U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

67–504 WASHINGTON : 2000

S. HRG. 106–749

UNITED STATES ASSISTANCE OPTIONS

FOR THE ANDES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SENATE CAUCUS ON

INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

February 22, 2000

(

(II)

SENATE CAUCUS ON INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Chairman

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Delaware, Co-Chair

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan

BOB GRAHAM, Florida

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

WM. J. OLSON, Staff Director

MARCIA S. LEE, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Opening Statement: Page

Senator Charles E. Grassley ............................................................................ 1

Senator Joseph R. Biden .................................................................................. 18

Senator Bob Graham ........................................................................................ 20

PANEL I

General Barry McCaffrey, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy ..... 25

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 30

Honorable Thomas R. Pickering, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,

Department of State ............................................................................................ 44

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 49

Mr. Richard Fisher, Deputy United States Trade Representative, Office of

the United States Trade Representative ............................................................ 60

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 63

General Charles E. Wilhelm, Commander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command,

Department of Defense ........................................................................................ 72

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 75

SUBMITTED QUESTIONS

General Barry McCaffrey, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy ..... 117

Honorable Thomas R. Pickering, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,

Department of State ............................................................................................ 134

Mr. Richard Fisher, Deputy United States Trade Representative, Office of

the United States Trade Representative ............................................................ 157

General Charles E. Wilhelm, Commander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command,

Department of Defense ........................................................................................ 160

(1)

UNITED STATES ASSISTANCE OPTIONS FOR

THE ANDES

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2000

UNITED STATES SENATE, CAUCUS ON INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL, AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE, OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, Washington, DC.

The Caucus and Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10

a.m., in room SD–215, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon.

Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the caucus and the subcommittee,

presiding.

Present: Senators Grassley, Sessions, Biden, and Graham.

Senator GRASSLEY. Even though my colleagues are not here, I am

going to go ahead and get started because some of our witnesses,

particularly General McCaffrey, have other obligations outside the

city today and I want to get started on time.

First of all, I thank particularly our witnesses for coming, taking

time out of their busy schedules to help us with the process of congressional oversight. All of you who are in the audience, we thank

you for your interest in this issue as well.

The purpose of this hearing is to look at United States counterdrug policy for the Andean region. We have a lot of ground to cover

today. The proposed emergency assistance package that the administration has submitted to Congress is one of the most significant

foreign policy issues put before Congress in recent years, and it

also marks a very major escalation in U.S. counter-drug efforts in

Colombia. It comes about as a result of a major expansion in drug

production and trafficking from Colombia.

The principal target for most of the drugs produced in Colombia,

of course, is the United States. That expansion has occurred despite an already extensive U.S.-supported effort in Colombia, and

it has happened in large part because Marxist guerrillas in that

country have aligned themselves with drug pushers, becoming in

the end drug thugs themselves.

A high murder rate and endemic violence by narco-traffickers,

guerrillas, and paramilitaries mean that Colombia faces unprecedented challenges. The fate of democratic institutions and the future of decent government are at risk. Clearly, it is in the U.S. national interest to be concerned about not only what is happening

in Colombia, but what we can and must do about the situation

there to protect the American people from this drug trafficking.

But it does make a difference how we engage, and the purpose

of our engagement, of course, is to make a difference. This hearing

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is to look at how the present proposals will accomplish important

goals that will help Colombia as well as help the United States.

Last year, Senators Coverdell and DeWine and myself introduced

the Alianza Act. The purpose of that effort was to urge immediate

and, let me stress, a very thoughtful response, as opposed to just

an ad hoc, temporizing, piecemeal effort. What we asked for in that

legislation was for the administration to submit a strategy for how

to make a difference and not just some grab-bag of goodies bundled

together, because there are serious issues involved that require serious consideration.

Our goal was and still is to see Colombia supported. The Alianza

Act indeed tries to prime the pump, but we also sought to find a

coherent, comprehensive, intelligent strategy, not just a list of

projects. I would like to quote from that Act about what Congress

wanted then and what we expect now. It is not complicated, but

it is necessary.

What we want to see is a plan that lays out priorities, describes

the actions needed to address the priorities, defines the respective

roles of the United States on the one hand and Colombia on the

other, details how the plan will incorporate other regional partners,

and delineates a time line for accomplishing the goals based upon

some understandable criteria.

At this point, we have yet to see such a detailed plan. What we

have seen is various wish lists, and many of these have been somewhat vague. Even these wish lists appear uncoordinated and divergent. So it is my hope that we can clarify that picture today during

this hearing. This caucus tried to get that clarity in a similar hearing late last year. The administration did not seem able to shed

much light then, and I do hope that they can do better today.

So let me be clear. I believe that it is important to support Colombia, that the situation there is serious and how it develops is

of direct concern to us. We have an obligation to help because by

helping we help the United States with the drug trafficking that

is coming here.

But it makes a difference how we go about providing that help.

Poorly conceived and badly implemented programs will do more

harm than if we did nothing at all. We will have a lot of questions

today about the issue of just what it is we are going to do, how we

are going to do it, and what we expect in results.

So I would like to conclude by introducing for the record a letter

that I received from the General Accounting Office detailing some

of its recent findings on problems with our efforts in Colombia.

Members have copies of that communication in their packages. So

I just want to read a brief paragraph.

‘‘. . . the executive branch has proposed a $1.3 billion assistance

package primarily designed to support Colombian military and law

enforcement activities, interdiction efforts, economic and alternative development, and human rights and the rule of law . . .

However, at the time of our review, an operational interagency

strategy for Colombia had not been developed. An official with the

Office of National Drug Control Policy indicated that it is considering developing such a strategy, but there is currently no consensus among the interagency counter-narcotics community whether an integrated strategy should be developed. The official also

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stated that the Office of National Drug Control Policy may not

have the legislative authority to make such a strategy work.’’ [The letter referred to follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. So I finish with this commentary on the letter. This suggests that we are in the process of considering a major

support package without a clear idea of what it is that we are proposing to do. That was true last year. I am not too sure that things

are better this year. That is what I hope to hear more about today.

We need an approach that will take the initiative away from the

traffickers and their allies. If we don’t, all we will be doing is playing an expensive game of hopscotch, and we will be doing that all

over the region and that seems to me to be a formula for losing.

I now call on my colleagues, first Senator Biden and then Senator Graham.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by

commending you for holding this hearing. It is very important that

we consider the proposal for U.S. assistance to Colombia and other

options for the Andes. Though much of the focus of the President’s

supplemental budget request is on Colombia, you are correct to emphasize that we need a regional approach to combat the drug problem in South America.

A decade ago, the Bush administration and Congress joined in

supporting the Andean Initiative, a multi-year effort to combat

drug trafficking in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Over the

past 10 years, the United States has provided considerable

amounts of assistance as well as special market access to certain

Andean products under the Andean Trade Preference Act.

As we start a new decade, we can look back with some satisfaction that our joint efforts with these nations have yielded some successes. In Bolivia and Peru, coca cultivation is much reduced since

1995. In Colombia, large cartels that once dominated the trade

have been largely dismantled. Colombia has resumed extraditing

criminals to the United States, and countries which a decade ago

appeared to lack any political will to combat drugs have become

our partners in this effort. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the scope of the problem is still much the

same. Cocaine continues to flow out of the region at extremely high

levels. Moreover, the face of the battle in Colombia has changed.

There, the cocaine trade has become decentralized. Large cartels

have been replaced by numerous and smaller organizations. Colombian traffickers have also moved into a new sector which some of

us predicted in the mid-1990s—that is, the cultivation of opium

and the trafficking in heroin—and are now major players in the

eastern United States.

Finally, Colombia is now a major center for coca cultivation, replacing Peru and Bolivia as the leading supplier of the coca base.

When we started the Andean Initiative and we would speak with

Colombians, they would basically say it is your problem; we don’t

use it, we don’t grow it, it is just transshipped through us. Now,

they use it. Now, they grow it. Now, it is a serious domestic problem for them, beyond the corruption that it breeds and the violence, just in terms of use.

In sum, we face a different set of challenges in the region today

than we did at decade ago. To address the growing crisis in Colombia, President Clinton has put forward an ambitious proposal designed to support the, quote, ‘‘Plan Colombia’’ formulated by the

Colombian government.

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I agree with the Clinton administration that we must significantly increase our assistance to Colombia, and do so quickly, and

I hope Congress will act promptly on the President’s request for an

extra $1 billion for fiscal year 2000. But as Congress considers this

proposal, we should go in with our eyes wide open. Everyone

should understand that we are entering a new phase in the drug

war in the Andes.

The proposal to train and equip counter-narcotics battalions in

the Colombian army is not without risk, and some significant risk.

Because the drug trade and the Colombian civil war are intertwined in southern Colombia, it seems to me almost inevitable that

these battalions we are training will at least occasionally become

engaged in counterinsurgency operations, and we should recognize

that reality at the outset.

But we should guard against being pulled into Colombia’s guerrilla war. I am confident that the U.S. military doesn’t want to become enmeshed in Colombia’s civil war, but I am not so sure the

Colombian military wouldn’t like the United States to become enmeshed in their civil war. We must make clear to the Colombian

government in our words as well as our deeds that although we

fight against narcotics trafficking and we view it as our fight as

well as theirs, their war against the guerrillas is their war and

their war to win.

In approving the administration’s proposal, we should seek

transparency—I can’t emphasize this enough to the four witnesses

today—absolute transparency, transparency about the number of

U.S. forces present in the country, transparency about the use of

our equipment, transparency about the activities in U.S.-funded

battalions, transparency as to whatever the heck we are going to

call those who are training, if they are contract folks hired by the

military to do the training as opposed to uniformed military. There

must be transparency because when one element of this goes awry,

the whole house of cards will come down if it is presumed by the

public or the press that there hasn’t been absolute transparency.

Second, we should remain vigilant and seek continued improvement in the human rights record of the Colombian military. In past

years, elements of the Colombian army have been guilty of serious

human rights violations. President Pastrana has made serious efforts to address the problem and he appears to be making progress.

But we should demand that institutional tolerance within the military for atrocities by right-wing paramilitaries will cease or we will

cease.

Third, we should consider additional measures to help Colombia’s

neighbors. History, as no one knows better than our drug director,

General McCaffrey, tells us that pressure in one area will cause

traffickers to relocate their operations in another area—the socalled balloon effect. We have seen it when we did, through the

military’s assistance, such a wonderful job in the Caribbean, and

we moved everything up through Mexico as a consequence of that.

We are going to see it again if we are successful in Colombia. Not

only do Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru deserve our continued assistance, but it is essential that we maintain progress in those countries on the drug war with them.

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And, fourth, it seems to me we must be sure that the economic

aspects of this proposal receive sufficient emphasis and support. If

enforcement pressures succeed, we must be ready with alternatives

for the displaced.

And, finally, perhaps most importantly, we should all understand

that although the plan before us is a two-year budget, this will be

a long-term effort. Patience is not always a virtue for which the

American political system is known, but we should recognize that

it will take more than two years to make significant progress in

turning things around in Colombia without making things worse in

other parts of the Andes.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for this

hearing. I also commend the administration for stepping forward

with this plan. The President and his people have done a good job

in assembling a comprehensive proposal, and I look forward to

working with my colleagues and with the people before us today to

help gain its approval.

But, again, let me end by saying transparency, transparency,

transparency. I have been down this road before in 28 years in this

body. We will make a fatal mistake if it is not totally transparent.

I am not suggesting it is not. I am suggesting, though, that that

be a watch word.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you.

Senator Graham.

Senator GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I also wish to

thank you and Senator Biden for holding this joint hearing today

and giving us an opportunity to learn from the various perspectives

represented here. I don’t believe we could have four more knowledgeable people of what the situation is in Colombia and what our

commitments are being asked to be.

I recently visited Latin America and I heard a recurring question

which was similar to what I have heard from people in this country, and that is what is different. This combat in Colombia has

been underway for a long time, over 50 years in terms of the guerrilla engagement, and over 30 years in terms of serious drug

issues. I personally visited Colombia for the first time in 1979 to

see what the U.S. effort was in terms of drug suppression.

I think there are some significant differences that exist today

that have not been in place in the past, and which justify the kind

of U.S. commitment that we are being asked to make. Let me just

suggest what I think some of those differences are.

First, an enormous increase in Colombian coca cultivation, a 140-

percent increase in the last 5 years, more than 300,000 acres of

coca currently under cultivation in the jungles and mountains of

Colombia, with a particular surge in growth in the southernmost

regions of that country. Actual cocaine production in Colombia has

risen from 230 metric tons to 520 metric tons, a 126-percent increase in the same 5-year period.

Second, traditional external funding sources for the insurgent

revolutionary armed forces of Colombia, the FARC, and the National Liberation Army, the ELN, the two principal guerrilla

groups, no longer exists. Since the end of the Cold War, their external support from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other sources has

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largely evaporated. Thus, the FARC and the ELN have been transformed from Marxist ideological movements into Mafia-like criminal organizations that fund their anti-government operation with

drug trafficking dollars.

Third, the infusion of narco-dollars allows the FARC and the

ELN to act with relative impunity as they direct the cultivation,

processing, and transportation of coca and poppy. They also attack

oil pipelines and electric power facilities and conduct sophisticated

kidnapping operations throughout the country.

Next, at the same time, the insurgents’ growing involvement in

criminal activity has greatly reduced their public support in Colombia. The most vivid example of that is that a majority of Colombians today support the extradition of Colombian drug traffickers

to the United States for trial in U.S. courts. The Colombian people

recognize that the most effective way of attacking the guerrillas is

to cut off their source of economic support from narco-trafficking.

