they've ever been.
Mr. Walters. We believe, the latest intelligence reports
that we have just completed, that project and look at flow, we
believe we will see a change in availability into the United
States, on the streets of the United States in the next 12
months as a result of what happens here. It takes some time
between the planting and the processing and the shipping and
the dealing. We believe that will probably first appear in
reductions in purity, because most of the market for this
product, as you know, is dependent individuals. If you raise
the price, they go into crisis.
Mr. Tierney. So a year from now?
Mr. Walters. Some time in the next 12 months. I can't tell
you precisely, but I'm not saying it's going to be at the 12th
month, I can't tell you it's going to be next month.
Mr. Tierney. Let me sneak in one more question, if I can,
and that is on the fragmentation issue. What people are saying
is instead of getting the balloon effect now, where we might
see the crops moving over to Bolivia or elsewhere that in fact
they're moving into some of the national parks and some of the
other more difficult spots where you might not think, that the
strains have become more resistant, and that's where it's going
and it's going to be difficult for us to eradicate there. What
do you find with regard to that issue?
Mr. Walters. There has been some increased growth in
national park areas, and there's been a debate, as you probably
know, about aerial spraying in the parks. We have I believe
worked out an agreement with the Congress where the Government
of Colombia, and we will certify spraying in these park areas
as only a last resort. They are doing some manual eradication
in those areas as well.
But obviously, we should not create safe havens. And we
should also recognize, as I indicated at some length in my
testimony, the environmental damage that is devastating is done
by coca growth. It is what has stripped Colombia of an
estimated million hectares of rain forest. In addition to the
stripping of that rain forest and the delicate soil in the
moving of this, the pouring of hundreds of thousands of gallons
of toxic chemicals into the delicate ecosystem as a result of
processing through petrochemicals, acids and others.
We believe, I know people are concerned about the
environment, especially in this area where we're concerned also
about biodiversity. But the biggest damage to the environment
is to allow the coca business to continue. It has been the
destroyer of the land and the polluting of the watersheds here
of the Amazon. What's happening is, those can be restored, but
we have to again stay at it, we have to not let patches of
protection be created as we begin to squeeze this down.
But the fact is, the real issue here is, President Uribe
has said he is going to eradicate every hectare of coca and
poppy in Colombia, and he has aggressively pursued that course.
Mr. Tierney. So is it your position that there is more
environmental damage being done from the cocaine growing itself
as opposed to the eradication efforts?
Mr. Walters. I believe if you look at this carefully, there
is no comparison. What we're using for eradication is the same
chemical that you can buy in a hardware store and many
Americans use. It is used more widely in Colombia in
agriculture settings. It is used massively in the United States
in agricultural settings. It breaks down into harmless
components in 3 days after use. The chemicals, the
insecticides, the others that are being used, sulfuric acid,
gasoline, kerosene and others that are being used by the
thousand and thousand gallon lots in processing and in
cultivation, there is no question, anybody that looks at this
systematically, I know it sounds, because people say, well,
isn't spraying always environmentally somehow damaging because
you're killing something.
But this is a business that lives by killing triple canopy
rain forest and dumping toxic chemicals into the Amazon
watershed. When we stop that, when we reduce the cultivation,
we save that pollution and give the forest a chance to regrow.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Tennessee.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't know you were
going to come to me next. I do have a question. I went down to
Colombia 4\1/2\ years ago with Chairman Spence on an Armed
Service Committee trip. And I hate to be the skunk at the
garden party, but we heard almost the exact same report that
you've just given. It's nothing against you, but we heard all
these wonderful statistics then. I don't remember all the exact
statistics.
But it seems to me that the Colombia Government is on a
permanent dole here. What I'm wondering about, 4\1/2\ years
from now, are we going to have somebody else in your same
position come here and give us all these same statistics again,
but we're still going to be paying $4 or $5 billion a year and
this problem is just going to go on forever? I mean, it's
amazing how similar your statements are. I'm not criticizing
you, because you're just giving us statistics that I guess you
believe are reliable.
But we had the top three people from the Colombian
Government that were in charge of the eradication program at
that time, plus several of the U.S. military people, and they
told us of the great progress they had made, and had
percentages just like what you have given us, and that was 4\1/
2\ years ago.
Mr. Walters. If I may----
Mr. Duncan. And I'm sitting here, and it just makes me have
to be skeptical about what you're saying. If you continue to
make the progress that you're making, then this problem should
be wiped out in 4 or 5 years. But I just have a strong feeling
that's not going to happen. So how do you explain that?
Mr. Walters. Congressman, I do believe that cynicism about
the drug problem generally, on both supply and demand, is our
greatest enemy. That cynicism unfortunately has been earned in
some cases. If people told you in Colombia 4 or 5 years ago
that there were the kinds of reductions we're seeing today,
they lied. It's that simple. We have numbers. The U.N. has
numbers. The numbers did not show that 4 years ago or 4\1/2\
years ago.
But can we tell you that we have perfect knowledge here?
No. But we can tell you that from multiple sources, we have the
same information. There is a significant and measurable and
massive reduction, a historic reduction in the production of
cocaine in the world generally led by Colombia where over 70
percent of it is today grown.
Can we guarantee you or assure you that we're going to get
to where you and I and everybody else wants to be? That is that
we systematically reduce the drug problem. And I think the
answer to that is, we can't guarantee it, because we've had a
history of making progress, real progress. The drug problem
today is, the number of users in the United States, I think
it's important to point out, is half what they were at the peak
in 1979 that we measured.
But it's still too high. It went to a low point in 1992,
and teen drug use doubled between 1992 and the mid-1990's. When
we forget about it, when we stop acting, when we don't do
effective things, we get a bigger problem. But that's true of
every problem.
Mr. Duncan. I'll tell you, I think that the Colombian
Government is going to do everything they possibly can to make
sure that they continue getting these billions and billions of
dollars each year. And they're going to tell us that they've
eradicated it a lot of places in Colombia, but they'll tell us
that they've increased it someplace else or something.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope they get it wiped out in 4 or 5
years. And if these percentages that you're telling us today
hold up, then it should be pretty well eliminated in 4 or 5
years.
Mr. Walters. I think it's important for us to be clear so
we don't generate cynicism ourselves. Our estimate has been,
and it's not precise, that the relative ability to reconstitute
and replant following spray, again, it's important to lay some
groundwork here. The coca is a bush, as you probably saw when
you were down there. It takes an estimate, somewhere from
between 6 months and 18 months for it to regrow to full
productive capacity. So when you eradicate it, it has to be
replanted, it has to be allowed to grow to be productive.
They can, with the magnitude of workers they have in the
field now, we estimate reconstituted somewhere around 90,000,
96,000 hectares a year. That's why I think it's very important
that we spray at the plus 100,000 hectare level as the
Colombians have done the last several years and begin to
collapse that. A some of those workers move out of this
business, the ability to reconstitute, we anticipate, will go
down. But----
Mr. Duncan. What you're saying, though, and I can tell you,
I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court judge, trying felony
criminal cases before I came here. And I'll tell you, I hate
drugs. I'm scared to death of them. I tell all the kids that.
I've seen horrible things. Almost every case that we handled
was involved with drugs in some way.
But what you just said a few minutes ago, you said Colombia
in spite of all the billions and billions and billions that
we've poured down there over the last several years, that
Colombia is still producing 70 percent of the world's cocaine,
is that what you just said?
Mr. Walters. Yes. Seventy percent of a pie that's one-third
smaller, and a pie that will be 50 percent smaller, we
estimate, at the end of this year. So yes, that's why there
isn't a balloon effect. If it was producing a smaller
percentage, it would indicate that the movement of growth had
gone to other countries.
So we have so far contained and shrunk that pie. We
estimate that will produce reduced availability in the United
States, as I said, within the next 12 months.
Mr. Duncan. Well, I'll tell you this, I hope in 5 years'
time you can come back or somebody can come back and tell us
it's all been wiped out, we don't have to keep sending all
these billions down there.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
The gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Sir, if I understand your testimony, and some information
that I have, it's correct that the coca farmers are growing in
smaller plots in places like State parks, correct?
Mr. Walters. There are some. It's a small portion of the
overall growth, but there is some movement to State parks.
Ms. McCollum. Would you agree also with some information
that I've read that the plants that the farmers are growing now
actually produce more leaves per plant?
Mr. Walters. We have adjusted our estimate, not so much in
leaf, but of the so-called alkaloid content of the cocaine
substance that's extracted from the leaf. It's not necessarily
more leaves, there have been adjustments up and down based on
field tests in Colombia, so we get reliable estimates of what
is being produced. But there has not been in the last couple of
years----
Ms. McCollum. I think you answered my question. So you're
saying that some of the plants can actually produce more?
Mr. Walters. Yes, there are different varieties of coca----
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Walters [continuing]. But there has not been----
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Walters. For the record, please, if I can answer the
question----
Ms. McCollum. I only have a few minutes.
Mr. Walters. I'd like to answer the question, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. It's her time.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. So you're saying that the amount--
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Mr. Souder. Part of this money we put in, the last time I
was down there and talked with Occidental and other companies
there, felt that the number of attacks were going down, They
have minor protection, but they're like Pinkerton forces
against armed forces.
But they can now hopefully start to explore this, because
it's right near Venezuela, one of the richest oil basins in the
world. If they can make their economy work, they can afford to
pay their own military, and they can afford to buy their own
Blackhawks. But if their economy doesn't work, their whole
country will come crashing down and then, because of our drug
problem, we have to go in and do it.
I have two questions. One is, we also, in addition to the
coca problem, have a heroin problem, about to be dwarfed by
Afghanistan, but nevertheless a heroin problem out of--I
couldn't resist that--out of Colombia. It's high in the
mountains, it's hard to get to. A recent FARC defector said
that molasses is being put on the heroin and it's making it
hard to aerially eradicate. This is one of the constant debates
we've had, because in Bolivia, hand eradication worked very
well.
You mentioned the national parks problem, which by the way
is happening. We have the first coca in our parks in
California. That is a challenge, even though it's the same
thing we spray crops in our farmers' fields and in the farmers'
fields elsewhere about aerial spraying. Have you seen that
problem of molasses coating the heroin? Does that restrict air
spraying, and do you see us moving more to hand eradication in
those places if it becomes a problem?
Mr. Walters. I haven't heard about the molasses, but there
are periodically accounts of ways of circumventing the spray,
putting plastic bags over the plants, both poppy and the coca.
The problem with almost all of these is they also inhibit the
plant growth over any period of time. They're also labor
intensive and they make it more difficult. None of them have
been used, to the best of our knowledge, on a significant
enough scale to undermine the eradication effort.
It is true, as you heard, we are looking at over 100,000
hectares of coca. We're looking at less than 5,000 hectares of
poppy, and that's really a basis of figuring two crops on each
plot. So that is less than 2,500 hectares. It's a much smaller
problem, much smaller plots, as you know.
What we are doing, what the Colombians are doing, is mixing
both spray with manual eradication, but that's not because of
measures they're taking to prevent the spray, it's because some
of these areas are very difficult to get to by aircraft. They
are high in the mountains and sometimes it's hard to get an
intelligence overhead read from an aircraft on where they are.
Sometimes it's hard to get spray into the side of a mountain
where a field may be because of the geography. So in that case,
the Colombians are trying to move manual eradicators in.
In addition, we are trying to go after this problem with
better intelligence. We're spraying everything we find. We're
trying to kill one way or the other every plot of poppy that
they can find. We are aware that because it's smaller and more
dispersed there is a problem of finding it, and the DEA has put
in more people. There is a program now of paying people for
information about lots of poppy, as well as organizations that
are involved in it. So we've tried to go after the poppy
problem, which you know we do take seriously, both in Colombia,
in transit and in the movement inside the United States from
its arrival in small amounts, frequently by aircraft,
passengers on aircraft or in their baggage or on their person.
Mr. Souder. Part of our problem here is that almost all
Afghan heroin is going to Europe and Europe hasn't been as
great a help as they should be in Afghanistan. In Colombia, a
high percentage is going to Europe. Even as we try to control
our demand, our Colombia problem stays there because so much is
going to Europe. Are you pleased with their help?
Mr. Walters. We have consistently asked the Europeans to do
more. The British have been steadfast allies in this for more
than a decade. We have had sporadic help from some other
nations. But it's been small, especially as you point out,
considering what they're suffering at this. When President
Uribe went to Europe recently, there was, I believe, completely
unjustified criticism of him by people whose nations are dearly
suffering and should be thanking him for the progress and the
possibilities he's allowed in the future.
I don't know of another nation in the world that has had as
much progress as rapidly on human rights and safety of its
citizens as Colombia has over the last several years since he's
been in office. And instead, there are groups that are living
in the past in Europe and some, frankly, I think in other
places, that think that's not going on. They have to catch up
with modern times. President Uribe's popularity in Colombia is
based on the fact he's brought economic growth, safety and
security. And that continues to be the case.
The military's popularity in Colombia is based on the fact
they've stopped being the thugs that they were a decade ago,
and through our help, largely through the leadership of
Colombian officials, they've become more professional. They
remain, we have to remain vigilant, we have to hold the
standards, but they understand and we understand that the
progress here requires that not to be a country that's a war
zone, and not to be a country that's based on narco-dollars
that will make it a war zone. The progress there has been
historic.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. The gentlelady from
California.
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm listening to the witness talk about the progress that's
being made with Colombia, Plan Colombia, and I must commend the
work that has been done that has gone into that. But the
thought occurs to me when we talk about narcoterrorism, what
are we doing on this end? It's the consumption of their product
that creates the problems, and we have them listed as
addiction, drug related crimes, deaths and a destabilizing of
our societal core.
I am told that in countries such as Colombia, Afghanistan
that the core of their economy is the growing of these plants.
My question is, and you might not be able to answer but you
might help us to think about it, what are we doing on this end,
so the demand won't be as large as it is where billions of
dollars return back to someone's pocket or to the country?
Conspicuous consumption, sub rosa consumption or whatever, the
consumption is here.
Mr. Walters. Absolutely, and that is, I believe, one of the
most important questions we can ask about this. It is why we
have tried to emphasize in our national effort, is we have to
have balance. The President has said, when he's met with us
privately and he has said to foreign leaders, we're not asking
other countries to do things that we should do in our own
borders. That's why we've asked for a reorienting of the drug
budget, as well as a strategy to establish that balance.
