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39–818 CC 1997

OVERSIGHT OF UNITED STATES

COUNTERNARCOTICS ASSISTANCE TO COLOMBIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT

REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 14, 1997

Serial No. 105–7

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

STEVEN H. SCHIFF, New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER COX, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

PETE SESSIONS, Texas

MIKE PAPPAS, New Jersey

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas

BOB BARR, Georgia

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

GARY A. CONDIT, California

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Chairman

MARK SOUDER, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

STEVE LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

TOM LANTOS, California

BOB WISE, West Virginia

GARY A. CONDIT, California

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

JIM TURNER, Texas

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

ROBERT CHARLES, Staff Director

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member

IANTHE SAYLOR, Clerk

RONALD STROMAN, Minority Professional Staff

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 14, 1997 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Busby, Morris, former Ambassador to Colombia; and Major F. Andy

Messing, Jr., United States Army (Ret.), executive director, National

Defense Council Foundation ........................................................................ 80

Gelbard, Robert S., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State ....................... 4

Serrano, Major General Jose Rosso, director, Colombian national police;

and General Harold Bedoya Pizarro, commander, Colombian Armed

Forces ............................................................................................................. 51

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bedoya Pizarro, General Harold, commander, Colombian Armed Forces,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 63

Busby, Morris, former Ambassador to Colombia, prepared statement of .... 83

Gelbard, Robert S., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State:

Information concerning assistance furnished under the authority of

section 506(a)(1) of the FAA ................................................................. 48

Information concerning extraditions ........................................................ 47

Information concerning ‘‘river patrol boats’’ ............................................ 50

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Messing, Major F. Andy, Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), executive director, National Defense Council Foundation:

NDCF Colombia Report 1997 ................................................................... 95

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 91

Serrano, Major General Jose Rosso, director, Colombian national police,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 55

Valdivieso, General, prepared statement of ................................................... 70

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF UNITED STATES COUNTERNARCOTICS ASSISTANCE TO COLOMBIA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1997

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:08 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Dennis Hastert

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Hastert, Schiff, Mica, Souder,

LaTourette, Barr and Barrett.

Staff present: Robert Charles, staff director and chief counsel;

Sean Littlefield, professional staff member; Ianthe Saylor, clerk;

Ronald Stroman, minority professional staff; and Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk.

Mr. HASTERT. The Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice will come to order.

First of all, I want to bid everyone good morning and thank you

for coming today. This is the subcommittee’s first hearing of the

105th Congress. This is also my first hearing as chairman of this

subcommittee. I think we have our work cut out for us, especially

what we are going to talk about today, the drug war, in this country, in our southern hemisphere, and, of course, in the world.

The drug usage rates of our young people clearly show the drug

war must continue. Frankly, that is why we are here today.

I want to pause long enough to welcome all our new members

and our returning members and to extend a special welcome to our

ranking member, Mr. Tom Barrett. I look forward to working with

Tom and developing a very, very fine relationship. I hope over the

next 2 years in the many important oversight challenges we face

that we can do it together on a bipartisan basis.

The title of today’s hearing may lead one to believe that this

hearing is only about Colombia. It is certainly about the heroic efforts of certain Colombians in the drug war, including General

Serrano, General Bedoya and Prosecutor General Valdivieso; but it

is also about the youth of America, our children, and, frankly, our

future.

In the last 3 years, six homicides in Aurora, IL, the town of my

birth and the town I represent, have been drug related. As recently

as June, Claudia Remos and Juan Medina were killed and their

bodies dumped on a road side. Six-year-old Nicholas Contreras was

2

shot and killed in his sleep in a drug-related crime. We must stop

the effect of drugs in our country.

The overwhelming majority of the cocaine and heroin that leaves

Colombia is headed straight to cities and towns like Aurora, IL;

and the target population for the growing and diversifying drug

cartels is mainly our youth. The international drug onslaught is

the most insidious national security threat we face as a Nation.

This is why it is so vital that we provide ample counternarcotic

support to the brave and honest men and women who work hard

in the drug war in this country and in Colombia. Those individuals

are fighting not only for Colombia’s survival but also for ours.

The timing of this hearing, just weeks prior to the annual recertification decision by the President, is not a coincidence. I am concerned that last year’s decision to decertify Colombia impeded foreign military sales to Colombia. If the President decides to decertify Colombia for the second year in a row, I am at least hopeful

that he will present Congress with the legislation that will allow

the military sales for the limited purpose of counternarcotic missions.

I also plan to work with the Department of State and the Committee on International Relations to find a way to expedite the

transfer of these tools that are needed to fight this war. Every day

that a DC–3 or a Huey or Black Hawk helicopter is not flying,

more drugs reach our streets. We cannot afford to have any more

delays in the transport of equipment or spare parts in our counternarcotics support for Colombia.

International drug trafficking organizations based in Colombia

are the world’s leading producers of cocaine. Colombian traffickers

also continue to supply marijuana to the United States, and recent

indications are that Colombian drug trafficking organizations are

making quantum leaps in the production and trafficking of heroin.

Colombia is engaged in a drug war, and its outcome affects all

Americans. Some of the bravest men and women in the world are

entangled in a war against the narcotraffickers and the guerillas

that support them.

There should be no mistake. The guerillas of Colombia long ago

abandoned ideology. They work with the international drug traffickers—providing security, cultivating crops and manning cocaine

labs. The guerillas engage in some of the most ruthless behavior

in our hemisphere. They kidnap, they kill, and they sustain their

carnage with drug money provided by American consumers, most

of them kids.

Today’s hearing will focus on what the United States can and

should do to generally support the counternarcotics efforts in Colombia to stop these deadly drugs and violent drug traffickers before they get to the United States shores.

Let’s lay it on the line. There can be no doubt that Colombia’s

political and judicial systems are confronting corruption. Sentences

for drug traffickers need to be strengthened, and a re-examination

of money laundering and extradition needs to take place now.

However, honest Colombian Government officials like General

Bedoya and General Serrano should be applauded and certainly

fully supported. How can we ask honest Colombians like these men

to continue putting their lives on the line every day without basic

3

United States support for the international drug effort? The truth

is that such support is both good government and cost-effective to

us at home in the United States.

Before proceeding with our first witness, I am pleased to turn to

my colleague, the subcommittee’s ranking minority member, Tom

Barrett of Wisconsin, for any opening remarks he might have.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations on

heading this subcommittee. I am looking forward to working with

you, and I am very optimistic that we will be able to work closely

on a lot of these issues which are basically nonpartisan in nature.

I think that this committee plays an important role; and, as evidenced by the hearing today, this is a committee that will look into

issues that have tremendous importance to our country.

The issue of drug trafficking in America is clearly one of the

most serious issues we face as a Nation; and, as the father of three

young children, I share with you the concern of easy access of

drugs to American youth and will do everything I can to make sure

we have the tools necessary to combat drug use both internationally and domestically.

The cost to our society of illegal drug use is staggering. Substance abuse and addiction cost is now estimated at $400 billion a

year. Two million Americans use cocaine at least once a week, and

500,000 are addicted to crack cocaine.

Colombia has a close relationship to this problem, because the

threat to the United States from Colombia is significant. Eighty

percent of the cocaine available in the United States is produced

in Colombia, and 60 percent of the heroin being seized in the

United States can be traced to Colombia.

This is a timely hearing since the administration will be making

many important decisions in the future, including the very important issue of whether to continue decertification of Colombia. I am

very excited and very interested to hear from our witnesses today

because I think this issue of how we deal with a foreign government and how we deal with the drug problem in another country

is a very thorny issue; and I think all of us agree that we, as a

country, have to do everything we can to stop the drug trafficking

from Colombia and other countries but also make sure we are

doing it in a prudent way.

So I look forward to this hearing and turn it back over to you.

Mr. HASTERT. At this time I would ask, without objection, that

all opening statements be submitted for the record. Any objection?

So ordered.

I would like now to welcome Assistant Secretary of State for

International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Ambassador

Gelbard. Ambassador Gelbard has been involved in our foreign relations with Latin America since his service with the Peace Corps.

In addition to his assignments to European and African issues,

Ambassador Gelbard served as Ambassador to Bolivia from 1988 to

1991, and most recently is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs. I think probably when

you find a tough place to deal with, Ambassador Galbard tends to

be there; and it shows the great confidence our administration has

in him.

4

Ambassador, we are pleased to have you here. If you would stand

and raise your right hand, the committee’s rules require me to

swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Let the record show the witness responded in the affirmative.

Thank you.

Please proceed with your opening statement. I assume you have

an oral statement. Anything else will be submitted for the record.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT S. GELBARD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,

BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. GELBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Please let me also congratulate you on your chairmanship. I

think it is worth stating that, thanks to your efforts, in addition

to some others, the budget for my bureau dedicated to counternarcotics and anti-crime measures throughout the world was substantially increased for this fiscal year; and I appreciated your efforts very much, sir.

As you said, sir, I do have a written statement that I would like

to submit for the record. I am pleased to have this opportunity to

discuss with you the United States counternarcotics policy toward

Colombia.

President Clinton denied certification to Colombia last year because the efforts of Colombia’s honest officials were being undermined by corruption at the highest levels of the Colombian Congress and Government. Our challenge was to maintain pressure on

a president we believe to have been influenced and even corrupted

by traffickers, while also supporting constructive Colombian antidrug efforts.

The strategy has produced progress on some of our key objectives

over the last 12 months. We have maintained support for essential

counternarcotics programs and institutions in Colombia. In fact,

from fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 1997, we have doubled our assistance, most of which is destined for the Colombian national police.

At the same time, we pressed the government to take specific

policy and legislative actions to strengthen the law enforcement

and judicial sectors. These include strengthening money laundering

laws and enacting tough asset forfeiture and sentencing laws; extradition of Colombian nationals wanted for crimes abroad; supporting investigations and prosecutions targeting corrupt public officials; stepping up coca eradication and opium eradication; agreeing on a bilateral maritime agreement; continuing law enforcement

and judicial action against traffickers, along with their prosecution,

conviction and sentencing to prison terms commensurate with their

crimes; dismantling of their organizations; and forfeiture of their

front companies and ill-gotten proceeds.

These objectives should not have come as a surprise to the Colombian Government. In 1994, shortly after his election, President

Samper promised to increase the penalties for drug traffickers, remove plea bargaining loopholes and send the political cronies of the

cartels to jail. In fact, he put these promises as well as many others in a letter he sent to Members of the U.S. Congress.

5

Instead of following through, however, Samper publicly attacked

the Prosecutor General’s Office for its far-reaching investigation of

political corruption known as the ‘‘Case 8,000.’’ An investigation in

which he himself was implicated as well as other top administration and congressional figures. Despite credible evidence that his

political campaign had accepted more than $6 million in drug

money, President Samper was exonerated by the Colombian Congress through a patently flawed process.

From our standpoint, however, the evidence that Samper aided

and abetted drug traffickers was sufficient to warrant the revocation of his visa last year. The denial of certification, international

pressure and the threat of economic sanctions has produced some

progress on key legislation, a maritime agreement this year and expanded the eradication program.

The Government of Colombia has failed, however, to follow

through on promised counternarcotics action or to confront fully the

drug interests that contributed millions of dollars to President

Samper’s campaign. In concrete terms, the Colombian Government

effectively ignored United States warnings that the Cali kingpins

continued to run their operations from prison.

In late January, a few weeks ago, top drug lords Gilberto and

Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela were sentenced to absurdly short prison

terms, accompanied by ridiculously small fines. Given the mandatory sentence reductions under existing Colombian sentencing

guidelines, these international criminals could ultimately serve

only 4 or 5 more years apiece in prison.

If President Samper had acted promptly on his own 1994 commitments that he put in writing to this Congress, these sentences

might have reflected the seriousness of their crimes. In stark contrast to the Colombian sentences, a United States Federal judge on

January 31st of this year sentenced Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia

Abrego, a long-time associate of the Rodriguez Orejuelas, to 11 life

terms, a fine of $128 million and forfeited assets worth $350 million. Interesting contrast.

Despite the obvious inadequacy of Colombia’s law, the Samper

administration has made so serious an effort to reinstate the case

for reinstatement of extradition or to launch a constitutional reform initiative.

We will hold the Government of Colombia to the promise its new

Ambassador just made to President Clinton when he presented his

credentials that the government will introduce such a bill next

month. Meanwhile, our request for four top Cali traffickers have

gone unanswered, and we have learned that the government has

never filed them in the Colombian Supreme Court as promised.

The asset forfeiture law passed in December is a good one. However, the legislation must stand a review of the constitutional

court, a test which some Colombians observers believe the law was

designed to fail. Moreover, the first attempt at implementation of

the law failed when the hold on assets placed in the names of the

family and friends of the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers was lifted at

the time of their sentencing.

We can only judge the Colombian Government by its concrete actions. As recently as late last year, while the investigation and trial

of the Cali kingpins was under way, Samper and Interior Minister

6

Serpa were actively pursuing negotiations with the Cali mafia

kingpins, which clearly would have undermined the efforts of the

Colombian police and the Prosecutor General’s Office. This revelation was merely another reminder that President Samper’s commitment to take on the top traffickers must be evaluated on the basis

of specific results rather than on stated intentions.

While failing to address certain issues, the Samper administration sought to recover international legitimacy by improving cooperation on other fronts, including its agreement to the United

States-funded expansion of the coca crop eradication and its initialing, several weeks ago, of a maritime interdiction agreement.

Private sector leaders have begun to press the government to

pass key legislation, and Colombian industry has sought more direct cooperation with the United States to counter the drug trade.

The Colombia Flower Growers Association has taken a particularly

courageous stand in favor of the asset forfeiture law and extradition.

Unprecedented application by the President of the International

Emergency Economic Powers Act against the Cali mafia front companies also stimulated the private sector, and particularly the private bankers association, to implement tighter voluntary controls

over its members.

At the operational level, our counternarcotics cooperation with

the Colombian national police and its leader, General Serrano, the

Prosecutor General’s Office and the elements of the armed forces

remain very good. In the past year, we doubled our assistance to

Colombia from $22.6 million to some $44 million this fiscal year to

support interdiction law enforcement and eradication operations.

Part of this increase will be devoted to purchasing nonlethal military equipment and spare parts.

We also have dramatically increased our aviation support to the

Colombian national police, including the provision of 12 additional

helicopters and the use of additional spray and support aircraft.

We will soon deploy five upgraded spray aircraft worth $84 million

by the end of next month and 12 more UH–1H helicopters associated with the President’s 506(a)(2) drawdown package. We have

also allocated for the first time funds to support the army and the

rest of the armed forces in counternarcotics efforts.

Combined police-military interdiction efforts in 1996 focused on

denying drug cultivators and processors the chemicals used to process cocaine. This effort produced a substantial increase in precursor

chemical seizures and in the number of laboratories destroyed. At

the same time, the shift in focus of interdiction operations and the

devotion of more resources to the eradication program resulted in

a significant drop in the seizure of drug trafficking aircraft, cocaine, and heroin as compared to 1995.

We have worked more closely than ever with the Colombian police to carry out a much-enhanced aerial eradication program. Our

expanded aerial eradication program in 1996 presented significant

challenges which the Colombian police have accepted without hesitation. The military also rose to this challenge, increasing their

support to the police eradication effort.

However, despite the clear commitment of the Colombian police

to the eradication program, the Colombian Government has strongVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
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ly opposed the testing of safe granular herbicides, such as

hexazanone, which we know to be significantly more effective in

killing coca than the current herbicides being used.

Colombia’s coca crop expanded by over 30 percent last year. This

is in contrast to Peru, where there was an 18 percent decrease. It

expanded from almost 51,000 hectares to over 67,000 hectares, in

spite of our efforts to expand the eradication program and make it

more effective. Cultivation increased by 13 percent between 1994

and 1995 and has also tripled since 1987.

Colombia now provides 32 percent of all coca produced in the

world. This continued expansion points to one of the greatest challenges Colombia and we together face in stamping out the drug

trade.

The crop has been steadily expanding since 1987, and we must

recognize the decisive role played by some of Colombia’s insurgent

guerilla groups. They identified an economic opportunity—the insatiable desire of drug traffickers for a reliable source of cocaine products—and carved out a significant portion of that market for themselves.

The increased self-sufficiency of Colombia’s drug industry has

significant implications for our efforts to eliminate this scourge.

Those guerilla fronts engaged in the industry now have a proven

source of income and a vested interest in expanding and protecting

the trade. These guerilla fronts constitute a real threat to Colombian anti-drug forces deployed to eradicate fields and the American

personnel who support them, including, sadly, the loss of one

American life late last year.

In this environment, Colombian counternarcotics cooperation and

the government’s clear support of its own police and military, prosecutors, judges, and other government officials on the front line of

this struggle are more important than ever. We have implemented

a strategy that is producing some progress on key legislation, and

that has galvanized the private sector in taking a more active role

in pressing for action. We have seen results clearly from decertification last year.

We must continue to provide a high level of direct support, assistance and encouragement to those in Colombia dedicated to ending this drug scourge and the corruption it has engendered. Above

all, we must continue to make clear to the Colombian Government

that the American people expect concrete results.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gelbard follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much for your testimony. I think

we understand very clearly why the administration used the tool

of decertification to try to move the Government of Colombia into

areas that they seem to lack and should be improved upon, but

after President Clinton announced Colombia’s decertification on

March 1, 1996, it seems to me that there was a lack of the State

Department’s perception of what effect decertification would have

on assistance programs. As a matter of fact, the State Department

did not announce their decision that only foreign military financing

was prohibited and that foreign military sales were not, which involved some of the spray planes and the helicopters and some of

the things that were necessary to make those, that equipment fly.

From March until September, the State Department prevented

all assistance from reaching Colombia, and only in September did

the State Department announce that FMF, or financing, and not

sales assistance was blocked by decertification. Can you help us or

enlighten us as to why that decision to decertify was taken when

no one seems to have understood, basically, the ramifications, at

least in the movement of equipment, to General Serrano and others

that needed that equipment after decertification?

Mr. GELBARD. The President made the decision to decertify Colombia because there was a clear unwillingness on the part of the

Government of Colombia to cooperate with the United States in

counternarcotics efforts. All indicators were very clear in their failure to comply with the commitments that Samper himself had

made, as I mentioned earlier, to the Congress of the United States,

in an unsolicited letter he sent in July 1994.

Just running through the various commitments he gave made it

very clear they did not comply. So it was a clear-cut decision that

the President made. It was a difficult decision because it was the

first time a President of the United States had ever decided to decertify a democratic government, but it was based on the unanimous recommendations of the President’s relevant Cabinet members to him.

The decision to decertify did not in any way affect the support

provided to the police. It did not in any way affect that support,

I want to be very clear. Nor did it affect this provision, the provision of spray planes, for example, which are flown by the Colombian police. Now, because the spray program was stalling, we have

provided, with the agreement of the Colombian Government, American pilots to spray and to train, while they are spraying, Colombian pilots in what is a very difficult endeavor.

However, the clear-cut interpretation of the law, the Foreign Assistance Act, was that under decertification it was not possible to

provide military assistance to the Colombian armed forces under

FMF and FMS. We supported efforts in the Congress to change

that law last year, and unfortunately, the Congress was unable to

vote in favor of that change. We continue to support a change in

that law so that we could provide FMF and FMS assistance to the

Colombian armed forces.

Nevertheless, what I am doing in this fiscal year, as I mentioned

in my testimony, is for the first time providing funding to the Colombian military from my own budget; and we have in our Congressional presentation for fiscal year 1997 budgeted $5 million to

21

support their counternarcotics efforts out of the $44 million that is

currently in the budget.

Mr. HASTERT. Well, let’s just try to clear some things up here.

As you well know, I was in Colombia last year, last spring, and

met with the Ambassador and tried in a limited period of time to

see what the operation was, and I had a meeting with General

Serrano and others. It seems to me that was the time, right after

that decision was made, early April, the decision was made in

March, the decertification decision, due to the judgment of the

State Department lawyers, and others did delay critical counternarcotics aid under FMS. Is that right or not?

Mr. GELBARD. It wasn’t just State Department lawyers, it was

Pentagon lawyers and Department of Justice lawyers; and with all

due respect to the lawyers on the committee—I am not one—I too

was quite frustrated by the lack of movement and decision on this.