Next, after over 60 years of sustained economic growth, Colombia

today is struggling with its worst economic recession since the

1930s. Unemployment in Colombia is at an historic high of over 20

percent. The Colombian economy is suffering from three consecutive quarters of negative growth. The economic downturn in Colombia has undermined both foreign and domestic investor confidence.

Finally, record numbers of Colombia’s best and brightest citizens

are fleeing the country. In 1998, the United States embassy in Bogota processed approximately 200,000 visas. As of December 1,

1999, it had already had applications for 340,000 visas.

We are at a critical juncture in our relationship with Colombia,

with our hemisphere’s oldest functioning democracy. Plan Colombia, developed, as our chairman has indicated, by the President of

Colombia, demonstrates the commitment of the Colombian people

to fight the drug traffickers who threaten the stability of the entire

Andean region, to move the peace process forward and to rehabilitate the Colombian economy, and recognize the principle of basic

human rights for all citizens.

However, in the face of its diminished economic capacity, Colombia cannot complete this important mission alone. Plan Colombia

is a $7.5 billion initiative, of which Colombia will invest 60 percent

of the necessary funding. The United States, as well as the international community, must do its part to assure the successful completion of this initiative.

I have analogized Plan Colombia to a puzzle which has ten

pieces. The Colombian government is going to be responsible for six

of those ten pieces, the United States for two, and we will look to

the international community for the other two. The question is how

do we construct a plan in which all of those ten pieces will fit together and will achieve our goal of a stable Colombia, politically

and economically, which can resume its position as a leading force

for democracy in Latin America.

As we consider this proposal, there are a few additional items

which I think should be considered, and several of those have already been mentioned by my two colleagues.

First, we must do more to assist Colombia’s neighbors who are

our partners in reducing drug production. Bolivia and Peru have

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drastically reduced coca production and their efforts must be recognized and reinforced.

Second, in the area of alternative development and economic assistance, we should consider such things as an early renewal of the

Andean Trade Preference Act to rebuild confidence in the Colombian economy. This Act has been a great success, adopted in 1991

when Colombian exports to the United States totaled $2.7 billion,

while U.S. exports to Colombia totaled almost $2 billion. So we had

a negative balance of payments of $700 million.

Nine years after the Andean Trade Preference Act, Colombian exports to the United States have increased to $4.7 billion, while

U.S. exports to Colombia have more than doubled, to $4.8 billion.

So, today, we have a $100 million trade surplus with Colombia.

Early renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act will signal U.S.

support of Colombia’s economic reform efforts and will boost confidence in both domestic and foreign investors in pursuing business

opportunities that create jobs and enhance international trade with

Colombia and the Andean region.

Finally, we must do more to address the deficiencies in tactical

intelligence that are at the center of any successful counter-drug

strategy and are a major contribution of the two out of ten pieces

of this puzzle which the United States can make.

Plan Colombia is much more than a counter-drug strategy. It is

a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach to restore Colombian

national security, reform the institutions of Colombia’s government,

and rebuild a prosperous Colombian economy. Today’s witnesses

reflect the diversity of this initiative and I look forward to hearing

their testimony.

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you, Senator Graham.

Before I introduce witnesses, I am going to put a letter in the

record from Fanny Kertzman, General Director of the Colombian

Taxes and Customs Agency.

[The letter referred to follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. I am going to introduce you in the way I

would like to have you make your presentations. General McCaffrey is Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Since

1996, General McCaffrey has overseen, among other things, the

creation and implementation of the Federal Drug Control Strategy,

the Drug-Free Communities Program, and the National Youth

Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

Next, we have Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Under Secretary

for Political Affairs for the Department of State. He has served as

Under Secretary since 1997. He is a familiar face here on Capitol

Hill.

Ambassador Richard W. Fisher, our third witness, serves currently as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative at the Office of the

U.S. Trade Representative. His primary responsibility is covering

trade issues for Asia, Latin America, and Canada. Given the importance and high profile of this issue to the administration and Congress, I had hoped that Ambassador Barchevsky would be able to

come. But I thank you, Mr. Fisher, for filling in.

Our final witness today is General Charles Wilhelm. He has

served as Commander-in-Chief of U.S. SouthCom since 1997 and

has previously served as Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces

Atlantic and Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic.

His decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal and the

Silver Star.

All statements will be included in the record. I would ask you to

summarize. And for the benefit of my colleagues who didn’t hear

me say this, General McCaffrey has to leave at 11:30. I hope we

will be able to do things in the normal procedure, but just in case

we aren’t able to do that, we will concentrate maybe our first questioning upon General McCaffrey, but I would like to go through all

four witnesses first.

General McCaffrey.

STATEMENT OF HON. BARRY R. McCAFFREY, DIRECTOR,

OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, Senator

Graham, and your colleagues, I very much appreciate the chance

to appear and to put a statement into the record. We tried to draw

together our thinking and the data that are needed to intelligently

discuss the issue in one document, and I commend this to your attention.

Let me also thank the committee for their past support to put

together and to maintain a sensible U.S. national drug policy. I am

enormously mindful that in an era of balanced budgets that the

U.S. Congress has given us an increase of some 55 percent in our

funding for prevention and education programs, and a more than

26-percent increase in drug treatment, which I believe is going to

turn this issue around in the coming years.

Let me also, if I may, acknowledge the presence of the senior

team from the Government that has hammered out Plan Colombia

that we will discuss this morning, and particularly acknowledge

Under Secretary Pickering’s leadership. Secretary Albright, Mr.

Sandy Berger, the President and I really have looked to Mr.

Pickering’s leadership to try and pull together the regional thinkVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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ing about the drug issue, and I think he has done an absolutely superb piece of work.

General Wilhelm is going to have to do the heavy lifting on this

at the end of the day. As we get into the details of this package,

it is clear that a good bit of it is a mobility package for the Colombian armed forces, and some of it involves the training of not only

counter-narcotics battalions, but also riverine elements and the

skillful integration of intelligence into that effort. General Wilhelm

and U.S. Southern Command obviously will have to be the primary

agency to face up to that in support of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.

Then, finally, Ambassador Fisher. I thank him for his tutorials

on how we should think about the associated economic issues that

are at stake here.

Mr. Chairman, with your permission, let me make four points

and then walk very quickly through some charts. The four points

begin the following: We have a strategy and it is working. You

know, I frequently fall back on an old assertion that we should

never argue about facts. They are either facts or they are not. The

facts are we have been able to pull together a national strategy

which has been sent to the Congress. We have consulted with leading members of Congress. We have your views and they are incorporated in this document.

There is a classified annex to the National Drug Strategy which

gives guidance to the intelligence, armed forces, and law enforcement agencies to match this public document. We have also pulled

together in the space of some six months of hard work our own understanding of what the Colombians are trying to achieve, and that

strategy is Plan Colombia.

We knew we could not substitute U.S. thinking for what essentially has to be a Colombian approach, an approach that takes into

account not just the massive challenges posed by 25,000 heavily

armed narco-guerrillas, but also the concurrent problems which

President Pastrana must face and for which he will be held accountable—the economy which is undergoing such difficulties, the

peace process, as well as rebuilding democratic institutions where

they are lacking.

And then finally, if you will allow me, there is indeed an administration proposal that pulls together and analyzes what the contributing agency requirements will be to make the U.S. support for

Plan Colombia work. And I think there was some confusion in the

GAO report you referenced. There is no question that we do have

an interagency plan for supporting Colombia. There is no question

that we have a five-year budget approach for the Andean Ridge.

I think what is quite correct is that we have not yet gotten to

campaign planning on an interagency basis for the region, and I

think that is really where you will see us go in the coming months

and years to flesh out——

Senator BIDEN. General, would you mind explaining what you

mean—I am being serious—by campaign planning?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Yes. To some extent, it is a matter of semantics.

By ‘‘strategy’’ I mean we do have a conceptual architecture and we

have got resources tied to the concept. So we don’t just have a notion, we don’t just have a shopping list. We have got a blueprint

and we have tied the resources to that blueprint.

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Now, in addition, for Colombia itself we have pretty much moved

out on developing programs to support the strategy and the resources. So, hopefully, if you ask those charged with implementing

this, whether it is the Department of Justice, Treasury, DoD or

elsewhere, they will tell you what they are trying to achieve with

any sub-element of this plan. They will be able to explain what we

are doing to upgrade four Customs aircraft, precisely why you are

going about training three counter-narcotics battalions, why you

chose these helicopters, what will be the deployment schedule. All

that kind of work clearly exists. I would also argue we have got a

pretty good Andean Ridge concept.

Now, a campaign plan for the region will take into account that

all three of these principal nations—Peru, Bolivia and Colombia— are linked, and that indeed there has to be an explicit linkage to

Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, and the Caribbean, and I think the

mechanics of that have to be fleshed out.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you.

Mr. MCCAFFREY. To underscore the strategy, though, at the end

of the day, since 1995 there has been an 18-percent drop in the

global production of cocaine, period. It went down. This is working.

Peru and Bolivia have made dramatic achievements; the Peruvians, in particular, more than 60-percent reduction. To my astonishment, in barely more than 2 years, the Banzer administration

in Bolivia has reduced production by more than 50 percent.

The second point, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would

make is that Colombia is the center of gravity. That is where we

have to go. It is quite clear that notwithstanding the regional successes and the Peruvian and Bolivian country successes, we do

have a massive U.S. threat posed by cocaine and heroin production.

Eighty percent of the drugs we are seeing in America (in terms

of cocaine and heroin) either originate in Colombia or transit

through that country. So if we believe our own rhetoric, if we think

these numbers we are using are correct, this is killing 52,000

Americans a year. This causes $100 billion in damages. This is actually the cause of much of the crime, the violence, the health problems, and the welfare problems we have in this country.

We are going to Colombia to try and support their democratic authorities in an attempt to stop the production of cocaine and heroin. And I would tell you the figures on cocaine are astonishing—

520 metric tons in 1999. But we are also seeing, according to CIA

analysis—and I am so announcing this really this morning—a 23-

percent increase in opium cultivation last year alone. We are now

crediting Colombia with producing now some 8 metric tons of heroin, and this is another major threat to our young people, up and

down the East Coast in particular.

Point number three: the programs we will discuss today we have

been working on for six months. I say this not lightly. This has involved many of us in the Departments of Defense, Justice, Treasury, State, USAID, and others to pull together a coherent plan and

then to make sure that it is supportive of Colombian thinking.

A final thought, Mr. Chairman is that this plan must be, in my

view, viewed as long-range. It will not, in our judgment, work to

pass a supplemental and not to see that this is a multi-year effort

to deal not just with Colombia, but also with regional problems,

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and to support it not just in terms of police, armed forces, and intelligence, but also in precursor chemical control, arms smuggling,

money laundering, alternative economic development, et cetera. So

we think it is long-term and it requires bipartisan support.

Very quickly, let me just show you an overview in map form of

what we are talking about. There is the problem—Bolivia and

Peru, with dramatic reductions; concurrent, very definite increases

in cocaine and heroin production in Colombia.

Next chart.

The problem is drugs. I think we can form a very good argument

that the problems with the economy, with the peace process, and

with the guerrilla forces are all related to an enormous amount of

money that flows out of the production of cocaine and heroin and

into those insurgent groups. I would include in that category the

so-called paramilitary forces. There is no question that they also in

many cases are nothing more than bandit formations whose arms

and whose money comes from guarding or in some cases directly

taking part in the growing or production of drugs.

Next slide.

To underscore, we don’t think there can be a Colombia-only solution. We have to take into account the spillover effect, the hijacking

of aircraft out of Venezuela, the 1,000 or more FARC guerrillas

that have moved into the Darien Peninsula, the paramilitary forces

now following to terrorize the population, the impact on Ecuador,

the movement of drug smuggling routes in many cases from just

formerly the fast boats and aircraft out of Colombia and into the

eastern Caribbean. Now we see a very definite tendency to smuggling going out to the eastern Pacific ports in Ecuador, Peru, and

indeed in Chile, and other drug routes now opening up through

Brazil and even as far south as Argentina.

And then here is a pie chart (A graphic displayed). We can slice this $1.6 billion in many ways, but this gives you a quick overview.

Let me just summarize it by saying the $1.6 billion is a 2-year program. It involves a substantial amount of support for Peru and Bolivia. They have made incredible reductions. We are continuing to

maintain support for their efforts, and I think you will see about

15 percent of the total package goes to those two nations.

There is additional money intended for Ecuador, Venezuela, potentially Brazil, and potentially Panama. A good bit of that funding, however, does go to Colombia, some 85 percent. And if you look

at the Colombia package, half of it goes to support of a mobility

package for the Colombian armed forces. Essentially, it boils down

to 30 Blackhawks and 33 UH–1Ns to allow Colombian military and

police to reinsert democratic control in the south.

In two of those provinces, Putumayo and Caqueta, we have an

explosion of drug production. In fact, the CNP, the eradication program of the Colombian police, has worked. They have had dramatic

successes out in the east in Guaviare province. The production is

now concentrated in the south. There are five FARC fronts down

there. They are heavily armed. 2,500 police cannot insert themselves and eliminate drug production, never mind have governmental bodies provide the concurrent packages of humanitarian

support that will be required as some 10,000 people are moved off

this land where they are now involved in growing illegal crops.

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We think the mobility package is going to be a huge change in

the nature of the police ability to intervene in the south. I am going

to fly to Colombia today. I will be there through Thursday. I will

see these areas. When you look at the southern province, a third

of the arable land area is under coca cultivation. It is outrageous,

and the police simply can’t get in there.