The President, as you know, over a year ago in the State of
the Union, asked for an additional $600 million over 3 years
for treatment through the Access to Recovery program, on top of
the $2 billion block grant that we have. He asked us, how do we
close the treatment gap. Our national estimate is that roughly
100,000 people a year seek treatment and are not able to get
it, based on our national survey. The average cost of treatment
figure for the Federal Government is $2,000 per episode. The
$200 million he asked for for over 3 years is 100,000 people
times $2,000. We offer to be an example of closing that gap at
the Federal level.
We got from Congress last year the first $100 million. We
just got applications for that money, 44 States, the District
of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 20 Native American tribes applied.
With some members, I'm not saying members at this table, of
this body, we had trouble convincing them that we could use
that money or be able to make this program work. I think the
fact that we've had the applicants we are of the overall
estimates of numbers that need treatment aren't sufficient
indicates we need the full $200 million we asked for for the
next year.
In addition, we have put in a series of programs that are
designed to help to move people into treatment that need it. We
have released moneys that will tie crucial health systems, I
was at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, in the Chicago area we
have funded County Hospital in Chicago, to train all workers,
as well as doctors and nurses, to screen those people who come
into our emergency rooms, many of whom have accidents or are
suffering from substance abuse, to screen them and to give them
the training to provide them reliable ability to refer
individuals to intervention or treatment for substance abuse.
In Houston, they will do 100,000 people this year. They
will spread it to their satellite community clinic center and
do a million people a year. We have 7 million people we
estimate that need treatment. Many of them are in denial, as we
know, every family suffered substance abuse directly or
indirectly. The most pernicious part of this disease is denial.
We need help to bring people in. We have asked for additional
moneys to support drug courts where, when individuals come into
the criminal justice system largely because they have an
addiction, rather than allowing them to go down a path to jail,
we use the supervision of drug treatment courts, as you know,
to get them into treatment and to help them stay there, which
we know is a key to their success.
We've had trouble getting those funds. Congress funded half
our request.
Ms. Watson. Excuse me, I'm going to ask you to yield before
the Chair makes his----
Mr. Walters. Sure.
Ms. Watson. This is explosive, but I've got to say it. If
we could take the financial benefit out of it, and I'm just
going to throw that out, and anyone in the audience, and then
our panel can figure out what that means, but some way, No. 1,
we've got to treat people who are already addicted.
Mr. Walters. Yes.
Ms. Watson. But we have to take the benefit of people on
the streets who sell this stuff. And somebody up on that 40th
floor in the financial institution is involved. Too much money
in it.
Mr. Walters. Yes.
Ms. Watson. So we have to do several things at the same
time. Certainly try to eradicate, and I don't think we ever do
it, because I remember opium in the far east going back
centuries. I understand that in Afghanistan today, there are
farmers now growing the crop to support their families.
So we've got to work on the consumption over on this end
and the business that surrounds it. Thank you very much. I
appreciate your response.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you, Ms. Watson.
Mr. Walters. If I could just touch on that point, we're
focused on the international programs. The international
programs of the Federal Government, just to put it in context,
because I think it is a point of emphasis, are a little over $1
billion total worldwide, 9.1 percent of the Federal drug
control budget. Interdiction is a little over $2.5 billion at
our borders, a little over 20 percent of the budget request.
Domestic law enforcement is a little over $3 billion, or 25
percent.
Forty-five percent of the overall budget is prevention and
treatment, 55 percent is supply control, including all those
things. The single largest area of funding, at 29.4 percent, is
the $3.7 billion we spend on treatment. We have made progress
in prevention in the last 2 years. We want to treat people,
because most of this cocaine, as you know, is going to
dependent individuals, and we need to reduce that demand, and
we need to do it through treatment at multiple points.
But we are not, I didn't mean to suggest forgetting to do
law enforcement in the United States, and of the key component
that Administrator Tandy, who will be on a subsequent panel has
done, is every single case DEA does has a money component. Take
the money out, find the money. We do not believe we're doing a
good enough job against the money. But we are doing a better
job against the organizations and the structures that fund this
here and abroad. We've linked in a consolidated way the
business of the drug trade and focusing intelligence and
enforcement efforts against that business.
So we hope that in the future we will be able to both
parallel what we are doing at home in what we're doing with
other nations, as well as our partners in other parts of the
world.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Mr. Van Hollen,
any questions?
Mr. Van Hollen. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. All right, I think that's all. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Chairman, could I ask just two questions?
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you for your patience. One is, I talked
a little bit at the end of my questioning about reductions and
the eradication and whether they affect price and purity. Can
you tell me what the most recent price and purity data from
your office is, what does it show?
Mr. Walters. We have not seen a change in price and purity
in the national average over the last couple of years in any
aggregate. What I said was, we anticipate, given what we're
seeing with the magnitude of eradication and interdiction,
worldwide we seized 400 metric tons of cocaine in source
countries and in transit last year. That's a record. And we
know that it takes, the estimate is roughly 18 months to 12
months for the floor from the pipeline in the fields to the
streets of the United States. We expect to see that now, but we
have not seen a change. I can give you the individual reports
of price and purity for cocaine and supply those for the
record.
Mr. Tierney. Would you do that, please?
Mr. Walters. Sure.
Mr. Tierney. And last, following up on the Ambassador's
questions on that, the precursors that you mentioned earlier
that go into the production of the drugs and the money,
obviously, what are we doing with respect to the manufacturers
of those precursors and the distributors and to the banks or
other financial interests, what's our effort there?
Mr. Walters. Not to dodge, but some of the subsequent
witnesses can give you more detail. Overall, what we have tried
to do is identify key controllable precursors. Sometimes it's
difficult because they are widely used, things like kerosene or
some petrol products. There are some precursors that have been
more critical in the refining process, and we've had efforts at
various places to control them. In some cases, they have been
forced to use less effective chemicals as a response and in
some cases they've used new methods, so we tried to stay at it.
I think the most encouraging thing on the money side is the
effort that Colombia and Mexico have made with us to go after
the black market peso, the exchanges which we believe are a
source of funding a great deal of this, where money comes back
through a system that's been used in some cases to evade taxes
even on a larger scale in Latin America than to launder drug
money.
Now, we also know that there are instances where people
move bulk cash out of the country, we seize it, we're
increasing our efforts to focus on that as well. But what we
have tried to do now for the first time, and I believe you will
see cases, frankly, in the next 12 months, that begin to go
after the larger volumes of money. But we have billions of
dollars here. We consider it a weakness that we have not been
able to do a better job.
Now, a substantial portion of that money is of course being
pulled out at the local level where the money first turns from
drugs into dollars. And it's being used to fund criminal
activity and other activities in our own cities. There are
people, I was just in Chicago, who believe we ought to call our
urban drug traffickers urban terrorist instead of drug
traffickers, because of the violence, the shooting, the murder
and mayhem that they cause.
But we need to do a better job on the money side of it. But
it's also, you know, there aren't an enormous number of things
we need to do. It's basically common sense. We need to collapse
this business. We have to begin with demand, everybody agrees
with prevention, we have to do treatment. We have to be able to
go to where the source is, so they can't operate with impunity.
But we also have to do a better job at home. My office has
begun to work with major metropolitan areas to bring together
demand and enforcement. We've begun to work with our Federal
partners to create a consolidated priority targeting list of
major organizations. We want to go after the business as a
trade, and I think your question is right on point, we need to
accelerate that. But that is something we've learned I think in
regard to terror we have to do. It's a small number of people,
but we've got to find them because they do a great deal of
damage.
Mr. Tierney. In the GAO report that came out of the Senate
testimony back in June of last year, talked about a lack of
adequate performance measures with respect to Plan Colombia. If
I just turn that over a little bit and say, do you have any
performance measures with respect to how we're doing against
these manufacturers and distributors of precursors and the
financiers?
Mr. Walters. I don't think we have a clear numerical goal
on the precursors, simply because some of them are
controllable, some of them aren't. We're not quite sure how
much is being diverted. We try to put in diversion control
programs in a variety of these countries that have had some
effect. But because we don't entirely know how much they use,
or it's hard to tell sometimes how much is being diverted from
year to year. We have seen changes in the past in the aggregate
quality of the product.
For example, Bolivian-produced, on average Bolivian-
produced cocaine and cocaine base is of very low quality. It's
largely, we believe, being sent to Brazil, because it's a
fledgling market, where inferior product can be consumed. But
it has not been able to maintain that. Some of that is because
of chemical controls as well as the ability to control the
market. So it does vary. It's hard to give you a precise
answer, because we can't rack and stack the exact number of
gallons that go in and get diverted in each place.
But let me try to get back to your staff and to the
committee with the best information we have, because it is an
important sector.
Mr. Tierney. I thank you for that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Mr. Souder, you have some
followup.
Mr. Souder. I wanted to make an addition to Mr. Tierney's
information request. Accountability is one of the most
difficult things we have here. But when you respond with the
price and purity figures, if you could also include any
evidence on stockpiling, because we simply don't know what
happened in some of this period, including how long is the
shelf life of this cocaine when it heads out. We certainly have
found piles of it different places that may have gone before
the implementation of our plan. How long and what potentials
are in that messes up our numbers? Because if you have a 5-year
shelf life, a 10-year shelf life, a 2-year shelf life, if we
have stockpiles in Mexico or in places in the United States,
that messes up our measures of effectiveness.
The second thing is on the signature program, because I've
been perplexed by this for a long time, that we apparently
depend on determining where the stuff's coming from a lot on
the production method. And in watching the production method,
as others copy Colombian methods, is it possible that some of
this has moved to Mexico? Are we confident of the signature
program and what are we doing with that?
Mr. Walters. I can answer two of those. On the shelf life,
I'll get back to you on, because I want to give you accurate
information. I am concerned about stockpiling as well. We have
no evidence, concrete evidence of significant stockpiling.
There have been theories that one of the reasons we haven't
seen more of a reduction is that first of all, the FARC had
stockpiles in what was the demilitarized zone, and when the
Government of Colombia went in or ended that zone, they may
have shipped those out.
There also has been some speculation that the right wing
paramilitaries, the AUC, in engaging in these peace talks, may
have taken stocks and moved them out of the country. We do not
have concrete evidence to confirm that at this point. So we
don't know whether there's----
Mr. Souder. What about Mexico?
Mr. Walters. We do not have evidence, to the best of my
knowledge, maybe other witnesses will have something else, but
we work pretty closely together on this, because we're trying
to measure the flow of substantial and large stockpiles that
would affect the overall measure in a strategic way.
On the signature program, we do use processing, you're
absolutely right, of course. We are trying to develop another
method that will allow us to determine where the product comes
from based on where the plant is grown. We are funding this and
it looks promising. We're trying to accelerate that as rapidly
as possible with DEA's laboratory and we'll give you a full
brief on that, and your staff, at a time convenient to you.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK, thank you very much. We're going to
move to our next panel, we'll take a 2-minute recess. Thank you
very much, Director Walters.
[Recess.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Again, I want to thank our witnesses
for appearing today. Joining us on our second panel will be the
Ambassador of Colombia to the United States, the Honorable Luis
Alberto Moreno. Ambassador Moreno will provide the committee
with an update on his country's ongoing fight against drugs and
terror. Several important leaders in the administration who are
key figures in the battle against narcoterrorism also join us.
We welcome the Honorable Roger Noriega, the Assistant Secretary
of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; the Honorable Robert
Charles, who will be with us in just a minute, Assistant
Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs; the Honorable Thomas O'Connell, the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-
Intensity Conflict; General James T. Hill, the Commander of the
U.S. Southern Command; and finally, last but not the least, the
Honorable Karen Tandy, the Administrator of the DEA.
We welcome all the witnesses and their testimony today.
It's our policy that we swear you in before you testify. If
you'll just rise with me and raise your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. I think you know
the rules. Ambassador Moreno, we'll start with you. Thank you
for being with us.
STATEMENTS OF LUIS ALBERTO MORENO, AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA, REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA; ROGER F. NORIEGA,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE; ROBERT B. CHARLES, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE; THOMAS W. O'CONNELL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF DEFENSE, SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT;
GENERAL JAMES T. HILL, U.S. ARMY COMMANDER, U.S. SOUTHERN
COMMAND; AND KAREN P. TANDY, ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Ambassador Moreno. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member
and distinguished members of the committee. It is my distinct
pleasure to appear before you today to discuss developments
relating to Plan Colombia and the current situation in my
country. I have a written statement that I would like to submit
for the record.
Chairman Tom Davis. Without objection. All of your written
statements will be in the record, as will, I might add, let me
just interrupt you, Mr. Souder has a statement he wants to put
in the record.
Mr. Souder. This is an insertion about the Colombian
conflict.
Chairman Tom Davis. Without objection, that will be
inserted.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Go ahead.
Ambassador Moreno. Thank you.
Let me begin by thanking the U.S. Congress for its support
in Colombia's ongoing fight against drugs and terror and
express my appreciation to the House Committee on Government
Reform for holding this hearing. It pleases me as Colombian
ambassador to the United States to pay tribute to the chairman
of both the committee and the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy and Human Resources Representatives Tom Davis and
Mark Souder, for their personal commitment to the fight against
the scourge of drug trafficking and their contribution to
security and developing it in Colombia.
I am pleased to report today that the U.S.-Colombian
partnership under Plan Colombia and its successor programs has
proved a sound investment for both our nations. Now in its 4th
year of implementation, Plan Colombia has played a significant
role in combating terrorism and narcoterrorism, restoring
economic growth and strengthening the rule of law, human rights
and alternative development opportunities.
The illegal violent actors in Colombia's conflict have
close ties with international networks that engage in drugs and
arm trafficking, money laundering and other criminal
activities. The United States is helping Colombia to cutoff the
resources that these terrorist groups use to wage their war
against Colombian society. Every day, thousands of Americans
and Colombians work side by side, building a more secure and
prosperous Colombia, and by extension, help advance U.S.
strategic interests in the hemisphere.
In recent years, Colombia has seen dramatic results in the
eradication and interdiction of narcotics. I don't want to
burden you or the committee with figures, all of which can be
found in my written testimony. But I want to stress that there
have been advances on every front. As of December 2003, coca
crops were reduced by 33 percent, more than 300 tons of cocaine
with an estimated street value of $9.5 billion have been seized
since Plan Colombia started, and more than 9 metric tons of
heroin have been removed from the U.S. market in 2003 alone.