But as a result, we did support the desire to change the law. As

I say, we were quite frustrated by the inability to do so.

Mr. HASTERT. So there was a delay in the movement of the

equipment.

Mr. GELBARD. To the military, not to the police.

Mr. HASTERT. The police—well, let’s work on it. We will hear testimony later and certainly try to clear that up.

Also, in your opinion, the police—General Serrano was complying, and he happens to be the lead commander in beating back

the narcotics traffickers in my opinion and I think many other

opinions. Do you feel he had all the assistance he needed?

Mr. GELBARD. We have strongly supported General Serrano,

whom I have known for all the time he has been in his job, even

before he was promoted to this position. I strongly supported his

being named to this position and urged the Government of Colombia to appoint him. We have worked very closely with him to try

to provide everything we could. Unfortunately, the Government of

Colombia itself has significantly reduced the budget of the military

and the budget of the police, so they have decreased their support

to these entities.

Mr. HASTERT. Well, I think it is our purpose here to certainly try

to work together, and we are not trying to find any indictments of

the past. We are trying to find how we can work through this thing

in the future.

As you well know, and in my opening statement, not giving these

people the tools to do the job means there are more drugs and more

death in our districts here in the United States, and certainly we

want to find that solution and that answer. It is encouraging in

your testimony hearing you say that you are suggesting and advising an increase in that budget; is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. It is more than suggesting and advising. We have

targeted $44 million of support to Colombia to the military and police in this fiscal year, and that was what was provided to the Congress in our congressional presentation for—— Mr. HASTERT. For this coming fiscal year.

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. I will yield my time to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

22

Ambassador Gelbard, you stated your frustration with the delays

in getting assistance to the military. I look at something that happened under the first decertification process. If Colombia is decertified again, will we face a similar problem, or was that the result

of a first-time decertification?

Mr. GELBARD. We are working and would like to work with this

Congress to work together in a very cooperative way to effect the

kinds of changes that I mentioned earlier to permit the transfer of

such equipment in FMF and FMS cases.

Mr. BARRETT. So the decertification measure still provides barriers to you in what you think you should be doing.

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, sir. Let me just say, the legislation which

would have amended the law was defeated in the final days of the

last Congress, so that’s why we are not able to move the equipment

under those cases.

Mr. BARRETT. Specifically what would that legislation do?

Mr. GELBARD. That would provide waiver authority so that the

administration would have the authority to approve such cases.

Mr. BARRETT. I assume there will be some who would argue that,

lacking that authority, we should not decertify. What are the benefits of decertification even without the ability to move that military?

Mr. GELBARD. As I alluded to earlier, it is crystal clear, very

sadly, that the Colombian Government under President Samper

took very little action from the time he was sworn in on August 7,

1994, until March 1, 1996, when they were decertified.

We have seen significant efforts in the last year to make

progress, both right before the decertification decision and, oddly

enough, in the last few weeks. The maritime interdiction agreement was just initialled a few weeks ago. The asset forfeiture

agreement was just approved in late December, and there will be

a special session of the Colombian Congress opening up next week

to consider, finally, a much harsher sentencing law. This is clearly

because of their concerns about possible decertification again. It’s

a sad story that there’s only a positive response under threat or

when there is actually decertification, but we have seen in the face

of this corruption that that is the only thing that has produced results from the government itself.

Mr. BARRETT. My sense, from the questioning of the chairman

and others, on this issue is that the transport of military equipment is the issue here. Is that correct or are there more issues underlying the issue of decertification?

Mr. GELBARD. That has not been—that has been an adverse consequence of decertification.

The other adverse consequences are that under the law there is

a prohibition of the use of OPIC and Eximbank financing to countries that are decertified. We obviously don’t like that because that

hurts American companies. It hurts their competitiveness overseas.

But in terms of all the rest of the consequences of decertification,

we feel it has proved helpful, sadly.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Again, if we were to put together the perfect

policy for you so as to provide you with the best tools for fighting

drugs in Colombia, would that entail—and I assume from your

comments that at a minimum the administration is leading toward

23

decertification again—but would decertification plus a change in

the law, would that, do you think, make this a more effective battle?

Mr. GELBARD. This has been, in fact, a relatively small part of

the total amount of assistance provided to Colombia, so overall we

don’t feel that it’s had an overwhelming effect.

One important positive element that I should mention is that

General Bedoya is now willing to dedicate Army units just to programs involving counternarcotics. That was not the case before in

the Colombian military with his predecessors. One of the restrictions we have had in my own budget has been that our assistance

has to go 100 percent for counternarcotics, it can’t go for multiple

purposes.

General Bedoya and I discussed this just last night, and on the basis of this, we already, as I said, had budgeted $5 million in assistance for the Colombian military outside of the FMF, FMS issue.

So we can provide assistance to them that way.

Mr. BARRETT. If you again could just go over the level of assistance and the changes, that would be helpful to me.

Mr. GELBARD. This fiscal year we are increasing commodities to

the Colombian police—aircraft parts, tools, avionics, field investigative equipment—from $7.4 million to $12.6 million. Training is at $1.5 million. Aircraft operations and so on are doubling from $4.1

million to $8 million. Military assistance would involve $2.5 million

in commodities, $1 million in training and $1.5 million in other

programs.

Judicial sector reform, we are now picking up support for this very important program of $250,000, and we’re providing aviation services. We will be providing aviation programs at $14 million,

and in addition, new equipment this year involving UH–1H helicopters valued at $10.8 million, Bell 212 helicopters valued at $9

million, and OV–10 Bronco aircraft valued at $84 million. So actually that is a total of $147.8 million.

Mr. BARRETT. How does this compare to other countries?

Mr. GELBARD. Far and away greater in terms of equipment and

support to the interdiction law enforcement authorities.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. Just a quick followup. That’s for this coming fiscal

year; is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. The current fiscal year, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. Let me just—another quick followup. The President could have had a 614 waiver; is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. The President theoretically could. We are studying

that possibility right now.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. The vice chairman of this subcommittee, Mr. Souder from Indiana.

Mr. SOUDER. Good morning. I’ve got a couple of questions. I

thought I heard you say a minute ago that the Colombian Government had reduced support for the national police and General

Serrano.

Mr. GELBARD. General Bedoya told me that the budget provided

to the armed forces and the police has been significantly reduced.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you know what, when you say significantly?

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Mr. GELBARD. I would suggest you ask him when he appears.

Mr. SOUDER. OK, because one of the core questions that’s hard

for a lot of people to understand here is, we have a democratic government in Colombia, and yet you are praising the national police,

you are praising the attorney general, you are praising to some degree the military of Colombia, saying they are fighting with us,

they have been courageous, they have obviously lost many lives in

trying to do this.

How do you explain that balance?

Mr. GELBARD. In the case of the prosecutor general, he is independent from the government. He is actually part of the judiciary,

and under the 1991 constitution, is independent.

In the case of General Serrano and the Colombian police, as I

say, we were actually quite instrumental in getting President

Samper to remove a highly corrupt predecessor head of the national police, General Vargas.

Mr. SOUDER. Was that enacted by the decertification?

Mr. GELBARD. This was earlier than that, this was in 1994, and

I personally provided the then minister of defense, who is now incarcerated himself for corruption, with significant information

about General Vargas’ corruption.

General Serrano was appointed in his stead. He was at that time

the police attache here, had worked very closely with government

agencies such as DEA, and we felt at that time enormous confidence in him. It has been very clear that General Serrano has

been heavily criticized by his own government, by his own congress, but he has shown enormous courage, both physical and

moral, by continued to pursue the right course.

Mr. SOUDER. What is kind of curious to me is, it seems like the

most critical—I’m trying to sort through the decertification process—the most critical thing, ideally, and it’s very frustrating, I

know, when we were in Colombia, their frustration with the court

process—they get somebody, and then they get off, and the sentencing problems you’ve talked about.

But the most critical thing in this is the fact that we have the

police, the defense and the attorney general on our side, and we

are trying to put pressure on the rest. Would you agree that that—

in a decertification process, is that something you look at?

For example, if a country has a bigger problem in their law enforcement and police and defense, would that make them more or

less likely to be decertified? Because corruption—I mean, we’re

looking in almost all these countries at mixes of this, and obviously

one of the things I am hinting at, in Mexico we have a huge problem with the attorney general, we have a huge problem with corruption of the police, we have a huge problem with corruption in

the military, and I am trying to sort out how you are making your

decision of who you are certifying and who you are not certifying.

Mr. GELBARD. When I announced the President’s decision on certification last year, first of all, I made it a point to single out the

excellent cooperation and work done by the Colombian police and

by Prosecutor General Valdivieso and his staff. The test of the law,

as I said then—and under the law, it’s very clear; you can ask Congressman Mica, because I think he helped write that law—is

whether the government has cooperated with us.

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The government, in this case, is the one headed by President

Samper. We did not believe then that it was cooperating with us.

The President still has not made his decision, obviously, on this

year’s certification process, but will.

We tried to be very careful in terms of separating out the cooperation, the extraordinary cooperation we have received in working with General Serrano and his police, now with the army, with

the prosecutor general, and with some others, from the undermining that has taken place on a consistent basis by others in the

government.

As I mentioned in my oral statement, the government has not

even yet pursued what President Samper promised in his letter to

the Congress in terms of extradition. He promised in this letter—

he said we will present to Colombia’s Congress stringent new

anticorruption legislation. Well, it comes as no surprise that he

hasn’t done that.

So we have seen, on the one hand, efforts by serious, patriotic

people, but—and then they themselves have come out and thanked

us for our support, but then they have been undermined by corruption. So the decision had to be made, based on the final results,

and the final results we see in terms of the pathetic and just discouraging sentences for the Rodriguez Orejuelas, who continue to

run their businesses from jail.

Mr. SOUDER. I am not interested in trying to defend the President of Colombia, where he takes his money and what he’s done.

What I am saying is, the concept of the government here is nebulous when there are independent parts of the government; and

what you are saying is, you would rather have the support of the

president even if the police are corrupt, the defense may be corrupt, and there’s changes in attorney general. But you would rather have the support of the president than, in Colombia’s case,

where we don’t have the support of the president, but we have

pressure in parliament and we have the support of the people actually cracking down in the drug war, who are dying and fighting for

it. That’s what I am trying to sort out.

If it’s just the President and what he is promising to do—in fact,

in your statement, you said the measure is what is being done, and

in Colombia, they are fighting and dying; and part of my concern

is that in some of the other countries that we’re dealing with, they

don’t seem to be at the enforcement point, but they seem to be giving us some of the lip service.

Mr. GELBARD. Congressman, what we’re interested in, as I said

many times in my statement, are concrete results. When we look

at the concrete results, as I outlined some of them in the statement, and this was clearly the case by March 1st of last year, the

concrete results, the bottom line, were inadequate. In spite of efforts by the police, in spite of efforts by General Valdivieso and others, but the concrete result, bottom line, were clearly inadequate.

There is as much cocaine coming into the United States or being

produced in Colombia as ever before. As the chairman said, there

is more heroin being produced in Colombia than ever before. So

that’s the bottom line we’ve got to look at. We’ve got to look at the

commitments that the government and the president himself made,

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and the kinds of laws that are necessary to produce the concrete

bottom line results.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, I am looking forward to working with

you.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. I just want to say the gentleman from

Indiana will serve as the vice chairman of this subcommittee. We’re

very proud of the work that he has done. He travelled with me last

year to Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and certainly is

a person we’ll depend on a great deal to follow you through with

on these issues.

It’s my pleasure to turn to the next gentleman on the panel,

somebody who is very astute in the law and very famous in that

area, the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Schiff.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; thank you for holding

this hearing.

Mr. Ambassador, I’d like to ask a very basic question first. Every

nation’s government has a constant fight with corruption and influence of the criminal elements of one form or another. As you know,

our own government is not immune from such infiltration. But yet,

at least as is popularly understood, the Government of Colombia

seems to have the worst problem virtually in the world in that regard. Again, that’s the image of the Government of Colombia.

What I’d like to ask is, is that an accurate perception of the Government of Colombia, and if so, can you explain why the Government of Colombia, the Nation of Colombia, seems to have a worse

problem with such criminal infiltration than other governments do,

acknowledging that the problem is universal?

Mr. GELBARD. Well, first of all, Congressman, I wouldn’t go so far

as to say they have the worst corruption problem in the world. I

think Nigeria may have that honor, but it’s interesting, Transparency International just did some rankings on it, and I’d be

happy to see if I could get them to you, because there is an interesting correlation between nation-states where the rule of law does

not prevail, and where there is significant drug corruption—Nigeria, Burma, Colombia, a number of others.

The tragedy of Colombia has been violence for many decades,

going back many, many years; and particularly, I think one of the

really dramatic and serious problems that we and the rest of the

international community need to focus on more is—particularly in

the post-cold war period, we have new international security

threats which are affecting democratic institutions, social and economic institutions. Transnational crime is clearly one of the most

extraordinary that has developed. Drug trafficking and

transnational crime are corrupting institutions everywhere, and

Colombia, sadly, is one of the most dramatic cases, as you say.

We have seen that the extraordinary financial power of the drug

traffickers has now enabled them to corrupt a government, and lots

of other elements throughout that society, including economic and

social institutions. This is one of the great tragedies because it’s

one of oldest democracies in the Western Hemisphere.

I think, once again, our—the decision by the President to decertify and the extraordinary decision by the President to revoke

Samper’s visa have caused a lot of elements and sectors in the Colombian society to really focus on this problem more than ever beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
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fore. As I mentioned, we now have the Colombian Bankers Association, who actually came to us last year because they knew that the

Colombian Government was doing nothing against money laundering, and the Colombian Bankers Association came to us to ask

for training. That helped shame the Colombian Government into

doing things against this, too. That is just an example.

I mentioned the Flower Growers’ Association. There are lots of

other elements in the Colombian private sector and there are lots

of American companies who do business in Colombia who are also

trying to help provide this kind of influence to urge cleaning up

their institutions. We think that is important.

Mr. SCHIFF. That leads, I think, to the second question and that

is this hearing is very important because it points out, particularly

with the witnesses that will follow, that even in countries that are

on the high end of the list, which Colombia is among at least the

group you have mentioned, there are individual nationals in those

countries, including high-ranking officials themselves, who don’t

want to tolerate the infiltration of crime and corruption—— Mr. GELBARD. Absolutely.

Mr. SCHIFF [continuing]. And who at great risk, great personal

risk, wage that fight. We all saw here in Washington, DC, just a

few nights ago, how dangerous it is to be a police officer in any

country; that the threat of death is, again, another universality,

unfortunately. Nevertheless, in Colombia I understand that thousands of police and antidrug law enforcement officers have been assassinated in that country, which demonstrates how many people

don’t want to tolerate that situation.

That leads me to what seems, to me, the inconsistency that you

may have explained with the other pressures in Colombian society.

You have spoken well and I think with every justification of Generals Bedoya and Serrano, and you said that we were able to influence the appointment of General Serrano as the head of the police

in Colombia. If we believe that General Samper is closely allied

with the criminal elements in Colombia, frankly, how are we able

to do that?

Mr. GELBARD. First, before I answer that, I would like to just add

a point to what you started out talking about. I fully agree with

what you say. I could not agree with you more in terms of the extraordinary courage of people in the Government of Colombia and

in the private sector of Colombia, who really have—are extraordinarily patriotic in doing this. But I would also like to mention the

people in our own government who do this, people in our Embassies in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and other places around the world

because it takes extraordinary courage for those people, including

former Ambassador Busby, who is sitting here, to have lived under

threat for extended periods of time.

As I mentioned earlier, a contract employee of the American Government was recently killed in Colombia while he was involved in

eradicating coca. I think our own people, as I know you will agree,

sir, deserve equal support.

Mr. SCHIFF. I am glad you added that, Mr. Ambassador.

Mr. GELBARD. In terms of your question, we have tried—we have

recognized very clearly through the extraordinary step of the revocation of a sitting democratically elected President’s visa. RevokVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
28

ing a sitting President’s visa is, as I said, an amazing step. The

only other case I can think of where this has been done in memory

is Kurt Waldheim. Revocation of visas is not, one could argue, an

enormously important step, but it is a sign of shame and it is taken

as that, because holding an American visa is important.

We are not going to try to interfere in Colombia’s internal affairs.

They elected him. They knew what they were getting. His record

has been clear for decades. What we have tried to do, though, is

establish standards under which we are prepared to cooperate and

support Colombia in many other ways. It is up to the Colombian

people, obviously, to decide how they want to be ruled, but it is up

to us and the rest of the international community to decide how we

are going to deal with those kinds of individuals.

Mr. SCHIFF. I have one last question, Mr. Ambassador.

If we could set aside the legalese, I wonder if you could explain

in direct terms what you feel the goal of our policy should be in

terms of the ability for decertification, but then the recommendation, if I understood you correctly, for a waiver. I mean, if the

President decertifies a country under the law, but then has a waiver, what then can the President do and not do? What is the goal

you are striving to achieve with that?

Mr. GELBARD. By decertification, what we are trying to achieve— we outline in very clear ways to that government in very explicit

terms the measures that we hope they will undertake to have a cooperative relationship with us. We did that with Colombia in 1995,

in 1996 and we have done it again this year.

We hold them to certain standards and we ask them to undertake certain measures and accomplish those measures. Then, as I

said, the test of the law is whether that government is cooperating

with us or whether it is fulfilling the measures of the 1988 Vienna

Convention.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. GELBARD. The only problems I see in the law right now, really, are this issue about military assistance, that we would be—that

I would be delighted to have changed and that we supported.

Similarly, as I mentioned to Congressman Barrett, the effects,

the negative effects, it has on American business. All our other programs have not only continued, as I say, they have increased and

even doubled. So we are trying to be able to focus very clearly on

our objectives.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.

Now it is my privilege to introduce the gentleman from Florida,

who has been writing pertinent legislation, one of our senior Members and he was writing that legislation probably while many of us

were just cutting our teeth on legislation, that is. Mr. Mica from

Florida.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Gelbard, welcome back. We have been in this battle,

I guess, for more than a decade and a half together and I appreciate your leadership.

I have some questions, though, today. Maybe I ought to cover,

first, the question of certification and waivers. As you mentioned,

I was active in helping to draft the certification law and I just had

29

staff check over the evening to see if we had originally included the

waiver when we wrote it, and we did not. It was added as an

amendment in 1988 and it was an amendment contained in the

International Narcotics Control Act of that year. In fact, it did provide a waiver—I think it is pretty clear. You said you have had

trouble, I guess, with Justice and DOD attorneys as far as interpretation.

Is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Well, we have had, I think, through this committee,

and the chairman of the full committee wrote back, I believe it was

in November, a request that a waiver be granted, and no action— I think that went to General McCaffrey—which disturbs me.

In checking also on waivers that have been granted under this

Section 614 authority, I find waivers have been granted by the administration to Serbia and Montenegro on almost a half a dozen occasions; at least twice to Somalia, to Haiti, to Rwanda. There are

two pages of waivers that have been granted. There seems to be

plenty of precedence when, in fact, it is in the national interest for

waivers to be granted.

I can’t believe the administration doesn’t consider this instance

as in the national interest and has been dragging their feet. I will

provide you with copies of those. That is the first point.

The second point that concerns me is I see the PR that Colombia

is doing getting ready for their certification campaign. They have

got this ad that is appearing about how we are well on the way

to making drug traffickers suffer as much as the people they supply. Then they talk about how they are making them suffer. The

pounds of cocaine have—that have been seized have actually been

reduced from 1995 to 1996. The acres of coca destroyed have actually been reduced from 1995 to 1996. It sounds like some serious

suffering.

What concerns me also is in your testimony you said at the same

time the shift in focus of interdiction operations and devotion of increased resources to eradication programs, that is on page 9. So

you would think that we had gone from interdiction—actually

interdiction has increased. We have gone away from interdiction—

to eradication.

Page 10, then, you testified, the Colombian coca crop has expanded over 30 percent last year from 51,000 hectare acres to

67,000 hectare acres. So it seems that the emphasis, area of emphasis that they are taking is also a failure, eradication and interdiction.

Is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. Well, let me respond to several points you made,

Congressman. As you say, you and I have known each other a long

time and I have enormous respect for your background and experience in these issues.

I have to say that I obviously noticed this media blitz. I think

the timing is clearly geared to certification.