If you look at the rest of that package, there is a substantial

amount—it has gone from about 5 percent last year to 20 percent

this year—in support for judicial reform, alternative economic development, et cetera, so a huge increase in the balance of this program. And it does include quite specifically $240 million in support

for these programs. We think it is a balanced package, we think

it will make a difference, and over time we expect that a sense of

support for Colombian democratic authorities will save American

lives.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the chance to make these opening

comments and I will look forward to responding to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCaffrey follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. Ambassador Pickering.

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. PICKERING, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT

OF STATE

Ambassador PICKERING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.

I am delighted to be here. I have a statement I will submit for the

record. I would like you and the members of the committee to know

how much I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to discuss our assistance to the Andean region, and what I will do in excerpts of my statement is attempt to compliment the excellent overview which General McCaffrey has just presented.

I have just come back from a visit to Colombia, Venezuela and

Ecuador, and some of the testimony I will give today incorporates

my firsthand impressions. I know that we are all very concerned

about the impact of the situation in the Andean region on our own

country. The importance of fighting the scourge of illegal drugs is

an issue on which we all agree. Narcotics have deleterious effects

not only on the health of the person who consumes them, but they

have a corrosive effect on democratic institutions and on the economies in the region, something that I have just again witnessed

firsthand. We look forward to working with you, sir, and with the

Congress as a whole to take the decisive action that is necessary

to address these questions.

I want to speak a little more in-depth about Colombia and our

proposed assistance package to support Plan Colombia, and then I

will touch briefly on some of the other issues that come up in the

regional context.

The U.S. has consulted closely on the key elements that make up

the Plan with Colombian leaders and their senior officials. The

Plan ties together many individual approaches and strategies that

are already being pursued in Colombia and elsewhere in the region. It attempts to use the success in Bolivia and Peru as road

maps to a successful plan. It was formulated, drafted, and approved in Colombia by President Pastrana and his team, and without the Colombian stamp the Plan would not have the support and

commitment of Colombia behind it, and particularly that of President Pastrana.

Colombian ownership and vigorous Colombian implementation

are essential to the future success, and as General McCaffrey said,

we are now very heavily focused on implementation of the Plan,

the operational plan, if you would call it, or the campaign plan. The

U.S. shares the assessment that an integrated and comprehensive

approach to Colombia’s interlocking challenges holds the best

promise of success.

Before I go on to describe in a little more detail our proposal to

assist Plan Colombia, let me remind you that the Plan cannot be

understood simply in terms of the U.S. contribution, which is only

a portion, and indeed a minor portion of the overall Plan.

Plan Colombia is at least a $7.5 billion plan, of which President

Pastrana has said Colombia will commit itself to provide $4 billion

of its scarce resources to support. He called on the international

community for help to provide the remaining $3.5 billion. In response to this request, the Administration is now proposing a $1.6

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billion assistance package to Colombia of new monies and current

funding for the first two years of the Plan. Our request for new monies includes, as you know, $954 million in FY 2000 emergency supplemental funds and $318 million in an

FY 2001 funding package. A significant share of our effort will go

to reduce the supply of drugs to the U.S. by assisting Colombia in

its efforts to limit production, refinement, and transportation of cocaine and heroin.

Building on current funding of over $330 million, for FY 2000

and 2001, the administration’s proposal includes an additional $818 million funded through international affairs programs, the

Function 150 account, and $137 million through Defense programs,

Function 050, in FY 2000, and $256 million funded through Function 150 and $62 million through Function 050 in FY 2001.

We are looking to the European Union and the International Financial Institutions to provide additional funding. In this regard,

the International Financial Institutions, we understand, have already committed between $750 million and $1 billion to Plan Colombia activities.

The Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Treasury, as

well as AID and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy all played major roles in proposing and crafting the Plan Colombia two-year support package.

General McCaffrey has been kind to offer me some congratulations

on this. I think that all of us on this side of the table will accept

them when we see Plan Colombia beginning to realize some real

progress in its objectives. But all of these agencies have been instrumental in providing their support and backing to the U.S. contribution and all of them will play a central role in the interagency

implementation effort.

General McCaffrey has explained some of the overall problems

with production of cocaine and heroin in Colombia. There has been

an explosive growth in the crop in southern Colombia, in the Department of Putumayo, and to a lesser extent in the north in the

Department of Norte de Santander. Putumayo is an area that remains beyond the reach of the government’s coca eradication operations. Strong guerrilla presence, and I would say increasing paramilitary presence from my recent visit, and weak state authority

have contributed to a lawless situation in that Department.

As our successes in Peru and Bolivia demonstrate, it is possible

to combat narcotics production in the Andean region. The package

will aid the government of Colombia in their plans to launch a comprehensive step-by-step effort in Putumayo and the adjoining Department of Caqueta to concur the coca explosion, including eradication, interdiction, and alternative development over the next several years.

In doing this, as you have said yourself, Mr. Chairman, and others, we cannot and will not abandon our allies in Bolivia and Peru.

Their successes are real and inspired, with 60- to 70-percent reductions in coca production in these countries. But they are also tenuous against the seductive dangers of the narcotics trade.

That is why our Plan Colombia support package includes nearly

$46 million for regional interdiction efforts and another $30 million

for alternative development in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. These

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countries deserve our continued support to solidify the gains that

they have worked so hard to obtain, and we are not content to

allow cultivation and production of narcotics to be simply displaced

from one Andean country to another.

The various components of the assistance package I would like

to review in brief. Boosting governing capacity and respect for

human rights is the first element, and here the Administration proposes funding $93 million over the next 2 years to fund AID and

Justice Department and Department of State programs to strengthen human rights and administration of justice institutions.

Expansion of counter-narcotics operations into southern Colombia is the second element. The world’s greatest expansion in narcotics cultivation is occurring now as we speak in the insurgentdominated area of southern Colombia. With this package, the Administration proposes to fund $600 million over the next 2 years

to help train and equip two additional special counter-narcotics

battalions and provide the 33 Blackhawks and the 33 Huey helicopters that General McCaffrey spoke about to make these air battalions air-mobile and to provide them with sufficient intelligence

support.

Alternative economic development is the third element. The

package includes new funding of $145 million over the next 2 years

to provide economic alternatives for small farmers who now grow

coca and poppy, and to increase local government ability to respond

to the needs of their people.

The fourth element is more aggressive interdiction. Enhancing

Colombia’s ability to interdict air, waterborne and road trafficking

is absolutely essential to decreasing the price paid to farmers for

coca leaf and to decreasing the northward flow of drugs toward our

country and elsewhere. The Administration proposes to spend $340

million on interdiction. The program includes funding over the next

two years for radar upgrades to give Colombia a greater ability to

intercept traffickers, and also to provide intelligence to allow the

Colombian police and military to respond quickly to narcotics efforts. It also includes some of the elements of increase in the

riverine forces which Colombia has begun already to deploy.

The fifth element includes assistance for the Colombian National

Police. The Administration proposes an additional funding of $96

million over the next 2 years to enhance the Colombian National

Police’s ability to eradicate coca and poppy fields. This requests

builds on our FY 1999 counter-narcotics assistance of $158 million

to the Colombian National Police.

U.S. assistance to military and police forces will be provided

strictly in accordance with Section 564 of the FY 2000 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, the so-called Leahy amendment. No

assistance is provided to any unit of the security forces for which

we have credible evidence of commission of gross violations of

human rights unless the Secretary of State is able to certify that

the government of Colombia has taken effective measures to bring

those responsible to justice.

We are firmly committed to the Leahy amendment and have a

rigorous process in place to screen those units being considered for

assistance, and this is just but one of the many areas where SenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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ator Biden’s admonition on transparency is being taken seriously

into account and applied.

Let me now turn to the region. In Bolivia, President Hugo

Banzer’s administration has embarked on an ambitious five-year

plan called the Dignity Plan to eliminate all illicit coca and permanently remove the country from the international narcotics circuit.

A goal that seemed utopian when it was announced early in 1998

is now actually, Mr. Chairman, within reach.

More than 73 percent of the country’s illicit coca has been eradicated in less than 50 percent of the allotted time for that task. It

is vital that the Bolivians consolidate these gains by providing alternative development options to the farmers who are abandoning

the coca trade, while maintaining the focus on eradication and

interdiction. U.S. assistance has been and will continue to be essential.

In Venezuela, at this particularly important crossroads it is important to continue to emphasize the value of staying within democratic bounds and establishing precedents for transparent, effective, and responsive government in that country. We will continue

to engage in bilateral cooperation with Venezuela in a wide variety

of areas, everything from flood relief and reconstruction from the

various serious floods they suffered in December, to counter-narcotics, anti-corruption, and judicial reform, and the creation of an

attractive investment and business climate in Venezuela.

Venezuela is cooperating broadly with Colombia on counter-narcotics, border protection, and the search for peace in Colombia. On

my recent trip to Venezuela, I had a full and valuable range of discussions with Venezuelan officials on various issues, including a

central focus on counter-narcotics, and I am happy to report that

I believe we recorded significant progress on the few issues with

Venezuela that are now not already fully agreed upon.

In Peru, we enjoy a strong bilateral relationship with that country that spans many issues, from counter-narcotics to commercial

ties. Our assistance seeks to strengthen democratic institutions in

Peru, enhance the government’s ability to interdict and disrupt

narcotics production and distribution, and to reduce poverty and

promote economic and social development. Our democracy assistance promotes civic and voter education, journalism training, and

support for press freedom organizations, election monitoring, judicial training, increased political participation of women, and increased citizen participation in local government. Our programs

also help to strengthen and expand the Office of Human Rights

Ombudsman, and to support the work of credible human rights

NGOs. Peru is, of course, a country that is a serious source of cocaine, and the value progress that they have made, described by

General McCaffrey, is indeed important in the continuing effort

that we are making in the region.

In Ecuador, while we reject the means by which the recent president, President Mahuad, was removed from office, we are committed to working with the new Noboa government on the full

range of issues of mutual interest, including, of course, our joint

narcotics operations from the Manta forward operating location.

Ex-president Mahuad has since called on all Ecuadorans to support the new president, President Noboa. The new president’s prinVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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cipal challenge will be to address the economic crisis rapidly in Ecuador and to restore public confidence. We have urged Ecuador to

work very closely with the International Monetary Fund and to

take the economic steps necessary to put the reforms in place and

put Ecuador on the path to recovery, including the urgent need for

legislation in the country. The Noboa government has put forward

a package of necessary reforms, and when I was there I strongly

urged all of the parties in the Ecuadoran congress to pass them.

The Andean Trade Preference Act, which will be addressed by

Ambassador Fisher, is also an important instrument for us and for

our activities in the region, and I believe is something we need continually to keep in mind as part of the efforts that we are making.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to make this presentation, and I look forward very much to your questions.

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you, Ambassador Pickering.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Pickering follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. Ambassador Fisher.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD FISHER, DEPUTY UNITED STATES

TRADE REPRESENTATIVE, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES

TRADE REPRESENTATIVE

Ambassador FISHER. Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, Senator

Graham, thank you very much for inviting me to talk about the

trade aspects of this exercise. I also want to share with General

McCaffrey our gratitude to Under Secretary Pickering for pulling

our team together as he does so brilliantly.

I have just returned from a trip to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. These countries, of course, are remaining on track in their

economic recovery despite the recession they have experienced and

the financial turmoil that recently affected South America. I had

the opportunity to meet with all three presidents of those countries

and was struck by the expressions of angst that came from them

with regard to the Andean region.

The Andean region is not faring as well obviously as the Southern Cone, and as each of you have noted, the scourge of narcotics

production and trafficking and all the economic, social, and security

problems associated with that illegal activity are particularly intense in the entire region.

In addition to its general purpose in developing mutually beneficial trade and investment bilateral relationships, our trade policy

in the region has been tailored to give the Andean countries greater opportunities to move away from narcotics cultivation into legitimate trade.

I would like to highlight for you our three major initiatives in the

region: the first, referred to by Ambassador Pickering, the benefits

created by the Andean Trade Preference Act, or ATPA; the second,

our strengthening of bilateral trade relations with countries in the

region which we have intensified; and, third, the negotiations toward the Free Trade Area of the Americas and how it is relevant

to this exercise.

First, with regard to the special market access program created

by the Andean Trade Preference Act, known as ATPA, this was

originally applied to Bolivia and Colombia in 1992, then to Ecuador

and Peru in 1993, granting these four countries tariff benefits comparable to those of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act

until the year 2001, in December. Its goal was to help generate economic alternatives to drug production and trafficking through reduced duty or duty-free treatment to most of these countries’ exports to the United States.

The ATPA has indeed been providing benefits to items of significant export interest in the region; for example, cut flowers from Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, totaling about $440 million annually;

precious metals and jewelry products from Colombia and Bolivia

and Peru, totaling about $210 million annually; fish and fish products from Ecuador, totaling about $80 million annually.

This has helped prompt substantial growth in our trade relationships, as mentioned by Senator Graham. Bilateral trade between

the U.S. and the Andean region has more than doubled since the

passage of the ATPA. The four countries combined have increased

their exports to the United States by about 80 percent since 1991,

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with Colombia gaining approximately 95 percent and Peru nearly

140 percent. In 1999, $1.7 billion in imports from the four relevant countries entered the U.S. under the ATPA, $799 million from Colombia,

$607 million from Peru, $259 million from Ecuador, and some $63

million from Bolivia. Our most recent formal review submitted per

the statute, which requires a review every three years, was submitted in December of 1997 and showed that ATPA had a positive

effect on drug crop eradication and crop substitution in the beneficiary countries.