The current government's democratic security and defense
policy, with key U.S. cooperation, has significantly enhanced
the size, training and capabilities of Colombia's armed forces
and police. More than 16,000 police officers have been added
since 2000, with the result that today, every municipality has
a police presence--a first for Colombia.
As for the military, we have added 52,000 plus combat ready
troops since 2000, a 60 percent increase. In addition, our
armed forces have greatly improved their ability to move
rapidly to conflict areas, thanks to U.S. provided helicopters
and other specialty aircraft. These assets have been critical
in the success of the aerial spraying program, both for the
actual spraying of illegal crops and protecting personnel
engaged in this dangerous activity.
Enhanced military and police readiness has shifted the
balance in the fight against narcoterrorist groups responsible
for much of Colombia's violence and civil rights abuses to the
government's advantage. As a result of Plan Colombia, the
Colombian armed forces and national police have intensified
military operations against these organizations. This is shown
by significant increases in captures and casualties of members
of all illegal armed groups.
Importantly, with U.S. intelligence and training
assistance, the Colombian military is being increasingly
successful in going after high value targets in the terrorist
leadership. In the last 5 months, two high ranking members of
FARC have been captured. U.S. training and equipment have
produced a new type of military force in Colombia: more
professional, more efficient, more motivated, better equipped
and more respectful of their obligation to human rights and
international humanitarian law.
The U.S. Government has provided training in areas like
anti-terrorism, anti-kidnapping, bomb disposal and protection
for senior officials. Notably, in 2003 alone, 73,000 members of
the Colombian military received intensive training in human
rights and international humanitarian law. There was a
significant decline of human rights violations in Colombia
during the year 2003, including a 48 percent decrease in extra
judicial executions. To cite an example, homicides of trade
unionists fell by 57 percent during 2003, and were down a
further 25 percent in the first 4 months of this year.
A vast program of judicial reform is underway in order to
adopt the accusatorial system used in common law countries, a
change that is expected to enhance the effectiveness of the
administration of justice. To that end, 39 new oral trial
courtrooms have been established with USAID, and training has
been provided for 3,400 prosecutors, judges, magistrates and
defense attorneys, as well as more than 700 community based
conciliators.
Since the beginning of Plan Colombia, nearly 200 persons
have been extradited to the United States for criminal
prosecution, and in 2003, prosecutions for money laundering
rose by 25 percent, while asset forfeiture cases increased by
42 percent. The United States and Colombia have successfully
implemented alternative development and other social programs
to help coca and poppy farmers' transition to legal activity
and provide relief to other citizens affected by terrorism and
crime. More than 45,000 hectares of legal crops are now in
place, benefiting more than 34,000 families who have committed
to give up the cultivation of illegal crops.
Plan Colombia has also successfully completed 835 social
and economic infrastructure projects, including roads, schools,
health clinics and sewer systems in the southern region of
Colombia, where this development leads to reduced dependency on
illegal drug cultivation and production. It has also provided
assistance to more than 1.6 million internally displaced
persons, individuals and families who have been forced to flee
their homes and communities because of violence.
Additionally, U.S. support for military and social programs
has enabled the Colombian Government to earmark the necessary
resources for education and health care. This has translated
into a substantial increase in the number of children enrolled
in public schools and a significant enlargement in the reach of
the public health care system.
A strong, growing Colombian economy is fundamental for
stability and defeating drugs and terror. Plan Colombia has
contributed significantly to restoring investor and consumer
confidence and fueled economic recovery in the country. GDP
growth in 2003 was 3.8 percent, the highest rate since 1995,
and more than 1.2 new jobs were created. Following the renewal
of the Andean Trade Preferences Act in 2003, Colombia-U.S.
bilateral trade grew 10 percent in 2003 to $10.1 billion,
contributing to the creation of thousands of jobs in both
countries. Building on that momentum, Colombia and the United
States have just started free trade negotiations. A free trade
agreement with the United States will significantly enhance
Colombia's long term economic prospects and security, and
create a positive and predictable environment for new foreign
and domestic investment.
While significant progress has been achieved under Plan
Colombia, the battle against narcoterrorism is far from over.
Colombia and the U.S. need to consolidate the gains in terms of
security, law and order and economic growth and begin to look
ahead to ensuring lasting peace, stability and prosperity in
the long term.
Some specific challenges ahead are as follows: sustaining
the military offensive against narcoterrorist groups. As
Colombia continues to take the fight to the terrorists, the
country will need sustained U.S. assistance in the medium term.
This assistance is vital to consolidate the security gains
achieved so far and to ensure the success of ongoing military
operations in remote areas of the country. Moreover, continued
U.S.-Colombian cooperation on the counter-narcotics and
transnational crime fighting fronts will help to starve
narcoterrorist groups of the drug proceeds they need to
maintain their fighting and logistical apparatus.
Consolidating economic recovery through an FTA with the
United States expanding international trade and attracting
foreign investment remain critical to promoting economic
growth, employment and security in Colombia. An FTA with the
United States will not only increase exports and promote job
creation, but also help attract foreign direct investment to
the country in such crucial sectors as oil and gas, where
Colombia has enormous untapped potential.
While Colombia continues to exert military pressure on
narcoterrorist organizations, the government has opened the
door for talks with groups and individual combatants genuinely
interested in giving up their arms. The government is
determined to seek a peace agreement with these groups in
accordance with our legislation and mindful of international
standards. Within this framework, a peace process with the AUC
is currently underway with international verification. And
there is now a distinct possibility of negotiations with the
ELN under the auspices of the Mexican Government.
As part of any agreement, demobilizing illegal combatants
must be realized on a scale never before attempted in Colombia.
Therefore, these processes will pose enormous challenges and
require significant financial resources.
We must continue to provide help to thousands of Colombian
families who have been displaced by terrorism and violence.
This means returning them to their homes and communities,
helping them find productive employment and generally enabling
them to restart their lives. It is also imperative that we work
to repair the damage done to our valuable rain forest
ecosystems by terrorists and drug traffickers, both in terms of
forest destruction and the widespread dumping of precursor
chemicals into the Amazon River systems.
Colombia looks forward to working on the consolidation of
Plan Colombia, in order to build on the progress we have
realized to date and to develop new, cooperative efforts to
address the changing nature of the conflict. As President Uribe
aptly put it during his recent visit to the United States, we
are more now than ever determined to stay the course.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Moreno follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much, Ambassador Moreno.
Assistant Secretary Noriega.
Mr. Noriega. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you and members of the committee for your
continued leadership on U.S. policy toward Colombia, and in
particular, on your willingness to engage with Colombian
Government officials and to take congressional delegations to
Colombia to see for yourselves the reality there. We believe
that the engagement of the U.S. Congress, the leadership of the
U.S. Congress on this issue is crucial to developing,
implementing and maintaining momentum behind our policy on
Colombia, which is, I think you will agree, paying solid
dividends for our national interests. It is these common
efforts between the Congress and the executive branch, and the
bipartisan support that this policy enjoys, that make a big
difference to our success and the prospects for meeting our
objectives.
You see before you here, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, members of an interagency team here, that work
together well in implementing this policy. There are many who
you have met also in the field, in Colombia, led by Ambassador
Bill Wood, members of the various agencies that are represented
here who put their lives at risk, playing an important role in
implementing our policy in Colombia. I want to recognize their
great contribution.
Mr. Chairman, you and your colleagues know this integrated
policy very well. We support the Colombian Government's efforts
to defend and to strengthen its democratic institutions against
the acute threat of narcoterrorism, to promote respect to human
rights and the rule of law, to intensify counter-narcotics
efforts, to foster social and economic development and
investment, and to address immediate humanitarian needs that
Colombia is confronting.
As several of you have seen for yourselves, Colombia is a
vastly different country today than what it was just 5 years
ago. Then, many feared that South America's oldest democracy
could unravel to a failed narco-state. Today, Colombia is
heading in a very different, very promising direction,
consolidating itself as a stable nation that provides security
and stability for its citizens. Today, Colombians have greater
confidence and optimism for the future. Today it is the
narcoterrorists who are on the defensive.
Colombia's economy is growing and investors are again
looking to tap the rich entrepreneurial spirit of the Colombian
people, the private sector. The Colombian people overwhelmingly
support President Uribe's leadership and in establishing
democratic security for all of Colombia's people. In addition
to providing vision, determination and a sense of urgency,
President Uribe has accorded 16 percent of Colombia's national
budget now to national defense.
While serious challenges remain, the news from Colombia
over the past several years tells a story of steady progress.
Since 2002, the Colombian national police supported by the
United States, has sprayed close to 760,000 acres of coca and
coca cultivation has declined dramatically each year. Opium
cultivation declined by 10 percent in 2003, and we are always
seeking new ways to find that crop and kill it.
With the expanded authority provided by the U.S. Congress,
we've been able to assist Colombia's counter-terrorism efforts
against the 30,000 people who make up three guerrilla groups,
the FARC, the ELN and the AUC, each of which have been
designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S.
Government. The Colombian military, in concert with the
national police, is taking the fight to these terrorist groups
like never before, significantly stepping up defensive
operations and arrests.
At the same time, President Uribe continues to hold out the
possibility of a peaceful settlement to these conflicts. Both
the AUC and the ELN have demonstrated an interest in such a
process in recent weeks. However, President Uribe has insisted,
I think wisely, that irregular groups observe an immediate
cease-fire and end their illegal activities as preconditions
for this process moving forward.
The recent massacre of 34 coca farmers in the northern town
of La Gabarra is proof that the FARC guerrillas have yet to
forego their use of violence and their involvement in the drug
trade. While we support the peace process as part of President
Uribe's strategy for defeating terrorist groups and imposing
the rule of law, we have made clear that any settlement must
hold criminals accountable for their crimes. In particular, we
have stressed that we will continue to press for the
extradition of Colombians indicted by the United States.
President Uribe's Plan Patriota has put the FARC on the
defensive. Last year, the Colombian military effectively
cleared the province around Bogota of terrorist fighters. This
year, they have expended operations in south central Colombia,
deploying troops into the traditional FARC stronghold,
reclaiming municipalities that have long been in the hands of
that organization, disrupting important lines of communication
that are important to the terrorist threat and also to the
narcotics trafficking.
These efforts have produced real results, extending a
permanent security presence into all of Colombia's
municipalities. Internal displacement is down by 50 percent.
Fifty key terrorists and their financiers have been killed or
captured just since July 2003. Colombian defense spending is
up, and the attacks on the vital Cano Limon oil pipeline is
down dramatically in the last several years.
Our human rights goals complement our policy. We consider
Colombia a committed partner in promoting human rights, but we
also leverage the human rights conditionality of our assistance
program to push the Colombian Government to sever all
paramilitary-military ties, and to bring to justice military
officials involved in human rights violations, or involved with
paramilitarism. We will continue to treat the protection of
human rights as an essential part of our policy. Frankly, the
Colombian Government can and must be even more proactive in
identifying and remedying weaknesses in its human rights
record.
The human rights of our own citizens are at stake, too. We
are now at about a 16 month mark for the captivity of three
Americans who were part of our programs there, Keith Stencil,
Mark Gonsalves and Thomas House. We are doing everything that
we possibly can to arrange for their safe return.
Mr. Chairman, our counter-drug efforts in Colombia are
complemented by our programs in neighboring states where the
illicit drug trade presents a historic problem. Our strategy is
not to push coca cultivation from one country to another or
from one part of a country to another, but to hammer away at
every link in the drug chain in all of the countries concerned.
We have made steady progress in reducing illicit crops in both
Peru and Bolivia, as well as securing greater cross-border
cooperation from Colombia's neighbors. We also recognize that
trade and economic interaction must be part of our strategy, so
that Colombia and, for that matter, its neighbors have the
resources to carry on this fight and defend their sovereignty.
That's why the trade talks that we are having with Andean
countries is clearly very important.
Mr. Chairman, skipping ahead, President Bush is committed
to maintaining a robust partnership with Colombia, and we
appreciate greatly Congress's abiding bipartisan leadership on
the subject. It is important to note that the Colombian people
themselves have shown the political will and have shared the
financial burden to win the war and eventually to win the
peace. We thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I'm prepared
to answer any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Noriega follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Charles, I have to swear you in. You were not here for
the swearing in.
[Witness sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. The light will go
on after 4 minutes, try to sum up after 5. Your entire
statement is in the record, and we appreciate the job you did
with the Speaker's Drug Task Force before you came here and now
with the administration. Thanks for being with us.
Mr. Charles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I really
sincerely want to thank you for holding this hearing and for
frankly becoming so engaged in Plan Colombia and the Andean
Counter-Drug Initiative. I think it's saving lives by the
thousands and I think leadership by the U.S. Congress makes a
huge difference. So I wanted to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
Chairman Souder and frankly, the Republican and Democratic
leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate.
Oddly enough, I think we are also at a unique, almost
unprecedented moment. I think we are aligned. That leadership,
your leadership in this chamber and in the Senate is aligned
with a remarkable administration team that sees eye to eye with
mutual respect, including Secretary Noriega, Secretary
O'Connell, General Hill, Administrator Tandy. If you had us off
microphone, we would be agreeing as fully as we will agree with
you probably on the things we have to say today.
I also think that is aligned with a third star element
which is the U.S. ally, Colombia, and the extraordinary
leadership of President Uribe and Ambassador Moreno. This is a
unique time, and it is in that spirit that I want to offer you
my thoughts, which will be abbreviated. Again, I want to thank
you for inviting us.
Plan Colombia, complemented by our regional efforts in the
Andes, represents a significant investment by the American
people and the Congress to fight the flow of drugs responsible
for ending thousands of young lives each year in America, to
fight powerful and entrenched terrorists in this hemisphere and
to protect democratic rule across the Andean region. The
success in Colombia over the past few years would not have been
possible without strong leadership from President Uribe, who
took office in 2002. His administration has taken an aggressive
position against narcoterrorism, which enables our Colombia
programs to work. It is again my pleasure to testify with my
colleagues today, all of whom are leaders in their own right.