I also noticed this lovely color supplement that is 17 pages in

Forbes Magazine on Colombia called, ‘‘The Leading Latin American

Economy.’’ It is a multifaceted economy, obviously. That costs about $1 million to put that in here, as we understand it.

30

What we also understand is that all of these newspaper ads cost

about $252,000. We also understand they have provided about $2

million to public relations firms around here to improve their

image. I think what Colombia ought to be focusing on are accomplishments instead of their image.

Some of that money perhaps could have been added to the military and the police, instead of reducing their budgets, and I think

that would have been for the good of the Colombian people and the

international community.

Mr. MICA. Well, the information you have provided, the information I have, shows that both interdiction is down and eradication

is down.

Mr. GELBARD. Well, the interdiction results have decreased. As

you said—I, too, noticed that in these ads, I was surprised that

they show—that they would take out full page ads to show that the

results have gotten worse. That is amazing.

Mr. MICA. Well, the whole thing is alarming, Mr. Ambassador.

The other ad that they don’t see is the headlines that I see in

my district, and I have held this up before. When we were in—

when we were in Colombia, Mr. Hastert, Mr. Souder and others,

we were told that there are 10,000 hectare acres now of heroin

growing, that heroin will be cheaper on the streets of our cities

than cocaine in short order. This is what is happening in my central Florida suburban area. We are not talking about urban ghettos

of Detroit, New York, Los Angeles.

So I am not interested—we are not interested in PR. We are interested in some action also.

Mr. GELBARD. I understand. Let me say, on opium poppies, I

think the area under cultivation, we have just completed our survey and I mentioned the coca crop up 32 percent. We think the

opium poppy crop is about 6,300 hectares, which is a slight increase over the past.

However, you are absolutely right, Congressman, because almost

all of the heroin that is being produced in Colombia is coming to

the United States. The Cali Cartel has now used the same mechanisms that it has used to distribute cocaine for distributing heroin.

They are using loss leaders to sell heroin at very high purity levels

at a very low price and they have taken ownership of the heroin

distribution all through the East Coast.

When I talk to the DEA in New York, in Baltimore, in Philadelphia and other places in the East Coast, Hartford, you can’t find

Southeast Asia heroin on the streets of those cities anymore. It is

Colombian heroin. That shows that it has continued to increase

even while—the police have made strong efforts. The military are

making strong efforts. But absent the kind of governmental support that we were discussing, Congressman, earlier, absent the

framework of laws, absent other kinds of support, they are going

to be—they are going to be able to continue to pump this stuff out.

We have only now been able to negotiate a maritime interdiction

agreement, and we have seen a significant shift in the use of ships

from airplanes as a way of getting drugs to our shores now and to

Europe, where there is a significant increase, too, in cocaine and

heroin coming from Colombia.

31

Mr. MICA. I have other questions but my time has expired. We

will get back. Thank you.

Mr. HASTERT. I will advise the gentleman, we will come back for

a second round to anyone who may have another question or a

round of questions.

I just have a quick followup question or observation on this. On

a couple of statistics that we have been throwing back and forth

here today, basically, you have said that the interdiction is down

of drugs coming out of Colombia, and one of the reasons that some

people have said that is because we have been doing more spraying

and the Colombians have been more effective at killing hectares of

cocaine.

Also, it was interesting to see that some people predicted the

amount of cocaine moving out of Colombia is actually up, no matter

what the interdiction is. That also is explained by some folks that

there has actually been a huge decrease in the amount of cocaine

or coca paste coming up from Peru because of the success of the

air bridge, and that is no longer a dependable market or at least

as dependable as it was. So the narcotraffickers are really concentrating on growing their own crop in a sense. Is that valid?

Mr. GELBARD. You are absolutely right on Peru. It is a combination of the support we have given to the Peruvian military and police on interdiction and law enforcement on the one hand and the

support we have given to—we and other nations have given to Peru

for alternative development on the other.

The price of coca went way down. We are providing funds for

other livelihoods and people are literally walking off the land. So

there is an 18 percent decrease nationwide.

In Colombia, I don’t think there has been a real shift from interdiction to eradication. There has been a significant increase in

eradication efforts, but interdiction and law enforcement efforts

have continued.

The problem has been, I think, overall corruption. Once again,

the statistics are not ours. These are statistics provided by the Colombian Government themselves.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Ambassador.

The next gentleman I would like to introduce is certainly somebody who has distinguished himself on this panel and others, the

gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ambassador, I don’t really necessarily have any problem

with the administration’s decision last year on decertification, and

I have heard your testimony today and have read a great deal of

material and I think it is admirable that this administration has

reached the conclusion that campaign financing scandals involving

foreign leaders are very serious matters, worthy of very extraordinary action, even hampering our war against drugs by cutting off

certain types of assistance and taking the extraordinary step of denying a visa to a leader of a foreign country because of a campaign

financing scandal. But I am somewhat concerned about what appears to be inconsistencies in the way the administration is approaching these matters and in particular some inconsistencies

that appear to me certainly to be inconsistencies with regard to the

International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports, or INCSR.

32

For example, I know under that process, and pursuant to the

law, Colombia and Mexico, among many other countries, fall into

the very same categories of major drug producing and drug transit

countries. Both Colombia and Mexico fall under the same categories as major money-laundering countries, yet the action of this

administration last year, in terms of the extraordinary step of decertifying and then not even applying for a waiver and, as my distinguished colleague from Florida has said, waivers have been requested in, I think, far less important circumstances, that is, if the

administration places counternarcotics activities at a high priority.

Yet, with regard to looking at Colombia and Mexico, for example,

which have a great deal in common in terms of the pervasive corruption in their societies and in terms of their preeminent role in

sending drugs into this country, action was taken last year only

against Colombia and not against Mexico.

I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the money

that we have extended to Mexico—and I am glad that the President highlighted in his State of the Union that they repaid us in

record time or something—but the fact of the matter is, I think

Mexico does not have a great deal to be proud about and I think

that this administration ought to be doing more to talk not so

much about Mexico paying us back in record time for money extended to them, that a number of us think we had no right to do

anyway, with Mexico’s increasingly sorry record of corruption and

direct massive involvement in sending drugs into this country.

I would like your explanation of why action was taken against

Colombia in terms of decertifying them and not against Mexico.

Second, I would appreciate, again, an explanation of something

that a couple of the other members of the panel have touched on,

and that is why the administration has failed to take advantage of

the very, very broad authority that I presume lawyers on your

staff, and I know you are very familiar with, under, for example,

22 U.S.C. Section 2364. It is very broad authority for the President

to, simply by notifying the specified Members of Congress of his intention, very, very broad authority to continue or expand military

assistance, which is, as you said, to these countries that can be

used for eradication and counternarcotics efforts, why the administration has not sought to take advantage of that.

Obviously, they are aware of it, because it is a longstanding statute provision, the waiver provision, going back 36 years. There

were two Members of this Congress last year that wrote to General

McCaffrey specifically requesting that that action take place.

Mr. GELBARD. I know nobody here is going to sit and question

the decision of the President to have decertified Colombia led by a

clearly corrupt President who has had a history of involvement

with drug traffickers, of soliciting and receiving drug money going

back to 1982, a clear history, no question. All of the information

is out there.

I personally sat down with then Candidate Samper in November

1993, and told him we had exquisite intelligence which indicated

from lots and lots of sources, now out in the public domain, that

he and his associates were soliciting and receiving drug funds for

their campaign. He denied it, of course.

33

I told him he needed to stop right then, because we would know

if it continued and the relationship with him, if it continued and

he were elected President, would be bad.

He went back to Colombia and it continued. The proof is out

there now about soliciting and receiving more than $6.6 million in

drug funds. We have seen the consequences.

The President took the decision to decertify Colombia, a very important decision based on the test of the law, which was whether

the government was cooperating with us. The government was not

cooperating with us.

The test of the law was also applied in the case of Mexico and

the President believed, and I believe, that President Zedillo was cooperating with us.

The President hasn’t made his decisions for this year for 1996.

That will come out toward the end of this month. But there have

been clear-cut cases, examples of progress in terms of our cooperation with Mexico during President Zedillo’s administration.

The lack of institutional capabilities in Mexico, I think, were fairly clear compared to Colombia. We have a strong, honest police

with strong, dedicated, honest leadership.

Mr. BARR. In Mexico?

Mr. GELBARD. In Colombia.

Mr. BARR. OK. Good.

Mr. GELBARD. We have the same in the Prosecutor General’s Office. We now have in General Bedoya, a serious, honest person who

wants to work with us in closer ways than ever before on counternarcotics and, as I mentioned, for that reason we have taken the

step of now allocating funds directed to the armed forces for the

first time out of my budget.

President Zedillo and many of his ministers have now been trying to push for much better results in Mexico, and over the course

of 1996, I think, we have already seen some dramatic changes.

For example—and, Congressman, knowing your distinguished

record as a prosecutor, you would understand this—they have, for

the first time, started extraditing their own nationals, without

precedent. They deported to the United States Juan Garcia Abrego,

who I mentioned earlier, who has now received, as I mentioned, 11

life terms and many others. These are very important, unprecedented steps.

We have begun cooperation with Mexico in counternarcotics with

their army and we are seeing very strong, positive results as a result of that military-to-military cooperation, now engaged in interdiction as they had already been engaged in eradication.

We are seeing seizures up significantly in Mexico as a result of

cooperation that we have with the Army, with the Air Force and

with certain police elements.

They have now passed a major money-laundering law for the

first time and they have implemented it and already making cases.

They have passed an organized crime law, modernizing the tools

that you, as a former prosecutor, are familiar with, that in most

countries are novel ideas, such as allowing evidence from wiring

tapping that is court authorized to be used in a court of law, which

had not been allowed before.

34

Arrests are up of drug traffickers, arrests are up—both domestic

and foreigners who are in the country. Seizures are up of heroin.

They are up something like 79 percent in Mexico. Seizures of cocaine are up.

So we think there has been progress under President Zedillo, but

in terms of the contrast—and I obviously can’t predict where the

President is going to come out on certification. In fact, the recommendations haven’t even gone to him yet.

Mr. BARR. The second question that I had, please, about why the

President has not sought the waiver and what—— Mr. GELBARD. First, what we did—what we were—what we did

concur with were the efforts in the House International Relations

Committee to get an amendment to the law to permit this. As I

said earlier, unfortunately, the Congress failed to pass that amendment, and I regret that.

Mr. BARR. I am talking about the existing law.

Mr. GELBARD. I am talking about the existing law—of trying to

change the existing law about prohibition on FMF and FMS. We

have been working with the issue of a 614 waiver. I also know that

the Congress in the past has criticized the administration for over

use of the 614 waiver.

So we do hope to be able to provide assistance to the military.

But once again, this is a relatively small part of overall assistance

to Colombia. The more important issue, I think, is that we, through

my budget, which is the main source of funds far and away to Colombia, are going to be providing this year equipment and support

worth $147.8 million to Colombia. That is an extraordinary

amount.

Mr. BARR. But why hasn’t the administration sought the—and I

maybe disagree with you. I think the waiver in 22 U.S. 2364 is

very broad. Why hasn’t the administration used that as a tool to

get assistance directly to the military and the police in Colombia?

Mr. GELBARD. Assistance to the police has gone through.

Mr. HASTERT. I think we will come back with a second round and

be able to ask those questions.

Mr. BARR. OK.

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having this hearing.

Mr. Ambassador, in preparing for this hearing I was struck by

some of the strength of the remarks made by various officials in

our government about President Samper. In your testimony on

page 4 and again you repeated it, I think, in questioning with Mr.

Barr, that you reached the conclusion that the President has aided

and abetted drug traffickers and that led to, in part, to the decision

to revoke his visa.

I was reading an observation by our Drug Czar, I think our new

national Drug Czar, Drug Policy Director, Mr. McCaffrey, who indicated that he has been—the President has been complicit with

international criminals. I think even our Ambassador to that country made the observation that although he says all sorts of things,

he has done very little and he has no friends in Washington.

As someone who is coming to this committee afresh, I have read

and I have heard you say today that there is an observation that

35

$6.6 million found its way apparently into President Samper’s campaign coffers from drug traffickers. I have heard you—I hadn’t read

it before, but I heard you say for the first time that apparently you

have uncovered a history of that type of transaction since 1982.

Is it the conclusion of the administration that the acceptance of

these funds from questionable characters equals he must be

complicit and therefore coddling or caving into drug traffickers,

narcotraffickers, or is there additional evidence that that is, in fact,

the case?

I guess what I am getting at is, I suppose one could make the

argument that he has accepted a campaign contribution. He wrote

a letter to Congress saying that he would do certain things; he

didn’t do it. Therefore, it must be the campaign contribution

equaled he didn’t get the money laundering statutes passed

through his Congress. Or is there other evidence that you are familiar with that leads you to that conclusion?

Mr. GELBARD. The Cali Cartel has never been known to have

provided support without a quid pro quo. We believe that there

are—there is information which causes us to believe that there

were direct consequences of the receipt of these funds.

Mr. LATOURETTE. OK. I think that is an important—at least to

me, it is an important question, because I don’t think that you

would argue that merely, as Mr. Barr, I think, was asking you, the

mere acceptance of campaign contributions from people of questionable character equals that you do what they want you to do in contravention to the best interest of your Nation, certainly.

Mr. GELBARD. The President made the decision to revoke the

visa under a provision of the law which deals with individuals who

aid and abet drug traffickers.

Mr. LATOURETTE. OK. If I could fast forward now to the present

day, and I was very interested in Mr. Mica’s questioning and also

your showing us the Forbes Magazine piece. I don’t think there is

anything wrong with a country promoting itself and saying that it

is a nice place to visit, has a strong economy. But there have been

other things in the news recently. In particular I was interested in

a raid that apparently occurred down at the end of January in Colombia at a drug manufacturing center, and I have observed two

spins put on that.

One is that it was a huge distribution or manufacturing center

that could have supplied up to half the manufactured cocaine down

in Colombia on an annual basis. I have also read sort of a sarcastic

piece that says, well, they knew about it for a long time and they

waited until the recertification decision was coming up here in the

United States in March and that is when they sprung it.

Do you have an observation as to whether this is window dressing or whether or not this is evidence of increased and enhanced

drug enforcement activities and the redoubling of the effort by the

Colombian Government?

Mr. GELBARD. I don’t believe that the Colombian police or the Colombian Army or the Colombian Air Force would undertake a laboratory raid because of any proximity to certification. We have a

great deal of trust in them and their leadership and that is why

we work with them so closely. But I think this goes to, in fact, part

of my own experience.

36

I was Ambassador to Bolivia when during part of that time—this

goes to also some of your questioning, Congressman—we had a

President then in Bolivia, Jaime Paz Zamora, who had been corrupted by the drug traffickers, and his visa was also revoked, by

the way.

We were working very closely with the Bolivian police and Bolivian Air Force on some significant counternarcotics achievements,

on a separate track from what the government itself was doing and

the governmental leadership, and it is possible to do that.

We have a very close collaborative relationship with the police,

the Army, the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Likewise, I assume the activity that occurred

maybe a week ago, I understand there was an 11-city sweep that

occurred down in Colombia relative to rooting out suspected trafficking activity, that you would put in the same category?

Mr. GELBARD. Well, what I would say is that, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t think it is a coincidence that suddenly the government

has moved at the end of December to get the asset forfeiture law

passed; that suddenly we have seen them initial—agree and initial

the maritime interdiction agreement, which we have been pursuing

for a few years; that suddenly they are having an extraordinary

session of their Congress next week to try to discuss a sentencing

law.

We happily will take the results. They are important results. But

the timing isn’t coincidental.

Mr. LATOURETTE. That was what I was going to ask you. Although you may question their timing, you consider them to be significant progress on the part of the Colombian Government?

Mr. GELBARD. On those issues, once again, I think the certification process helps.

Mr. LATOURETTE. OK. If I could just ask you a technical question

relative—on the extradition question. Am I correct in my understanding that in order for Colombia to modify their policy on extradition there would have to be a change to their constitution? Am

I correct on that?

Mr. GELBARD. There are two interpretations. There is one school

of thought which says they have to modify the 1991 constitution

and in that case, the Cali Cartel clearly was able to buy enough

votes in the constitutional convention to exclude that.

There is another school of thought which says that the bilateral—the treaty we have with Colombia, which I think is the 1979

treaty, would override the constitutional provision and that apparently is going to be taken to the highest court in Colombia soon.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GELBARD. Thank you, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. A couple of quick questions and then I think we

will go on a round of quick followup questions, if we could.

Mr. Ambassador, one of the obvious things of the whole drug

war, multinational drug war, you can grow coca leaf, turn it into

paste, transport it, remanufacture it into cocaine, crack; same with

heroin, and the poppy and the heroin. It comes in—most of it at

least comes into this country wholesale, retailed, retailed again,

37

sold on the street, literally multiplying its value not by tens or by

hundreds but by thousands, sometimes millions of factors.

That money—in order for all that work to be done, there is no

value in all of that movement unless the money comes back to the

person who is in charge. Money laundering probably is one of the— is the tie to this. What nation in the world is No. 1 in money laundering? Can you give me a crack at that.

Mr. GELBARD. The United States.

Mr. HASTERT. What country is No. 2?

Mr. GELBARD. Hard to say. Let me say, I fully agree with you.

This is why we have tried to put major emphasis on a money laundering initiative that is included in Presidential Directive 42 on

international crime.

We have tried now to marshal all of our resources in the U.S.

Government through Treasury, Federal Reserve, Justice, and the

State Department and others, to work with countries to put major

emphasis on antimoney laundering, much more than ever before.

Secretary Rubin, in fact, chaired a little over a year ago a hemispheric conference on money laundering and we are pressing governments such as Colombia to take the strongest possible action.

An example of Samper’s cynicism was at the Miami Hemispheric

Summit, where he called for a hemispheric convention on money

laundering and Colombia hadn’t even criminalized money laundering yet.

They subsequently passed a weak money laundering law. We are

now pressing them to toughen that law and then to take other

measures.

We are doing the same with other governments in the region,

whether they are large governments, such as Venezuela, Mexico,

which, as I say, has now adopted a tough money laundering law.

Or even small Caribbean countries which are used as centers for

dirty money, such as Antigua. But we are doing the same also

around the world, and this has been a Presidential initiative.

Mr. HASTERT. In fact, the United States is No. 1. Mexico is probably No. 2. Panama is probably No. 3 and, you know, Colombia is

down there No. 4 or 5 or 6, which doesn’t validate anybody or give

them a license.

The fact is, all the money comes into this country and we are

doing a very poor job, because the money—drugs wouldn’t come

into this country unless the money could flow out again. I think

one of the emphases that I would say that this Congress ought to

do is take a look at how we can make our laws better and enforce

those laws.

Mr. GELBARD. Can I say, I agree with you. What’s happening,

though, when I talk to DEA and other law enforcement organizations, which work inside the United States, what they are telling

me is now the tough—there are very tough antimoney-laundering

laws in the United States and enforcement has been dramatic. The

result is that drug traffickers are now shipping their money out

by—in cash and they are shipping it out in containers.

Jim Milford, who is now the Deputy Administrator of the DEA

and was previously the head of their Miami office, has told me

about seizures of tens of millions of dollars that they have picked

up in Miami of money going out of the country on its way back to

38

Colombia. We have got to be able—the hard part is getting a handle on those containers. That is very hard.

Mr. HASTERT. We even had testimony that, as a matter of fact,

it is more difficult to pack street dollars, street cash into those containers; it takes more container volume than the drugs that come

in on them.

Mr. GELBARD. The other thing, if I could say, sir, is that we have

been working for a number of years, since the Financial Action

Task Force, which is the multilateral organization that deals with

this, based in Paris, which was set up a number of years ago, to

try to establish international standards against money laundering.

We and some of our allies in Europe and Japan have been working

together to urge countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Panama and

others, including the European countries such as Austria, which

has never ratified the Vienna Convention, to take strong action on

money laundering.

Mr. HASTERT. I have one quick question before my round is up

here. During our period of time on decertification, the Colombian

military and police continue to fly excess United States Huey helicopters. Five of them were shot out of the sky by the

narcotraffickers and guerilla armies. It took the administration

about 6 months to replace these excess helicopters, based chiefly on

trying to get legal opinions whether it was right or wrong during

this period of time.