Our judgment of the success of this program is echoed by the

beneficiary countries. In October of last year, for example, Colombia’s Ministerio de Comercio Exterior, their foreign minister, wrote

that the ATPA has, quote, ‘‘had a remarkable socio-economic impact. Net ATPA-related employment generation over 1992 to 1998

was 108,000 jobs in Colombia,’’ end of quote.

The ATPA program expires in less than two years, as was noted

by Senator Graham, in December of 2001, as I mentioned earlier,

which is a rather short time in terms of business and investment

planning. The Andean community has requested that we extend

the program for at least several years, and asked us to reduce the

list of products excluded from preferential treatment under the current legislation, and to add Venezuela, which is the fifth member

of the Andean community as a beneficiary country. It has also been

suggested that we request an early extension of the program before

the December 2001 expiration date, and we are prepared, Senator,

to examine all these proposals very closely in consultation with you

and with the Congress.

Second, as I mentioned in my introduction, we have been intensifying our bilateral trade relationships with the Andean region.

For instance, in May of 1999 we and the five member states of the

Andean community met in Cartagena, Colombia, for the very first

meeting of the newly formed U.S.-Andean Community Trade and

Investment Council. We refer to it by an acronym called TIC. The

TIC meeting addressed issues such as the FTAA negotiations, the

intellectual property rights issues between us, trade issues under

the Andean Trade Preference Act, and matters of mutual interest

in the WTO and in bilateral trade.

We also have an active program of bilateral investment treaties,

or BITs, and we have a BIT in force between the United States and

Ecuador since May of 1997. We signed one with Bolivia in April of

1998 that is still subject to Senate ratification, and we are in various stages of exploratory talks with Peru and with Venezuela on

possible bilateral investment treaties. During his recent trip to

Washington, I proposed to President Pastrana that we proceed with

a BIT negotiation with Colombia, and we are awaiting his reply.

These treaties, Senator, provide mutual benefits by enhancing investor certainty and confidence. They help create jobs and longterm growth which are inherently desirable, and also help economies diversify away from narcotics.

The administration has also made the point to the Andean governments—and I have personally had the pleasure of meeting with

all five of the Andean presidents in that meeting around the

Cartagena meeting—that full implementation of the WTO obligaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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tions and respect for the rule of law in such areas as intellectual

property and trade-related investment measures and customs valuation are critical to creating favorable business climates and to attracting investment into the region.

Indeed, the Plan Colombia which we have been talking about so

much today makes a similar point in the section in that plan dealing with trade. The Plan also refers to the need to implement business facilitation measures agreed to in the FTAA negotiations, to

promote a favorable environment for electronic commerce, and recognize that, as Senator Biden referred to earlier, transparency and

due process in government procurement is essential to achieving

greater efficiency and integrity in the use of public funds, not just

in this country but, of course, in the Andean region.

Third, and finally, in parallel with the special focus on the Andean region per se, we and the Andean countries are full partners in

the construction of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. These

talks are due to conclude by December 2004. They are on track to

meet that deadline. These negotiations, when concluded, will greatly increase the alternatives to narcotics trade in the Andean countries.

By eliminating obstacles to trade and goods, the Free Trade Area

of the Americas will create similar new opportunities for the Andean countries not simply in the United States, but also in the other

countries of the hemisphere. Opening markets and services will

help to strengthen their economies and encourage competition,

transparency, and impartial regulation of financial systems, telecommunications, insurance, and other industries basic to a modern,

diversified economy.

The elimination of tariffs and non-tariff barriers envisioned by

the FTAA will be a powerful stimulus for investment in all of our

economies, giving Andean nations and others further opportunities

to diversify away from and develop alternatives to narcotics production. And it will strengthen the value of openness, accountability, democracy, and the rule of law, which themselves make the

FTAA possible. These are values central to any successful effort to

combat narcotics trafficking.

Senator Grassley, a strong trade and investment relationship

with the Andean region is a vital component of our counter-narcotics efforts, as well as a critically important goal in its own right.

It is not in any sense a substitute for the policies directly focusing

on narcotics issues, but it offers nations afflicted by poverty and by

these conflicts opportunities to grow and develop healthier, diversified economies.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Fisher follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. General Wilhelm, inform me whether or not

it will take you more than seven or eight minutes. If it does, I

would like to go to questioning of General McCaffrey before we

hear from you. But if you can be done in seven or eight minutes,

I think we will just go ahead with your testimony.

General WILHELM. Senator Grassley, I think I will be very close

to that.

Senator GRASSLEY. Okay, thank you. Go ahead.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL CHARLES E. WILHELM, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND

General WILHELM. Chairman Grassley, Senator Biden, Senator

Graham, I welcome this opportunity to discuss with you United

States assistance options for the Andean region.

I know that during this hearing you intend to discuss U.S. economic and political assistance policies for the region and the Andean Trade Preferences Act. There are distinct linkages between

these policies and our counter-drug and military-to-military engagement policies and activities. This morning, I would like to comment on these linkages and Department of Defense activities in

support of Plan Colombia.

The counter-drug struggle provides the underpinning for most of

the military engagement activities in the region. With regard to

Colombia, I am encouraged by the progress that is being made.

During 1999, we created the first of the Colombian counter-narcotics battalions. This 931-member unit is composed of professional

soldiers, all of whom have been vetted to avoid human rights

abuses. The battalion has been trained by members of the United

States Seventh Special Forces Group and is designed to interact

with and provide security for elements of the Colombian National

Police during counter-drug operations.

Tactical mobility has long been the Achilles heel of Colombia’s

armed forces. This battalion will be supported by an aviation element consisting initially of 18 refurbished UH–1N helicopters provided through a cooperative effort on the parts of INL at the State

Department and United States Southern Command. These new

units will focus their operations in the southern departments of Colombia which have been the sites of recent wholesale increases in

drug cultivation and production.

To assure that combined military and police units conducting

counter-drug operations have the best, most recent, and most accurate intelligence, we have worked closely with Colombia while developing the Colombian Joint Intelligence Center, or COJIC, as we

refer to it, at the Tres Esquinas military complex that abuts the

southern departments.

This computerized facility attained initial operating capability on

the 22nd of December of last year. Deliberately, and without fanfare, these new organizations have commenced operations. Their

two initial forays into drug cultivation and production areas near

Tres Esquinas resulted in arrests, seizures of drugs, destruction of

laboratories, confiscation of precursor chemicals, and identification

and subsequent eradication of new cultivation sites. The counterdrug battalion and Colombian Joint Intelligence Center were creVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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ated by reprogramming and reprioritizing previously budgeted resources during the past year.

The initiatives that I have just described we refer to collectively

as Action Plan 99. The follow-on effort, Action Plan 2000, builds on

these first-phase efforts. During the coming year, we will build two

additional counter-narcotics battalions and a brigade headquarters.

With a well-trained and fully equipped counter-narcotics brigade

consisting of more than 3,000 professional soldiers, the Colombian

armed forces will be prepared to join forces with air mobile elements of the Colombian National Police to reassert control over the

narcotics-rich departments of southern Colombia.

Continuing to focus on mobility and intelligence, we will provide

15 additional UH–1N helicopters, rounding out the aviation battalion. These UH–1Ns will ultimately be replaced by UH–60

Blackhawks, which have the range, payload, high-altitude capability and survivability required by Colombia’s armed forces to cripple the narcotics industry and bring the remainder of the country

under government control.

On the intelligence side, we will continue to develop and refine

the Colombian Joint Intelligence Center and pursue a broad range

of initiatives to improve our interdiction capabilities. A key component of the interdiction plan is first-phase development of the forward operating location at Manta, Ecuador. This facility is urgently

required to replace capabilities lost when we left Panama and

closed Howard Air Force Base. Manta’s importance stems from the

fact that it is the sole operating site that will give us the operational reach to cover all of Colombia, all of Peru, and the coca-producing regions of Bolivia.

Looking beyond 2000, we have engaged the services of the Military Professional Research Institute, or MPRI. MPRI has assigned

hand-picked and highly experienced analysts to assess Colombia’s

security force requirements beyond the counter-drug brigade and

its supporting organizations. Among other things, the contract

tasks MPRI to develop an operating concept for the armed forces,

candidate force structures, and necessary doctrines to implement

the operational concept.

I have now served at Southern Command for 28 months. Shortly

after assuming command and making my initial assessment of security and stability conditions in the region, I stated that I considered Colombia to be the most threatened nation in my area of responsibility. Today, almost two-and-a-half years later, I stand behind that assessment. However, I am encouraged by what I see in

Colombia.

Served by a first-class civilian and military leadership team, Colombia demonstrates a level of national organization and commitment that was simply not present two-and-a-half years ago. To be

sure, the recently reported upsurge in coca cultivation and production provides cause for concern, but that concern is partially offset

by improved performance by Colombia’s security forces during tactical engagements with the FARC, ELN, and others who are aiding

and abetting narcotics traffickers.

Cooperation between the armed forces and National Police has

improved. New levels of competence in air-ground coordination

have been demonstrated. Intelligence-sharing is on the upswing.

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An aggressive program is underway to restructure the armed

forces. The armed forces and National Police are poised to reassert

control over the southern and eastern portions of the country, and

Plan Colombia provides a comprehensive national strategy designed to defeat the narco-traffickers and correct the ills they have

visited on Colombia’s society.

On average, I visit Colombia about once every six weeks. I am

convinced that the second most populous nation in South America,

with the longest and strongest democratic traditions, is turning the

corner. With our help, Colombia will succeed.

In recent months, I have become increasingly concerned about

Colombia’s neighbors. The adverse social, economic and political

conditions spawned wholly or in part by drug trafficking and the

other transnational threats that it breeds are weakening the fabric

of democracy in other nations in the region.

For this reason, while I endorse a Colombia-centric approach to

the drug problem in the region, I caution against a Colombia-exclusive approach. While we assist Colombia in making important

strides to reassert its sovereignty over its territory and to curb

growing cultivation, we should also take appropriate steps to preserve the noteworthy successes achieved by Peru and Bolivia, and

be sensitive to emerging needs in the bordering countries of Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela and Brazil. This is truly a regional problem. As such, we must pursue regional solutions.

In summary, I am convinced that we are headed in the right direction and we are pursuing the right options in the Andean region, but not a minute too soon. To seize the initiative in a struggle

which General McCaffrey has testified claims as many as 52,000

American lives per year, I urge rapid approval of the supplemental

and increased support for other nations in the region.

I thank the caucus for the help it has given us in the past and

I look forward to your questions that will follow. Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of General Wilhelm follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. I suggest for my colleagues that on this first

round, so we can each get General McCaffrey if we want to ask him

questions, five minutes, and then we will take a longer period of

time after he leaves if other members want to follow up with other

people.

I am going to start with you, General McCaffrey, but maybe this

is also appropriate for Ambassador Pickering. I got the point that

you made that perhaps the General Accounting Office was somewhat confused whether or not there was a detailed strategy on the

part of the administration. I kind of laid out what I thought the

detailed strategy ought to have, laying out priorities, describing the

actions needed to address those priorities, defining the respective

roles of the U.S. and Colombia, details of how the plan will incorporate other regional partners, and finally delineating a time line

for accomplishing the goals based on some understandable criteria.

Is there a document that you could place in front of us that

would have that information in it? Or is my presumption wrong,

if you want to take exception to my presumption that we ought to

have such a document? This is something that Senator Coverdell

and I and others were pursuing last September when we introduced our legislation.

Mr. MCCAFFREY. First of all, let me just reiterate there is a conceptual architecture. There has been enormous, extensive involvement by the entire interagency in coming together not just with the

concept but with the resources that will support the concept. So all

of that is available.

I think what is also true is that the implementing plan behind

this architecture is still evolving and requires continuing leadership. Ambassador Pickering may wish to address our understanding that we had to do something differently. We were barely

managing a $150 million a year program. Now, we are talking a

multi-year effort that is not just $1.6 billion for the United States,

but as Secretary Pickering talked to, it is $7.5 billion for the Colombians.

So in no way would I suggest that the decisionmaking apparatus

that now exists is yet adequate for the task ahead of us. That has

to be built. We are going to put together a high-level team here in

Washington to be the mechanism, the secretariat of this. We have

established a new deputies committee and we will expect the Colombians to do the same thing.

Senator GRASSLEY. Before Ambassador Pickering responds, is it

wrong for me to assume that we ought to have this information before Congress makes a decision of moving ahead on spending the

$1.3 billion, or whatever it is, that we are going to be spending?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. No. I think we do have on the table a well

thought out, competent conceptual outline of what we are trying to

do with the resources, and we can explain to you why we arrived

at those conclusions. I do believe the documentation and the professionalism of the people that built this should be adequate to reach

a decision.

Senator GRASSLEY. Ambassador Pickering.

Ambassador PICKERING. I just support what General McCaffrey

has said. I think that priorities are contained in the National Drug

Policy of the United States, plus Plan Colombia. The actions taken

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to support those and defining the respective roles, I think, are very

clearly in the congressional presentation document that you have

got before you.

The role of the other regional parties is in the congressional presentation document and the time line is being prepared, but there

is a rough time line already indicated in the congressional presentation document about how and in what way we will commit our

funding for various objectives. And I believe that we could provide

you with a briefing on that time line in a little more detail if you

or your staff would like to have that.