In a sound bite, you have given us the power to make a
difference, and in fact the investment in our national security
is paying off. Generally, Congress has a right to look not only
for sound policy and well managed implementation but also for a
measurable return on the American people's investment. While
measuring the shift of tectonic plates can be difficult, I
believe we are seeing real and one may hope lasting change.
In short, your investment is paying off in numerous ways,
and you've heard the statistics, so I'm not going to go through
them again. What I will say in real broad brush strokes is you
have drug cultivation in Colombia down for a second straight
year. By the way, the only time that has happened in the last
14 years, and a double digit reduction at that, as Mr. Walters
indicated.
Second, you have, despite recent killings by the FARC, you
have violent crime and terrorist attacks down and falling.
Third, you have a respect for rule of law expanding in
palpable, measurable ways and putting tap roots down in places
we never had the rule of law. And finally, we're providing
meaningful, often innovative alternatives to poverty level
farmers, titling land, giving them opportunities they never had
before by the thousands. The Andean Counter-Drug Initiative, as
you know better than I, is a multi-front effort that does not
begin and end with counter-narcotics. It is a robust effort,
yours as much as ours, at creating a sustainable, regional,
deep-seated and democratically faithful alternative to the
destruction in terror on personal, national and hemispheric
levels that comes from drug trafficking and drug funded terror.
In short, what we do in places like Colombia has a direct
effect on us here in the United States, whether it's Fairfax
County or Fort Wayne, IN, or any of the other locations
represented, it is directly affecting the security and the
safety of hometown America. Our policy and our commitment, our
aim is to wipe out narcoterrorists. We will never fully
eliminate drugs from this hemisphere, but we can get them down
to a level where they are de minimis and where those
organizations are completely taken off the face of what we
worry about day to day. Also to help Colombia seize their
assets, strengthen Colombia's institutions and increase
legitimate economic opportunities for those who wish to live
free from drugs and terror.
Central to the larger Andean Counter-Drug Initiative is
restoring, preserving and sustaining the rule of law in cities,
towns and the countryside in Colombia. Strong congressional
support will be critical to reaching the end game, to
consolidating the gains that you have heard already talked
about and no doubt will elicit from us.
So what is the end game? It's a hemisphere in which drug
funded terrorism and corruption of struggling democracies by
drug traffickers, by drug violence and by drug abuse on the
streets of Bogota, but also back here at home in Mr. Cummings'
district in Baltimore and all over this region, are simply
reduced to a point where if they're not de minimis, they're
dramatically down. And they are manageable at that lower level.
As Assistant Secretary at INL, I have put a premium on
management of these programs. INL is working with Congress,
OMB, GAO, the State Department, IG's office and others in the
executive branch to ensure the accountability that you require
of us and that we should require of ourselves, that it is front
and center and that every American taxpayer dollar that you
give us to spend is actually achieving the purpose that you
intend. For example, INL is working closely with the State
Department's Bureau of Resource Management and with OMB to
develop outcome measures much talked about earlier today that
have in fact been front and center during the OMB-led program
assessment rating tool process. We aim to make our programs
models for performance based management.
Since time is short, I'm going to jump right to my
conclusion. That is that you will get from us the full promise
to work together as a team, and you will get from me the
dedication that INL will be trying to lead its programs toward
the kind of conclusions you put in legislation and expected of
us. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Charles follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. O'Connell, thank you for being with us as well.
Mr. O'Connell. Chairman Davis, distinguished members of the
committee, it's my honor to appear before you today to discuss
the Department of Defense programs and policy that support that
National Drug Control Strategy, and provide a current
assessment of this strategy's effectiveness in Colombia.
The Department appreciates the support Congress provides,
and it's critical to our efforts in fighting narcoterrorism in
Colombia. In fact, last week, sir, I had the honor of spending
a solid afternoon with Representative Souder's staff over here,
in a very instructive exchange on a wide range of issues. We
do, sir, appreciate the congressional interest and support that
we get.
Over 75 percent of the world's coca is grown in Colombia,
and nearly all the cocaine consumed in the United States is
produced and shipped from Colombia. This coca is primarily
grown in remote areas of Colombia where there is little
government control. Colombian narcoterrorists receive large
majorities of their funds from protecting, taxing and engaging
in this illegal drug trade. These narcoterrorists seek to
overthrow the freely elected Colombian Government, the oldest
democracy in Latin America.
The Secretary of Defense has promised Colombian President
Uribe increased support for the Colombian counter-
narcoterrorist effort. Under President Uribe's leadership,
Colombia is regaining control of areas long held by the
narcoterrorists. It has made exceptional progress in fighting
drug trafficking and terrorism, while improving respect for
human rights. Colombian security policies have diminished, the
ELN put the FARC on the defensive and pushed the AUC to come to
the negotiating table. The Colombian Government and its people
are committed now more than ever to save their country.
With only a few years left in office, the continued
leadership of President Uribe offers Colombia a unique window
of opportunity to preserve democracy. This administration
supports President Uribe against FARC and other narcoterrorists
by providing resources in support of Colombia's Plan Patriota.
In order to maintain the momentum achieved thus far by the
Colombians, Congress provided expanded authority in fiscal year
2004 to support Colombia's counter-narcoterrorist efforts. In
the same year, expanded authority has been crucial to leverage
our resources both against narcotics and terrorism. We thank
Congress for supporting our request to extend that expanded
authority to fiscal years 2005 and 2006, and in the fiscal year
2005 defense authorization bill.
The Department asked Congress for reprogramming authority
of $50 million during this current fiscal year and I'm pleased
to report that the Department will be able to increase our
efforts in Colombia in fiscal year 2005 by some $43 million.
In the coming year, as the Colombian military will be
conducting full scale operations across the country, the
personnel cap will begin to have a deleterious effect on
Colombia's counter-narcoterrorism mission. The current troop
cap limits the U.S. presence in Colombia to 400 military
personnel and 400 contractors under most conditions. SOUTHCOM
manages this on a daily basis, often canceling or postponing
personnel travel to Colombia. While U.S personnel will not be
directly on the front lines, more training and planning
assistance will be required for the Colombian military, who
will be directly engaged on a broader front to defeat the
narcoterrorists.
We should support this effort with manning that bolsters
increasing Colombian military needs. Consequently, the
administration requested an increase of the personnel cap to
800 military and 600 contractor personnel. The administration's
request of 800 military personnel and 600 civilian contractors
is part of a well-defined, well-phased plan. The
administration's plan was developed with the government of
Colombia to maximize the impact of its Plan Patriota. The
Department urges that the administration's request be
supported.
As an aside, sir, I'd like to pay tribute to my
administration colleagues here at the table. This is a tough
and hard working administration team that works well together
and realizes the challenges we're up against.
As a last thought, sir, I've had the opportunity to be both
on the ground 20 years ago as a U.S. officer, fighting
terrorism in Colombia, and I've had the opportunity to stand
with Secretary Rumsfeld and President Uribe. Those 25 years
have seen a remarkable change and I look forward to being able
to answer your questions later today.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Connell follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
General Hill, welcome.
General Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Souder. I'm
honored for this opportunity to appear before you today to
provide my assessment of Plan Colombia.
I greatly appreciate the support of the committee for the
U.S. Southern Command and to soldiers, sailors, airmen,
marines, Coast Guardsmen and the civilian personnel I am so
privileged to command.
As I mentioned in my written statement, Colombia is at a
decisive point. Although there is much work to be done, our
country's significant investments in Plan Colombia and the
Andean Ridge Initiative are beginning to show substantial
results. The trends are generally positive. The Colombian
economy is growing, major categories of criminal activity are
down, narcotics production is down, terrorist attacks have been
cut almost in half. Desertions and demobilizations by the
narcoterrorist organizations are increasing.
The military has grown into a professional, competent force
that respect human rights and the rule of law and has gained
the strategic initiative. I am therefore guardedly optimistic
that President Uribe and his government can bring security and
stability to Colombia. Over the past 22 months, I have traveled
to Colombia 26 times, and will go again next week. I have
worked closely with President Uribe, Minister of Defense Uribe
and his predecessor, Minister Ramirez, along with General
Ospina, the Chief of the Armed Forces, and his predecessor,
General Mora.
I have seen these strong and determined leaders in action.
I have visited all corners of Colombia and witnessed the
tremendous cooperation between our armed forces. I have seem
the professionalism and increased capabilities of the Colombian
military. I have also been inspired by the dedication of the
Colombian soldiers in their daily fight to defend Colombian
democracy against vicious narcoterrorists.
I have observed Colombia's leaders inculcate the government
and armed forces with an aggressive spirit. The Colombian
people believe they can win the war against the narcoterrroists
and end the violence. They are operating in an established
governmental presence in areas of the country they have not
been in in decades. They have built and are executing an
extensive and aggressive campaign plan to systematically break
Colombia's narcoterrorists' will to fight.
Fully understanding that the problems of Colombia do not
have a simple military solution, President Uribe and his
administration are building the political, social and economic
systems that will eventually return Colombia to the ranks of
peaceful and prosperous nations. However, as it currently
stands, President Uribe has only two more years in office,
which coincidentally will mark the end of Plan Colombia.
Consequently, it is important that we sustain the progress
that has been made under Plan Colombia, and that he gets our
steady support to set all of his long term initiatives firmly
into place. As one of the oldest democracies in this
hemisphere, a key trading partner and supplier of oil, a
staunch ally and only 3 hours from Miami, a stable Colombia is
important to our national security interests.
Thank you again for this opportunity to appear before you.
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Hill follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Tandy, thank you for being with us, last but not the
least. We appreciate the job you're doing.
Ms. Tandy. Thank you, Chairman Davis. It's a privilege to
be last before you today and also Chairman Souder. And
certainly an honor to discuss with you today the Drug
Enforcement Administration's counter-narcotics role in Plan
Colombia.
I want to thank you first for your strong leadership and
support of DEA's work worldwide, and certainly specifically in
Colombia. Few tasks are more critical to the security, peace
and prosperity of the western hemisphere than dismantling and
disarming Colombian drug cartels and their terrorist
associates. Both the FARC and the AUC depend on drug
trafficking as the primary means to support their terrorist
activities. Plan Colombia's integrated strategy to combat the
narcotics industry is working, and it is crucial to sustaining
the progress that we have achieved to date. Plan Colombia and
the courageous leadership of President Uribe have provided
critical support to a number of coordinated and hugely
successfully Colombian national police and DEA investigations.
As you noted, Mr. Chairman, 6 weeks ago, we announced the
indictments of nine leaders of the Norte Valle cartel. As you
noted in your opening statements, this cartel is responsible
for exporting more than $1.2 million pounds of cocaine to the
United States since 1990, that value in excess of $10 billion.
The cartel has been estimated to be responsible for a third to
a half of the cocaine brought into this country, and it paid
the AUC to protect its operations and its members. The
indictments against the Norte Valle cartel are made possible
through Plan Colombia.
While the plan provides limited direct support to DEA, its
impact in bolstering Colombian institutions and the rule of law
has created a climate favorable to law enforcement. The justice
sector reform program in particular has strengthened law
enforcement institutions and infrastructure and directly
supports two DEA programs in Colombia. First among these is the
Bilateral Case Initiative. That initiative undertakes
investigations of drug trafficking and money laundering
organizations outside the United States for prosecution inside
the United States. Under this program, we have built
prosecutable cases in the United States that have led to more
than 50 convictions.
The second Plan Colombia supported program that DEA is
involved in is a communications interception program that's
funded by almost $5 million from Plan Colombia as part of the
justice sector reform money. This wire intercept program
enables the Colombian national police to gather intelligence
through judicially authorized communications interceptions.
Effectively carrying out these kinds of enforcement actions
requires strong coordination with U.S. law enforcement and
diplomatic communities and with our Colombian counterparts. And
within Colombia, DEA consults on most U.S. counter-drug
programs and coordinates with the Department of State and with
other Federal agencies. And I am especially proud of the
effective working relationship that DEA has cultivated with the
Colombian national police, Colombian prosecutors and other
Colombian law enforcement counterparts of ours.
Within this cooperative framework, DEA continues a number
of our own initiatives that are critical to our success in
Colombia. Our Sensitive Investigation Unit, which we refer to
as SIUs, take the lead in operations against the consolidated
priority target organizations and other related targets. The
specialized financial investigation groups that we have set up
have focused on divesting traffickers of the proceeds of their
crimes, and we're working to interdict the flow of drugs to the
United States by targeting go-fast boats leaving Colombia, and
in the last year, we have almost doubled cocaine seizures
through Operational Firewall.
We are also working in Colombia's airports to stop heroin
and cocaine couriers. Our strong partnership with Colombia and
the programs that I've just described have led to major
enforcement successes. For example, Operation White Dollar
dismantled a massive international money laundering ring
responsible for laundering millions of drug dollars through the
black market peso exchange. It resulted recently in 34
indictments and the forfeiture of $20 million in the United
States.
These are victories, these are successes for Colombia, but
these are victories for America. When we dismantle drug
cartels, we eliminate criminals responsible for bringing in
massive quantities of poison into our own neighborhoods and
reciprocally, we know that violence, instability and terrorism
in Colombia are fueled by American drug consumption. Our
successes strengthen Colombia and ultimately protect Americans
from the misery of drug abuse.
I thank you again for your continued support of DEA's work,
and I'm sure I can speak for all of my colleagues and good
friends on this panel that we are all very pleased now to
answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Tandy follows:]
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Mr. Souder [assuming Chair]. I thank you all, and I'm going
to start the questioning, then Chairman Davis will be back to
do some additional questions.
First let me thank each of you and through you, all the
people who work for you for their valiant efforts. With all the
news focused on Iraq and secondarily Afghanistan, it's often
forgotten by many American people that far more people are
dying per month because of drug abuse than we're actually
losing over the whole period of the Iraq war, and that Colombia
is one of our, certainly even if you take Iraq and Afghanistan,
the Indian expression would be, you can count them on one hand
and have enough fingers left to bowl.
In other words, there are very few countries that get as
much money in foreign aid and in direct assistance as Colombia.
As Congress, we have to have a lot of oversight on that and a
lot of focus, and we can't lose track either of the deaths in
the United States, the battles going on in Colombia, or the hot
war in what's happening financially as we go through our
budget.
I also want to, even though we've had some very interesting
conversations and I can't say how glad I am to see that Mr.