Just as there have been sometimes delays of months in trying to

find spare parts to make the DC–3s fly, which got materials out

into the jungles, and also the herbicides that were needed, we also

delayed the delivery of the Blackhawk helicopters. I am not even

sure they are on the shores of Colombia yet. This has all happened

since basically the decertification of Colombia.

In view of the numbers of Americans dying from violence on

American streets because, in part, this happens, how can we expect

that not to happen again?

Mr. GELBARD. First of all, that had nothing to do with certification. The Blackhawk transaction is a commercial transaction

and, in fact, we and the Pentagon got Sikorsky to agree to jump

Colombia to the front of the line to get their helicopters. The first

helicopters are, in fact, arriving tomorrow in Colombia.

Second, last year we provided 12 more helicopters, 12 Huey helicopters to them. We have provided three Bell–212 helicopters and

are about to provide three more.

We have given them all the spray planes we have got worldwide.

As I mentioned, we have lost two, one to ground fire and one when

tragically an American pilot crashed. We are about to provide five

more OV–10 Bronco aircraft; two this month, three by the end of

March. We will be providing 12 more Huey helicopters within the

next month or so. So we feel we are moving this as rapidly as we

can and as rapidly as their absorptive capacity can handle.

I would point out that the operating rate in Colombia for aircraft

is lower. It is about 65 percent. It is lower than we have in Peru

and Bolivia, about 85 percent. So it is not just a question of pumping equipment in. It is also a question of maintaining that equipment well and being able to use the spare parts.

Mr. HASTERT. Getting the spare parts there?

39

Mr. GELBARD. We have provided $4 million in spare parts this

last year, too. Thank you.

Mr. BARRETT. During the course of this conversation this morning, we have heard you praise the political leadership in Mexico,

but not have such great praise for the military or police in Mexico

and, in contrast, in Colombia there has been strong praise here for

the police and military, but obviously no praise at all for the political leadership.

Can you site some examples where some of the higher regions of

the government and Colombia has undermined the hard-working

efforts of the police and the military?

Mr. GELBARD. I think the primary examples would rest in cutting their budget, first of all.

Mr. BARRETT. How much is the budget?

Mr. GELBARD. I don’t have any answers on that, but I would suggest you might want to ask General Bedoya about that. But one

would think that if, as even President Samper says, the fight

against the guerilla terrorists and the fight against drug trafficking

are as high priorities as he says they are, then their budget would

go up, the way ours did.

Second, they did nothing to try to move expeditiously on a new

sentencing law that was promised almost 3 years ago. That would,

I think, have helped enormously in terms of not just the morale,

but the rule of law for the police, who had superb performance in

capturing the leadership of the Cali Cartel. So here they captured

all of these people, but then they were brought to jail and, as I said

earlier, they have received ridiculous sentences; no forfeited assets

because the law was just passed now.

Money laundering, the money-laundering law that was finally

passed was weak and the government made no effort to make it

a serious law.

The kind of stringent anticorruption legislation, and those are

President Samper’s words, that he promised has never been presented, and on and on.

Meanwhile, a very interesting example is the cooperation between the Minister of Interior and a German citizen, an apparent

German espionage agent, named Werner Mauss. They were apparently looking to have the German Government, which ultimately

refused, broker a deal for the Cali Cartel, which would have resulted in them getting off scot free and keeping 20 percent of their

assets. That is an amazing example.

This man, Mauss, working with the Interior Minister, was also

trying to corrupt the contracting process and hurting American

companies and was also trying to make deals with the guerrillas.

He was trying to free German hostages, but he was getting the

ransom raised and getting a percentage of that. That endangered

the lives of American citizens who were held hostage.

So this is all part of what the government and President Samper

have been doing.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Thank you.

We have heard some criticism of the administration’s actions

today, but I don’t think we have heard any criticism of the decision

to pull the visa of President Samper.

40

Is there a way to turn the heat up even more? Have you considered pulling his diplomatic visa? Is that something that could be

considered? What is the next way to put the spotlight or keep the

spotlight on him?

Mr. GELBARD. We have revoked the visas of a large number of

Colombian Government officials, of ministers or former ministers,

Members of Congress. We have frozen the assets, as I say, of a lot

of the front companies.

We have considered other measures and are considering other

measures, but I would rather not get into them today.

Let me also add, though, that I think it is not coincidence at all

that when Secretary Albright recently presented our human rights

report, Colombia was clearly targeted as one of the leading offenders. One of the examples that we have looked to is the fact that

President Samper has also put into place a very harsh censorship

law against the press and I think that is another example of this

overall atmosphere we have seen. But we are considering others— other measures.

Mr. BARRETT. I am glad you mentioned the human rights concerns because that is something we haven’t talked about this morning. In your analysis, where have the majority of the human rights

violations occurred, by government officials? Specifically, where are

we seeing the human rights violations in Colombia?

Mr. GELBARD. We have been very concerned, as have nongovernmental organizations, by human rights problems, particularly

through the military.

General Bedoya, I think, has been making a major effort, as did

the former Minister of Defense and now Ambassador in Washington, Esguerra, to try to improve that situation. In fact, General

Bedoya and I discussed that issue yesterday. We feel that General

Bedoya is making serious efforts on this problem.

I have to say, though, that there is no question that the real

human rights problem has also been at the same time what the

guerilla terrorist groups have also been undertaking, the FARC,

ELN and other groups. They have kidnapped foreigners and their

own citizens. They have murdered hundreds upon hundreds of

other people. Once again, we think the institutions are trying to

make improvement. We regret very deeply that President Samper

is trying to curtail press freedom and we have spoken out quite

strongly about that.

The Congress of the United States, in its last session, approved

a new law called the Leahy amendment, under which funds from

our budget have to take into account human rights elements. We

are stringently, of course, obeying that law and are working very

closely with the Colombian Government to assure that our assistance takes into account all appropriate and serious violations.

Mr. BARRETT. So you have drawn up lists of offending units or

you will be drawing up lists?

Mr. GELBARD. Sorry?

Mr. BARRETT. Have you drawn up lists, then, of offending units

or will you be doing that?

Mr. GELBARD. Ambassador Frechette has been working very

closely with General Bedoya and the new Minister of Defense on

this issue, yes.

41

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Thank you.

Mr. HASTERT. A quick followup. You mentioned press censorship.

One of the things we try to do here is to try to keep updated on

what is going on in Colombia from the Colombia press. One of the

major papers, El Tiempo, that comes out of Colombia, apparently,

at least, in our reading, doesn’t say—they seem to be speaking out

quite bravely on a lot of issues and it really doesn’t seem that there

has been a lot of censorship, at least in our view of this. Any comment on that? Do you think El Tiempo, for instance, has been severely hampered?

Mr. GELBARD. El Tiempo is very brave. El Espectador and others

have taken very strong stands. The censorship law, if I remember

correctly, is particularly directed at television and radio and the

idea is that their licenses can be revoked.

Mr. HASTERT. OK. That narrows that down.

Mr. GELBARD. Yes.

Mr. HASTERT. Significantly.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to restate the obvious here before I start out,

and that is that none of us have any interest in defending the actions of the President of Colombia. Partly in discussions with you,

when we went down there, we didn’t meet with him. We met with

President Zedillo and others.

At the same time, one of our obligations—and, quite frankly, I

find this whole advertising campaign very insulting, about how we

make decisions here, and they got pretty bad PR advice, that—but

one of our jobs here is to make sure that there is fairness. We want

to make sure that Colombia isn’t just being used as a whipping boy

solely when the problem is far beyond that.

I want to sort through one of the difficult issues that faces us in

almost all these nations, and that is the problem of the mixing, as

President Zedillo told us, of narcoterrorists and, in fact, the revolutionary movements in those countries and how the different governments can deal with that.

For example, we get mixed up in the human rights questions and

the narcotics questions and the revolutionary groups, and those

things are not separated from each other. Often, the human rights

restrictions that—so, for example, we have had problems with

President Fujimori in the past; and when you shoot down airplanes

you aren’t necessarily reading the Miranda rights as you are shooting down the airplanes, although they make some attempts to do

that; that in Burma we have a problem there both in the electoral

process but also, up in the northern part of Burma, in trying to get

cooperation.

When we cutoff any relations, we are having trouble getting control. You see it going into the Yunnan province in China and—because of the Muslims there. It is not even clear that the National

Government of China can control that.

In Mexico, we have corruption down at the regional levels and

in their police departments, and Zedillo is concerned that that is

going to be a revolutionary—tied in with the revolutionary movements.

The question comes as to how are you distinguishing—and let me

put this in a provocative way. Is some of the reason we are isolating Colombia, which—clearly, we have seen the movie Clear and

42

Present Danger. Ambassador Busby, I think, made the funniest

statement when we were there, which was, I asked him how accurate the movie was; and he said, very accurate, except I died in the

movie.

While we see that and it is easy to focus on Colombia, we need

to make sure that the only reason we aren’t isolating Colombia is

that flowers and coffee may not be as potent as the trade that we

want to do with China or Mexico and that we balance—and I want

to see an even type of approach to all of these different countries.

I would like you, in particular, to comment on how you see the

drug trafficking and the revolutionary movements and the human

rights mixing in four of the most explosive and major drug areas

of the world: Peru, Colombia, Burma and Mexico.

Mr. GELBARD. Nobody is picking on Colombia, Congressman.

Mr. SOUDER. They deserve being picked on. The question is on

being isolated.

Mr. GELBARD. I am disliked in lots of places around the world.

We have—this hearing happens to be on Colombia. If this hearing

were on Nigeria, you would hear me say the same things but

maybe more. If this hearing were on Burma, you would hear me

saying the same things about the SLORC; and I will talk a little

bit about that, if you would like.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. What about Mexico and China?

Mr. GELBARD. We feel very strongly—I am not sure how much

the Mexicans like me, either.

My job relates to trying to develop stronger counternarcotics cooperation and results worldwide. I feel very strongly about it. This

is not the easiest job in the world, obviously; and it is sure not the

most enjoyable.

We have taken a very strong stand on these issues worldwide,

worldwide. When I came into this job, and knowing that Congressman Mica was now a Member of Congress and would be watching

me very carefully, I looked at the certification law and I said that

as long as I am the person responsible for managing this, I am

going to take this very seriously. We have seen—I think if you examine the results, you will see that there has been a significant

change in the way that this administration has dealt with certification, has dealt with money laundering, has dealt with a whole

range of these issues than ever before.

We are, obviously, concerned about trying to work a balance on

many of these issues. If you read through the various laws—and

we have to be guided by the letter and the spirit of the laws—there

are often conflicts in the laws, and there are often conflicts among

Members of Congress as they interpret the laws.

I am tremendously concerned, for example, about the fact that an

enormous amount of heroin that comes into the United States

comes from Burma, as are you. But there are also Members of Congress who are very concerned about impeding our ability to deal

with that problem.

What I am trying to do is work with the United Nations Drug

Control Program, through that kind of program, to develop a program with integrity to deal with eradicating opium poppies and

having crop substitution, particularly in the Wa area. I have been

in the Yunnan province in China. I have spent a lot of time with

43

the Chinese authorities and with others. We also see an enormous

amount of corruption in the SLORC and in lots of other places in

Burma.

In Colombia, we have been trying to develop serious programs to

deal with the ever-increasing problem, the overlay between the

guerilla terrorist movements, drug trafficking and, increasingly,

cultivation.

The phenomenon of the involvement of the guerilla terrorist

groups in drugs isn’t new. In 1985, when I became involved with

this for the first time professionally, it was quite apparent then.

The FARC at that time were guarding drug laboratories and benefiting from it. The M–19 at that time apparently was on contract

from the Medellin Cartel when they murdered a large number of

members of the Colombian Supreme Court.

This is—but the law also says that any assistance from my budget has to go 100 percent against drug trafficking. It can’t be used

for multiple purposes. But this—this is what General Bedoya and

General Serrano and I were discussing just last night, how we can

work together in certain regions of Colombia where it’s clear that

the guerrilla terrorist groups are involved very clearly in drug trafficking, in cultivation, protecting cultivation, and we can have programs that will fully be in concurrence with American law. We had

some detailed discussions about that last night. That is also why we have now explicitly put $5 million in our

budget specifically for the military of Colombia. But, at the same

time, we have to be very clear in our own minds about our own

standards and our own beliefs as well as the law regarding human

rights.

In Peru, if I can just say, yes, there were obviously a great deal

of concerns about human rights. They have less to do, in my mind,

with forcedown and shootdown of aircraft; but we also were faced

with a law that may or may not have had a certain meaning regarding civil aircraft.

As you probably know, Congressman, I led the fight to make sure

that we would be able to provide realtime intelligence support to

the Air Forces of Colombia and Peru. We are doing that now. We

are doing that with great results. But we have had to be very careful, in part because we fundamentally believe in the rule of law

and the need to have effective programs that won’t be undermined

over the medium and long term.

Mr. SOUDER. You know, once again, I want to reiterate that I believe that you have been committed and have been pushing in this

administration for that. I want to make sure that you understand,

too, that in addition to the countries that are—quite frankly have

less financial clout in the world, Burma, Colombia and some of the

others, compared to some of the bigger countries, that some of us

want to see the same pressures across the board. We are not faulting—we want to keep pushing you, but we are not necessarily

faulting where you have been.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gelbard, one of the problems with

the decertification law as we wrote it—and we wrote it back in the

1980’s—was it tied foreign aid into drug eradication or drug efforts

44

by nation; and many of the nations were poor and were dependent

on U.S. assistance, received large U.S. assistance.

One reason I don’t think it worked with Colombia too well is, actually, it’s a pretty wealthy nation. It’s one of the wealthiest in the

western hemisphere.

I think our subcommittee and Congress needs to look at imposing

some further pain on countries that don’t need this. I think Senator

Grassley is looking to multidecertifications; like the second strike,

if they decertify Colombia that we look at some real pain for that

country. So that is one thing that we may need to look at, that we

talked about.

Ambassador, the members of the committee went down; and we

went to Colombia, we went to Peru, we went to Bolivia, other

areas, Panama, Mexico. If this administration had really emasculated the interdiction program and even some of the eradication

programs, if we came back and we put together all the resources

that everyone needed or asked for—I don’t think there wasn’t anything that you all didn’t ask for that we didn’t deliver. We felt that

policy was a disaster. Our experience in looking at it proved that

it was a disaster.

Then in September—and you alluded, too, in your testimony, too,

the problem now with some of the air cover and other things that

now these folks are going to—riverine strategy, taking the stuff out

in boats and ships. In September, Barbara Larkin, Assistant Secretary of Legislative Affairs, sent the chairman, I think Mr. Gilman, notifying them of a drawdown for funds. This is—I talked

about the other pot, the FMS pot. This is your pot, under State.

That was to buy patrol boats, because we saw the problem now

with this new pattern of trafficking and other equipment.

It’s my understanding that even in September, when you told us

that this was going to be done, that nothing has been done in ordering this equipment. Is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. No, that is not correct.

We have moved to provide—this is the program under Section

506(a)(2), if I am not correct—is that right?

Mr. BARR. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. GELBARD. We have moved to try to establish the proper

agreements with the nations involved so we can send the equipment there.

The Colombian—we have needed two provisions under the law.

One is an end user agreement and the second is an agreement on

human rights. We finally received that agreement from the Colombian Minister of Defense on February 11th. We were delayed by

the Colombian Government.

Mr. MICA. So it’s the agreement?

Mr. GELBARD. That is done.

Mr. MICA. But these still haven’t been ordered, right? This equipment?

Mr. GELBARD. No. It is all ordered, and it is ready to move now

that we have—— Mr. MICA. I would have to disagree with that. I have the manufacturer back—in the back of the hearing room here, and he tells

me nothing has been done.

45

The same thing for Peru. If you turn to the administration’s letter—and I don’t know of any decertification in Peru—we will also

furnish three river patrol boat craft to Peruvian security. We are

asking for a drawdown of $13.75 million. This stuff hasn’t even

been ordered yet. They tell me it will take, after the order, 120

days, half a year, before this is produced.

So we went down in April. You requested this in September; and

nothing is done, at least as far as ordering the equipment. Is that

correct?

Mr. GELBARD. I don’t order the equipment. This is—excuse me.

This is the Department of Defense. I am sorry, but I can’t answer

for the Department of Defense on this one.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that our staff look into

this. This is absolutely uncalled for.

Now, we have talked about moving to eradication; and we—I

have a confidential report here that we had 12 aircraft in the air

on eradication. Then we went down to eight, and now we are down

to five. Is that correct? Are we now flying only five or is this

wrong?

Mr. GELBARD. No, that is not right.

Mr. MICA. How many are we flying?

Mr. GELBARD. I have said several times today, Congressman,

that we have nine spray planes there. We had 11. Two were destroyed, including the loss of life. We have increased the number

of helicopters substantially in Colombia, and we now provide something like two-thirds of—— Mr. MICA. What about the eradication?

Mr. GELBARD. Can I give you some details?

Mr. MICA. How many eradication planes are flying today?

Mr. GELBARD. I am just about to give you the details.

We have nine U.S. Government-owned Turbo Thrush spray

planes. We have—— Mr. MICA. That are flying today?

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. What about—— Mr. GELBARD. We have a Casa–212 transport aircraft, a Cessna

208 helicopter or aircraft, three Bell–212 helicopters. Plus we have

a very large number of helicopters that we have provided to the

Government of Colombia, to the police, including 12 additional helicopters that we gave them last year.

Mr. MICA. What about the status, finally—I guess, my time is

running out here. It’s my understanding, in 1994, that the Department of State installed an individual without any prior practical or

technical experience in counternarcotics operation as the director of

the NAS, Narcotics Affairs Section, of the Embassy. Is that individual still there or the same person in charge since 1994, do you

know?

Mr. GELBARD. The individual who is heading the narcotics assistance section has been doing an outstanding job. Ambassador

Frechette obviously feels that this is the highest priority in his

work; and he spends personally a great deal of time on these

issues, as does his deputy.

We have a very large staff in that Embassy. In fact, we just

hired a retired colonel, whom I personally know, to run all of our

46

air assets. The total amount of air assets that we have, as I say,

is extraordinarily large.

Mr. MICA. So we have the same person in charge of the air?

Mr. GELBARD. We have the same person in charge.

One point I want to make on the 506(a) program, by law the

equipment provided under that law—under that program—comes

from stocks and inventories in the U.S. Government. So I am confused as to whether anything would be ordered from any private

companies. But the law states, as I understand it, and I could be

wrong, that it’s a drawdown authority from stocks and inventories.

Mr. MICA. Well, when this is over, I would like to introduce you

to the vendor, who is in the back. It is also stated in here what

you would be purchasing.

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from Florida, it is time to move on.

The gentleman from Georgia.

I might add, just for the record, too, you characterized that as

a confidential report. That was a private sector report and not a

government report. Is that correct?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

The gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Previously, when we were having a discussion, Mr. Ambassador,

you mentioned that at some length, as I recall, the great steps that

Mexico has taken, the laws and so forth; and you were very kind

to mention the work that my office had done in Atlanta in drug

cases. Prosecutorial offices, of course, wherever they are located,

whether they are located in Mexico, Colombia or Atlanta, the success of their efforts can be measured only by the willingness and

the ability of prosecutorial offices to carry out the laws that are

passed.

Passing laws that look great on the surface really means very little and sometimes can be worse than not passing them at all because then it becomes a smoke screen that is held up as evidence

of great progress that is being made simply because they passed

these tough laws, but that is not being used, then we still have a

very serious problem. We all know, I think, today that the problem

that we have is with extradition and that no progress has been

made on that. I know the administration is trying to get the Government of Colombia to do something about that.

But I think you mentioned Mexico, and I am not really sure that

Mexico’s—that the track record of the Mexican Government in recent years really merits a great deal of compliment. Isn’t it true

that we really have just over the last 4 years requested literally

dozens of extraditions that they have only complied in three cases,

the Mexican Government, that is?

Mr. GELBARD. We obviously feel that extradition is one of the

fundamental tools worldwide, and we have been pressing nations

around the world to negotiate, implement, ratify, implement world

class, up-to-date extradition treaties. Let me say that we have been

very pleased under Attorney General Reno’s leadership in particular that we have now been successful in negotiating a series of

new extradition treaties. Recently one in Bolivia came under

force——

47

Mr. BARR. That is fine. I will put into the record that the administration has done a great job in these areas. I am talking about

Mexico.