Senator GRASSLEY. The second question is in regard to part of the Alianza Act, the $410 billion that goes to support the regional

anti-drug interdiction and eradication programs. According to reports by Occidental Petroleum Corporation, not only are pipeline

attacks at the highest rate of incidence, but there is significant activity for new crop cultivation along the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

Given the fact that the threat is not limited to the south, what

plans are there to address the northern regions of Colombia, if you

consider that a problem like these reports seem to indicate it is a

problem?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, I don’t think there is any question but

that to include the production of heroin, which you didn’t mention—it is now up to 8 metric tons—many of these activities that

are in Plan Colombia don’t relate just to the regaining control of

the south element. That is the three battalions, some riverine

forces, intelligence support, as well as associated alternative economic development and humanitarian aid for people displaced by

that action. But a lot of this program goes to prison reform. By the way, in a 3-year period, we are talking about $450 million-plus assistance provided to the Colombian National Police.

These are substantial resources that are on the table now, not just

for aircraft, but training and operations, et cetera. So I think it

does apply Colombia-wide. The piece of it, the mobility package, is

in the south.

Senator GRASSLEY. If Congress were to fully fund the President’s

emergency supplemental, what changes in cocaine prices and purity could we expect to see, and when should those changes begin

to occur?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, we have seen an 23-percent reduction in

hectares under cultivation. We have seen an 18-percent drop in

total tonnage produced in the Andean Ridge, and that came primarily out of moving Peru from the dominant source of cocaine to

a distant number two, Colombia now being about 75 percent of it.

It is our collective judgment that this plan will work and that in

the coming 2 years to 5 years we should expect to see substantial

reductions in the production of drugs in Colombia.

Senator GRASSLEY. According to the 1999 National Drug Control

Strategy measures of effectiveness, your office is responsible for reporting on the outflow of drugs from source countries. What

changes of outflow of drugs from Colombia would you see?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think in the coming years, as we get at

the coca- and opium-producing regions, you will see an almost immediate reduction in the production of these drugs as they impact

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on the United States. Again, in my view, this is a 2-year plan we

are now talking about, but this is clearly a 2- to 5-year effort we

are facing up to.

Senator GRASSLEY. The CIA says that we have had a 12.7-percent reduction since 1996 in coca production. How much of a reduction of coca production do you expect to see as a result of the aid

package?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, again, it gets at the point, can we turn

things around in the center of gravity, which is Colombia. We assess that we can and as we have seen in Guaviare Province where

the Colombian National Police aerial eradication program was

enormously successful. It serves as witness that it will work.

How do we get the Colombian National Police back into the

south so that eradication can take place and displaced people can

be cared for? Again, Senator, I would suggest the answer is probably in the coming two to five years we will see a dramatic impact.

Senator GRASSLEY. What is the U.S. plan for how to deal with

the implications if our current package gets us more involved in

confrontation with the guerrilla forces?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think this will not be U.S. service men

and women involved in this. This is a Colombian problem. It must

be a Colombian strategy; it must be their police, their armed forces,

their prosecutors and judges that face up to this. I think that is

what they plan on doing, so I would anticipate U.S. military elements will not be involved in counter-drug operations.

Senator GRASSLEY. Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much.

General, I wish you luck on your trip. I would like to focus on

two things. While I have you here, as well as General Wilhelm, I

would like to talk about one part that—I was going to say ‘‘concerns,’’ but I am not sure it concerns me; I want to make sure I

understand it. I would like to talk about the mobility package here.

Having spent a fair amount of time becoming acquainted with

the issue of mobility in the Balkans and watching Apache helicopters and their movement into a region and the difficulty that

that took and the command and control problems that were involved, it seems to me—and you have spoken to me about this

briefly, General McCaffrey—that there is going to be a need for a

serious presence on the ground of someone with more than a couple

of bars on their shoulder down in Colombia, as well as some highlevel State Department personnel assigned to the embassy to make

sure that this significant transfer of mobility in terms of Hueys and

Blackhawks—that is a big deal in terms of maintaining them, locating them, getting them there, et cetera. Can you tell me a little

bit about what the deal is, how you have worked that out?

My dad has an expression I won’t quote precisely, but being the

oldest in a family of four, when he and my mother would leave they

would say, you are in charge, and point to me. And I would say

why me? He would say, you are the oldest and I want to know who

to hold responsible if something goes wrong.

Well, who do we hold responsible, who specifically? Are we going

to have a name of an individual who is the guy or the woman on

the ground making sure that this equipment, these helicopters actually get in place, actually are put in the position to be able to

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be used, actually are able to get up off the ground? I mean, how

are you going to do that practically?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, I am sure CINC South will want to respond. There is no question in my mind who is responsible. Number one, it is the U.S. ambassador. We have got a substantial team

on the ground.

Senator BIDEN. But as good as they are, they don’t know a damn

thing about helicopters.

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Right.

Senator BIDEN. They don’t know a damn thing about how to

move them.

Mr. MCCAFFREY. We are going to have say the ambassador is responsible. The Secretary of State is responsible. They can’t do it

unless CINC U.S. Southern Command wakes up every morning

and views themselves as being primarily in support of the U.S. embassy effort.

We do have to rethink who is in Colombia, the kinds of skills

they have, the numbers, et cetera. And I don’t think that process

has been finished, and CINC will, I am sure, want to respond. I

think even more importantly, there is no question in our own

mind—and Under Secretary Pickering and the NSC and I have discussed it—we need to change business as usual here in Washington. We can’t get by with the normal interagency process when

we ramp up to this level of support.

So we have discussed and we are moving to implement a separate deputies committee steering group for policy decisions, and we

will put together a secretariat of some form with a person full-time

who is going to be our quarterback to make sure the policy implications are considered.

Senator BIDEN. General.

General WILHELM. Yes, Senator Biden. If I could pick up where

General McCaffrey left off, the General correctly, of course, traced

the hierarchy of responsibility. But I will tell you I feel the weight

of responsibility on my shoulders on the military side. I think that

is appropriate. I think that is what you pay me to do.

We are trying to do this in a very thoughtful way. There is a lot

more to helicopters than air frames.

Senator BIDEN. You got it.

General WILHELM. There is maintenance, there is training, there

is life cycle management, and there is intelligent employment of assets and their preservation. We are keenly mindful of all of those

things. I am trying to do the very best I can to provide Ambassador

Curt Kamen the best advice that I can, and work very closely with

Rand Beers, sitting in the audience in back of me, because since

day one this has been a shared Department of State-Department

of Defense enterprise. As you know, Senator, the $388 million that is in the supplemental to buy the 30 Blackhawks are State Department dollars.

But we view ourselves at Southern Command as very much partners in this enterprise. Where we have started, sir, is to look first

at an intelligent, well-integrated, well-thought-out basing arrangement. We have come up with three bases.

We will use Tolemeida, which is a well-developed facility, as our

main operating base; Lorandia, another very well-developed facility

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currently used by the Colombian National Police, as our forward

operating location. And then we will actually marry the airplanes

up with the troops who will embark on them at Tres Esquinas as

we push to the south.

We have already invested $600,000 well-spent on improving force

protection at Tres Esquinas, which is——

Senator BIDEN. That was going to be my next question.

General WILHELM. Yes, sir. That is the branch furthest out on

the tree. Just a ‘‘gee whiz’’ number, 15,000 rolls of concertina wire

alone. I have troops on the ground right now, and have since January, conducting not only an assessment of the security conditions

on the ground at Tres Esquinas, but fixing the broken things just

as rapidly as they find them. We have a dedicated air base ground

defense force drawn from the Colombian Air Force. They are receiving blue-ribbon training from a special forces A team.

So, sir, it could go on and on, but I think you can see there are

a collection of activities which involve, I think, an intelligent appreciation of the geography, attention to force protection. And I would

add in conclusion I have proposed—this is not anything that is in

the bag right now, but I would very much suggest that it would be

appropriate for us to increase the throw-weight of our MIL group

commander in Colombia from a colonel to a general officer, and I

am pursuing that with the joint staff in the embassy right now.

Senator BIDEN. Well, let me just say I have been a champion—

that sounds like the wrong word; it sounds like there is some value

to it. I have been a strong, strong supporter of the State Department, but I hope the hell they get out of your way here. Once the

policy is made, once the judgment is made, I hope everybody understands they don’t know any more than this committee knows about

how to do what has to be done, and you do.

Once the policy has been made, once the judgment has been

made that this is a basing arrangement and this is how many helicopters are going to do it, this is the training, this is the way in

which it is going to be done, I hope to goodness that we don’t get

into any bureaucratic malarkey here.

Once we have agreed on an objective, once we have agreed on the

strategy and the tactics as to where the deployments will take

place, and how, and how many people, et cetera, I for one want to

make it real clear that if I, one Senator with diminishing influence

in the minority here, find out that you all are running into any difficulty, I will do all I can to make it hell for whoever gave you any

trouble because this is serious logistical stuff that only gets done

with guys with those shiny little stars who have spent their whole

careers figuring out how to do it, not anybody like me who allegedly knows something about foreign policy and makes the larger

judgment of whether we should or shouldn’t be there. I don’t anticipate that difficulty, but we have been down this road before over

the last 20 years or so, never with this concentration of hardware,

and it is a big deal.

The last question I have—I don’t know whether that light is out

for me or not; I think it is still green—is that you have had remarkable success, General, or the Ecuadorans and the Peruvians

have had remarkable success, and Ambassador Pickering has been,

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as I understand it, kind of the quarterback for what has been going

on here.

But my question is it seems to me the remarkable success relates

not in small part to the fact that there is no significantly well-organized, well-armed counter-insurgency in those other two countries.

The reason why there has been such movement to cultivation in

Colombia is the existence of this insurgency, well-armed and wellentrenched.

And it is not merely the fact that the ground is more suitable

and it is out of the Andes and it is in lower areas that it can be

cultivated, but it is not an accident that it is where the guns are,

it is where the guerrillas are. So I want to know whether or not

I am making too much of a leap here in assuming that there is an

absolute, direct correlation between the ability to increase production in Colombia and the decrease in production in the other two

neighboring countries and the existence of this counter-insurgency.

And if that is true, then don’t we get to the point where we aren’t

going to have significant success until there is success against the

FARC and the counter-insurgency movements? That is a mouthful,

but could you respond to it, General, since you are going to be the

one leaving shortly, and anyone else the chairman permits to respond?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think I would certainly agree the three

countries are all enormously different. They don’t face the same political, economic, counter-insurgency and drug-related threats at

all, although it is equally clear that the Sendero Lumiroso, MRTA,

and other insurgent groups in Peru were devastating in their savagery, and also clearly involved in coca production in Peru.

It is quite different in Bolivia. Bolivia certainly makes an interesting contrast with Colombia. Bolivia accomplished much of what

it has done through a national dialogue implemented by the Banzer

administration in which they convinced the people in the country

that it was David versus Goliath, and David was the people and

Goliath was the drug cartels. There has been much less violence

there. There have been 9-some-odd people killed. There has been

sniping, but there wasn’t a huge mass of insurgents.

In Colombia, clearly the Colombians faced 25,000 people with

machine guns, mortars, planes, helicopters, wiretap equipment,

huge amounts of corrupting money targeted on their journalists,

their legislature, and their mayors. It is a very different thing.

I don’t believe there is any chance that the FARC, the ELN, and

the paramilitaries will walk away from the millions of dollars they

generate out of drug production unless there is a reward and a

punishment that forces them to do that. I see no way for these

brave Colombian policemen to intervene in the south and cut down

cocaine and heroin-producing areas that threaten their own children and ours unless the military intervenes and provides security

for them. So to some extent, I think you are quite correct.

Senator GRASSLEY. General McCaffrey, can you accommodate

Senator Graham and Senators Sessions yet or do you have to go?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Yes, sir.

Senator GRASSLEY. Senator Graham.

Senator GRAHAM. Was that a yes to the first or the second question?

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Mr. MCCAFFREY. I am trying to make a 1:00 plane out of National and it would be terrible if I missed it, but I would be glad

to respond to your questions, Senator.

Senator GRAHAM. In light of that, General, I will restrict myself

to one area of questioning and that is during a recent visit to Mexico, you were reported as stating that drug traffickers were returning to the Caribbean and their old traditional routes of getting

drugs into the United States. I assume that in part that is due to

some of the difficulties that the new Colombian drug cartels, as

outlined by Senator Biden, are having dealing with the Mexicans,

as well as the softness that has occurred in some areas of the Caribbean, specifically Haiti.

I would like your thoughts as to how Plan Colombia relates to

the next phase of the strategy, and that is the interdiction in the

routes between Colombia and the United States, with specific concern about the allegations that Haiti has become a major transport

center within the Caribbean.

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Senator, I spent three days in Mexico and was

enormously impressed by the growing, deliberate momentum of the

Mexican efforts in the south. I think it is going to work over time.

They have just begun. It is a $520 million equipment acquisition,

it is $1 billion in operating money, it is 15,000 people. And I was

looking at real machinery, some first-rate deep-water Mexican

Navy efforts that have resulted in three gigantic drug seizures, in

cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard; a pretty good amphibious

commando effort by the Ganfi forces in the Mexican Army; new

counter-drug x-ray technology.

It is going to pay off, and these drug criminals are watching

what is happening in front of their eyes. They have not stopped.

They are still out in the eastern Pacific as the principal drug threat

to America, but we are seeing some response. We also saw the

Coast Guard with a brilliant air-sea interdiction effort that has

started to work against fast boats.

So I think what we are seeing now is the beginnings of a change

in drug criminal smuggling. They are going to Haiti, they are going

to the Dominican Republic, they are going to Jamaica. They are

using now direct air landing strips in drugs in Haiti, among other

things, and we are going to have to follow them.

The entire Colombian package, though, again—and I think

CINC’s notes had an interesting statement. When you look at the

interdiction piece, the Caribbean-Eastern Pacific-Central American

is an area the size of the United States. This is huge, hundreds of

miles of empty ocean out there in the eastern Pacific.