O'Connell is in your position at the Defense Department. You're
in a very critical position not only to back up SOUTHCOM but
help CENTCOM, as well as Mr. Charles, having both Iraq and
Afghanistan in his portfolio.
It's important that people in your position understand that
there is an interrelationship which you can really see in
Colombia between the terrorists and the drug money. We're
seeing that around the world and having people who are working
all those simultaneously, even if the general public doesn't
understand we've actually learned a lot in Colombia that now is
applying in other areas.
And how we stand up and how we work with that information,
is very important because you're in positions with which to
transfer that. And now with DEA on the ground and Afghanistan
as well, we can kind of take those worldwide experiences, and
secondarily, that you haven't forgotten about Colombia. Because
while we're working on those highly visible things on
television, the key thing is that it's still the primary
supplier of cocaine in the world, and our major supplier of
heroin and other things along with Mexico.
With that, I have a couple of particular questions. I
wanted to make sure I asked General Hill a question, Mr.
O'Connell made some statements about the 800 military advisors
that are proposed in the President's budget. I wonder if you
could elaborate on that a little bit, why you think that's
necessary.
General Hill. Succinctly put, I need a lot more flexibility
to support the Colombian Plan Patriota. About a year ago, they
briefed me on this well thought out, conceived campaign plan,
not a one-time military operation, but a campaign plan to
retake the country. Specifically in the old Despye area, where
they have not operated in 20 years.
Today, they have the better part of two divisions and nine
brigades, along with the joint task force out there conducting
that fight daily. And they're having some wonderful success.
What I need to be able to do is put enough planning assistance
teams in there, logistical planners, operational planners, to
assist them in carrying out this very valuable fight. I think
all of us across the table have mentioned to you that we are at
an increasingly closing window given President Uribe's time in
office and for the end of the existent Plan Colombia. They will
coincide together in 2 years.
We need to take every opportunity to ensure that our
already significant U.S. investment pays off. I believe that we
can offer militarily a great deal of planning support to the
Colombian military effort that I'm not able to do right now
underneath the cap.
Mr. Souder. I may do a followup to this, but I wanted to
directly ask you this question. A number of years ago, General
Wilhelm, when he was head of SOUTHCOM, said he was even
micromanaging how planning and control, command and control
systems were working on the ground, because the Colombian
military was so in effect disorganized. It seemed as we first
visited in the 1996, 1997 period, Ambassador Moreno would know,
because he's kind of been the continuity of the Colombian
Government and the voice and the picture of Colombia here in
the U.S. Congress, and we really appreciate his continuity.
But somewhere in there, when we started to go down, it
seemed like the Colombian military never won a battle. In fact,
we'd visit a place and then the next year we'd go down and we
couldn't go there because it had been overrun. There are areas
of combat, but what progress have you seen to respond to Mr.
Duncan's concerns earlier? Have you seen changes in the
Colombian military? Are the military advisors having that
impact on the military?
They certainly seem to be taking casualties. They seem to
be taking some victories. Could you talk about that from a
commander's sense? Because General McCaffrey, when he was
there, was saying, look, this is going to be a long effort to
rebuild this, to get vetted units, to do the human rights. Then
General Wilhelm, General Clark and others.
General Hill. Well, I think the work of my predecessors and
the work of the Colombian military is in fact, it has made them
a substantially better unit. They are a substantially more
competent, capable force than when I assumed command 2 years
ago. I have watched them. I took over command about the time
that President Uribe came into office, within days of each
other. He has inculcated in them a spirit of aggressiveness and
they have responded. He's provided them the political support
along with the Colombian people, and they have responded. They
have moved out of the barracks. They are out in the field in
the fight.
Yours and the American people, through the Congress,
substantial investment in Plan Colombia, the ability with the
helicopter support that allows them to move rapidly around the
battlefield, around the country in effect, take on the battle.
So in just pure operational sense, they've improved
significantly.
I don't believe 2 years ago when I took command that you
would have said to me, they're going to develop this Plan
Colombia, Plan Patriota, excuse me, and then they're going to
go out into the old Despye area and they're going to stay out
there, not for 18 days, but for 18 months and conduct a
campaign. I would have said there's no way they can do that.
They're out there doing it today. And we are out there with
them, helping them in a very meaningful way with advice,
logistics and operational sustainment. This is not an easy
military problem, and we're out there doing it.
Mr. Souder. Mr. O'Connell.
General Hill. Could I have one point, Mr. Souder?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
General Hill. The other thing that they're doing I think
that's very important, and it should not go unnoticed, they
have established a center for coordinated and integrated
action. What is that? That is when an office that says, when we
retake an area militarily, we will flow in directly behind it
in a coordinated, integrated manner in order for those other
elements of governance to ensure that we can stay the course in
that village, and they've done a wonderful job of it.
Mr. Souder. Mr. O'Connell, in your written testimony you
had, I believe, stated that you were going to work for
additional forward operating locations. Because one of the
problems was when the FARC particularly moved over to the
eastern side of Colombia and where we suspect they may have our
kidnapped Americans, it's very difficult to move, because it's
Amazon basin, it's parks, it's jungle. How are we going to deal
with that, and do you have particular plans in the budget?
Mr. O'Connell. Sir, on that, on the tactical operational
side, if you don't mind, I'll defer to General Hill.
General Hill. What the Colombian military has been able to
do is very early on in the fight, under Plan Patriota, they
reclaimed several major airfields in that area. Then they had
flown in logistics behind them and it allowed them to both
sustain the fight and to take their own aircraft, either
helicopter, rotary wing or fixed wing and conduct operations
out of there.
Mr. O'Connell. Sir, when you referenced forward operating
locations, with respect to those FOLs that we're concerned with
outside of Colombia, as you know, the closure of Roosevelt
Roads has posed some financial difficulties that we had not
anticipated. And you and I have discussed those before and what
demands on other accounts that we just----
Mr. Souder. So you were talking about the in between, on
the way in and out of Colombia?
Mr. O'Connell. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. As opposed to inside Colombia, where we also
have a given problem?
Ambassador Moreno, my impression is, and I know this was in
the written testimony, but if you could expand on it now. You
certainly alluded to it and had some detail on a number of
towns where they actually have mayors now and have city
councils up and running. There was not an understanding that
until you get order and security, who wants to be a mayor?
Could you talk a little bit about that, and then how you see
that progressing into some of the zones where we still don't
quite have functional control?
Ambassador Moreno. These are very important questions, Mr.
Chairman. Let me begin by saying that about 5 years ago, about
30 percent of the municipalities in Colombia did not have the
kind of military or police presence that we have today. Today
all the municipalities have, the municipalities in Colombia
have them. So inasmuch as this has been a policy of gaining the
upper hand from the law enforcement side, from the eradication
of coca, from the alternative development and the institutional
strengthening, it has also been a battle for control of the
territory in Colombia. Because without that, or absent that,
it's impossible to really do the success that we require in
terms of drug eradication.
Certainly, for instance, when President Uribe came into
office there were a number of mayors who had basically given up
and resigned because there was either no security or simply
because they didn't feel they were capable of doing their jobs
under those circumstances. Today, increasingly with the help of
General Hill, we're doing a lot in the way of planning, and
integrated planning between both the military operation as well
as the civilian side. Because I think we need the hearts and
minds of the people in many of these municipalities. You
require not only to have the security, but also to have the
government be able to deliver services.
Some of the things we have found, many of these
municipalities that basically, the only thing that happened was
the production of coca, or perhaps not viable the way they used
to be. So it would require much more good work on the side of
the government. But this is precisely the phase in which we're
in right now.
Mr. Souder. I thank you, and I want to mention two other
things before I yield the Chair back to Mr. Davis. We really
appreciate the efforts, Director Tandy, on-going after the
financial and the money situation and what you've done to break
up some of these big networks and follow through. And that I
never really fully understood, until we got into the
Afghanistan question, that even for DEA to be able to work on
the ground, you must have some semblance of order. Because the
DEA agents aren't the military. It is important to be able to
infiltrate the different networks and to be able to move out
farther, as the military establishes those zones, and then the
DEA can move in, as we're attempting to do in Afghanistan, and
start to break up the financial network.
It's fine to talk about how we have to break up the
financial networks, but if you can't get to the sources,
because you're afraid of being blown up, it is a very difficult
job. I appreciate the recent efforts. Do you have any specific
requests of where you think Congress should focus more on DEA
related to Colombia?
Ms. Tandy. We have a number of issues with technology in
terms of keeping pace with the changes in technology to support
our ability to continue our partnership with the Colombian
national police and the Intercept program. And it is the
interception of communications that is key to our collection of
intelligence to determine who is moving the billions of dollars
derived from the American drug consumer. That is at a rate of
about $65 billion a year, and to date, in the past, we have
only successfully seized, and I say we, that's all Federal,
State and local law enforcement, less than $1 billion.
We have a long way to go. We have restored that priority
within DEA, it was lost over the last number of years. And it
is the No. 1 priority in DEA, because we will never effectively
dismantle these cartels if we have left their money in place.
To that end, as part of our right-sizing proposal, which has
cleared the House and is in the Senate, we will be, once that
is approved, if it is approved, we will add a money laundering
task force to Bogota to complement our SIU that we have with
DOS in Colombia that is currently focused on the money.
We have challenges in that regard of simply having the
necessary funds and boots on the ground to go after the money.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. I will yield back to
Chairman Davis. I know there are other questions I have. I want
to thank you for that.
I also want to make sure we have adequate radar coverage in
all parts of the country, and we'll continue to talk about
parts of Colombia where I have concerns, and also the ability
to track. There is a sophistication where communications
networks get better. And also, I'm pleased that we're able to
work together with some of the private sector people who
weren't particularly helpful for a while.
Chairman Tom Davis [resuming Chair]. Let me just say thanks
again to all of you. It really has been a team effort, as I
think several of you have said in your testimony. Mr.
Ambassador Moreno, let me ask you a question. The hero of
today, which is the Colombian army, which is I think taking
unprecedented steps to go into FARC controlled areas and other
areas, do you think they have the staying power to defeat the
FARC and the ELN? Do you think they're helping to bring the ELN
to the conference table? Talks are going on, they're starting
to sustain some heavy casualties. This is really a new test.
Can you give us your appraisal of that? And then I'd like to
hear from General Hill on the same thing.
Ambassador Moreno. Yes, Mr. Chairman, clearly there's an
opportunity with the ELN, the Mexican Government has been very
cooperative. In fact, recently they named their Ambassador to
Israel to begin the initial contacts with the ELN leadership to
see if we can get to a situation where a negotiation can
proceed. President Uribe from the beginning has always stated
that our big condition for any pace process is that of a cease-
fire and ceasing of hostilities that would permit any process
to go forward. I think it's too early to tell.
My sense is from what I hear, and I would like to hear, of
course, from General Hill, who is closer to the military on
these issues, that the relative of the ELN progressively has
been losing some of their strength as a result of clearly the
better campaign that the military is doing with success,
especially on territory controlled throughout the country. As
that campaign under their control is successful, any group, any
terrorist in Colombia will have a harder time going about its
business.
Chairman Tom Davis. What's the, in terms of the casualties
and everything else that the army is taking on, any kind of
ratios? What's happening with the FARC and the ELN as we go
into some of these areas? What kind of resistance? Are we
hitting them and they're running? Try to give me a feel for
what's happening.
Ambassador Moreno. I will try to give you some. Again, I
would like to be complemented by General Hill.
In terms of the number of both casualties and deserters,
the numbers are very impressive. I mean, the last numbers that
I've seen are around 7,000 in the last year between FARC, AUC
and ELN, between people who have lost their lives on the field
and those who have deserted. Clearly, the push on desertion has
been working very well. This we have done again with some U.S.
funding, especially for child soldiers. The number of combats,
which I think is a very important denominator, has increased
significantly, meaning that the army more and more is doing
combats on the field. This is a very deep change from what it
was as recently as 2 years ago.
Chairman Tom Davis. General Hill, what's your appraisal?
General Hill. Let me take that from a couple of different
angles, Chairman Davis. One is in military parlance, which is
the close fight, and the other is the long fight, or the deep
fight. On the close fight, not only what they're doing with
Plan Patriota, but they're standing up a special operations
command, they're improving their ability to operate jointly,
they're doing a lot better in terms of intelligence sharing.
And that has allowed them to conduct tactical military
operations that they were simply incapable of doing 2 years
ago, both in terms of major combat operations and in terms of
specialized operations, going after the heads of the
organizations.
Ambassador Moreno mentioned combat actions. In 2003, they
were involved in 2,312 distinct combat actions. That's a 73
percent increase from 2002.
Chairman Tom Davis. And that's it. The government's
initiative, not a reaction, for the most part?
General Hill. Yes, absolutely. Because if you would look at
the results of Plan Patriota in the early stages, the first 2
or 3 or 4 months of it, what we're seeing is a delaying action
by the FARC in the sense that they are putting out a lot more
anti-personnel mines, they are trying to fight in smaller
organizations and they are trying to avoid major combat. That
was to be expected.
The problem for them, however, is they will not be able to
avoid that forever. Because the military is not going to go
away. They are going to continue to push the fight. That's near
term.
Let me talk about one thing just in terms of long term. The
one thing that separates the U.S. military from most militaries
in the world, and if you brought in anybody in uniform and
said, what's the one thing that makes you different or better
than anybody else, and the answer is, non-commissioned
officers. Non-commissioned officers and the responsibility that
we give to non-commissioned officers.
I had a long discussion about a year and a half ago with
General Mora, who was then the chairman of their Joint Chiefs,
and General Ospina, the head of the army. And along this pro-
fessionalization, they wanted to professionalize the Colombian
NCO corps. So my Command Sergeant Major and several senior NCOs
from SOUTHCOM went down, began working with the Colombian Army,
and they have built a non-commissioned officers sergeant major
academy, started the first class with us teaching it, only
Army. Second class, mutual teaching, included some Marines.
Third class includes all services. They did a scrub of their
senior sergeants major and opted about 30 percent of them to
retire, and have changed the role of the sergeant major from an
admin role to a combat role. This will put them, long term, in
a much better stand.
Chairman Tom Davis. When they go out on these missions, are
they accompanied by American advisors?