Mr. GELBARD. What has happened with Mexico, as I said earlier,

is that they started for the first time to extradite nationals early

last year, and this was important because it was without precedent. Under their law, it says they can extradite people under exceptional circumstances. We obviously would like to see them extradite an awful lot more people. I don’t have the exact numbers

that they have extradited so far, but we clearly would like to see

many more.

Mr. BARR. It is my information that there have been only three,

and one of those was a U.S. citizen. So I—but—— Mr. GELBARD. In terms of U.S. citizens and other nationals, I believe—and I would be happy to get you the statistics on this—that

they have extradited a great deal more. The question is really how

many of their own nationals have they extradited, how many they

are prepared to do.

[The information referred to follows:]

In 1996, there were 13 extraditions altogether. Two of these were Mexican nationals; the others were U.S. citizens or other nationalities.

Mr. BARR. That is the question, and it is my information that

they have only extradited two. If you have differing information, I

would be happy to receive it.

Mr. GELBARD. We have been pressing them to do more. When the

new Attorney General was just here 2 weeks ago, the Attorney

General, I, and others, General McCaffrey, have been putting them

at the very top of our priority list.

Mr. BARR. I appreciate that, and I understand we have been

pressing the Colombian Government to do more, notwithstanding

the problems we have been having with the president himself down

there. Again, I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I feel, and I

think you can gather, that maybe some other members of the panel

share my concern here that we are applying one standard to Colombia and a very different standard to Mexico.

I would like to, in the remaining short period of time that I have,

to return to an area that we left unfinished earlier, although in

subsequent discussions you touched on some of the things that I

was going to mention also. The letter from September 1996 concerning the waiver under 506(a)(2), and that is fine, although I am

concerned, as Mr. Mica is, that there is a big difference between

the documents being sent forward and the action being actually

taken to get the equipment in the hands of the folks down there

in Colombia.

But again, has there been no effort to look at the other waiver

authority contained in the same section in the earlier paragraph

(a)(1) in terms of assistance? I think it is particularly important not

so much in the large picture but in the small picture that our military, if the President would look at this, could be getting some

much needed equipment down there very, very quickly. We know

that we are having—they are having a problem with the helicopters and delays in getting them repaired, the DC–3, the miniguns which they have expended the money on their own because

apparently somebody made the decision that the use of mini-guns

48

would violate human rights or something. But isn’t the authority

that the President could be exercising under (a)(1) a tool that could

help here?

Mr. GELBARD. Let me just get back to the issue under (a)(2). According to law, we have to have guarantees about the use of equipment, and we now also have to have guarantees about human

rights provisions. The Colombian Government only gave us those

assurances on the 11th of this month. We are now moving, and we

have, the military are moving to move that equipment to Colombia

rapidly.

Mr. BARR. Could I just suggest, to help you all out, that we have

the gentleman here today, and you deal with him on regular basis,

and he has stated, I think, very accurately that tremendous—and

he has worked with us in this area; why does it take that long?

You have the men here. You deal with them on a regular basis.

Mr. GELBARD. Because Ambassador Frechette felt he needed assurances from the Minister of Defense, and the Minister of Defense

just gave it to him now. I am—in the terms of 506(a)(1), I have got

to study that, and I would like to give an answer for the record on

that.

Mr. BARR. I would appreciate that very much.

Mr. HASTERT. I would like to state we are going to ask that the

authorities submit written questions and have those questions answered and have the record left open.

[The information referred to follows:]

In order to direct that assistance be furnished under the authority of section

506(a)(1) of the FAA, the President would have to first determine and report to Congress that: (a) an unforeseen emergency exists which requires immediate military

assistance to a foreign country or international organization; and (b) the emergency

requirement cannot be met under the authority of the Arms Export Control Act or

any other law except this section. On the other hand, in order to provide assistance

under section 506(a)(2) of the FAA, the President would have to determine and report to Congress that it is in the national interest of the United States to direct

a drawdown for, among other things, the purposes and under the authorities of

chapter 8 of part I of the FAA (relating to international narcotics control assistance).

The assistance being provided to the CNP and the Colombian military for CN assistance in accordance with a section 506(a)(2) FAA drawdown directed by the President on September 31, 1996, is part of a large package of CN assistance designed

to strengthen and maintain the CN efforts of a number of countries in South America and the Caribbean, including Colombia. Under these circumstances, it was determined that section 506(a)(2) was the most appropriate authority under which to authorize this drawdown, although it is not inconceivable that CN assistance could be

provided under the authority of section 506(a)(1), given the appropriate circumstances.

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, and I will be as brief as possible.

In your earlier testimony, you talked about increased levels, principally from your budget, dealing with the—although if I broke it

down—22.6 going to 440 million, if I remember that correctly. Will

the certification decision upcoming on March 1st affect the State

Department’s commitment to increasing these dollar amounts in

this next fiscal year?

Mr. GELBARD. No.

Mr. LATOURETTE. There is also a——

Mr. GELBARD. There is a waiver authority, one, against, I don’t

know what the decision will be, but there is a waiver authority

49

under the law so we can continue to provide counternarcotics assistance.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Something that hasn’t been touched on yet in

response to the certification decision in 1996 and in response to the

polling, and I understand we have a blacklist of some little over

300 Colombians that are considered to be front companies. Has

there been retaliation by the Colombian Government either in

trade advantages or other activities vis-a-vis the United States

Government or American businesses?

Mr. GELBARD. I think to a degree there has been. But I think it

is hard to disaggregate that from the standard high levels of corruption which exist. One example was a contract recently for their

national civil registry which alluded to earlier where a German

company, Siemens, appears to have found ways to gain unfair advantage on the contract, perhaps by bribing. Bribes are tax deductible under German law, amazingly. They were continually disqualified after they had won the contract, by coincidence. Then it came

down to between a French and an American company, and my understanding was the American company was clearly best qualified.

Ultimately they decided not to award the contract. We have seen

other cases, and I have heard of other cases from American companies, but I think they would prefer I not mention them by name.

Mr. LATOURETTE. I understand.

I want to yield the rest of my time to Mr. Mica, but this is a published report that it talked about. Even though you declined to

mention specifically other measures the U.S. Government may

take, there is a published report today that talks about airline

flights in Colombia and other things that may or may not occur in

the course of the certification process. If you put—I would appreciate the opportunity to send a written inquiry about that. My particular question is the impact that it would have on American concerns doing business in Colombia. I will be glad to supply this in

writing to you, Mr. Ambassador.

With that, I would like to yield the balance of my time to Mr.

Mica.

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection.

Mr. MICA. Bob, back to this reason that we can’t seem to get this

equipment. We are trying to get things down to these countries

that have been cooperating also, and here is a letter from the Department of State, September 14th. It says Peru has been cooperating, and talks about the great cooperation, and they want to get

river patrol boats to the Peruvian security forces to intercept the

cocaine base, asked for the money. You said somebody in DOD is

holding up some of this. This is your money; this isn’t FMF.

Mr. GELBARD. As I said, I don’t have the letter in front of me,

so it is hard for me to answer. Is this the 506(a)(2) program?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. GELBARD. That is from military inventories and drawdowns.

It is off the shelf. Under the law, it is off the shelf——

Mr. MICA. That is not what it says here, because it talks about

some specifics that will be acquired to—in any event, Bob, is there

somebody at DOD that is not cooperating that we can talk to? We

want to get this equipment to them. I don’t care if it’s off the shelf.

It is not in the Yungay, where it needs to be, or in the Riverine

50

program. So what is the problem? You wrote us asking for this in

September, or the State did, and it is still not there.

Mr. GELBARD. This is done by the Defense Supply Agency. I will

be happy to get you specific answers on this within the next few

days.

[The information referred to follows:]

The ‘‘river patrol boats’’ will be provided to Peru for counternarcotics (CN) assistance as part of the FAA section 506(a)(2) drawdown directed by the President on

September 31, 1996. This drawdown included CN assistance for a number of countries, including Peru. Prior to delivery of any of the assistance, we needed to assure

ourselves that appropriate end-use, security and retransfer assurances were in place

from all recipient countries, and that end-use monitoring systems would be effective.

Once that process was completed, DSAA was authorized to begin to execute the

drawdown. On February 21, DSAA ordered the Special Operations Command to

draw down three Boston Whalers, which are scheduled to be delivered to Peru in

March, 1997.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GELBARD. Let me just add I am as frustrated as you on this

because, when the bureaucracy doesn’t move, I know who eventually gets blamed. But I also want to see the equipment out there,

more importantly. I want to see them having this stuff that they

could use, whether it is airplanes or boats or anything else; and it

is a source of eternal frustration for me when they don’t move faster.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I will yield my few remaining seconds to

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. In a fairness question, you have rejected the ability

of the President of Colombia to travel on a visa. We have a report

here that suggests that one of the Governors of Mexico has been

also in—implied that he is involved with a lot of drug money and

drug trafficking. Would you be willing to look at revoking his visa

as well?

Mr. GELBARD. We look at numerous examples with frequency.

Our bureau does try to examine this with seriousness, so we are

prepared to look at all information.

Mr. SOUDER. We will followup.

Mr. HASTERT. Just two very quick questions before our time is

done. First of all, there has been a lot of talk. You talked about the

efforts of the—some aspects of Colombian Government, especially

people like Mr. Valdivieso or and General Serrano and others. Will

you brief the new Secretary of State on the progress that Colombia

has made, certain aspects before the decision on certification or decertification is made?

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. That will happen?

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. In the process, whether Colombia is certified, decertified, whether there are waivers, whether there are certain

areas of aid moved forward, as you talked about, what exactly will

be the issue or the determinant factors of whether there is certification or decertification that will take place in this coming year?

Mr. GELBARD. We have been outlining, as we have each of the

last several years, specific measures for the Government of Colombia which we hope they will undertake during the course of this

calendar year to improve performance. We have—I can, for examVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
51

ple, give you a list of things we asked them to do for 1996. We

asked them to attack corruption, pass strong laws and regulate the

finance industry, insure key traffickers don’t run their empires

from jail, expose front companies, convict major traffickers with serious sentences, reconsider the current policy of non-extradition of

nationals, improve eradication and look at granular herbicides, enhance interdiction including rapid response by the military, better

cooperation and expand courts and customs, and so on.

We are very transparent about this, and we have periodic discussions. Ambassador Frechette meets regularly, thanks to the excellent cooperation we have had with the foreign minister and others,

and they go over this every couple of months. I have had periodic

conversations here with their charge before the Ambassador came.

We have gone over it in very clear specific terms.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank you for your testimony today. It has been

very candid, and we wish you great success in your work.

As we welcome two very distinguished generals, I also want to

recognize two others in the audience, two senators are with us

today. The two senators have a response to the law for the asset

forfeiture and the current proposed amendment to the Constitution

on extradition. We would like to welcome Senator Herman Vargas

and Senator Claudia Blum. Thank you and thank you for being

with us today.

At this time, it is a great pleasure and honor to introduce General Serrano. The general has combated internal corruption in the

police force, captured six of the seven leaders of the Cali Cartel.

The people of Colombia and the people of the United States are indebted to him for his great service on the war on drugs.

With him today is General Bedoya, the decorated, certainly accomplished commander in his field. He leads the national military.

He has brought his forces into the fray to support the war on drugs

and certainly is a very fine complement and leader in this area and

works arm and arm with General Serrano.

We thank both of you gentlemen for being here today, and we

look forward to your testimony. Because you are a national of another country, we will not ask you to swear your testimony. We

would ask you to begin your testimony, General Serrano. We also

welcome the translator, Mr. Acevedo.

STATEMENTS OF MAJOR GENERAL JOSE ROSSO SERRANO, DIRECTOR, COLOMBIAN NATIONAL POLICE; AND GENERAL

HAROLD BEDOYA PIZARRO, COMMANDER, COLOMBIAN

ARMED FORCES

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you, Chairman Hastert and friends of Colombia. It is an honor for me to be here with you today. Together

with other Colombians, amongst them Mr. Herman Vargas and

Senator Claudia Blum, those senators that were in charge of proposing the bill for the asset forfeiture. Thank you, Mr. Hastert and

Mr. Mica, for having gone to Colombia to understand the problems

firsthand.

From my position as head of the Colombian police, we have been

charged with carrying out the fight against the international narcotics organizations. In less than 6 months we incarcerated the

heads of the most important criminal organization in the world.

52

For those purposes, we had the aid and support of the United

States, especially with the help of members of the CIA and the

DEA that work with us shoulder to shoulder. We also received help

from the Department of State through the NAS.

I have got to tell you, however, that the narcotics trade in Colombia is extremely complex. Because having two coasts that can be

used to bring in precursor chemicals, a coast that we, of course, do

not build or otherwise—these coasts also allow and facilitate the

exit of the drugs from Colombia.

Additionally, we are able to transfer and transport money, and

it is also very easy for the narcotics traffickers to travel by plane.

All this means that we have an international problem.

We are all, in part, responsible. The way I believe that we need

to solve this problem, after having fought the fight for more than

10 years, is that we all recognize our own errors and we don’t start

putting the blame on our neighbor. Sometimes I hear some countries saying that I’m only a transit country. But also in those countries there are people that allow those planes to arrive and then

they turn around and send the drugs on to the countries in which

it is consumed.

I am well aware of many of the details of what is a war. We have

always received tremendous help from the United States. If we had

not received that help, the problem today would be even greater.

There are some people here that do understand this very well. For

example, General McCaffrey, Mr. Constantine, and others as well

as many Members and Representatives and Senators of this important Congress that understand well the dimensions of this problem.

The work that we do, we do because we believe in it, because we

are aware of the fact that narcotics trafficking is evil. It has injured the world community, and it is the worst plague this century

has known. We do not want to see our children or our grandchildren as drug consumers, nor do we want their lives to be taken

because they have fallen to drug trafficking.

In Colombia, along with the Colombian Armed Forces, a tremendous effort is being undertaken, of course, under the direction and

leadership of President Samper, because he is the commander and

chief of the Colombian Armed Forces. Little could be done, in reality, if he did not personally support these efforts.

This year a special tax has been imposed—a war tax, $74 million

will be—$74 million will be received through this mechanism, and

they will be invested in communications equipment and other vehicles and in strengthening our intelligence apparatus. Those resources, added to the resources that we get from the United States,

will allow that in the year that is before us the final results will

be even better.

You all well know that Colombia has three principle problems in

relation to narcotics trafficking. Unfortunately, we have marijuana

that we find through eradication. When we approached the end of

that problem, cocaine appeared. Now as we approach the end of the

cocaine problem, the opium poppy appears. It is the only country

in the entire world where all three of these problems have appeared. For these reasons, our job is difficult and complex, but in

this fight we have obtained some satisfactory results.

53

In Colombia, the narcotics organizations are true multinational

entities. They have administrative staff, they have managers, they

have legal representatives, they have heads of security. This is the

type of organization that we have had to fight, and that is what

we have to do.

I would ask that greater efforts be done on the part of the United

States to impede the flow of precursor chemicals. Without acetone,

caustic acid, or sulfuric acid there would be no drug production. As

far as that is concerned, no efforts have been had in that area.

The amount of money that is moved around and the precursor

chemical trade is perhaps as big as the amount of money produced

by the drug trade itself. For these reasons, beyond asset forfeiture

and money laundering, an effort must be made on the part of the

international banking community so that not as many dollars find

their way into this trade. One particular narcotics trafficker had $150 million in barrels

and no bank noticed its movement. Last year tremendous efforts

were made to eradicate. Mr. Hastert, you personally know how difficult it is to actually fumigate in the Colombian jungle. Despite all

of these difficulties, we have fumigated over 40- and 17,000 acres

of amapola, or opium poppy, and we have destroyed more than 800

laboratories. Last week we destroyed a laboratory that had—that

was more than 4 kilometers wide. Last night I was informed of the

destruction of another large laboratory in the south of Colombia.

This means that our work is ongoing and permanent and that

with good help and good understanding this war will be won. The

capture of different criminals was spectacular last year and the

year before. After drawing up extensive plans with the CIA and the

DEA, actions were had against the Cali Cartel, and the cartel was

brought to its knees. One particular narcotics trafficker, Santacruz

Londono, was able to initially avoid actions of the police; but after

40 days of running from us, he died fighting the police. Let that

be a lesson to all the other narcotics traffickers because we will

fight them, and we are controlling them.

But in this war, economic aid is very important. Our countries

are poor countries, and we do not have all the means and resources

to throw at this fight. While it is true that we do receive aid, it

would be important that this aid be increased so that we can increase the fumigation efforts and the eradication efforts. The only

country in the world that fumigates is Colombia. In these fumigation efforts we have lost five helicopters and two airplanes that

have been shot down by the illicit narcotics traffickers.

I would like to clarify something about the presence of guerilla

groups in the areas in which there are illicit crops. It is undeniable

that the Colombian guerilla groups have lost any remnant of political ideology and that they have now become allies of narcotics traffickers. This clarification is very important when considerations are

being dealt with on helping the Armed Forces help us in the fight.

If they had helicopters or different resources, they could protect us

so we are not killed while we carry out our activities.

I would also like to briefly mention the impact that the decertification has had. For me it has been very difficult to explain to my

men that fight—the daily fight and convince them and tell them

that, while they support our efforts, while they admire our efforts

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and our sacrifices, they still have decertified us. I am not a politician nor do I understand political considerations, but what I do

know is that in my country we feel stigmatized because of this decertification. My 11,000 police officers would be more motivated to

continue in this fight because, before being police officers, we are

Colombians.

On the other hand, the decertification has affected us severely in

the FMS cases that have to do with the procurement of spare parts

for helicopters, munitions and explosives, and training. I believe

that those resources have been sorely missed, and I have always

believed that the less aid, the more narcotics trafficking.

We have always used all the aid and resources that have been

granted us as transparently as possible. The results are well

known to you, Mr. Hastert, and, above all, you know that we are

committed to this fight. We will not abate. We will win this war.

We are going to win this fight in spite of the pain that visiting the

different funeral services of my men that I have to go to. One given

day I had to go to four funerals, and at the end of the day I could

no longer cry. I no longer had words to explain to the widows of

my men why it is that the narcotics traffickers have killed their

husbands.

My men are killed in the jungles of Colombia, and they are willing to sacrifice their lives because they recognize that narcotics

trafficking is a plague because it brings tremendous stigmatism to

Colombia. But rest assured, Mr. Hastert, that the great majority of

Colombians are honest and are committed to fighting this fight.

Not even death has kept us from this fight. Let me tell you that

since 1980, more than 3,000 of my men have died. Pablo Escobar

in Medellin in 1 year alone had 500 killed. He used to pay $2,000

per policeman. In spite of this situation, we have never, never fallen back. On the contrary, we remain vigorous, we remain motivated in the fight. You have heard us in the past, and we are willing to continue in the future.

I would like to end giving you a message not as a policeman but

as a Colombian citizen. My country needs to be certified. My men

are more motivated when they work as certified. Thank you very

much.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, General.

[The prepared statement of Jose Rosso Serrano follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. I might ask that we are kind of bumping up into

some time constraints, so if General Bedoya could summarize his

statement.

General BEDOYA. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee,

thank you for having invited me to this meeting. I would like to,

as the oldest soldier in Colombia and commander of the Colombian

Armed Forces, express to you the friendship that the Colombian

Armed Forces have with the United States. That is not new, but

that was born when many years ago together we fought together

to defend liberty, freedom, democracy in Korea.

I want to let you know that the Colombian Armed Forces entered

into the narcotics fight completely last year. The government considered at that time that it was an aggression, an attack against

the people of Colombia and against the country as a whole. It was

also decided that the police did not have the capacity nor the

means to fight groups such as the ones that they were fighting.

Additionally, in the jungles of Colombia, which comprises about

a third of all of Colombia, it was discovered that the large cocaine

or drug processing laboratories were protected and guarded by

groups that have now become terrorist narcotics traffickers themselves.

Last year, last August 30th in the Caqueta region, we lost 26 soldiers in the battles with the narcotics traffickers. Right now we

have more than 60 soldiers that are currently kidnapped and are

in the hands of these narcotics traffickers. This is without mentioning the other efforts and other activities that we have done in

other regions such as the Guaviare and Putumayo.