The interdiction effort in Colombia is a fairly definable place. We

take satellite photographs of coca fields. We know where they are,

and this riverine-army-police effort will directly interdict those

drugs. So I think it is going to help south Florida, the Gulf Coast

States, the four border States, quite directly in the coming years.

Senator GRAHAM. Could you comment about the issue of Haiti

and its increasing use as a transport center?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Senator, it is a disastrous situation and I am

not sure we have a grand idea of what to do. We have upped our

DEA presence substantially. We are doing first-rate work with the

Dominican Republic to try and seal that border.

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We need to stand behind U.S. Coast Guard efforts to interdict at

sea. There has been first-rate work by the U.S. Customs Service in

south Florida, the Port of Miami, trying to get at these tramp

steamers coming out of Haiti. But it looks to me as if the Haitian

law enforcement, judicial system, political system in terms of confronting the drug cartels is in a state of rapid collapse, and they

have become a preferred target which we will have to deal with

really externally to Haiti. I think that is where it is headed.

Senator GRAHAM. Thank you.

Senator GRASSLEY. Senator Sessions.

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General MCCAFFREY. General Wilhelm said, I believe, in 1998

that the Colombian armed forces were incapable of defeating the

guerrillas, which are Marxist-dominated and funding themselves in

large part from narcotics trafficking.

What percentage of Colombia is now held by guerrilla forces, the

land mass, the land area?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Senator, it is probably a deceptive statement.

The figure we use is that the FARC, ELN, and paramilitaries may

have enormous influence over as much as 40, 50 percent of the

country. I think there are probably 200-or-so communities where

their presence, according to Colombian published reports, is omnipresent. But they don’t control anything but the despeje. The Colombian police and the Colombian armed forces have not conceded

or written off anything in the country.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, you have a great record of combat and

experience in the armed forces. If Colombia gets its act together

and acts with determination and a full commitment, is there any

doubt in your mind they could defeat the guerrilla forces and take

that country back?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Senator, the key question is political will. Does

the Colombian leadership, the Colombian people, want to turn

their future over to these ferociously well-armed and savage insurgent forces, fueled by drug money and production? The answer is

they don’t. The political will is there.

I agree with the CINC’s assessment. Both their political and

their military leadership and the police leadership now gives us an

unusual opportunity for them to defend themselves. So our collective view is that this program we are advocating will work and protect not only the United States but regional partners.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, you just said it, though. The question is

political will. Lincoln had it. He faced a more formidable situation,

I suppose, than the country of Colombia faces today. He recognized

the future of his nation was at stake and he led with relentless

commitment to a goal to taking back that country.

Don’t you think that those of us who have the money here to support Colombia ought to ask whether or not the Colombian government is sufficiently committed to this enterprise before we continue

to pour money into an operation? Shouldn’t we insist that the Colombian leadership state unequivocally that they intend to end this

occupation and to defeat the drug dealers and Marxist guerrillas?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Well, I would suggest that Plan Colombia, the

product of the collective leadership of Colombian democratic instiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00101 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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tutions, does represent a collective will to confront this problem. I

find it very credible.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, what is the story about if you have a

high school degree, you can’t go into combat? Would you explain

that to me? Is that consistent with a nation that is committed to

victory?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. I think the Colombians recognize that that is

a product of inadequate political will. I think it is a disastrous

statement to their own people. They have to face up to that. They

said they will. They are going increasingly, as General Wilhelm can

talk to, to a professional military, 30 to 40,000 people and a rapid

reaction force. They had an old system that doesn’t suit the new

threat to their stability.

Ambassador PICKERING. Barry, could I just make a point? I

talked to the Colombian defense minister on Friday about that. He

made it very clear that they were going to change that, and that

was something they hoped to do very shortly.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I think that is a beginning signal. Ambassador Pickering, is it the position of the State Department that

we are neutral in this war, this effort, this guerrilla fight in Colombia?

Ambassador PICKERING. It is our position, Senator, that we

should do everything we can to fight this nexus between narcotics

trafficking and insurgency. The focus is on the narcotics trafficking.

That is what affects us.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, all right.

Ambassador PICKERING. That is the centerpiece of our effort. The

interesting thing is you go down to Colombia and you find that that

nexus is increasing. It is hard to find places, frankly, where the

FARC, the ELN, and the paramilitaries, I have to emphasize, in all

the briefings I received, in all of the areas of highest production of

narcotics, are not all intimately involved.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, what I am concerned about is these

guerrillas are not democrats, they are not believers in democracy.

They are Marxists, they are connected to the drug industry, and we

have got one of the oldest democracies and one of the finest countries in the world in Colombia that is on the ropes. We don’t have

a choice on whose side we are on?

Mr. MCCAFFREY. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, may I

withdraw?

Senator GRASSLEY. Yes. Thank you, General, for coming. Good

luck.

Mr. MCCAFFREY. Yes, sir.

Senator SESSIONS. Whose side are we on, or do we have a side?

Ambassador PICKERING. We have a side. We are clearly on the

side of the government in their fight against narcotics trafficking

and everything at all that contributes to that.

Senator SESSIONS. Then are we publicly committed, or are we

not, to the Colombian democratic government defeating the guerrilla forces in Colombia? Do we support that effort?

Ambassador PICKERING. We are, insofar as those guerrilla forces

are involved in narcotics trafficking. That is the centerpiece of our

effort. It is the centerpiece of the Colombian government’s effort in

Plan Colombia.

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Senator SESSIONS. Well, I think you have just answered the

question that you don’t have confidence in the integrity of the Colombian government sufficient to support it, and now we are asked

to spend over $1 billion on drug trafficking fighting, which to me

sounds pretty hopeless if we can’t take back that territory from the

Marxist drug traffickers.

Ambassador PICKERING. I think that the focus is on the drug

traffickers, whether they are Marxists, republicans, democrats, anarchists, whoever they might be. That is the focus we are putting

on it.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, it may not make a difference to you, but

it makes a difference to me whether a Marxist group takes over Colombia or not. Does it not make a difference to the State Department?

Ambassador PICKERING. It certainly makes a difference to all of

us, and it makes even more difference because they are intimately

involved in the drug trafficking, and that is the focal point of the

Plan. It is the focal point of our support mechanism for the Plan.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, it just seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that

I have a strong belief that Colombia is a nation of good people and

it has a great democratic tradition. I remember distinctly when I

was prosecuting a major drug smuggling case in Mobile, Alabama,

when I was United States Attorney and we had a young policeman

who came and testified against them. And I remember asking him

about his personal safety and how he was willing to come to the

United States and testify against these people, when so many people have been assassinated who do so. And he was just courageous

and he was a believer in his country’s government, and I remember

that.

I just don’t know how we can proceed with a policy that doesn’t

understand fundamentally who we ought to be supporting. I think

this government of Colombia has not gotten its act together. I do

not believe that they have committed with sufficient will, as General McCaffrey said, to win this war. And if they have the will,

they can win this war. And if they have the will, we ought to support them. But just to pour more money in an attempt to reduce

drug trafficking while we don’t deal with the fundamental political

insurgency that is going on, I think is doomed to failure and I am

very dubious.

I thank you for having this hearing and raising these issues.

Senator GRASSLEY. We will go to a second round of questioning.

I have just one question for Ambassador Fisher, and also one for

Ambassador Pickering—well, I have two questions for Ambassador

Fisher. Let me pick up something that came up since you testified.

Your testimony mentions that you will examine proposals to extend ATPA in consultation with the U.S. Congress. Will the administration do more than just examine proposals and actually send a

specific proposal to extend ATPA to Congress?

Ambassador FISHER. Senator, ATPA expires in December of

2001, as I mentioned earlier. We are eager to find ways to deal

with the uncertainty that that creates. That is a major concern

that Colombia and the other Andean countries have.

We had some consultations last year with the Senate Finance

Committee staff. I consulted with a couple of the members of this

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committee just informally. There didn’t seem to be an appetite to

put something ahead of the road early before that year. It seems

to me that some of this interest has now intensified, in part,

around these hearings and also around the Plan Colombia. And we

would be willing to contemplate this if indeed we have a sense that

the Congress, the Senate, are interested in the subject matter.

The key to ATPA, it seems to me, is to provide certainty. It is

interesting. If you look at these countries, they also have a choice

of GSP treatment. That is on-again, off-again program, and they

prefer to go down the ATPA route because there is a longer period

of certainty for investors, and in this case it was a 10-year program.

I would just make one other comment, Senator, on this subject.

We are in the midst of preparing the negotiations of a Free Trade

Area of the Americas. The reason I referenced it in my testimony

is because if we look to an extension, whether it is early or upon

maturity in 2001, of the ATPA program, it seems to me we want

to structure it so that we incentivize particularly the Andean countries to participate actively in the Free Trade Area of the Americas

effort which leads to a broad liberalization throughout the hemisphere and that they have a vested equity in that process.

Senator GRASSLEY. There is some sensitivity because of the concern that Congress is giving to the Caribbean Basin Initiative and

whether or not in one sense we are concerned about the economic

development there and not enough concerned about the economic

development of the Andean nations. You don’t have to comment on

that. I guess I just need to express that to you.

Ambassador FISHER. We have been working very hard on trying

to get the CBI and ATPA initiative through.

Senator GRASSLEY. And it is not exactly easy, I know.

Ambassador FISHER. Yes, sir.

Senator GRASSLEY. I know, I know.

In regard to the International Trade Commission study about

ATPA—and this was September of 1998, and I quote, ‘‘It has been

important in promoting diversification in Colombia’s economy since

the early 1900s.’’ We are putting together a 3-year, $15 million program to focus on alternative economic development, and this obviously is to reduce public participation in illicit drug production and

moving workers into alternate jobs.

What is the administration’s plan to implement the issue of this

development as an alternative to the production of drugs?

Ambassador PICKERING. Maybe I should answer that. I think

that is more in the area that I deal with, Mr. Chairman. I think

that you have to look at this in two particular phases. Phase number one or part number one has to do, frankly, with the very close

linkage between the government’s regaining control and dealing

with the people protecting the narcotics trafficking, whether they

are guerrillas or paramilitaries, and the laboratory structures, and

the ability to eradicate the crops.

Once you begin to eradicate the crops, the Bolivian model is a

very germane one, and the Bolivian model has an intensified effort.

$15 million may be the money for this year, but it will be larger

in the supplemental, as explained in the presentation documents,

and it will require a very significant effort to find alternative crops.

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There are some important ideas to locate the areas where those

crops can be grown and to aid the individuals who will agree under

the Plan, or if they don’t agree their cocaine will be fumigated, to

go into the alternative crop activities. Those who are on land that

cannot be used in alternative crops are a more complicated situation. We will have to find alternative land for them elsewhere in

Colombia and move it ahead.

Could I make just one other point? Senator Biden raised an important question about the military focus of this activity. And there

is; there is a huge military focus. And I can tell you, Senator, having been involved now for the last 8 or 9 months, there is no daylight between the Department of State and the military in making

that happen.

I have to tell you, however, this is a team effort covering a wide range of activities. If you look at overall Plan Colombia, the $7.5

billion program, less than 50 percent, in my view, will end up being

military and the rest will be developmental, justice reform, human

rights. It is an area where we all have to play on one team and

where that team has to work together and where, happily, in my

experience over the last six months, we have a strong team and

that team can work together.

If one piece of this falls out, the whole thing can go to hell. If,

in fact, we don’t have the alternative development activities engaged as the military regains control of the countryside and the

planted areas in the south, we will have a bust. We will not have

a success, and those people will move off into other areas of Colombia or Ecuador or Peru and start moving again back into this particular area, and we will see the balloon phenomenon.

So I am in Colombia and here preaching a strategy of cooperation and integration. It has got to be political, it has got to be military, it has got to be police, it has got to be development, it has

got to be justice, it has got to be civilians and the uniformed people

all in the same room working on the same plan and carrying out

the same sort of effort, each doing their part, or it won’t work.

That is why it was successful in Bolivia and Peru, and I think

that is why it can be successful in Colombia. But I wanted to make

that set of points both in connection with your question, Senator

Biden, and with the chairman’s question because I think it is germane.

Senator GRASSLEY. Ambassador Pickering, you mentioned that

the plan deals with guerrillas—and I think these are your words—

insofar as they do drugs. But the plan suggests major escalations

and the potential for confrontation with narco-trafficking guerrillas

and paramilitaries. Where is the discussion for dealing with this

potential and what are the possibilities? For instance, what if the

paramilitaries and their involvement in drugs—what is the plan for

dealing with those?

Ambassador PICKERING. Precisely the same as it is for the guerrillas. I was in Colombia last week. I was briefed on the presence

of growing numbers of paramilitaries in the southern departments

of Colombia. The government has an obligation to take back control

of its own country. Those people on both sides, guerrillas and

paramilitaries, are clearly involved in protecting, fostering, and

sometimes actively engaged in drug trafficking, taking taxes, setVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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ting prices, making sure that individuals deliver, fostering the increase in the cropping of coca. All of those things go on.

The government will have to take back control in order to eliminate those crops. Whoever they have to take control from, they are,

under Plan Colombia, obligated to do that and they are committed

to do that in the discussions I have had down there. And I believe

that there is no distinction in Plan Colombia between dealing with

whoever, left, right, or the middle, protects or fosters or carries out

narcotics trafficking or production.

Senator GRASSLEY. A last question and then I will go to my colleagues. There was a story today in the Boston Globe saying that

there has been 50,000 acres cleared for coca in northern Colombia.

Does this support package have anything to address that or the potential spread of coca cultivation?