General Hill. No, sir. We are prohibited from being any, in
a direct combat role. We stay on secure bases only in a
planning assistance role. And in my request for the CAP
increase to 800, those rules of engagement do not change.
Chairman Tom Davis. Do you have any idea how many Americans
are currently held captive by the different groups, contractors
or----
General Hill. Sir, there's three.
Chairman Tom Davis. Just the three?
General Hill. Yes, sir.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. Let me ask Secretary Charles, is it
still your position that the Colombian air wing program is best
left where it is? There's a lot of debate about moving the
program to a law enforcement agency. Have you been able to
identify and assess any existing problem areas with air wing at
this point?
Mr. Charles. I think it belongs where it is. But the second
part of the question is a very important one. And the answer to
it is that since the 9 months I've been there, one of the focal
points has been evaluating the air wing.
In a nutshell, that air wing has run on a shoestring for a
long time. And God bless them every one for having been able to
achieve what they have to date. But the air assets need
support. And one of my missions, in addition to putting
performance measures on the contracts and penalties in place
for contractors and contractor oversight is also to look at the
capital account of that air wing.
You're talking about an air wing around which the
environment has changed, and which is responding very well to
the changed environment. But nevertheless, in 2002, you had
about 194 hits on that air wing. The next year, 2003, you had
about 383 hits on it. Even this year, while there's been a
reduction in hits, the risk environment is very high. It
complements exactly what General Hill has been talking about,
and Ambassador Moreno. As you get closer and closer to the
burning ember of the FARC, the heat is felt by everybody. And
it's being felt here.
That's good, in the sense that we're having an impact. And
it will be good as we capitalize that account and make sure
they know how to do their job there and frankly elsewhere in
the world. That air wing also operates in Pakistan and other
locations for other purposes. But the short answer is, I'm very
confident that it belongs there, that it is functionally and
operationally where it belongs. But it is also true that proper
management of the air wing is an imperative, and I'm working on
it.
Chairman Tom Davis. Do you know how the Colombian
Government will use the recently acquired DC-3 airplanes for
opium poppy eradication efforts? These planes, will they make
it easier to find and eliminate the hard to reach or concealed
fields of opium poppy?
Mr. Charles. As you may or may not know, I am a strong
advocate of that particular decision.
Chairman Tom Davis. That's why I asked you.
Mr. Charles. I appreciate it. I know you are, too. I think
this is again an example of the U.S. Congress working closely
with the administration. And I think we all know that the
heroin that shows up on the eastern seaboard, whether it's
Congressman Cummings' district in Baltimore or whether it's the
352 deaths outside of Chicago, Speaker Hastert's, or whether
it's anywhere is chiefly coming on this side of the continent
from Colombia. That means we have to be very aggressive about
addressing it.
What those DC-3s do is they give us the opportunity now to
get the altitude with manual eradicators and to complement
other programs. Let me just tell you how important we think, I
think and I think this entire table thinks heroin is. Frankly,
the leadership for this also comes as much from the Colombian
Government as it does from the American government, from the
U.S. Congress; 1,200 kilograms of heroin seized last year, DEA
has an entire operation that is affecting it, Operation
Firewall, significant maritime interdiction, together with
other efforts. DEA runs the Heroin Task Force in Bogota, 50 DEA
and CMP members, very aggressive on it. We're targeting heroin
organizations, which never occurred before.
In the last 2 years on eradication, in 2002, we talk a lot
about coca. But let's not forget the significant impact of
heroin. In 2002, there was a 25 percent reduction, in 2003,
there was a 10 percent reduction. What do we mean by these
reductions? Why do they count? Why do they matter? They matter
because they are deterrents.
Just like in the cold war, aggressive, continuous,
consistent, sustained effort ended in victory in every
reasonable sense of the word. The same thing is what we're
shooting for here. We're looking for an end game that puts
deterrents in place, so that if you destroy those crops again
and again and again, people say, the heck with it, the risks
are too high, the prosecution too high, police are now in every
district.
The short version of this is we're doing good things. We've
also got a rewards program. Heroin will not go away soon, but
we are aggressively tackling it, and the DC-3s are a big part
of it.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Just picking up where you left off, we've
spent 4 years there. It seems like we're not--well, what's your
vision?
Mr. Charles. My vision for Colombia, my vision is really
the President's vision and this table's vision. I think it's
shared, if you ask that question of all of us, more or less in
the same way. I think we are blessed by extraordinary
leadership right now in Colombia. I don't think that will last
forever. It never does anywhere in the world. But I think we
have a moment, a window of opportunity.
I also think objectively we're at a tipping point. You've
heard me use that phrase before, but I believe it with all my
heart. We are at a point where if we do right at each of the
missions that we have here, if we stay in our lanes and get it
done right, what we will end up with is a dramatic reduction in
both heroin and cocaine production. We cannot give up on
prevention and treatment. They are central to what we're doing.
But we will make those, as I think Director Walters said,
manageable.
As I think Chairman Souder also said and as you've said
before, you can't do those things unless you get the supply
down. Because supply of addictive drugs not only destabilizes
the country, not Colombia in this case and its region, not only
feeds terrorism, but it creates its own market. Addictive
substances create their own markets. So if you bring supply
down, you make manageable the rest of the demand reduction
side. The vision is that we will never get rid of drugs
completely in this hemisphere or in the world. Human beings are
weak and they have faults and they become addicted.
However, what we can do, we never got rid of crime in Los
Angeles, never got rid of crime anywhere in the world. What we
will do is reduce it to a manageable level, where people can
breathe better and safer and feel both in this country and
across the hemisphere that they are not being constantly
victimized by major narcotrafficking, and frankly, also
narcoterrorism organizations.
Mr. Cummings. So how you measure your progress?
Mr. Charles. You always have three or four measures that
you work with. You've got your inputs, and we're putting them
in there and you're putting them in there. That matters. You've
got outputs. We're getting direct outputs. We're seeing that
hectarage is coming down. We're seeing that prosecutions,
interdictions, extraditions, all the key things that you're
looking for that way are going up.
And then you have outcomes. That's how many kids do we see
not being victimized ultimately by these drugs. How many
families are not destroyed in this country by this menace. And
I think we will see, as Director Walters said, in the next year
to 2 years, next 12 to 24 months, you should see some impact,
probably first on purity, because that's where it will
typically show up first, and then ultimately on price. And
you'll have to see it metropolitan area by metropolitan area.
The DEA collects a lot of this data. You've got the Stride data
and other data is collected metropolitan, you should see Dawn
data eventually change.
We have one real, really unusual advantage when we talk
about the drug war. We have done this before successfully. Some
things, when SARS came up and other things, these are brand
new. How to tackle them is not clear. We try against a new
event.
But in this case, between 1985 and 1992, cocaine use in
this country dropped by 78 percent. The number of marijuana
users, regular 30 day marijuana users, dropped from 21 million
to 8 million. Heroin purity was back at about 7 to 10 percent.
It can be done. With this kind of team and your support, it
will be done.
Mr. Cummings. I want to just zero in on Colombia. As you've
heard me say many times, people in my district, deal with
terrorism on our streets every day. The neighborhood I live in,
we have terrorists on the corners. And 300 people dying a year,
and probably about 500 or 600 being saved from death because we
have one of the best shock trauma units in the world, and a lot
of that having to do with drugs.
I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, the people in my
neighborhood say, we don't have any planes. We don't have any
boats. And when they see money going into interdiction, the
question is, well, how does it even get into our neighborhoods.
And I try to explain it to them. It's hard, though. It's hard.
And there are a lot of people that almost believe that, not
almost believe, believe that we are not putting forth our best
efforts, and that's putting it lightly, in this war on drugs.
I don't feel that way, because I get a chance to hear all
this. But I can tell you that this 4 years we've spent--about
how much money have we spent in Colombia? Do you know?
Mr. Charles. Well, Plan Colombia is a 5-year plan at about
$3 billion, give or take.
Mr. Cummings. $3 billion. And it just seems to me, the
reason why I asked you about the vision, and the reason why I
asked you about how do you measure success, is that I think
that all of us want to make sure that our tax dollars are being
spent effectively and efficiently. No matter which side of the
aisle you're on, that's what you want.
And I guess, I just want to make sure that as we go about
the business of spending money in Colombia, and I understand
how, you know, it moved from Colombia, and I'm saying
everything you just said about eventually it showing up in
weaker forms on the street and all that, that's very
significant. But I just want to make sure we're doing something
that's effective and efficient. That's why I asked you about
the vision. There are a lot of people who basically wonder, in
my district, whether we are truly being effective.
Mr. Charles. I never forget, Mr. Congressman, that you live
on a block that you've lived on for many, many years.
Mr. Cummings. Twenty-three years.
Mr. Charles. Twenty-three years, goes up by 1 year every
year. And on that same block is a crack house, or was a crack
house. That story has never left me. I know that we will only
truly be showing success downstream when we have done all of
the pieces of the drug war right, and when it shows up your
street corner.
That's the end game. I come from a small town, but the
principle is the same. In order to get there, we have to get
this stuff out of the system. It takes time. People ask, what
about price and purity. The answer is, we don't know how much
excess capacity there is in the system right now. I think
Director Walters said it well, we are tackling this, we are
shrinking the overall production environment. That has to go
hand in glove, I know you were just in that shock trauma unit.
And we have to go hand in glove to make sure that the treatment
is effective and real and captures the people that need it.
The same thing is true with the kids. We've got to reduce
demand by preventing them from making the worst decision of
their life. We've got to educate the parents, so that they not
only know that piece of it's happening, but that the rest of
this expenditure is very real. It's a weapon of mass
destruction in its own way. And we've got to keep it out of
this country. And it will simultaneously stabilize the rest of
the hemisphere, which allows people to have incomes elsewhere
outside of drugs.
But I am very sensitive to the point you make which is that
it's got to show up here in America in a meaningful way on your
street corner. And we are all, I think, at this table
committed, every one of us, to that mission.
Mr. Cummings. Administrator Tandy, how are we doing with
regard to justice in Colombia? You and I have had this
discussion before with regard to, I guess it was Afghanistan,
about making sure that we don't have, you know, corruption is
reduced and all that. How are we looking over there in
Colombia? Because we've had our corruption problems.
Ms. Tandy. Corruption goes with drug trafficking like
disease with rats. It doesn't limit itself to Colombia. It is,
as you know, an issue everywhere there is drug trafficking.
Obviously there are corruption issues in Colombia which
President Uribe, and under his leadership has been very
aggressive in tackling the justice sector reform. Part of Plan
Colombia also has focused on corruption as part of its training
of now over 10,000 police, prosecutors and judges and technical
assistance in that justice sector piece of Colombia.
The rooting out of corruption is one of the key elements to
our success. It is something that we are constantly focused on.
It is a constant issue, and it will remain one for all of us.
But I am confident that it is a shared concern of the Colombian
Government and leadership with the United States.
Mr. Cummings. As far as the money that we spent over there,
how is that money used to minimize corruption? In what ways?
Are you following what I'm saying? In other words, I assume
that you've got to have, you've just got to have good people,
right? I'm talking about over there, the people that live
there, and the people that are in the armed services and
whatever. A lot of people say you've got to pay folks more
money. I don't know whether that's a part of the formula or
not. How do you make sure, how do you maximize the probability
that you're going to have minimal corruption? How do we do that
as a country, us?
Ms. Tandy. Within the United States, part of that clearly
is the selection process of our members in law enforcement and
all of the other associated members of law enforcement, such as
the analysts and those people with access to information,
limiting access.
Mr. Cummings. I think you may misunderstand my question.
I'm sorry----
Ms. Tandy. In Colombia?
Mr. Cummings. Yes, in Colombia. In other words, how do we--
--
Ms. Tandy. I understand.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, here we are, we're spending $3 billion,
corruption is a major, can be a major problem. You can fight
all you want, but if you've got people being paid off, you're
going backward really. And corruption can lead to so much
damage, it can lead to loss of life, if the wrong information
gets into the wrong hands.
So I was just wondering, I just want to make sure that
we're doing what we can with some of our dollars to make sure
that we minimize the corruption. I know it's going to be there.
I'm just wondering what are we doing, if anything.
Ms. Tandy. I can tell you what we are doing. I would defer
to Ambassador Moreno for what the country of Colombia is doing
on a more broad basis. But within our relationship in Colombia,
Representative, we start with the sensitive investigative units
where we carefully select the members of those units, we vett
them, we conduct urinalysis, we do background investigations on
those people to ensure that we are working shoulder to shoulder
with people who share our same goals and are not corrupt.
The payment, the salaries and benefits for those people I
will leave to Ambassador Moreno to discuss. We have had issues
and continue to have issues with corruption despite that. Part
of rooting that kind of corruption out is dependent on the
collection of intelligence and knowing where our potential
leaks are. We have had those situations and we have shared
those issues and that intelligence with select members of the
Colombian Government. And the Colombian Government has acted
swiftly to eliminate those individuals who were at issue.
That is in a nutshell, in a very small sum way how we try
to prevent it and then how we address it once it surfaces.
General Hill. Could I add to that, Mr. Cummings?
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
General Hill. On the military side, we assisted the
Colombian military in developing a JAG school, a Judge Advocate
General, JAG school and the standup of a JAG corps. That helps
them in terms of operationalizing investigations of possible
abuse or human rights violations, and also gets at the idea of
having an operational lawyer on scene with their units. The
other piece of it is that we only train and work with units
which we have vetted, both in terms of corruption and in terms
of human rights allegations, through the U.S. embassy and the
State Department.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Noriega. Mr. Chairman, if I could add one last point.
Chairman Tom Davis. We have to move to our next panel, but
that's fine.
Mr. Noriega. The democracy and human rights and rule of law
programs amount to about $200 million of that $3.3 billion,
including at training of prosecutors, support for the Colombian
judicial system, and teaching a culture of lawfulness, starting
from the municipal local level all the way up to training of
prosecutors at the highest level. Especially developing
security for prosecutors so that they're not afraid of
enforcing and imposing the rule of law against corruption when
it's detected.
Mr. Charles. Could I add one refinement to that, Mr.
Chairman? Very short.
Chairman Tom Davis. Yes, you may.