But this human sacrifice has not been in vain. Beyond this we

have made significant improvements in the destruction of laboratories and in the capture of different allies. With the national police, we have been able to work together to fight and to defeat the

different elements of the narcotics trade. We as Colombians understand that we need to destroy the laboratories and the plantations

of illicit crops wherever they may be found in Colombia. But we

also understand that the problem of illicit narcotics is a regional

problem.

Many other countries such as Peru and Bolivia also fight this

plague. The United States itself deals with the problem of drug

consumption. Still other countries produce the chemical precursors

that are necessary to produce illicit drugs. An entire infrastructure

has been put into place to continue this illicit trade.

We the people of Colombia have suffered at hands—we have suffered at the hands of illicit narcotic traffickers. However, our tradition is of freedom, of working toward ending this. That is why it

is so important that this fight, this war against illicit narcotics,

that is why it is so important that we find allies, that we find coworkers, that we find the understanding necessary to eliminate the

problem.

The Colombian Armed Forces have suffered from the decertification decision. Our young officers have been unable to return to the

training courses here in the United States. The different types of

sales amongst them, the FMS cases are currently suspended or

otherwise have been suspended. It is difficult to understand how it

is that in this fight, in which all of us must work toward the soluVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
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tion, those of us who are fighting the fight in the jungles and in

the mountains are the ones that actually suffer the effects of the

decertification. In some areas we don’t even have the munitions

necessary to fight the fight, much less helicopters.

On the other hand, our common enemy, the narcotics traffickers,

had at their disposition a fleet of airplanes and other equipment,

and they have no restrictions on how they might purchase things

or where they get their money.

In a frontal fight, you have to clearly determine who your enemy

is. We are now the enemy. The enemy is internal narcotics that is

prevalent in the entire world.

The Colombian people can be characterized as noble, a working

people, and they also have suffered. We consider the United States

as our ally in this fight and hope that together we will continue

to fight and win the battle.

Last year alone in the activities that were carried out in the south of our country, the Colombian Armed Forces spent over $24

million of their budget. We destroyed laboratories, we destroyed

laboratories and other elements that would have been able to

produce 45 billion cocaine doses, with a possible street value of

$284 billion.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be before you

today, and with General Serrano, we are ready to answer any of

your questions.

[The prepared statement of General Bedoya follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. I thank both of the distinguished gentlemen for

being with us here today, and certainly it is an unbelievable story

to tell. Unfortunately, your colleague General Valdivieso could not

be with us today, however, we have received his statement and

that will be included also in the record.

[The prepared statement of General Valdivieso follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. Again, gentlemen, we thank you very, very much

for your presentations.

General Serrano, one of the things that happened in this city just

last week was the death and burial of a very courageous policeman.

You talked about the deaths of many of your valiant and courageous men. How many men have you lost in the last year?

General SERRANO. In 1996, we lost 36 policemen and 61 were injured.

Mr. HASTERT. General Bedoya, how many men did you lose?

General BEDOYA. Last year the Colombian Armed Forces lost 330

soldiers in action.

Mr. HASTERT. What about the year before?

General BEDOYA. The year before the figures are basically the

same, but added to this, you have to consider the 60 soldiers that

are currently kidnapped in the south of Colombia and 10 who are

kidnapped in the Uraba region.

Mr. HASTERT. How about General Serrano?

General SERRANO. The year before, 27 or 28 policemen were

killed, and these numbers are getting better because the Colombian

police are learning to defend themselves. But the attacks, the ferocity of the attacks has increased.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, I certainly award anybody’s comment

at all of you.

General Serrano, President Clinton’s decision to decertify Colombia on March 1, 1996, it certainly had detrimental effects on the

economy and your efforts to fight the war on drugs. How did it affect your ability to do your job?

General SERRANO. We were unable to receive $8 million in spare

parts and munitions, which is what we most use and need to fight

this fight. We also lost training. Many policemen had been coming

to the United States to prepare themselves for the war. However,

there have been efforts on the part of the State Department to send

us 12 helicopters. It is hoped that those helicopters will eventually

arrive in Colombia sometime this semester.

Mr. HASTERT. The process, the equipment that you needed last

year, and of course the DC–3 aircraft that you use for support and

for some of the drug eradication, how do you use those DC–3 aircraft and how many are in your inventory and what are their approximate ages?

General SERRANO. We have two DC–3s. These DC–3s are World

War II vintage, but they have been souped up. They have been

given new turbines, and it is a reliable airplane, but without the

constant flow of spare parts, they only last 1 or 2 months before

they need repair.

Mr. HASTERT. How do you use them?

General SERRANO. These are used basically to transport personnel to the jungle regions, because they can land on short airstrips. They are also used to transport chemicals that are needed

to carry out the fumigation.

Mr. HASTERT. Have the spare parts that are needed to keep

these airplanes flying been available?

General SERRANO. Yes. While the spare parts must be asked for,

eventually they are forthcoming.

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Mr. HASTERT. In 1995, you lost a DC–3 in a rather serious accident in August. How did that affect your counternarcotic activities?

General SERRANO. That airplane was out of service for more than

a year. It had to be sent to the United States to be repaired and

was sorely missed while it was not in service. However, it has

begun to help again.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, General. We are pleased to see you here and appreciate

your tremendous effort.

I have a question relating to mini-guns. It is my understanding

that you began a purchase from the United States in 1991 of these

mini-guns. Could you tell us what the status of that program is

and what the need of those weapons is for?

General SERRANO. The story of the mini-guns is a long one.

Mr. MICA. Well, I have 5 minutes.

General SERRANO. When I was Director, when the General was

Director of the Antinarcotics Police, the mini-guns arrived, but they

did not arrive—all of the mini-guns did not arrive. The complete

equipment that they needed did not arrive.

Efforts were made to purchase the remaining elements that were

needed for the mini-guns with our own moneys; but it was impossible. I even proposed that from our budget money be set aside, and

about this I spoke with Mr. Hastert. We are still waiting for the

authorizations to use them because now something has been said

about the police being unable to use these weapons because they

might possibly violate human rights. But they are extremely important in the fumigation activities and the fumigation runs in which

we have lost five helicopters and two airplanes.

Mr. MICA. How would the mini-guns be used again? Can you explain that?

General SERRANO. The mini-guns would be used in the helicopters, in the 206 helicopters to provide effective response when

the other helicopters are attacked, in an attempt to dissuade these

attacks from occurring.

Mr. MICA. General Bedoya, can you tell me your perspective of

the problem with these mini-guns, and maybe also the timeframe?

Was some of this equipment—well, this equipment order goes back

to 1991, and I guess that some of these problems predate the decertification; is that correct? Can you give us a little explanation of

what took place and the timing?

General BEDOYA. These special machine guns that are being referred to here are support weapons that are used to provide support to the units that actually fight. Generally, these weapons—

these are weapons that were used to support troops as they exit

from the helicopters. These are used to suppress the attacks while

the soldiers themselves are leaving the helicopters.

Mr. MICA. The problem relating to the acquisition of weapons,

the parts, predates certification, decertification?

General BEDOYA. Yes, we have had different sorts of problems in

the different sorts of sales that we have been trying to get from the

United States, among them the FMS cases, for about 4 years. Before decertification came around, the problem was some sort of

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possible for us to receive around $35 million of elements that we

would either have purchased or elements that would have been

given to us.

Mr. MICA. You talked about the guerillas and ELN. Aren’t they

violating human rights, don’t they have, at least, last count, I

thought we had five American hostages?

General BEDOYA. These terrorist groups that you refer to last

year kidnapped more than 1,000 Colombian citizens and they killed

another 1,000. These groups carry out illegal activities, and of

course they do not respect any international convention or they do

not respect any human rights.

In the different areas and regions where the narcotics production

is carried out, there are many people that are employed in this production, and when the armed forces arrive in the area, these people

complain to the armed forces of the human rights violations that

are perpetrated by these narcotics trafficking and guerilla groups.

Mr. MICA. The mini-guns that we talked about, would they be

used in this fight against the narco-terrorist guerillas?

General BEDOYA. Yes, these guns would be used to fight the narcotics-terrorist insurgence groups.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank both of the generals, not only for being here today, but

also for their tremendous work on behalf of all ciitzens of both our

countries who believe in the rule of law and in personal freedom

and in continuing the fight against the plague of drugs.

In your view, and I say this to both generals, is the fight against

narcotics simply a matter of treating it as a disease, or is it, in fact,

a war against forces of evil who seek to destroy the very foundations of our societies?

General SERRANO. To me, it is an all-out war, a war of money

that comes from illicit sources and destined to the injury of our

youth. It is a war in which there are no ethical values.

The only thing that really matters is the opulence, without heeding the consequences that the people that consume these drugs

have to face. Narcotics trafficking has indeed changed the course

that the world has taken. Today many people want to get rich

quickly through narcotics trafficking instead of working. The worse

thing is that there are many people that believe that narcotics trafficking is a business and not a crime. For this reason, it is a war

that has to be fought because of the effects that it has, the malicious effects that it has in world society.

General BEDOYA. Narcotics trafficking began sometime in the

1980’s. We are not traditionally and never have been narcotics traffickers. It is drug activities that has made the people of Colombia

poorer, and has distorted, in many cases, local economies and has

contributed to the spreading of many diseases.

In this war that has been brought, Colombians have had to fight

the hardest fight, where we have had to fight an international

Mafia that uses our country as a production center, but that has

its foundations in many other places in the world as well. To fight

this war, just as the term implies, we need special laws to fight

this war. To destroy not only the laboratories and the illicit crops

75

themselves, but also that would allow us to capture those that benefit from this terrible trade, be they in Colombia or abroad.

For this reason, it is so important that the United States, being

the country that it is that is the leader in the fight against narcotics, that they understand that the people of Colombia are victims of the activities of an internal Mafia that benefits from narcotics trafficking.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

I think both Generals made statements that recognized, or indicating that they recognize that there is a very close connection between the narcotics organizations and the guerillas. Has that information been made known to the U.S. Government?

General SERRANO. Yes, because the Government of the United

States has worked with us. In my experience, wherever there is cocaine or coca crops or opium poppy, or laboratories, these guerilla

groups provide protection. We have definitive proof. The guerilla

has established percentages that they charge per kilo of cocaine

that is produced.

They have also established fees for the entry of chemical precursors and they have established fees for the use of clandestine airstrips and also for the transportation of the different elements. All

told, we estimate that their share is about 25 percent of the value

of the cocaine that is produced and transported in the areas in

which they operate.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, will there be a chance to ask just a couple of additional questions?

Thank you.

How many guerillas do you estimate are active in Colombia right

now? We have seen published reports here of 14,000.

General BEDOYA. In order to complement the answer that was

given to your previous question, I want to let you know that here

I have documents that have been made known both to the Colombian media and the international media, and I personally want to

give these documents to you so that you can see firsthand how it

is that the relationship, the old relationship between the guerillas

and the narcotics traffickers actually is. Even though they are

dressed in the old ideologies of political fight and political insurgency, and unfortunately some other countries in the region respond to that disguise, they try to justify many times their crimes.

In response to your current question, currently there are approximately 10,000 narcotics terrorists that used to be called guerillas.

Mr. BARR. Is military aid from the United States to Colombia

being used to defeat the narco-guerillas?

General BEDOYA. The terms under which the military assistance

from the United States is supplied to Colombia does not allow its

use in the fight against guerillas. That is because there has not

been established in the eyes of the public a relationship, a direct

relationship between guerilla groups and narcotics traffickers.

Mr. BARR. But it is our government leaders that make these decisions, and in your view, have our leaders in this country been given

sufficient information to clearly understand that these are one and

the same enemy that we are fighting?

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General BEDOYA. Locally, it is understood and a well-known fact

that this relationship exists. Regionally, it is well-understood and

recognized that this relationship exists. Many times, much information has been given to the United States Embassy in Colombia,

and some of that information showing this relationship, setting out

how it operates, the General has here with him, and wishes to give

it to the subcommittee so that relationship can be more clearly understood.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, might I ask unanimous consent those documents

be made part of the record.

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection, so ordered.

[Note.—The information referred to can be found in subcommittee files.]

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Would it be or is it a mistake to block the use of funds from the

United States to be used against narco-guerillas simply because

some people may say there is no connection between the guerillas

and the narcotics traffickers?

General BEDOYA. It is a mistake, because in Colombia the groups

that used to call themselves guerillas are now narcotics traffickers.

We have films that have been produced by these same groups, in

which they show themselves producing, processing, and trafficking

in these illicit substances. That is why these groups get so much

funding and that is why these groups have airplanes and are able

to use tremendous resources to fight us.

Mr. BARR. Just one very quick final question, Mr. Chairman. I

appreciate the extra time.

Speaking of weapons, can you tell us what sort of weapons the

narco-guerillas have available and are using to kill your men and

to stop your efforts to go after them?

General BEDOYA. These groups principally use the AK–47 that,

as you know, has European origin, Eastern European origin. They

even have rockets and different sorts of munitions that come from

the same source. There are other types of munitions that come

from other sources, but they are secondary sources.

Mr. BARR. So would it be fair to say that these groups are very

well armed, and that your inability to continue to get ammunition

and defensive weapons systems, such as the mini-gun, is putting

your men at a real disadvantage?

General BEDOYA. These narcotics traffickers get their weapons

from the international arms dealers and many times it is a drugsfor-weapons exchange.

Mr. BARR. Insofar as they purchase their weapons with money,

is that money that is coming directly from drug consumers?

General BEDOYA. Yes. Basically the moneys that they use to purchase these weapons comes from the areas of cultivation, the areas

of production, and there is some evidence that they even have some

exporting capacities.

Mr. BARR. Do we see any evidence that other terrorist groups

outside of Colombia are involved?

General BEDOYA. The specific evidence we have is specifically related to the FARC, that is definitive. Regarding other groups, it is

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dence as of yet, but we do know that they do gain their funds and

they do supply the funds that they acquire through kidnapping.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman.

I would like to finish with just a series of questions that, if you

could just answer them very briefly, what we are trying to do is

to establish something in the record that I think pulls together a

lot of your testimony today.

First of all, on the issue of the guerillas, ELN and FARC, originally, my understanding is these groups were freedom fighters in

their own minds, leftist guerillas that were ideologically trying to

overthrow the government because they believed that their philosophy was superior. Is that still the truth today or are they still an

ideological group, or are they driven by narco-funds, in your opinion?

General BEDOYA. At the end of the cold war they no longer could

get their funds from other sources, including the Soviet Union.

Now they get their resources from drug traffickers.

Mr. HASTERT. The other part of that question is, however they

get their money, are they still driven by an ideology, in your opinion?

General BEDOYA. They no longer are driven by ideology. They

have converted themselves into common criminals and now move

along those lines.

Mr. HASTERT. To follow up, you say in your testimony today that

they take approximately 25 percent of the proceeds from the drugs

grown, manufactured, transported in their areas of operation; is

that true?

General SERRANO. Absolutely true. The truth is, the sad truth is

that in that area, the tax collector is the FARC.

Mr. HASTERT. Is it also true, from other testimony that we have

had prior to today, that these organizations have committed transgressions against humanity, they, in a sense, have no regard for

people’s civil rights, and the operation of protecting drugs and the

growing of drugs, the manufacture of drugs and the transportation

of drugs is the No. 1 importance; human rights are not important

to these people?

General SERRANO. They violate all sorts of rights, including

human rights. In the cocaine processing laboratories, we find young

children of 13 years old that have been pressed into labor. They

also exploit women and children, and whoever attempts to communicate to the legitimate authorities the existence of any movement

of cocaine or the existence of a processing laboratory is immediately

assassinated.

Each group of these different organizations has a band of assassins that they use to make sure that the law of silence is enforced

and that the different debts are paid. But the worst violation they

commit is the poisoning of Colombia’s youth.

Mr. HASTERT. To follow up on that, could you give me—we know

that the kidnappings are rampant, that civilian murder is rampant. Can you give us a number about in the last year how many

murders have been committed and how many kidnappings have

been perpetrated, to the best of your knowledge?

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General SERRANO. Last year, in Colombia, there were 1,200

kidnappings. We were able to rescue 250. Sixty percent of the

kidnappings that occur in Colombia are carried out by the narcotics

guerillas.

Mr. HASTERT. How about murders?

General SERRANO. About 10 percent of these kidnappings end in

the assassination of the people that have been kidnapped. On a

general level, all told, per year, there are about 28,000 murders.

Mr. HASTERT. 28,000 murders.

General SERRANO. Yes, 28,000 murders per year.

Mr. HASTERT. Second point. According to other testimony that we

have been able to accrue, is it not true, systematic recruitment of

children and kidnapping the children by the FARC and ELN have

taken place to press these children into service for narco-trafficking

purposes?

General BEDOYA. In the different documents and in the video

that we will be giving to you, you will find children of different

ages that are kidnapped from 10 or 11 years old and are kept within the criminal organization all their lives. This is a reality that

is ongoing in Colombia.

Mr. HASTERT. Is it true that an area known in your country as

Miraflores, which is approximately the size of the State of Texas,

that that area is virtually overrun with guerillas and narco-traffickers?

General SERRANO. While it was true in the past, ever since we

started the operations last year, the control of this zone by the narcotics traffickers and the guerillas is being eliminated. That situation will come under control. It is specifically in that area where

the efforts to fumigate are concentrated.

Mr. HASTERT. The capability to move into that area and to control it and the FARC, to fight the guerillas and narco-traffickers

depends upon the use of DC–3s and Huey helicopters and other

equipment you have got; is that true or not true?

General SERRANO. As far as the police are concerned, the ability

to carry out these efforts relies on the airplanes that are used for

the fumigation and on the DC–3s and on the helicopters.

A brief example so that you might understand further: When an

airplane leaves on a fumigation run, the actual illicit crops are to

be found more than an hour’s flight away and the plane must hastily perform the fumigation runs and return so that it will have

enough fuel to make the entire run. It is a completely—it is an

area that is completely overrun by jungle and that is very far away

from the normal means of transportation.

Mr. HASTERT. Any holding up of that equipment because of decertification by our country to your country has a serious consequence of the transportation, the growing, manufacturing and

transportation of drugs back into this country; is that true or not,

in your opinion?

General SERRANO. The decertification affects not only Colombia’s

morale but it also affects the logistics of the operation. It also divides the countries into supposedly, good guys, and supposedly, bad

guys. It has a direct effect on the ability to procure spare parts, in

the procurement of weapons and explosives.

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Mr. HASTERT. In effect, you are facing, basically, a civil war within your nation because of this constant turmoil driven by the profits from narcotics. How much longer, with limited—maybe this is

not a fair question. With limited ability to fight these problems,

how much longer can you sustain this without added help?

General SERRANO. It is a war that is being fought between the

narcotics traffickers and the Colombian Armed Forces. We do not

know how long it will take to see what effects the reduction in the

entry of precursor chemicals, on the reduction in consumption. All

of these different elements, we do not know how long it will take

for them to have an effect on the war.

Without help, narcotics trafficking will rise, and without help,

without aid, we will not be able to last for very long. The

antinarcotics division of the police is—uses fundamentally the assistance that is received from the United States. Without that assistance, they could not function the way they do.

General BEDOYA. In Colombia, there is no civil war as such.

What we are talking about are simple criminal activities of narcotics traffickers and terrorists that direct their activities against

the Colombian institutions and the Colombian people themselves.

Mr. HASTERT. I think the use of civil war is probably a bad

choice, but it is an imperative struggle between, in essence, good

and bad.

For the record, so that the record is clear, and whatever other

record that we have been able to establish here today, has President Samper ever prevented either one of you from a wholesale attack on narco-traffickers?

General SERRANO. Never. In the 2 years that I have been the director, there has never been any interference in our activities.

Quite to the contrary, before we were able to capture the members

of the Cali Cartel, there was a lot of pressure that we get that

done.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

I want to put myself out on a limb, two things I would like to

say. First of all, I try not to put myself on a limb very often, but

General Serrano and General Bedoya, certainly your efforts, I

think, have been heroic. That is in the reports we have had, I was

able to confirm that visiting your company, I was able to talk to

many, many people in your country, in the southern hemisphere,

and in this country.