Ambassador PICKERING. This support package has as its first and

primary endeavor on dealing with activity in the south because

that is the area where we have seen the greatest expansion. We

have had a 65-percent success rate in two departments of the south

in aerial eradication. The real problem is that the growth in planting and production has exceeded the capacity now of the Colombians to take back control of their own country and to protect the

aircraft and the ground-based eradication efforts that have to go

on. So the next piece will be to go where the production and the

increase has been greatest.

But I can assure you that all of us have very much in mind in other areas of Colombia, as General McCaffrey said, the $400 million-plus support in the package and previously for the Colombian

National Police is to be effective all over their country, wherever

that is necessary, and to be backed up by the military if it is necessary for the military to deal with well-armed, heavy-weaponed, if

I could put it this way, guerrilla or paramilitary forces when the

police run up against it.

It is a combined and, I think, very significant set of activities to

deal with it. The strategy is to go where the growth in production

has been greatest most recently, but then to go on from there into

the other areas.

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you, Ambassador Pickering.

Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thanks very much.

Mr. Ambassador, thank you for illuminating more your view of

the coordination, but let me make clear what I mean. You are not

going to have anybody from CINC working on justice. You are not

going to have anybody from CINC working on development. No one

from you guys should be working on helicopters. That is all I am

saying. Let’s stop this State Department-speak.

Ambassador PICKERING. Well, we fund helicopters and we obviously have an obligation to the Congress to make sure that that

money is well-spent. We do it in coordination with the military.

Senator BIDEN. We trust these guys.

Ambassador PICKERING. Actually, the military sets the production guidelines for when we can get the helicopters off the line.

Senator BIDEN. That is right.

Ambassador PICKERING. So we are very dependent on the military and the full cooperation.

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Senator BIDEN. That is not the point I am talking about. I am

talking about when they get in-country, not off the line. We trust

them more than we trust you—not you personally, the State Department—about whether or not these helicopters are being used

in an efficacious way, okay?

Ambassador PICKERING. Wherever they are used in a military

function, Senator, of course, we have to have that.

Senator BIDEN. Well, that is the only function they are going to

be used in. They are not for tourism.

Ambassador PICKERING. Some are for police and some are for

eradication purposes.

Senator BIDEN. And you mean you guys are going to be running

that show?

Ambassador PICKERING. The police are going to run it.

Senator BIDEN. And who is going to be coordinating that, you?

Ambassador PICKERING. No. The coordination in-country, in my

view, has to be a combined effort. If the military and the police and

the civilians in Colombia cannot sit down and do this themselves

and make it happen, with each one doing their mission in conjunction with the others, it won’t work.

Senator BIDEN. I guarantee you they can’t; absolutely, positively

guarantee you they can’t. They do not have the capacity now to absorb this kind of materiel and know what to do with it and how

to use it for the next couple of years. You know it and I know it.

That is the only point I am making. So these guys are the guys

who are going to make that work. They don’t even know how to fly

the suckers yet. I mean, come on.

Ambassador PICKERING. Well, Senator, they already have a large

number of Blackhawks and there will be more coming. There is, in

my view, no argument between us on the role of the military and

how they should play it. I think we are a hundred percent agreed

on that. I don’t want to pick a fight, respectfully, on an issue that

I think is all understood between us. The point I was making only

is that if it isn’t coordinated and integrated, it isn’t going to work.

Senator BIDEN. I agree with that, by the way. The way this is

going to come undone real quickly is not when the next minister

of justice is shot, not when the court system continues to be riddled

with problems. It is when you lose four Blackhawks.

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes, I agree.

Senator BIDEN. That is when it is going to come undone. You

have been around this town long enough.

Ambassador PICKERING. And when we lose troops, and we all see

that, and police.

Senator BIDEN. That is when it happens, that is when it happens.

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. And on the point raised by my friend from Alabama, who is quoting Lincoln, which I found interesting——

Senator SESSIONS. Killed my great granddaddy at Antietam.

Senator BIDEN. Well, no. I am amazed.

Senator SESSIONS. And got the country back together in the

course of it, however.

Senator BIDEN. I have been here 28 years. This is the first time

I have ever heard a Senator from Alabama talking about Lincoln

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pulling the country back together again. I thought that was a war

of Northern aggression that was fought, but anyway I won’t get

into that.

Senator SESSIONS. Victors write the description of the war. We

need to have a victory in Colombia is what we need.

Senator BIDEN. A la Lincoln. You heard that, General.

General WILHELM. Yes, sir.

Senator BIDEN. I want you to know that. I don’t know where the

hell you are from, but don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

Senator SESSIONS. Southern Command.

Senator BIDEN. All kidding aside, there is a distinction with a

difference, in my view, between whether or not we say we are engaging U.S. military trainers, men and women in uniform and military contract personnel, in another country for what purpose. If we

state that the purpose is to defeat the guerrillas, in my view, big

nations can’t bluff.

It is not sufficient to put ourselves in the position that we are

going to put ourselves in with as little U.S. military force in-country and say we are doing this to defeat the guerrillas. It arguably

is sufficient in terms of material and personnel to train Colombian

personnel to defeat the drug trafficking.

And this is fungible, in a sense. If they have a couple of battalions who are focusing on this, as I said in my opening statement,

there is no question that they are going to be engaged in—I can’t

imagine there being a circumstance where the commanding officer

for the Colombian military a year from now is on an eradication

mission in the high Andes going after the opium crop and hearing

that there is a large concentration of the FARC in a particular

place that if they moved right away they could get—I can’t imagine

the drug eradication not becoming the second priority at that moment, at that day, with that person.

So the idea that we think we are going to be able to parse out

controlling the Colombian military, these battalions you are training, and the use of those helicopters only for the purpose of interdicting and eradicating drug trafficking, I think is not reasonable.

They are going to be used interchangeably at some point once they

are trained.

But I do think it does make a difference whether or not—and

this is where I do agree with Ambassador Pickering’s description

of our role. Words matter here, and in this case to suggest that our

purpose in providing this military equipment and this aid is to deal

with the narco-trafficking in these areas—and incidentally, to the

extent that it takes out any, all, or part of the counter-insurgency,

that is fine, but that is not our first purpose.

If that is our first purpose, we are making a commitment in

terms of our credibility that far exceeds the commitment we are

making relative to attempting to deal with drugs. If we wish to do

that, then I think the Senator from Alabama and others should so

move, should move on the floor of the Senate to suggest that. And

we should debate whether or not we want to do all that need be

done militarily to aid the Colombians in regaining control of their

country from Marxist insurgents.

But I think it is a distinction with a difference that needs to be

made here as to what our purpose is. And if we wish to go further,

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General, I am going to want you to have a whole hell of a lot more

than 60 more helicopters that you are not going to be flying. I want

you to have a whole hell of a lot more in terms of us going down

to aid the Colombians.

Now, that does not mean that we could not in a separate package

unrelated to this provide military aid to the Colombians for purposes of going after the guerrillas, if you want to do that. But that

is not the function here, although incidentally it has to be part of

the solution. But I do think it matters how we say it, and that is

the only point that I wish to make.

I have no further questions.

Senator GRASSLEY. Senator Graham.

Senator GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to talk some about the international aspects of Plan

Colombia beyond the United States. I understand that President

Pastrana has been in Europe recently discussing the prospects of

European cooperation both financially and in the peace process. I

know that there will be a meeting in Madrid shortly of potential

friends of Colombia.

Ambassador Pickering, could you outline where that process is?

Specifically, how close is Colombia to getting the balance of the

funding package committed? And, second, what will be the role of

other countries besides the United States in attempting to move

the peace process forward?

Ambassador PICKERING. First, Senator Graham, essentially what

you have said is a good resume of what has been going on. Let me

just recapitulate a little bit. The plan is estimated at $7.5 billion

for 3 years. $4 billion coming from Colombia is a very important

contribution. That will be probably more predominantly non-military, but there will be a very significant military and police component to that.

There will be, in addition to that, already committed probably

$750 million to $1 billion from the international financial institutions, the IBRD, the IMF, and the various regional banks in Latin

America. That will be to cover the very significant share of the civilian component.

Senator GRAHAM. Is that part of the $4 billion that Colombia——

Ambassador PICKERING. No. That is part of an add-on to the $4

billion. There will be, in addition to that, of course, depending on

the will of Congress and your decision, the money proposed from

the U.S. side. There will be, in my view, because both President

Pastrana, then his foreign minister, then now his foreign minister

and the coordinator of the plan are currently in Europe talking to

the Europeans—the idea is to have, as you said, a meeting in the

summer, I hope early summer, in Madrid. The Spanish have

agreed to host that.

There is a target to fill in a very considerable amount; I would

say less than $1 billion, but more than $500 million, we would

hope, as a good target for the Europeans. That will cover, I think,

the bulk of the financing for the plan, depending, of course, on

what we do in the third year which is not yet, I think, a reality

by any means, but something that we would clearly want to follow

up the present package with.

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There is, in addition to all of that, a commitment beyond Plan

Colombia for development and macroeconomic currency stabilization and other financing. Recognizing the general good health of

the Colombian economy and recognizing that it is a country with

lots of resources, that can, as a backdrop to the plan but not focused on the plan, provide an enormous amount of support essentially in the economic, the non-military area.

And this, I understand, has attracted up to perhaps as much as $7 billion in international support, outside of Plan Colombia. Some

of it may be in Plan Colombia. Let’s say $6 billion outside of Plan

Colombia, at least, which will be enormously important for the future of that country. You can’t obviously separate everything in Colombia to Plan Colombia and non-Plan Colombia. There will be a

symbiotic and mutually-reinforcing relationship for those, and that

is the commitment of those institutions over, I think, the next

three to five years. So we have to keep that in perspective.

As a result, I think that we are optimistic, given President

Pastrana’s determination and commitment, given the support that

he has begun to receive and the work that he and his people are

putting in to deal with not only Europe, but I would expect that

we will see some of the wealthier countries in other parts of the

world in Asia, in particular, to round out the funding commitments

that are now still outstanding.

And we will, I hope, by the summertime be able to give you a

lot clearer view as to are there gaps still and where should they

come and how does that feature or fit into our thinking as we come

into the 2002 budget year. We are working obviously now on the

current supplemental and 2001.

Senator GRAHAM. The second part of the question had to do with

the internationalization of the peace process. I know that some of

the guerrilla organizations in Colombia, the FARC specifically,

have had longtime relationships with European countries in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Has there been an effort to try to get some

of those nations engaged in the peace process to encourage a more

conciliatory attitude by the FARC?

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes, there has been, and that is really

now beginning to show up, if I could put it that way, on the scope.

There are several things that should be mentioned. One that is

very important is that with the help of the Swedes, with the help

of the Norwegians, and now of other countries in Europe, including

Italy and the Vatican and Spain and others, there is a joint delegation of FARC and government and non-government people going

through those countries to give the FARC, I think, something they

need very badly—they have been 40 years in the bush and they are

clinging to doctrinal and other ideas that now have been discarded

almost everywhere else in the world—and they have very little understanding of how the world at the beginning of the 21st century

is working—to give them a real sense of the fact that they have

been in many ways passed by by time and by circumstances and

that there is a significant imperative for them to engage in a clear

way and in an accurate way in a process of ending the conflict and

bringing peace to the region, obviously, on terms and conditions

which will preserve democracy in Colombia and on terms and conditions which will not in any way at all allow any opportunity for

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permission to engage in drug production or drug trafficking. Those

are absolutely sine qua nons.

The government of Colombia is also cooperating very closely with

the Venezuelan government. They had a recent meeting on Friday

on the frontier involving all the military, all of their intelligence

people, and all of their senior foreign affairs people to coordinate

strategy. And I believe from my conversations with the Colombian

government they have found Venezuelans have been cooperative

and helpful not only in reestablishing control over the border

which, as you point out, is a place where there have been incursions back and forth to the detriment of the interests of both countries, but also helpful in promoting meetings in the context of making progress bilaterally between the government and their guerrilla

opponents. The Venezuelan government can be useful and helpful,

and I believe has been in the eyes of the Colombian government,

whose judgment on this I think we have to respect.

Senator GRAHAM. A final question on the alternative development plan. Based on the Bolivian experience, there seem to be

some principles that are important to effective alternative development. It has to be part of a dual structure or strategy—law enforcement pressure, economic development. One won’t work without the

other.

There is a tendency to think of alternative development as if it

has to be agriculture. In fact, some of the most significant job opportunities in economic development are outside of agriculture.

There has to be a focus on labor intensity even within agriculture. Fresh flowers in Colombia employ ten people per hectare.

Cattle-raising might employ one person per ten hectares. So it is

important to keep the focus on providing employment opportunities

that will be of a sufficient level that they will attract people away

from illicit coca production.

My question is how refined is our alternative development strategy and what proportion of those persons who are going to be displaced from their current illicit activity will it provide economic opportunities for?

Ambassador PICKERING. These are extremely important questions, and another criterion obviously is the people doing it have

to make a living. They have to be in a position, if not competing

with the high rates of return they made on coca, they have to be

able to feed their families, see a future for themselves and move

ahead, which means that the choice of alternative crops also has

to be wise. The Colombians have begun looking at things that have

a market value not in Colombia but as export crops that will be

important because those can generate higher returns to the individuals.

The effort is first to obviously base ourselves on the lessons that

we have all learned in Peru and Bolivia and then try to apply

those. In Colombia, they have an alternative development agency

called PLANTE which has begun already in Colombia to design the

programs, to work on Colombian experience. And we consulted

with them last week in our planning meetings in Colombia and

they clearly, as you have, distinguished between places in Colombia

where people could actually go into alternative development and

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places where the soil conditions are so poor, the future is so sparse

that those places probably ought to return to forest land.