Mr. Charles. Exactly what Secretary Noriega described in
many ways is a microcosm, this is a robust program, anti-
corruption is a very big part of it. The numbers of lawyers,
10,000 lawyers, judges and public defenders have been trained
collectively between, with us in support of the Colombian
Government. Training isn't perfect, people get disbarred every
day.
But the reality is, it's significant if it has the right
components. It complements the military, the human rights
component, the police have vetted units. There is an intense
effort not only in the near term to look at anti-corruption,
but the culture of lawfulness is a program that goes into all
the public schools and talks about the ethics of what a civil
government is all about. Frankly, we need more of it here, too.
But the reality is, that is a long term strategy and it's
complemented by vetted units, and that's all.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Ambassador Moreno.
Ambassador Moreno. Very quickly, for Congressman Cummings,
basically, aside from all the vetting, both in human rights and
for purposes of law enforcement and specialized units in the
attorney general's office in Colombia. The whole issue of
corruption the President of Colombia takes very seriously.
There is a task force that is directed by the vice president of
Colombia which basically goes to look at all levels of
government, at the local level, the state level and the
national level with 800 numbers, with ways for people to make
demands as to very specific things in terms of contracting,
having things electronic government, e-government, so that
people can talk about bids, if there's a problem with a bid
they can immediately address this issue.
So there's a whole host of things that are built around a
program of anti-corruption at the level of the vice president
of Colombia. Is there corruption? Unfortunately, yes. Director
Tandy said clearly there is, when it's associated with drug
trafficking and drugs. And that's why for Colombia, it is not a
choice if we destroy enough drugs, for us it's an obligation to
rid our society, to rid a generation that has been full of
these problems for years, to have our children live in a
country that will be much better as a result.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to ask you if I could
answer to both what Congressman Duncan and Congressman
Kucinich, who I thought was going to be here, but I see that he
didn't come back to answer some of the questions and to put in
written testimony if you don't mind.
Chairman Tom Davis. That would be fine, without objection.
Thank you all very much. It's been very, very helpful to
us. We're going to take a brief recess before the start of our
third panel. We're going to be setting up a screen so that one
of our witnesses is shielded from the cameras. As the media
knows, this gentleman can't be filmed or photographed. We're in
recess.
[Recess.]
Chairman Tom Davis. We want to welcome our third panel, Mr.
Carlos Plotter, and for him, translating we have Ms. Patricia
Cepeda. I'm going to have to swear you both in. Mr. Plotter is
a former member of the FARC. He'll discuss the time he spent
with the FARC, why he chose to voluntarily turn himself in to
the Colombian national police after serving 10 years as a
guerrilla. His testimony will provide a valuable inside
guerrilla perspective on the peace process between the
Colombian Government and the guerrilla groups in an effort to
restore authority and control of the Colombian Government in
areas of the country where the government control was lacking.
We are just very appreciative of your taking the time to be
here today and sorry we've delayed you. You can stay seated,
would you raise your right hand?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Let the record show he said I do.
Muchas gracias. You may begin, thank you.
We'll allow Mr. Plotter to speak and then you can translate
for him. Thank you very much.
STATEMENTS OF CARLOS PLOTTER, FORMER POLITICAL COMMANDER,
REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA (FARC); MARC W.
CHERNICK, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT AND SCHOOL OF
FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY; AND ADAM ISACSON,
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY
Mr. Plotter. [All remarks of Mr. Plotter are given in
native tongue through an interpreter.]
Ms. Cepeda. First of all, I want to express my thanks to
you for your invitation and for hosting me in this honorable
room.
As you mentioned before, I spent 10 long years with the
FARC.
My process of re-entering civil society was part of a very
important stage, both in my country, in Latin America and
internationally.
I am a man from the provinces, and I was raised with very
strong Catholic convictions.
In that same capacity for analysis, in that same feeling
that I was raised with in the Catholic church, led to a
deepening of my social responsibility feelings.
At age 16, I entered the National University of Colombia to
study engineering. And then I entered a period of exposure, not
just to the academic world of the exact sciences, but also to a
deepening of my feelings of social responsibility by doing
community service in the popular neighborhoods of Bogota.
That interaction I had with people from needy communities
deepened in me the feeling that I had to put into practice what
I believed and thought in feeling.
This was the period when the Berlin wall was falling and
when there was the crisis of socialism, and this combined with
the reading of the theories of Francis Fukuyama, the End of
History, led in me a desire to be more conscious of putting
into practice what I thought and felt.
So I joined the Communist Youth in Colombia.
In that international context, there were also some very
local political contexts in Colombia which had to do with the
ideological crisis of the left.
What was happening in Colombia was that there was starting
to be process of demobilization of armed groups, such as the M-
19, parts of the ELN and the EPL. But what was becoming obvious
was that there was lots of aggression against parties like the
UP and the Communist party that were trying to participate in
the political processes.
Among, in the middle of all that context, I became aware
that I sort of needed to put into practice what I believed, the
love of the people around me and the care for those that needed
it the most. So I put into practice things I had grown up with
in Catholicism.
I was looking for an organization that wanted to build a
new society toward socialism, and I wanted also an organization
that would protect the work with the gun, so I joined the FARC.
In 1993, I started looking for a way. And this way was
unfortunately the one that was most painful for my country. I
participated in guerrilla activities in various spaces of our
national geography.
In those 10 years that I spent with them, I saw how the
FARC went from being a political-military organization with a
clear ideological north to--it became an armed, just an armed
group isolated from a political aim or context, purely
militaristic and with a commercial component.
The lure of easy money, which came by the cultivation, the
processing and the sale of narcotics, made the organization
lose its political route, and went from being an organization
that we thought was a mass organization, a revolutionary
people's organization.
Colombia lacked at that moment the guarantees for
development of social and economic conditions that we all
wished for.
But the fact is that we have a new reality in Colombia.
There are conditions now that allow for those of us who might
think differently to set out our ideas in a democratic
framework.
There's now an opportunity for the word to win the war over
the gun.
I think democratic spaces are now open for us to oppose a
guerrilla force that is fueled by drug money and will not be
able to conquer the hearts and minds of the people.
We Colombians are now trying to have an opportunity to
resolve our differences through discussion.
It is a democratic moment where even though some people say
that the Uribe government is a government of the right, but
this is when the opposing forces of the left have achieved a
democratic security to participate in society.
I left the FARC because, simply, theory did not meet up
with practice.
The moral imperative of a revolutionary fighter was simply
substituted for the economic imperative.
There was a qualitative sea change. There was no work done
that would add anything to the local populations. The actions
that we were taking simply lessened the local populations.
We are living a historical moment now where we have an
opportunity to lay aside the guns and have an opportunity for
discussion and negotiation in a democratic framework for us to
enter civil society.
I believe that we now have a possibility to win the war of
ideas with political and social investment and not try to win
the war in the military terrain.
In this last phase of the struggle, I believe it's now time
to turn to see how Plan Colombia has affected this last phase.
I repeat, I do not believe in an armed resolution to the
conflict. But I do believe that the military help that has come
through through Plan Colombia has given the army new
initiative, and it has also given it increased operational
capacity in the terrains that are dominated militarily by the
guerrillas.
The military component, especially in the area of aerial
interdiction, has helped in both stopping the influx of
dollars, the outflows of drugs and components and armaments for
the guerrillas.
The guerrilla needs the commerce of narcotrafficking. And
narcotrafficking is now the fuel that motors the barbarism that
is taking place in our country.
But I do believe a social component is important for Plan
Colombia, one that has the guarantees that crop substitution,
that there will be a market for the crops that are substituted,
so there is a guarantee of livelihood for our peasants.
The war in our country is essentially a war between two
factions of poor people. Because there are a lack of guarantees
for the crops that our agricultural workers raise, they are
forced in fact to raise coca. If there was solid investment,
planning and some guarantee that the products they raise have
equal access and participation in markets, this will go a long
way toward closing the spaces for coca growing.
What we are looking for is some justice and equity in the
negotiations for market processes. But in our economic
relations, there's some kind of interest in restricting the
protectionism in North America for our products and some kind
of equity of access to their markets that are demanding of us
that we open our borders.
In a world that's every day more interdependent, we now
believe that the democratic processes are the guarantees that
we will be part of some important decisionmaking that takes
place internationally, and that there will be equality,
fraternity and solidarity for us also.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Plotter follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much as well. We also
have Dr. Mark Chernick and Mr. Adam Isacson, well credentialed
in this area. Will you raise your right hand with me?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Let me note for the record your entire testimony is in the
record. We're expecting votes in about 10 minutes, so if you
can get through, we'll try to get to some questions. Once the
bells go off, we'll have a couple of minutes, but I want to get
you each going. I'll start with you, Dr. Chernick and then to
Mr. Isacson.
Mr. Chernick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you very
much for inviting me to participate in this important meeting.
I just wanted to briefly begin by discussing how we got
here, because there's not a lot of clarity about the origins of
Plan Colombia. Because Plan Colombia in its initial formulation
was a $7.5 billion Colombian strategy developed by President
Andres Pastrana 5 years ago, with the assistance and the urging
of the Clinton administration to address Colombia's multiple
crises. It was to be funded by the United States, the European
Union, multi-lateral development banks, and the Colombian
Government.
President Pastrana, when he took office in 1998, originally
spoke of a Marshall Plan for coca-growing regions. He thought
that a negotiated peace with the FARC would enable the state to
cerate a legitimate presence in areas largely abandoned by the
state, and would allow the state to promote alternative
development away from dependence on drug related crops. For
Pastrana, the peace process was viewed as an effective anti-
narcotics strategy. To this end, he hoped to enlist the support
of the United States.
This original formulation of Plan Colombia was received
with great skepticism in Washington. By the time Congress
approved the $1.3 billion supplemental appropriation in June
2000, the formula had basically been turned on its head. For
the United States, peacemaking and state building was not seen
as viable anti-narcotic strategy. Rather, anti-narcotics was
viewed as the basis for pacification and peace.
As such, the approval of the original assistance strategy
to Plan Colombia needs to be viewed from two perspectives: the
anti-narcotics strategy, and second, its impact on peace. And I
want to discuss both of these.
From the anti-narcotics perspective, Plan Colombia
represents the continuation of a succession of strategies
dating back to the mid-1980's of attacking production at its
source. This can be seen in the initial operations in the
Bolivian coca fields under Operation Blast Furnace in 1986, in
the efforts to destroy the Colombian cartels, what was known as
the kingpin strategy in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and
the airbridge strategy that effectively cutoff the Peruvian and
Bolivian coca fields from the producers in Colombia.
In each of these cases, the immediate objectives were
achieved. The kingpin strategy effectively dismantled the
Medillin and Cali cartels. The airbridge strategy led to
declines of up to 85 percent in coca production in Peru and
Bolivia. However, in every case, new patterns of trafficking
emerged. Instead of large cartels, small cartels appeared in
Colombia, as well as new large scale drug syndicates in Mexico.
And the great reduction in coca production in Bolivia and Peru
led to massive increase in coca cultivation in Colombia.
What has happened with Plan Colombia? Massive aerial
fumigation by the United States and Colombian Governments
finally has led to a modest decrease in overall production. But
as would be expected, the available evidence is that the market
has adjusted. New producers have entered the market and new
techniques have been forged, including agrinomical advances
that allow coca production at lower elevations, effectively
opening up the entire Amazon Basin and not just the foothills
of the Andes. The available evidence is that production is
moving into micro-plots scattered throughout Colombia and into
newer areas that do not have a historical relationship with
coca production.
But the impact of Plan Colombia was perhaps even more
devastating for the peace process. The FARC viewed the
development of Plan Colombia as an effort by the Colombian and
U.S. Governments to undermine the peace process and to promote
a military solution. One can be skeptical about the sincerity
of the FARC in engaging in talks. There were clearly divisions
among their senior leadership, and they too increased their
military actions during the period of negotiations.
However, the United States basically sent a signal that it
was not interested in the peace strategy. In so doing, it also
alienated other members of the international community,
particularly the EU, which refused to endorse or support Plan
Colombia.
After September 11th and beginning in mid-2002, Congress
lifted the previous restrictions that required all military aid
and assistance to be dedicated to anti-narcotics. The action
has brought the United States more directly into Colombia's
internal armed conflict, something that it had previously
attempted to avoid. The new posture of the United States
converges well with the policies of the Uribe administration,
elected in 2002 on a hard line platform following the breakdown
of the peace talks. Current policy is to confront militarily
the FARC and to increase the military and police presence
throughout the national territory.
The Uribe government has also initiated negotiations with
the right wing paramilitaries, the AUC. This is a new strategy.
It is one I support. The AUC has been the largest violator of
human rights in the country and the most destabilizing element
in the conflict. However, negotiations will be difficult. The
AUC is extensively involved in drug trafficking, it is
fragmented, it is undergoing a leadership change following the
disappearance of its nominal leader, Carlos Castano.
Successful negotiations with the AUC will not lead to
peace. The conflict with the FARC will continue. However, a
durable accord that removed the AUC from the conflict would
clarify the nature of the war between the state and the FARC.
Eventually, removing the AUC from the conflict might clear the
way for a negotiated settlement with the FARC. However, this
will not happen in the short term.
To conclude, the war in Colombia has endured in one form or
another for 58 years. The war antedates the drug boom. It is
deeply rooted. For 20 years, the situation can be characterized
as an escalating military stalemate. Both sides, government and
guerrillas, have escalated their capacities and neither side is
likely to defeat the other.
Under these conditions, I am convinced that there is no
military solution to the conflict. This dose not mean that the
Colombian Government does not have the legitimate right to
defend itself. Yet peace will take more than battling the FARC
or pushing coca cultivation into different corners of the
country. The United States can potentially play a major role in
ending this conflict. A stable Colombia is in the interest of
the United States. But it will require a rethinking and
reprioritizing of the component parts of the U.S. assistance
program to Plan Colombia, balancing needs of development
assistance, human rights, humanitarian assistance, judicial
reform and peace promotion with the more visible policies of
counter-terrorism and anti-narcotics.
For starters, one might want to look at the original $7.5
billion Plan Colombia, the original Plan Colombia, developed by
the Colombian Government in 1999. It presents a more balanced
approach.
Again, let me thank the committee for its time, and I'll be
happy to answer any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chernick follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Isacson.
Mr. Isacson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
congratulate the committee for holding a hearing on Plan
Colombia, it is absolutely crucial that Congress closely
oversee the U.S. strategy in Colombia. And I thank you for
staying this late to hear my testimony.