General, your efforts are certainly our best hopes for the plague

that is upon us, upon our children, upon this country, and upon the

citizens that want to live a decent life. It affects our people almost

as badly as it affects your people. We hope that we can win this

war and that we can have peace from the plague of drugs.

It takes a great effort on nations and politicians, elected officials,

and people who serve your country such as yourself. I think, I don’t

know how you would ever put together a nomination for a Nobel

Peace Prize, but I think you are certainly deserving by your fine

effort. I hope that we can say we support you and this country is

behind you all the way. When you have to talk to the next widow

in the next funeral you go to, I hope you express that we stand behind you as well.

Thank you for your testimony.

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At this time, I would ask for our final panel to come forward.

Certainly it has been an overwhelming experience today to have

the first two panels before us, but you will not be disappointed in

the third panel, I can tell you that.

I would like to welcome at this time, Ambassador Morris Busby

and Major Andy Messing. Ambassador Busby served as the United

States Ambassador to Colombia. I have been able to visit Colombia,

have the privilege and the benefit of his insights.

Major Messing has retired from the Army after 21 years of distinguished service, including service in Special Forces and Special

Operations for over 18 years. He has had firsthand experience in

the jungles of Colombia.

Gentlemen, if you will both stand and raise your right hands, our

committee rules require me to swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witnesses responded

in the affirmative.

STATEMENTS OF MORRIS BUSBY, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO

COLOMBIA; AND MAJOR F. ANDY MESSING, JR., UNITED

STATES ARMY (RET.), EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL DEFENSE COUNCIL FOUNDATION

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you and please proceed with your statements. And, Ambassador Busby, if you will begin.

Mr. BUSBY. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear here today. I have submitted for the record a short statement,

and, since the hour is going on, perhaps I could just hit some of

the high points.

I was in Colombia at the time that President Samper was elected

and participated in the early moments of disintegration of the relationship between the United States and Colombia.

I am, as you will notice from the statement, somewhat critical of

our handling of United States-Colombian relations in the ensuing

couple of years.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Ambassador, would you pull your mike up a

little bit closer, please.

Mr. BUSBY. Sure.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

Mr. BUSBY. In saying that I am somewhat critical of the way we

have handled this, let me also say that certainly Mr. Samper gets

no kudos from me. I would also like to take this opportunity to add

my voice to those of the many brave and thoughtful Colombians

who have called for him to relinquish the office of the presidency

so the country can begin healing itself.

Having said that, it is awfully easy to sit here and criticize what

others have done.

I firmly believe that the tools which you, the Congress, as well

as the administration have given to the hands of our policymakers

are inadequate. There was a lot of talk here this morning about the

certification process. I greatly fear that, as it has evolved, the certification process tends to dominate useful policy. We see what was

described here today, million-dollar ads in Forbes Magazine, lots of

public relations.

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The kind of strictures and restrictions that are placed on our policymakers in that legislation I think need to be reviewed.

I was, at one time, the deputy chief of mission in Mexico when

Enrique Camarena, our DEA agent, was killed. I was Ambassador

to Colombia for 3 years, and I will tell you that in circumstances

such as those, strict adherence to the legislation as it is currently

drafted is a hindrance rather than a help to rational policymaking.

As my first statement, I would like to say that I would recommend that you and the administration review that legislation to

make sure that, as you are currently applying it, and it has the intent that originally was designed. That’s not to say that I am critical of congressional oversight and, in fact, as a former member of

the executive branch, I will tell you that I very much recommend

to you that you exercise congressional oversight. It is just that policy has tended to be made in a public forum where I think oftentimes subtle and delicate initiatives die a very sure death.

Mr. Chairman, you asked me to specifically comment on the

types and amounts of support that the U.S. Government should

provide to the Government of Colombia. I greatly fear that, given

the animosity that we currently feel toward the Colombian administration, that the situation in Colombia is not going to improve as

long as Mr. Samper is in office. I would certainly hope that, until

that occurs, we do not abandon the cause for which so many Colombians have given their lives. I have the greatest admiration for

the gentlemen who just appeared before you, and I think they deserve our support. In fact, I do believe that it is essential that we

as a government continue to support the Colombian counternarcotics forces.

As much as we disapprove of Mr. Samper, we should recognize

that it’s unlikely that he is going to depart before the end of his

term. There’s no doubt about our animosity toward him. We have

taken away his visa. What more public demonstration could there

be? I think it’s ludicrous to argue that giving aid to the counternarcotics forces is going to help him politically or that to withhold

it is going to weaken him further. The die has been cast, and we

should act in what is our own self-interest.

I also could not help smiling as I heard some of the questions

and answers relating to the so-called guerrillas in Colombia. I will

tell you with certainty, Mr. Barr, and Mr. Chairman, that during

the entire 3 years I was there, I sent reams of paper and facts and

figures laying out for the government, our government, the relationships between the FARC and the ELN and the narcotics traffickers. I made countless recommendations that we should, in fact,

recognize that relationship in policy and that we needed to work

with the Colombian military and the Colombian police in combating the ELN and FARC. I had these mental images of the

Washington establishment sort of levitating and shaking every

time I would send these cables up.

My sense has been that the problem is twofold. One, there is a

broad perception that, if we were to work with the Colombian military and police on the FARC and the ELN problem, that somehow

we are going to get ourselves immersed in a terrible human rights

problem. The second problem is that I think that we, as a governVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
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ment, recognize the complexity of this situation and have decided

not to get involved in it.

But to my mind, I will tell you that I am firmly convinced that,

so long as the FARC and the ELN continue in the numbers that

they are and so long as they continue their relationship with the

narcotics traffickers, we can pour money into Colombia on counternarcotics. But if we continue to say it can only be used for counternarcotics purposes, and we have these very, very tight, end-use

provisions that we have to adhere to, you will not solve that narcotics problem in Colombia.

That may not be true elsewhere, but in Colombia, the two are

so inextricably linked that it is a true head-in-the-sand attitude to

think you can look at counternarcotics and not look at the FARC

and the ELN in that relationship. I think that is something which

this committee could perhaps take a leadership role in.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a point that has

been alluded to but no one has addressed it directly, and that is

I would like to recommend that you and your colleagues consider

the funding levels for some of the infrastructure development programs. By that, I am referring to programs to aid in the administration of justice and, in particular, military and police training. I

think that these are programs which have tended to fall by the

wayside as a part of the certification process and there’s nothing

that we do in these countries which is as valuable and which has

such long-term benefits as bringing Colombian police and military

officers to the United States for training, having a true interaction

between our military and police, who function in a truly democratic

society, setting an example for them and providing them with the

tools that they need. The same thing is true with the administration of justice program. There was a $34 million program when I

was in Colombia. I was very strongly supportive of it.

The institutions of government, and in particular the institutions

of justice in these countries, are very weak and it is something that

we need to work on if we truly are looking for a longtime solution.

Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you, and I will respond to any of the questions that you or any

other members may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Busby follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

Mr. Messing, Major.

Mr. MESSING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to testify. As the executive director of the National Defense Council

Foundation in the study of antidrug operations, I have been to Colombia nine times since 1985, my last trip being in mid-January.

Coincidentally, since you mentioned Miraflores, that’s one of the

end points that I went to.

Colombia is 1 of 15 countries that I have been to in analyzing

this dark side capitalist phenomenon which adversely affects America on socioeconomic, political and security levels.

In my first trip to Colombia, the American Embassy staff arranged for me to visit the then ‘‘special anti-narcotics unit,’’ SANU.

This group of heroic men were in the first element of drug fighters

which were supported by American agencies. Ironically, at the

time, they were not really supported by their own government, and

most of the men I met with then have since been killed.

However, times have changed. In my latest visits, it is clear to

me that the key government elements are dedicated to reducing the

drug threat to their society and ours.

Accordingly, the catalytic event to their metanoia was the assassination of a Presidential candidate in 1989. That rocked their nation and awakened their nomenclature. They finally understood

that this was no longer just a Gringo problem but their problem,

too. It actually became a threat to their national security, their sovereignty and their way of life. They then understood that this tiny

group of narcissistic and hedonistic criminals were impacting their

ability to have a democracy and operate a positive light side capitalist structure. Because I bifurcate capitalism into dark side and

light side capitalism, and it gives you an ability to talk in a different level when you do that.

Every part of their society, i.e., their politics, their sociocultural

and economic being, and their safety was in jeopardy. It was no

longer—it no longer was a cash cow to jump-start their economy,

as their economy had its own vitality, as has already been testified

to. Plain and simply put, it became a contest of survival.

Fortunately, there was a stalwart and honest core of Colombians

that were prepared to lead the counterattack against this strong

and greedy foe. Men like General Serrano, who just testified, and

women like Foreign Minister Emma Mejia, understood the risks

and acted in the best interests of all. Now, they need our help to

press this counterattack on this transforming and growing scourge.

In the late 1980’s, the initial drug operators were urban based,

dark side businessmen. By the mid-80’s, their buying power allowed them to rent key guerilla elements to provide them security,

buy off authorities, they were able to buy off authorities and buy

into legitimate businesses. When they committed acts that went beyond the pale in the late 1980’s and into the early 1990’s, the key

groups in government which were led by the then-vetted national

police, went after this heinous leadership.

As this management group was rolled up in the early 1990’s,

America’s support, which had been increasing and as a matter of

fact, under a lot of the leadership of Ambassador Busby sitting

next to me, reduced markedly beginning in January 1993 with the

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election of a new administration. At the same time, the rural based

guerrillas who had been the apprentices to these drug lords filled

the void left by apprehended drug lords.

As this all occurred, America effected a reduction in support and

even applied decertification into the mix, because of the Samper

equation. This—because of this, a scandal emerged focusing on Co- lombian President Samper having taken some $6 million into his

election efforts from drug sources.

Like our own President Clinton, who is caught up in a similar

problem with the Indonesian Lippo Bank, and now we are finding

out the Chinese Government infusing money into—allegedly infusing money into the democratic mechanism, party mechanism,

Samper has allowed antidrug forces to strike at the heart of drug

apparatus in the interests of all concerned.

Meanwhile, as a distortion of this picture, the State Department

and select others have harped on a flawed strategy of bifurcating

the now drug guerrillas from the drug trade in spite of overwhelming open source evidence to the contrary. This is an important point I might bring up, and even a U.S. Interagency Intelligence Report proving this fact, which the administration is not releasing until apparently after the March certification issue is settled.

This affects our support and modus operandi in addition to interjecting the Presidential politics of both countries. Alas, and in a curious fashion, nowhere is to be seen the United States or international environmental or animal rights groups, as thousands of

square miles of virgin, triple canopy jungle and millions of animals

and fish have been eradicated while rivers have been polluted from

drug chemicals because of the drug trade. Furthermore, human

rights groups seem reluctant to comment on the rights of victims

of the drug trade or against the drug guerrillas. Additionally, and

in that regard, four Americans are being held hostage by these elements as we speak. Several—three of the hostages have been held

for over 4 years.

In conclusion, the confusing combination of politics, economic interests and other factors should not hide the salient fact that to not

help the good guys in Colombia and elsewhere, those in the first

trench of the drug war, will mean America will have to deal with

the problem closer to home, initially on our border but then in our

neighborhoods. Each time it gets closer to us, it is more expensive

in terms of lives and money. To be even more plain, to not help our

friends, maybe even hurt them, means an additional 40 to 50 tons

of cocaine and 1 to 2 tons of heroin, worth over $500 million, on

to our streets in the next 12-month period.

This will cause an additional $50 billion to $60 billion worth of

collateral damage to America. The question to this august body, are

you prepared to act to prevent this?

America can engage in antidrug actions while not sacrificing our

principles and promoting better conduct on the part of our allies.

We need to not act like a kid taking away the football so the game

stops, causing volumes of good guys and innocents to die in Colombia and paving the way for increased turmoil in our own country.

Therefore, this foundation recommends that the certification of Colombia go forward immediately, as it is in the best interest of both

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countries. This, with the understanding made with Colombia, that

the rule of law and human rights are an important aspect in the

conduct of this conflict.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would also like to ask that a confidential report that we had

made in the past few days, which we have embargoed until today,

be admitted into the testimony.

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection.

Mr. MESSING. Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Messing, and the report referred

to follow:]

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Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, gentlemen.

Representative Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Busby, were you here for the testimony earlier

today?

Mr. BUSBY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. OK. Then both by way of that and by way certainly

of your own personal background in service to our country, you are

well aware of the things that we have been talking about, including

the references to the—let me get the citation here—22 U.S.C. Section 2364, the provisions under both (a)(1), regarding the President’s ability to furnish assistance notwithstanding other findings

and other laws, as well as subsection (a)(2), regarding sales. In

your experience and with your knowledge of these sorts of authorities and how they have been used or not used in the past, is it appropriate to recommend consideration by the President of the authority under (a)(1), as well as under (a)(2), to try and get as much

as we can to the enforcement authorities in Colombia to meet the

challenge posed to them by the narcotics and grower groups?

Mr. BUSBY. Well, I confess to you that I am not as familiar with

the law as what you give me credit for. In the broadest sense, let

me just say that I think that absolutely we need to find a mechanism, either within that law or we need to modify that law, which

will permit us to express our extreme displeasure with the political

leadership of a country such as Colombia, and we are displeased

with them and we should be displeased with them, but at the same

time permit us to go forward with assistance to gentlemen like

Generals Bedoya and Serrano. Absolutely that is what we should

do if there is agreement, from a policy point of view, between the

administration and you gentlemen.

Now, how one goes about doing that and whether you can do that

within the structure of the legislation as it currently exists, I am

not sure. That would be something which the lawyers would have

to examine.

I will also say that in my experience, often people on both sides

of that question hide behind that law. I think that if everyone

agreed, we would always find a way to get around the restrictions

of the law. But from a policy point of view, absolutely what you are

suggesting is what I would recommend; yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

I have really been quite impressed with the imaginative use and

interpretation of Federal laws by this administration when they

want to. For example, last year, we heard testimony from some individuals from this administration with regard to how it is that the

resources of the FBI can be used to investigate a purely domestic

crime in Haiti. There are a number of folks, including myself, that

suspected that decision was made for purely political reasons, not

under Federal laws. And I have a serious question about their very

imaginative and very broad interpretation of that particular statute.

Yet in this case they seem to be relying on very, very pinched

legalistic definitions and interpretations of these laws such as prevents, for example, as we heard from the last panel, the use of even

the limited military assistance that this administration is willing

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to provide to the army and to the police forces down there, telling

them they can only use it to go after the narcotics people and not

the guerrillas when, in fact, I think that it is very, very well documented and well known to this administration and prior administrations that the two groups really are operating hand in hand. I

don’t know if there’s a question in all of that, but something that

you said triggered that.

Mr. BUSBY. Let me put myself back into one of my previous incarnations.

I went through something very similar to this, about 31⁄2 or 4

years ago, and I was very, very intent on gaining some public recognition from the U.S. Government that there was a linkage between the narcotics traffickers and the guerilla groups. I mean,

that was my objective, to do that, because if—once we could establish that, then, of course, the next step, which was beginning to

work with them on the guerilla problem, became easier.

People basically said: Well, if you want to do that, you go right

ahead but expect to be sued, expect someone to come up and use

the law against you as a public official for not adhering to the enduse provisions that are built into the law that say you will not use

this equipment for anything other than counternarcotics purposes.

If you want to make the policy determination that going after the

FARC is a counternarcotics purpose, do so at your peril.

Those are the kinds of problems that you run into when you have

conflicting legislation and people who take various positions on various issues. That’s a serious thing.

Mr. BARR. Not exactly a standing-tall foreign policy type decisionmaking process.

Mr. BUSBY. I like to think that I stood as tall as anyone; but

when someone tells me that I am going to jail because I make a

policy determination, I tend to listen to what they say.

Mr. BARR. Well, I would question that sort of advice. I mean,

when I was in the executive branch at the CIA, for example, we

would go to legal counsel to make sure that there is a way within

the bounds of the law to do something. If you—if the question is

posed to these folks, give me a reason not to do something, now

that’s a lot easier. But I am somewhat disturbed, particularly in

light of what the former two witnesses, the two generals from Colombia have told us, that there is very, very clear documentation,

well known to this administration, that these two groups, the guerilla groups and the narcotics trafficking groups, are operating essentially as one organization, one paying the other a large percent

of the profits, and yet they rely on these very pinched interpretations. I suspect it’s for policy reasons they have made that decision

because they want to.

With regard to the specific—the specific point—one other specific

point that I forget which one of the generals made, that it would

help them tremendously if we could take a look here in this country at perhaps strengthening or modifying in some way our laws

to prevent the introduction of precursor chemicals into Colombia,

are you familiar with that? Are there some specific things, perhaps

from a policy standpoint, in your experience, that you could tell us

that we should specifically be looking at there?

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Mr. BUSBY. Yes, sir. We in the United States some years ago

began to recognize that tracking precursor chemicals and tracking

money was really a very effective way to get at the organizational

infrastructure of the traffickers. We, the Americans, have done a

pretty good job at that, in my opinion.

Where you run into problems, in my experience, and I saw this

in Colombia, is when you try to take the next step and engage the

international community, when you go to the Germans, to the

French, to the Swiss, to other manufacturers and say that we want

you to impose on your industries all of these tracking provisions

and end-use provisions for chemicals that are precursors. That has

been an international initiative which, in my experience, has gone

virtually nowhere.

We have tried to do that with the Colombians and certainly

under Cesar Gaviria, the previous president, they were very much

in support of that.

I am not aware, frankly, that we, the United States, are deserving of any rocks being thrown our way on that. We have taken

some really very effective measures. But I do believe that the international community—that it’s an initiative which we need to pursue and pursue very strongly.

I tend to believe in the efficiency of that. I do think that if you

could cutoff the flow of chemicals—money without saying, but if

you could cutoff the flow of chemicals or put some real strictures

on that, you could put—you could put the traffickers at considerable risk. A lot of those chemicals come up river from Brazil.

Mr. BARR. There is no initiative from the administration at this

point to even look at that, much less propose legislation, is there?

Mr. BUSBY. I am sorry. I have been out of the government for

a couple of years. I really don’t know the current state of play.

Mr. BARR. OK. There isn’t.

Mr. Messing, you, as Mr. Busby, have experience in a lot of different countries, including Colombia and another country mentioned today, Mexico. From your background and knowledge of

the—both the political and the police and military situations in

both of these countries, could you just very, very briefly compare

the integrity and the efforts of the Colombian anti-narcotics efforts,

particularly General Serrano and his troops and General Bedoya

and his troops, to their counterparts in Mexico?

Mr. MESSING. Well, you have to understand that these organizations will always have some thin layer of corruption, as our own

police forces do and our own military does in some respect. I mean,

there will be a very thin layer of corruption in both of the militaries. You will have some group that will—a cellular group that

will be involved in death squad activities. You will have some very

small group that will be involved in corruption; they have been corrupted by the drug lords. But for the most part, the Colombians

have had an aggressive program, particularly in the police, to vet

their elements. As a matter of fact, several years ago, there were,

you know, literally 6,000, to 7,000 police vetted from their national

police force over a period of time.

This is a good indicator. It shows progress toward them doing the

right thing. So in terms of whether I am comfortable with the Colombian national police versus the Mexican national police, who

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haven’t gone through this severe vetting program like the Colombian national police, I would prefer to work with the Colombian national police.

But having said that, you always have to encourage them to continue vetting and, you know, the police and the military.

One of the programs that the Ambassador mentioned has an astounding effect on the viability of these forces. It is joint training

that we have with those elements. It’s very important, because

they learn through osmosis and directly that human rights is important; that proper conduct is important. They learn civic action.

They learn a whole plethora of ideas from us that they take back

to their country, and these ideas will help the police and military

move toward the democratization of their country while lowering

levels of violence. That’s what this is all about.

Mr. BARR. You did mention the term civil rights—human rights

and we talked about that, as you know, from being here during the

previous two panels. Would you and, Ambassador Busby, if you

could both just comment very, very briefly on this human rights

issue, and in particular where should the real focus of our concern

over human rights violations in Colombia be with regard to the

narcotics traffickers and the narcotics organizations and the guerrillas or with the police and military forces, which we all know in

any country, as you said, are not perfect. Where ought to our concern over human rights be?

Mr. BUSBY. Well, let me just say several things about that, because it was an issue that was of great concern the whole time I

was there. First, I think it is indisputable that there are human

rights problems within the police and the military in Colombia. The

evidence is clearly there.