In fact, the Colombians have also thought about the environmental consequences of what they are engaged in as ways to protect that and find alternative employment in those kinds of activities, as well as, I would hope, moving people to areas where there

is good land available, some of it confiscated from drug cartels, that

could be exploited and developed by people to either move into agriculture or into light manufacturing, whatever can be done in terms

of investment in the country.

These are hugh problems for Colombia, one of the reasons why

we have moved from 5 percent of our assistance to 20 percent of

our assistance is to take into account the fact that they will require

resources, planning, and additional support to be able to do it. I

think the raw material is there and I think the principles are there

and I think there are the right people working on it. The coordination is what I am most concerned about and that has to be put in

place.

Senator GRASSLEY. Senator Sessions.

Senator SESSIONS. You know, I think the Colombians’ argument

they made 20 years ago that the problem is more an American consumption problem than a production problem for drugs is, as time

has gone by, more plausible to me than it used to be as a Federal

prosecutor.

I think the way for the United States to defeat drug use in America is to reemphasize what we do within this country with a strong

will, which at one time we had which I sense is now being undermined. I was a part of the effort. I prosecuted hundreds of cases,

many involving Colombian importation cases. I have read about the

underground empire and all the books at that time about that. I

chaired a committee in the Department of Justice on narcotics.

But I do not believe we are going to solve America’s drug problem by stopping production in South America. We have been trying

to do that, and we have heard testimony and this committee has

heard testimony for over 25 years, probably, that somehow we are

going to solve the problem by getting the Peruvians, the Bolivians

and the Colombians to stop producing it. So from that point of

view, I have real doubts about the overall effectiveness of this effort. It would have some positive impact, but not much, in my opinion.

As soon as the source gets shut down in one area, it pops up in

another country. We have seen that over and over and over again.

Now, I wish it weren’t so. I wish we could do it that way. It just

has not worked, so I have serious doubts about that.

I believe fundamentally, though, that we will never have a major

reduction in drug production in Colombia until the nation is in

charge of its territory. As General McCaffrey said, 40 to 50 percent

of the country is controlled by the guerrilla forces who are providing protection to drug dealers and making money off the drug

trade. Not only that, but they are totalitarian Marxists who want

to destroy Colombian democracy. So I don’t know what to say about

it. I am stunned that we continue to push the peace process.

Ambassador Pickering, isn’t it fair to say that in these matters

if you don’t make progress on the battlefield, you can’t make very

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much progress when the State Department starts the negotiation

process? Aren’t you troubled by the fact that the United States is

encouraging Colombia to negotiate with these insurgents? Isn’t

that the wrong thing for us to do as a Nation? Shouldn’t we encourage them to fight for their nation and their democracy?

Ambassador PICKERING. Let me address a couple of the problems.

First, General McCaffrey ought to address the domestic issue and

the demand reduction, but I have to do it because when I go to

Latin America or elsewhere to talk to people about their part in the

program, I have to keep pointing out to them that only 3 percent

of the many multi-billion-dollar national budget of the United

States goes to foreign supply reduction. The other 97 percent—and

this is in the multiple billions, tens of billions of dollars—goes to

deal with all of the aspects of the problem in the United States

that you as a prosecutor are so familiar with.

Senator SESSIONS. You are counting State and local law enforcement, I guess.

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes, including demand reduction.

Senator SESSIONS. That is a fair analysis.

Ambassador PICKERING. And I believe, and General McCaffrey

has the figures, that we can see serious impacts in a positive way

in demand reduction at least in some of these areas. Unfortunately,

I understand in synthetic drugs it is not nearly as successful as it

has been in cocaine and heroin use in the United States. I am not

the expert on that, but I have to talk about it, so——

Senator SESSIONS. I know the numbers on that. I can share them

with you.

Ambassador PICKERING. You know the numbers on that.

Senator SESSIONS. They are not quite as good as you suggest.

Ambassador PICKERING. Well, I think they are a lot better than

many of us thought five years ago we would see, and I think that

we can continue to do better in that area and it proves that it isn’t

hopeless.

Secondly, I think that you yourselves have answered the question you keep asking me because on every occasion when you raise

the question of helping Colombia, you mention the drug problem

and I mention the drug problem, and that is the central focus of

the reason why we are helping Colombia.

Now, the third point is the question of bringing an end to the insurgency. I agree with you a hundred percent, and I have told this

to President Pastrana and so have all of the senior American officials who have met with him, that you cannot end the insurgency

through a negotiating process that is not backed up with all of the

effort of the Colombian government in whatever area to pursue

that particular effort against a position of strength and a position

of continuing to make it clear to the guerrillas that you are not

going to permit them to engage in this huge amount of money production for themselves which just feeds the insurgency by continuing to engage in narco-trafficking, and that the government is

not going to gird itself up in every area, in better human rights

performance, in judicial reform, in all those things that strike at

the heart of what it is these people, deeply engaged as they are in

narco-trafficking, are in a sense looking for.

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Secondly, I don’t believe the negotiating process is at all a bad

idea. I was associated with it in El Salvador. I watched it in Guatemala. It ended up ending for all intents and purposes the armed

insurgencies in both of those countries, but it only proceeded under

the conditions that you have set out and that I fully agree with

that the government has to make a major effort.

In this particular case, the nexus between all of these organizations that wish to see the end of the government, whether they are

paramilitaries for their own purposes or straight-out criminals or

guerrillas who are engaged in narco-trafficking—the unifying

theme for the United States is their engagement in the narcotics

effort, and that is the central focus of the supplemental that we are

providing and that is the reason why we have this support package

for Plan Colombia.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I believe the nation is not going to prevail until there is more national will on the battlefield. And if they

start prevailing on the battlefield, they will be in a position to negotiate some sort of settlement perhaps in the future, but I don’t

see that now.

The Scandinavians and Swedes and Italians—if they want to go

down there and preside over an international peace process right

now, I would say let them put their money in it, not ours. I do not

believe we are ready to do that, and I think we ought not to be

having our policy with Colombia substantially affected by that kind

of thinking, just because other nations may have an interest. I just

have serious doubts.

General Wilhelm, with regard to the status of the military there,

has there been any success of significance in the military battle between the guerrillas and the government in the last year, six

months?

General WILHELM. Senator Sessions, I would say that absolutely

there have been some significant successes. I think we only have

to go back as far as the nationwide offensive that occurred in July

of last year. I have been to Colombia and visited with the military

leaders. I have viewed the intelligence analysis and I have viewed

the photographs of the aftermaths of the contacts which were nationwide.

Sir, I can tell you as a matter of certainty the Colombian armed

forces emerged with the upper hand, and this was the first occasion

after a series by my count of ten of what I have referred to as

stinging tactical defeats. This then carried forward into the month

of November, when again both the FARC and the ELN embarked

on widespread engagements where they attacked isolated garrisons, both national police and military. Once again, at the end of

the day the Colombian armed forces, in my judgment, emerged

with the upper hand. And that is more than wishful thinking on

my part. Again, I looked at the evidence. I looked at the hard evidence, to include the aerial photography of the battlefields.

What has changed? Answer: a number of things. One, the military is behaving much more professionally on the battlefield. We

are seeing levels of air-ground integration that we haven’t seen before. In General Velasco, the Colombian Air Force has a first-class

tactical commander who spends his time on flight-related and target engagement business, which is awfully important.

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We are seeing much better integration between the Colombian

National Police and the armed forces. Small garrisons are no

longer being left on the limb where they can wither and die. There

is, in fact, a reinforcement plan. Quick-reaction forces have been

formed. Quick-reaction forces have been provided some mobility

means. This will improve markedly if we execute our support plan

for Plan Colombia as it is framed right now.

Intelligence preparation of the battlefield was woefully lacking

when I went to Southern Command two-and-a-half years ago. The

most fundamental assessments of terrain and weather weren’t

being made. It shouldn’t come as any great surprise if your main

advantage is air power that your adversary is going to take you on

during periods of low visibility, rain, and other inclement weather.

These things are all being thought through now.

So, sir, the answer to your question is, yes, we have seen a

change in the military’s fortunes, and it has nothing to do with

luck. They created their own luck by good leadership, thoughtful

intelligence preparation of the battlefield, and thoughtful integration of combat systems.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, that is good to hear, and I have heard

some things to that effect previously, but we have got a good way

to go. Two things trouble me. If we are beginning to get our military act together and they are beginning to be effective, are we assisting them effectively if we are encouraging peace negotiations in

the middle of military success? I have doubts about that.

To me, I am not sure we would have served Lincoln well if we

tried to get him to negotiate a peace settlement while the war was

going on. There were plenty of opportunities and people wanted to

do that. He saw that a nation can’t compromise away its territory.

Victory is in this circumstance essential, it seems to me, and I am

just not sure we are in the right frame.

I want to help Colombia. I do not want to be involved in a civil

war in Colombia. I think what we ought to do is tell the Colombian

government, and the President of the United States needs to tell

him, you show leadership, you go out there and start showing that

you can effectively prevail against these insurgents and we will try

to assist you, both because we have a special interest in drugs and

because we believe in democracy in the world. And we would like

to see you prevail and bring a united nation together again in Colombia.

Mr. Chairman, I am just real troubled about a proposal that has

got international peace process members who want to cut deals

while we give billions of dollars in an area, in my view, that has

just got to be won on the battlefield.

Senator GRASSLEY. Ambassador Pickering.

Ambassador PICKERING. The difference, Senator Sessions, with

respect, is that I believe President Pastrana is committed to principles, that he is not going to close off the opportunity for the guerrillas to come and accept his principles and to push them very hard

on both fronts, on the struggle front particularly focused on the

counter-narcotics struggle which affects them directly because it is

their livelihood—that is where they are getting all the money, that

is where they are getting the new uniforms and the radios, and

that is how they are paying for the arms. All of that has to obviVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:23 Mar 19, 2001 Jkt 070922 PO 00000 Frm 00115 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\67504 pfrm09 PsN: 67504
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ously be part of the effort, and I agree with you fully on that. I

don’t think we disagree on that.

I think the opportunity to work on the guerrillas’ heads in a negotiating process to come back into Colombia’s life in the mainstream, to accept democracy, to accept where the country is going

to go, to be part of the future, is also something that is extremely

important. Psychologically, it helps to build the strength of his own

country, and I don’t think he ought to be afraid of the negotiating

process and I don’t believe he is.

I think he can manage that with clear command. That is the direction in which he wants to go, and I believe that those are all

part of the same effort of getting these guys out of the narcotics

business, out of the anti-democracy business, whatever you want to

call it, and having an option of becoming part of the future of the

new Colombia or being made irrelevant.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I know General Wilhelm knows nobody

wants to be the last guy to die on a battlefield before the commander-in-chief cuts a deal. To me, President Pastrana needs to

make clear that he has certain standards he will accept. He would

be glad to welcome these people back into his government under

certain terms, and then he is prepared to wage war until he gets

those terms and be fair and generous about it.

But these negotiations have the ability to undermine the

strength of the domestic support, the will of the people of Colombia,

and these negotiations strengthen the will of the guerrillas. When

the Scandinavians and the United States are saying negotiate with

these people, it encourages them and discourages the people in Colombia.

Isn’t that true, Ambassador Pickering?

Ambassador PICKERING. I want to be very careful and I want to

be very clear. The United States is supporting President Pastrana’s

initiative to negotiate on the terms and conditions that President

Pastrana has made clear to his own people and to the guerrillas

themselves.

Senator SESSIONS. We have encouraged that, have we not?

Ambassador PICKERING. No. We have adopted a policy of supporting President Pastrana’s initiative. He was the one who during

the political campaign leading up to his election as president found,

in fact, that this was what the public wanted him to do. And he

agreed to go ahead and do it and he was elected on that basis and

he has promised to carry it out. But he hasn’t promised to carry

it out on the basis that you assume that every negotiation is going

to mean a defeat for the government involved in the negotiation.

Quite the contrary, he assumes, in fact, that he can pursue his

efforts to bring about change, reform, permanent democracy, and

end drug trafficking by both methods, and that he can find a way

to articulate those as others have successfully in the past to the advantage of the future he sees for Colombia.

I don’t believe that it is right for the United States to undermine

that, and I believe President Pastrana—I have talked to him many

times—is fully committed along those lines, and that our support

for that effort, but it was his initiative, is important to keep that

process moving.

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Senator GRASSLEY. Can I ask one question and then we will quit,

and that is some update on the black market peso exchange, the

extent to which U.S. companies are being used as conduits for

money laundering, what we are doing to encourage our companies

to cooperate with that effort, and what assistance are we doing, if

anything, with the Colombian police on that matter.

Ambassador PICKERING. I would like, because it goes into a range

of detail that I am not personally familiar with, to provide you a

written answer to that for the record.

Senator GRASSLEY. Yes, okay.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Senator GRASSLEY. Let me close with one final comment, then,

and this is based on what I have heard today and what I kind of

surmised before we opened our hearing. It would seem that we do

have an outline for a strategy, but that an outline is not a strategy,

and that is especially true when we are talking about more than

$1 billion we are going to spend. That is real money.

I think it is something that really commits Colombia and the

United States to a very major new engagement both in depth and

in breadth. And so I caution us that this requires that we be very

thoughtful in our efforts. The Colombians have a planning document. I am concerned that we don’t have one, and I hope that we

can see one before we are asked to vote on it. And I think maybe

a place to give us more detail and more in writing is maybe when

this issue is brought before the Foreign Relations Committee later

on this week.

I thank you all very much for your cooperation. The hearing is

adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the caucus and subcommittee were

adjourned.]

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