We've heard a lot of glowing statements today about Plan
Colombia, including Colombian Government statistics showing
less violence and less coca. I don't have alternative
statistics, how can I cover the whole country? But in the last
year, I have interviewed dozens of local officials, religious
and community leaders in Colombia, and I've heard a lot of
skepticism. People on the ground have seen little change in
violence or drug crop cultivation.
A prime example is Putumayo. Putumayo is a province in
southern Colombia about the size of Maryland. Putumayo was the
main focus of Plan Colombia when it began in 2000. I visited
there in March 2001 and I was there again 8 weeks ago, in
April. In the 3 years in between, the United States has paid
for the fumigation of at least 100,000 hectares of Putumayo,
and we funded a dramatic expansion in Colombian military and
police capabilities there. Conservatively estimating, we spent
$1 billion in and around Putumayo in 4 years.
I did see less coca in Putumayo than there was 3 years ago.
But even after wave upon wave of fumigation, it's still very
easy to find coca there. I took this picture within a quarter
mile of Putumayo's only paved road. It shows a pretty
commonsite, a small plot of new coca bushes, about knee high,
growing in a field that had been fumigated some months before.
Replanting in Putumayo is common, and several people I
interviewed said that seeds and nurseries are very booming
industries right now.
Three years ago, Putumayo was full of large plots of coca.
They would go all the way to the horizon, it seemed. Nobody
does that any more, because it's too much of a target for the
spray planes. But there's still a lot of coca, and today the
plots are different. They're smaller, they're more widely
scattered.
But even more disturbingly, everybody I asked there, and I
asked several times, said that the price of coca leaves and
coca paste has not changed since before Plan Colombia began. A
kilo of coca paste still sells for about $800 in Putumayo, the
same as it did before the year 2000. This would seem to violate
the law of supply and demand. If fumigation were actually
making coca scarcer, the price should rise. But that has not
happened. There is no tipping point yet.
A gram of cocaine sold on our streets goes for about $25 to
$150, depending on the city. That was as of January of this
year. That's the same as the studies ONDCP was carrying out in
1995, and they say there's been no change in purity. Supply is
meeting demand as well as it ever has. This means that the
traffickers are adapting yet again to increased fumigation.
To counter this, we can't respond just by fumigating even
more. If you want to reduce drug supplies, we have to start
thinking about real governance. There's no substitute.
Eventually, Colombian Government civilians are going to have to
be able to look growers in the eye in places like Putumayo and
tell them, what you're doing is illegal, but we're committed to
providing you the basic conditions you need to make a legal
living.
So far we're nowhere near there. The United States has
given Colombia $3.2 billion since 2000, but of that, only 2
percent has gone to civilian governance or economic aid, even
though 8 out of 10 rural Colombians live below the poverty
line, creating a very strong incentive to grow coca. The rest
of our aid is going to guns, helicopters and spray planes. Even
with all this military aid, including the creation of all these
new vetted units, Putumayo is still a very dangerous place.
In April, I had to take a canoe across the Guamues River
where the main road had a bridge going across it, but there was
no bridge. Late last year, the FARC was perfectly able, at
complete liberty to bomb out this and several other bridges
along the main road. This was part of a larger wave of violence
in Putumayo at the end of last year. The guerrillas also
launched dozens of attacks on Putumayo's oil infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the paramilitaries are heavily present still in
the towns of Putumayo. Bodies show up on the streets and
roadsides nearly every day. There's no peace talk, cease-fire
in Putumayo. The paramilitary attacks on civilians haven't let
up at all. The paramilitaries are also very easy to find. I
came across a dozen of them in full uniform on the outskirts of
one of the main towns.
Meanwhile, everyone there takes for granted that the
military and the paramilitaries help each other and don't fight
each other. When I asked local officials, religious leaders
whether military-paramilitary collaboration is still a problem,
they looked at me like I was an idiot. They said, of course it
is.
Violence and coca persist in Putumayo, despite all of our
investment there. We have to learn from this as we hear about
ambitious new plans to aid military offensives like the Plan
Patriota that was discussed in the last panel. The last several
years in Colombia are full of examples of massive military
offensives, there have been many, with no long term results.
This is a familiar pattern. Here's what happens. Thousands
of troops rush into a guerrilla stronghold, and as we heard in
the last panel, the guerrillas don't fight back much, they melt
away into the jungle. Maybe there's an occasional encounter or
ambush, but nothing much more. The soldiers then stay in the
zone for a few weeks, even a few months, but they can't stay
forever. When they eventually have to go back to their bases,
we find that nobody made any effort while they were there to
bring the rest of the government into the zone. There are still
no judges, cops, teachers, doctors, road builders or any of the
other civilian government services that every society and
economy needs in order to function.
When the soldiers leave, armed groups simply come back and
fill the vacuum. The former FARC demilitarized zone, much of
it, I'm afraid, is still an example of this. There was a huge
military offensive there in 2002, but today the rural part of
the demilitarized zone is again dominated by the FARC. Whether
you call it Plan Patriota or Plan Colombia II, if we're going
to help Colombia govern its territory, we have to remember that
military power is only a small part of doing that. A government
gains authority by providing its citizens the basic conditions
they need to make a living in peace. Both of our governments
are going to have to spend much more than to insert civilian
government institutions, not just the military, but the rest
into Colombia's owned governed areas. We can pay of a lot of
this by diverting money away from our fumigation program and
our huge military aid program.
In conclusion, this sort of non-military aid doesn't just
neglect security needs. In fact, development aid is security
aid, because Colombia won't have security without it. Thank
you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Isacson follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you all very much. I've been to
Putumayo. What alternative crop would you suggest for these
farmers? That's the difficulty.
Mr. Isacson. Well, there are crops and there are products
that will make money. Juice concentrates are showing some
promise.
Chairman Tom Davis. They'll make money, but it's nothing
near what they're getting.
Mr. Isacson. Actually, it wouldn't be that far off. A coca
grower who has three hectares, after they make their payment to
the paramilitaries and to the guerrillas in the area, after
they pay for all their inputs, two hectares will probably give
you a net of about $300 or $400 a month, which, Colombia's
minimum wage is only $110. But you could probably make that
with hearts of palm or something like that.
Chairman Tom Davis. They could use some of our ag programs
where they pay you not to grow, you'd probably do better down
there.
Mr. Plotter, let me ask a couple of questions. What was it
like on a day to day basis being a guerrilla? What was the
quality of life like? Did you have running water? Were you
living out there in the jungle in tents? What kind of food did
you get? What was the quality of life compared to going into
the city and living a normal civilian life?
Mr. Plotter. [All remarks of Mr. Plotter are given in
native tongue through an interpreter.]
Ms. Cepeda. It was a drastic and a radical change. I grew
up in the provinces, but I always, up to the moment I went into
the guerrillas, lived in urban centers.
In my 10 years as a guerrilla, I was always in the
geographical regions of either the big mountain range or the
jungle.
The conditions maybe satisfied the military struggle, but
they didn't satisfy human needs.
We never get used to war. We just become resigned to living
in those conditions.
Our basic sanitary services, for example, are what nature
provides.
When the FARC started getting money and when they started
getting more comfortable in the demilitarized zone, those of us
who were outside the zone wanted to copy those bourgeois kinds
of accommodations.
What happened was the sacrifice and the personal giving
oneself up to the revolutionary or guerrilla----
[Power outage occurred 6:15 p.m. to 6:25 p.m.]
[Note.--A copy of the transcript held during the power
outage follows:]
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Ms. Watson. I mean, do you lose sight of what your original
goal was?
Mr. Plotter. [All remarks of Mr. Plotter are given in
native tongue through an interpreter.]
Ms. Cepeda. There needs to be a distinction between what
was the central objective, which was the taking of power and
the methods and scenarios where these objectives are trying to
be developed and reached.
The taking, a Colombian expression famously said, do you
want to take power, for what. And my question is, do they want
to take power and have power over the ruins of a country?
But we now have the chance to nullify the power of the gun,
because we have democratic mechanisms and democratic scenarios
where there can be divergence of opinion, divergence of ideas
and there can also be dissent. So we do not have to take
recourse in a fratricidal war.
And this war among brothers has its fuel in drugs and the
drug business.
Ms. Watson. Just let me say this, and then we'll all have
to go. Was it the narcotics that fueled the revolution in terms
of financially, or could there be another kind of way of
keeping a stable democratic government other than the proceeds
from narcotics? And then that goes over to this group, however,
we're not going to have time.
Mr. Plotter. [All remarks of Mr. Plotter are given in
native tongue through an interpreter.]
Ms. Cepeda. No, it was not always like this. Before drugs
fueled the armed struggle, there was from the part of the
guerrilla a really partisan, committed ideology based on the
population and based on looking, and the search for a better
society.
The qualitative jump in the characteristics of the FARC is
that now they have a much better, much improved arsenal as a
product of drug profits.
Ms. Watson. Muchas gracias.
Mr. Cummings. Dr. Chernick and Mr. Isacson, how could we
better use our money? You heard what I said a little earlier.
We spend a lot of money, and everybody here, all of us, we want
to be effective and efficient. How do you see, what do you see
as a better way of using our money, assuming we want to use it
to reduce drug production in Colombia? How would you approach
it? Apparently you don't feel too good about the way we're
doing it right now.
Mr. Chernick. My feeling, and I think most people who have
looked at the drug war, as they call it, over the last 15 to 20
years, is that the current strategy is not successful. We
continue to move it around and we show no results, zero
results. Something else should be done.
You can change the circumstances in a particular country.
We've done that in Bolivia and Peru, and we are changing things
in Colombia, change, not lowering, changing politically,
changing the war, changing the political actors, changing the
social movements. But what we're not doing is stopping the flow
of drugs. So I think something else needs to be thought on the
drug side, and it probably means placing a lot more baskets on
the demand side.
Even then, you must remember, the United States is not the
only country fueling the demand for drugs. Brazil is now the
second largest consumer of cocaine, and Europe is close behind.
So that there is a growing global demand. And that's going to
be met. That's simply economics. That's supply and demand.
And the drug war shows, you can send all the planes and
helicopters you want, and you will simply push it around, you
will not alter the laws of economics, of supply and demand. If
you understand that, you need to think of a new way to approach
the drug problem.
Second, a separate problem is the issue of the war in
Colombia, and what is the impact of a war on drugs and the war
in Colombia. My contention is that the U.S. drug war now
collapsed into a war on terror is simply fueling the war. The
United States should be on the side of the democratic side of
democratic security, of promoting development, of dealing with
humanitarian crises and dealing with human rights. And it
should be putting its money and its diplomatic and its
political weight on that side. It could go a long way.
But one should not collapse the drug war and Colombia's
internal war. One should deal with Colombia's problems and one
should try to address the issues of Colombia's armed conflict
through some sort of negotiated settlement.
Mr. Isacson. Very quickly, right now the United States
gives Colombia about $750 million a year. I don't think any of
us dispute that amount. I think we all endorse that. That is a
good investment if it's done right. Our problem is that is 80
percent going to the security forces. And it's not looking at
the reasons why people grow drugs, why people have no choice
but to join the guerrillas and paramilitaries if they happen to
live in the rural part of Colombia, which is a vast area.
It's hard to even imagine from here, but these are zones
where most people have come within the last 30 years, cut down
some jungle and tried to make a living and their government
never followed them there. If somebody tries to take your land,
you can't go to a judge and get it adjudicated. You can't get a
land title, which means you can't get credit. There's no road
for you to take your legal crops to market. And there's no cops
to settle any dispute. Your kids can't go to school so they end
up unemployed and probably joining one of the armed groups.
There's a whole lot of other needs that our aid really
isn't meeting. But we certainly have no problem with the amount
or the level of commitment.
Mr. Cummings. So in other words, if the economic and social
problems aren't addressed, you're going to continue to have
these problems and we're going to continue to pour money into
Colombia, and it's just going to be a bottomless pit.
Mr. Chernick. Mr. Plotter mentioned that the FARC are able
to, are very freely able to recruit like crazy in the areas
under their control. Why? Because there's a lot of people there
with nothing to do. And as long as those social conditions are
there, you've got this reserve army of drug growers and future
guerrillas and para-militaries. That's absolutely true.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Chairman Tom Davis. Let me just ask, the Homestead Act,
President Lincoln did so much to develop the west here and the
gold rush and everything like that. Would something like that
be conceivable for Colombia?
Mr. Chernick. I think so. Actually, a lot of the places
we're talking about, like Putumayo, some of the people that
came in the 1960's and 1970's came at the behest of the
Colombian Government as what they called colonization plans.
But the Colombian Government didn't followup.
Chairman Tom Davis. They didn't have Wyatt Earp following
it up.
Mr. Chernick. That's exactly right.
Chairman Tom Davis. No cavalry and everything else.
Mr. Chernick. No Pony Express, either. Nothing.
Mr. Isacson. Could I just add something? There is a problem
here. It is true that Colombia has this really hundreds of
years process of colonization of what they call the
agricultural frontier. It's like the Homesteading Act. The
problem is with most of the areas of homesteading, it's not
only that they don't have title to the land and therefore the
state doesn't have infrastructure, no roads to market and all
that, but most of this area is not suitable for agricultural
production. Most of this is very fragile rain forest that does
not lend itself to agricultural production.
You asked, what else can you grow? In most places, nothing.
And that is, one really needs to think about it. I in fact
worked with the World Bank on a project of creating alternative
poles to development. Because it's not only alternatives crops,
it's in fact alternative poles of development that would draw
populations out of the forest. Because one can't think of
simply continuing the colonization zones. They've thought about
that in the past. Half the country is basically unpopulated.
But it's not suitable for habitation. And one needs to
think of a different relationship of the population in that
lands. The alternative development question hasn't even begun
to address that issue.
Mr. Chernick. That's true.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Well, our votes are on, and
I don't want to hold you while we go over and do them, but it's
been very helpful. We appreciate all of your perspectives, as
we put this in the record and as we move forward.
So, Mr. Isacson and Dr. Chernick and Mr. Plotter, and also
for you, Ms. Cepeda, thank you very much for being with us
today. This has been very, very helpful to us. The hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica and additional
information submitted for the hearing record follows:]
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