Having said that, it is also indisputable that the leadership of

those organizations neither condones it nor supports it and, in fact,

are working very, very hard to try and root out human rights

abuses. They do try and train their people. There is no institutional

bias toward human rights abuses but, rather, the contrary.

Mr. BARR. That, I think, is a very important distinction.

Mr. BUSBY. Yes, sir.

My feeling is that many of the human rights abuses in Colombia

occur because they are—it may not be a civil war, but they are a

country at war with themselves. Because of the immaturity of the

justice system, both civilly and within the military, that police and

military many times feel enormous frustration, that they can go arrest somebody or they can do these things and nothing ever really

happens. And, therefore, out of frustration—— Mr. BARR. Something else may happen.

Mr. BUSBY. Something else happens.

Mr. BARR. Like the frustration in this country sometimes.

Mr. BUSBY. That goes to the point I tried to make at the end of

my very brief statement.

I think one of the focuses of our efforts should be on building

those institutions up so that, in fact, you remove that level of frustration and, in fact, you bring the rule of law to these countries.

It’s very, very underdeveloped in Colombia, although they have

made some attempts to overhaul their justice system. But there’s

a long way to go.

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Mr. BARR. Excuse me. Does decertification help that process or

hamper it?

Mr. BUSBY. Oh, I think it hurts it. I mean, I think the whole certification process, as I have said to Congressman Mica, who helped

draft that legislation, I am rather critical of that because I think

it does, in many ways, hinder our ability to pick and choose what

we want to do.

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. BUSBY. Let me say one additional thing, just following up on

the previous question. I think that one of the initiatives that we

had under way, and I spoke to President Gaviria about it many

times when I was there, is that the process by which we select our

police officers and train them or our military officers or our government officials is very different from what you have in these countries. If you—as you well know, if you want a security clearance

in the United States, you get investigated. You have people talk to

your family. They talk to your neighbors. There is an extensive

background investigation that is done on you before you are given

access to sensitive information, and there is psychological training

for policemen, and so forth. None of that exists. None of that exists.

I went to see a ranking cabinet officer once in Colombia, and she

said, ‘‘I am really very worried about, you know, information leaking out of my office, and so forth, and I think it’s my secretary.’’

I said, ‘‘Well, who is she?’’

I don’t know. I don’t know, you know.

I went into, well, how are these people selected?

Well, they are just hired.

So you have to understand, it’s also a very, very difficult proposition to work in some of these countries trying to decide who do

you work with, who do you not work with, who is corrupt, who is

not corrupt. You only decide that over a period of some time, sometimes years, making decisions on who you think you can trust.

So all of these things are correctable, and I think that they are

something that deserves some emphasis from a policy point of view

on our part.

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from Florida.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Busby, I heard your comments relating to the certification law, and I probably have to agree with you that it hasn’t

been that effective with Colombia because we don’t—we really don’t

even have a handle on that country that the legislation was originally intended to give us leverage with.

But I am wondering what you think could be an action by this

Congress or this administration to show the Colombians and others

that we mean business. How can we get their attention on this

matter?

Mr. BUSBY. Well, sir, with regard to the Colombian leadership,

as I said, I find it hard to think of anything else we could do to

display our animosity toward Mr. Samper and the people around

him. I mean, we have taken his visa. We have publicly castigated

him. We have done virtually everything possible to let him know

that we don’t like him. As I said earlier, he gets no kudos from me,

either.

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The problem I have is that the structure of the legislation, as I

understand it, oftentimes does not allow you to pick and choose

what you are going to do in a particular country. I think it is—has

been not very helpful to cutoff FMS sales to Colombia. I think that

that’s just—we should have avoided that somehow.

I also think that, although there are certain times when public

debate on things like this is very useful, sometimes it is a

hinderance to trying to solve the problem because everybody tries

to make political points.

What I think should happen is that the Congress and the administration should sit down and look at the whole range of interconnecting legislation that applies to these kinds of situations and

try to perfect it, try to make it better, more useful, more flexible,

perhaps. I know that implies a certain level of working together

that isn’t always there, but I sincerely believe that.

Mr. MICA. Well, another one of the problems we have, and Mr.

Hastert saw it and his predecessor, Mr. Zeliff, who chaired this

subcommittee, saw the same thing, is this approach and the legislative remedy or the administrative remedy covers a number of legislative committees of jurisdiction, a number of agencies.

We had written to the drug czar asking that the President request a waiver, and I think that he doesn’t—the drug czar really

doesn’t have any authority. He is sort of a fancy coordinator. But

we face the same problem here because the solutions are handled

by State, by the Department of Defense, by the Department of Justice and by other Federal agencies.

Do you see any solution to our jurisdictional problem, any recommendations?

Mr. BUSBY. Well, I know, of course, of your long record and the

chairman and other members on this committee of trying to resolve

some of these organizational issues. I will tell you what I honestly

think, and that is that the only person who can really bring order

out of this and make it work is an elected official, and that’s either

the President or the Vice President.

I tend to believe that the Secretary of State is never going to tell

the Secretary of Defense how to spend his money. Nor do I think

that General McCaffrey for all of his abilities is going to tell the

Secretary of State how to conduct foreign policy, no matter what

his so-called title might be. But you correctly, I think, perceive it,

that it is just a coordination role.

Mr. MICA. Well, I think it has been a lack of executive leadership, and that’s definitely a problem; no interest in the issue, or

limited interest until of late. Then we see the bureaucratic morass.

Now, State had—we talked about FMS and the President does

have authority to grant a waiver. I cited examples of where waivers

have been granted in much less national interest than this instance, and nothing still is done as far as FMS and that military

pot. But then I gave examples here and cited back in September

they had asked—or had notified us, they didn’t have to ask—they

notified us that State was going to move forward on providing the

Colombians and Peruvians and others with equipment, and still

nothing has been done with that.

How do you get a handle on this?

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Mr. BUSBY. Well, I mean, sir, I think you know the answer to

the question. These are policy issues. These are policy determinations. Again, my recommendation for some time has been that we

need to look at the organization under which we conduct counternarcotics—well, our entire drug policy arena, everything from

treatment to demand reduction to our international programs and

everything.

My frustrations, and I worked on this for 15 years or more, is

that it—the same frustration you have. How do you, in fact, get a

handle on all of this and really begin to resolve the problem? It’s

a very, very difficult thing to do, the way we are currently organized and the way you are currently organized.

That, to my mind, is something that is really worthy of some effort on the part of the Congress and the administration, how you

do this.

Mr. MICA. One more important thing. Again, I am really frightened for this country and for every community, knowing what we

saw last year, and you were with us on the trip when the chairman

and others went down to Colombia and we were told there were

10,000 hectare acres of poppies under production now.

Is there anything that we can do in this heroin area—and now

it is starting to stream in. We heard testimony today, Ambassador

Gelbard talked about the production, but you are going to be able

to get heroin on the streets of this country as cheaply as crack in

the near term, and availability is dramatically increased, plus use

among the most vulnerable, our youth.

Is there anything you can do—now, you have been there. You

have been to Colombia as Ambassador. You know the situation better than anyone. Is there anything you recommend that we can do

to get a handle on this now?

Mr. BUSBY. Sir, I think that the best thing we can do in the short

term, the best thing we can do, is support General Serrano and

General Bedoya, begin to work with them. Most of that—most of

that opium poppy cultivation, it’s a very organized thing, and the

guerrillas are very involved in it. The FARC is very involved in the

heroin production.

In the short term, we need to make sure that the aid is flowing

to these people who are fighting it.

In the long term, I think we need to take a very hard look at

our overall policy of how we are conducting our business with regard to interdiction, eradication, demand reduction and all of that,

because that’s the long-term solution.

Mr. MICA. Finally, I guess you would support then that this administration, when they come out with their strategy for 1997,

drug policy strategy, that interdiction and eradication would be, I

guess, included in that agenda, which has been sort of cast aside

in their past plan?

Mr. BUSBY. Well, I must say, I tend to agree with General

McCaffrey. I think it’s a waste of effort to come out with a yearly

strategy. We ought to have a 10- or 20-year strategy.

Mr. MICA. It is also—as you well know, it’s interdiction, it’s education, it’s treatment.

Mr. BUSBY. I was just going to say, I think——

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Mr. MICA. But when it is missing—one of the legs of the stool

is missing, and you have had that policy, it’s time to realize that

you have got to approach it from all aspects. Wouldn’t you agree?

Mr. BUSBY. Yes, sir.

I think—I would say two things. One, organizationally we need

to be able to bring the full power of U.S. capability against this

problem and do it in a focused way, which I don’t think we do very

well.

Second, there is no silver bullet to this, and you have to do all

of it. Any administration that thinks that treatment is going to

work and we can do away with the interdiction or the interdiction

is going to work and we can do away with demand reduction, simply doesn’t understand the problem. You have to do all of these

things, and you have to do them over some extended period of time

and destroy the infrastructure by which the traffickers have been

able to build these empires. That’s what we should be doing.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Florida.

To both of you gentlemen, I appreciate, first of all, your long endurance this morning to sit through a lot of testimony and now enduring it yourself here. But to get through this last round, I would

like to ask both of you a couple of questions.

First of all, Ambassador Busby, could you assess previously the

threat posed to our security by narcotraffickers in Colombia? What

do you see?

Mr. BUSBY. Our security in Colombia?

Mr. HASTERT. Our security here, what happens to this country

because of the narcotraffickers?

Mr. BUSBY. I am sorry? You are talking about what happens to

the United States?

Mr. HASTERT. Yes.

Mr. BUSBY. Well, I admit to being a little bit of a radical about

that. I think, if you look at the history of the United States, you

are hard-pressed to come up with a phenomenon that has affected

us as deeply and adversely as drugs have. I don’t mean just trafficking. I am talking about the use of drugs, everything that surrounds it.

I think it is, in its purest sense, a real threat to our society, not

necessarily to the institutions of government or—drug traffickers

are not going to overthrow the U.S. Government. But seriously, the

deterioration that takes place at various levels of our society I

think is marked and measurable, and therein lies some of the frustration that I have in our failure to be able to focus all of the capabilities we have to try and bring about some resolution of the problem. So I think it’s a very clear threat.

Mr. HASTERT. Do you feel that the narcotics assistance section at

the Colombian Embassy has been effectively administrated?

Mr. BUSBY. It was—it was certainly effectively administrated

when I was there.

I don’t know enough about it to really comment on that.

Mr. HASTERT. The drug czar has asked, and this is for your opinion, obviously, has asked that maybe he would have 10 percent

flexibility in his budget, that he can act upon that budget and imVerDate 11-MAY-2000 19:53 Jun 29, 2002 Jkt 078764 PO 00000 Frm 00122 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\39818 pfrm04 PsN: 39818
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plement those funds at his discretion. Do you think that would be

a positive tool?

Mr. BUSBY. Yes, sir, I do. I do.

Mr. HASTERT. Why?

Mr. BUSBY. I tend to think that a little more centralized control

over budget and policy is what is needed.

Now, again, having said that, I am not so sure that the President

is ever going to be enabled—is never going to be able to empower

one Cabinet officer over the other and, therefore, Presidential leadership is absolutely essential to make it happen. But having some

more centralized view of all of this, that is not law enforcement, it

is not health, it is not international but, rather, something else, I

think, would be a good thing.

Mr. HASTERT. There has been some questions previously today

trying to compare Mexico to Colombia, and I know that you have

had some experience in both countries, especially the oversight job

that you had as Ambassador on terrorism. How would you compare

General Serrano’s record, I guess you would say, of the Colombian

national police on the counternarcotics efforts compared to what’s

going on in Mexico at the same type of level?

Mr. BUSBY. Well, the history in Colombia is very, very different

from Mexico. The Colombians decided back in the early 1980’s that

they were going to accept and seek and use United States assistance. As a result, the Colombian national police, in particular, have

been the recipient of a lot of help from us which was freely given

and which was freely accepted. Therefore, the working relationships that we have had historically have had their ups and downs

but, nonetheless, have been very close.

That is not in any way the case in Mexico. In fact, our relationships with the police in Mexico and with the Mexican military have

been far, far more standoffish, and I think that the results clearly

speak for themselves.

We work and have always worked closely with the Colombians.

I had very high respect for their professionalism and integrity

when I was there. I think the record with Mexico has been far, far

more spotty.

Mr. HASTERT. One of the things that General Serrano said, and

he said it in passing, and I am really sure if anybody picked it up,

he said one of the most injurious things that has happened since

the decertification was the inability for—to get his men training,

to get—in how to do things; and they have had that luxury before

with the cooperation from the United States and, I would imagine,

our agencies, DEA, CIA and other agencies that do that.

In your opinion, has President Clinton’s decision to decertify Colombia on March 1, 1996, had a significant detrimental effect on

the levels of counternarcotics support Colombia is receiving from

the United States via the Department of State on foreign military

sales?

Mr. BUSBY. Certainly on foreign military sales because it is my

understanding that there are restrictions placed on that. That’s a

serious problem, I must say, because you lose IMET, the training

programs, you lose military assistance, you lose a whole lot of

things.

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As far as characterizing it as serious or nonserious, and so forth,

I don’t have the figures in front of me. I am not really competent

to speak to that.

I have the impression, although it may be anecdotal, that that

is a true statement.

Mr. HASTERT. Major Messing, before I recognize you for a couple

of questions, I would like to also recognize, and I see him in the

audience, another dedicated member of the National Defense Council, Gil Macklin. We certainly appreciate him being here today.

Let me ask you one of the same questions. Do you feel that the

national assistance section at the Colombia Embassy has been effectively administered? You have been down there, been in the jungles. How do you feel about that?

Mr. MESSING. Well, I agree with Congressman Mica in terms of

that there’s a leadership flaw here. I mean, I go back to El Salvador. I had 57 trips in El Salvador between 1982 and 1991, and

I saw Ambassador Dean Hinton and Ambassador Tom Pickering

act, and I also worked at the State Department under Ambassador

Rich Armitage. They would pick up the phone, and they would holler into the phone. All of a sudden a C–141 or a C–5A would show

up and have what the Salvadorians needed or, in the case of Rich

Armitage, when he was working in the NIS section at State, a C–

5A would be landing in Russia, you know, chock full of medical

supplies or whatever was the case.

The point is that the leadership involved is not providing the

pressure and guidance, pressure to their people and guidance to

their people, to get things done.

You know, this failure results in lives of Colombian policemen

being lost, and that’s later translated into additional cocaine on our

streets; and it involves collateral damage to the United States.

So, you know, without this enthusiastic, directed leadership from

Washington, from the Ambassadorial level, from the section level,

you can’t get things done.

Mr. HASTERT. Can I ask you a question then to followup on that?

Mr. MESSING. Yes.

Mr. HASTERT. I think I inferred from your answer, and I am not

trying to put words in your mouth, but are you saying that people

aren’t getting out and doing the job they should do, in your opinion,

or are they?

Mr. MESSING. Well, there’s a whole section in the U.S. drug control policy and international operations paper that I gave to you a

couple of months ago that talks about personnel selection. Failure

to staff all levels of the drug control program correctly virtually

foredooms it to failure. You know, when you hire a guy who has

just been with the Department of Agriculture to run a criminal—

anticriminal element, who should be versed—well versed in antinarcotics operations and who doesn’t mind putting on a bulletproof

vest and going out to Miraflores, and when you hire an agronomist

or an agriculture guy or whatever, you are not going to have the

kind of results that you need.

Fortunately, I heard recently that one of our sterling State Department anti-narcotics people is being transferred from another

country into Colombia, but he won’t be there for a few months. So

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you can’t have this failure of lack of correct personnel selection and

expect to have results. I mean, it just doesn’t work that way.

You have to have the brightest, the best and the bravest that are

put into a hybrid team, and this talks about it also—let’s see.

There’s another section in here. It talks about that you have—

maybe it’s in the recommendations portion. But you have to have

a hybrid team of gutsy men and women that are knowledgeable

and experienced to go in and that have the backup from the United

States to go in there and thwart the drug lords and the drug guerrillas. You have to have this kind of combination of effort.

Mr. HASTERT. Let me ask you a another question that’s very

similar to the question I asked Ambassador Busby. How do you—

as someone that’s been underground in Colombia, how do you assess the national security threat, both to Colombia and the United

States, from narcotraffickers?

Mr. MESSING. Well, it is clear to me. I mean, when you have

got——

Mr. HASTERT. Let me interrupt you just for a second. I used the

framework before and I misspoke in addressing the letter to—or

question to the general, I said civil war. I don’t mean civil war, but

certainly there’s a huge war going on between two forces. How do

you assess that?

Mr. MESSING. Well, again, I have to go back to the dark side/

light side capitalist example as one of the things. When you have

dark side capitalist elements that are antidemocratic, they are monopolistic, and they are a very small element that tries to take control of the country and impact on its sovereignty. It’s the tail that

starts to wag the dog of the sovereignty of Colombia, in that regard. Their narcissistic enterprises wind up impacting on us on the

streets of America.

Like I said earlier, if you—if this decertification—if this certification doesn’t come through, even a certification with a waiver of

some sort, it will translate directly into 40 to 50 tons of cocaine on

your streets, on Congressman Mica’s city and district, and on the

other Members of Congress, where you feel the impact. The collateral damage is in an exponential way worse than the amount of assistance that you can provide.

I mean, we are talking $50 billion to $60 billion worth of collateral damage to the United States as a result of not certifying, not

boosting the morale, not giving them the equipment they need, not

supporting them in the first trench, the most inexpensive part of

the drug war versus—the border versus our neighborhood. I mean,

it’s almost goofy, it is almost goofy not to understand that American interests are first.

There’s a part in here that talks about strategy. This was written

in 1990, because we were critical of the Bush administration. The

point is that in strategy you have to understand the first priority

is the war on drugs, and that translates into America; and the second is the maintenance of the country’s democratic institutions.

Mr. HASTERT. To followup on that, we just had a note handed to

us from our district office that today in Waukegan, IL—that’s not

very far from my district—they just had a bust of 400 pounds of

cocaine. That sounds like a tremendous amount of drug. But in the

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whole scheme of things, it’s just a very small fraction of what

comes out of Colombia. But that did come from Colombia.

Mr. MESSING. Mr. Chairman, drug dealers just tried to buy a Soviet submarine for the transportation of drugs.

Mr. HASTERT. One last question I would like to address to you,

Ambassador. In your opinion, do we face, I guess to coin a phrase,

a chemical laundering problem? We had General Serrano talking

about precursors. We understand that many of these products come

from places like Germany and Holland and other places, but even

from the United States, if we can ship—if somebody wants to ship

a product, tons or thousands of gallons of product to Poland or the

Bahamas or Germany and then it finds its way back to Colombia,

is that a problem? If it is, how can we start to get a handle on

that?

Mr. BUSBY. Yes, sir, that is a problem. In the tracking of precursor chemicals, I think DEA and FBI both have whole sections

that do nothing but that.

It is a very difficult proposition because you are talking about a

legal commercial product.

How we get a handle on it? I go back to what I responded to Mr.

Barr. I think the only way you get a real handle on it is to work

with the producing countries of those chemicals to put some tracking restrictions and end-use restrictions on them, and also work

with Colombia and other countries that produce drugs to track the

importation of those kinds of chemicals.

Mr. HASTERT. The question is: How much of that chemical comes

from this country and goes to other countries?

Mr. BUSBY. I don’t know. DEA could give you those figures.

Mr. HASTERT. But is it significant?

Mr. BUSBY. The impression that I have, and I had it from the

time that I was in Colombia, is that we have made some substantial progress. We, Americans, have made some substantial progress

on that. We have made no progress in terms of chemicals produced

in Brazil, Germany, France, places like that.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate both

of you gentlemen being here today. As I said, we have had a lot

of questions and a lot of answers, and I hope we have made some

headway, No. 1, in understanding and, No. 2, establishing a record,

that we need to move forward.

We need to have better ideas. We need to think outside the traditional square to solve this problem. If we didn’t have the courageous people like General Serrano and others, General Bedoya who

was here today, and others, we wouldn’t even be able to get a toehold to solve the problem.

We appreciate your testimony. This is not the last hearing that

we will have on this issue. We will continue to work at it.

This hearing of the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice is adjourned. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 2:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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