[Senate Hearing 106-235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-235
THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW IN THE AMERICAS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE,
PEACE CORPS, NARCOTICS AND TERRORISM
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 12, 1999
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
59-862 CC WASHINGTON : 1999
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
BILL FRIST, Tennessee
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE,
PEACE CORPS, NARCOTICS AND TERRORISM
PAUL COVERDELL, Georgia, Chairman
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Abrams, Hon. Elliott, president, Ethics and Public Policy Center,
former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. 3
Prepared statement of........................................ 6
Einaudi, Hon. Luigi R., visiting senior fellow, Inter-American
Dialogue, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of
American States................................................ 9
Prepared statement of........................................ 12
Sweeney, John P., Latin America policy analyst, the Heritage
Foundation..................................................... 16
Prepared statement of........................................ 20
(iii)
THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW IN THE AMERICAS
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere,
Peace Corps, Narcotics and Terrorism,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 3:03 p.m., in room SD-562, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Paul Coverdell (chairman of the
subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senator Coverdell.
Senator Coverdell. I am going to call this meeting of the
Foreign Relations Subcommittee of Western Hemisphere to order.
I want to thank Mr. Elliott Abrams, who is President of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center, former Assistant Secretary of
State for Inter-American Affairs; Ambassador Luigi Einaudi,
Visiting Senior Fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue and
former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States;
and Mr. Jack Sweeney, Latin American Policy Analyst at The
Heritage Foundation for joining us today.
A few logistical notes. I will read a brief opening
statement. They have called for a series of stacked votes at 4,
which essentially would give us until 4:15 or 4:20 before I
would have to vote. We were scheduled from 3 to 5. So, I think
we ought to try to accomplish the essence of what we are trying
to do in that timeframe rather than trying to reassemble. It
will be best for your schedules as well as ours.
That might mean that some of the questions that we would
entertain would be made available to you in writing
subsequently, and it is your decision as to whether or not you
would choose to respond to them or not, at your convenience.
Let me begin with this brief opening statement, and we will
go to the presentations of the three of you.
The purpose of the hearing today is to take a broad look at
the state of democracy in the Americas and to focus on some of
the challenges that currently confront democratic institutions
and the rule of law in the hemisphere. I welcome the
opportunity to hear from our distinguished panelists about the
progress this hemisphere has made toward greater political and
economic freedom and about the obstacles which remain.
Over the last 20 years, Latin America has experienced an
incredible political and economic transformation. The
statistics are telling. In 1981, 18 of the 33 nations in the
hemisphere were ruled by some form of authoritarian regime.
Today all but one, Castro's Cuba, have freely elected heads of
government, or in the case of Paraguay, a President who
constitutionally succeeded an elected President that resigned.
In almost all cases, greater political and economic freedom
are the rule and not the exception, but we all know that
democracy is not as simple as one free election and that the
rule of law is not established overnight. The growth and
preservation of democracy is a process in which civil and
political institutions, a free press, a strong and independent
judiciary, and an open economy, to name just several are
strengthened and institutionalized. The end result is a stable
and responsive democracy.
Despite the way the democratization that has swept over the
hemisphere, areas of serious concern remain. Indeed, it is
clear from recent developments that there are very real and
current threats to democracy in the hemisphere.
We need look no further than Haiti to see this. In the past
2 years, Haiti has been without a fully functioning government.
Political killings and intimidation appear to be on the rise.
In Paraguay, previously mentioned, democracy recently had a
very narrow escape from disaster, though it appears that the
new government is on the right track and that the rule of law
has been restored.
Colombia is also a great concern and deserves far more of
our attention. Continued civil conflict, along with the illicit
drug business, represents perhaps the greatest threat to
democracy and regional stability in the hemisphere. Look at the
numbers. More than 38,000 Colombians have been killed in its
34-year civil war, and according to the State Department,
300,000 Colombians were internally displaced last year. When
compared to the situation in Kosovo, this conflict should also
demand our attention.
I also want to mention several other issues of concern,
including the increasing power and impunity of the drug cartel,
economic instability, abuses of freedom of the press, and lack
of judicial reform. All in their own way help to undermine the
rule of law and threaten regional stability.
Let me conclude my remarks by saying that we are here today
because our hemisphere faces serious challenges to democracy.
The progress of the past two decades must continue and must be
solidified. Our neighbors to the south have worked hard to
establish democratic institutions and to allow democratic
principles to take root. Our country has also played an
important role in encouraging and aiding this process, but our
job is unfinished.
We must continue to work with our friends in the hemisphere
to strengthen their institutions and to preserve the progress
that has been achieved. We have all fought hard for democracy
in the hemisphere. We must not turn our backs now.
I look forward to hearing from our three distinguished
witnesses. I think I would like to begin in the order in which
I introduced them. I would turn to you, Secretary Abrams.
STATEMENT OF HON. ELLIOTT ABRAMS, PRESIDENT, ETHICS AND PUBLIC
POLICY CENTER, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTER-
AMERICAN AFFAIRS, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Abrams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
invitation and thank you for holding this hearing. I think we
sometimes wait until the crises happen rather than try to talk
about the underlying events in the region before crises are
upon us.
I also want to say it is a great pleasure to be sitting
next to a former colleague at the State Department, Ambassador
Einaudi, who is one of the country's most distinguished
diplomats in Latin America.
When you ask how is democracy doing in Latin America, the
answer can be, compared to what? I think you are quite right in
saying compared to the situation 15 or 20 years ago, it is
still doing very, very well. But there are, as you point out,
some alarming trends, and I guess I would raise two points.
The first is that though we are, I think, pretty good in
the hemisphere at dealing with coups, with sudden actual coups
that throw a government out or change a government the way
President Serrano tried to do in Guatemala, for example, or the
kind of thing that happened in Paraguay. There is a reaction
from us, from neighboring countries, in the case of Paraguay,
the MERCOSUR countries, from the OAS. But that is when things
are in extremis.
We are not so good at what I guess I would call a slow
motion coup where there is not anything as dramatic as a man in
uniform walking into the Presidential palace. Here I suppose
the example I would give is Peru today where President Fujimori
is trying to seize an unconstitutional third term and using the
military and the police and the intelligence service to do it.
Freedom House just rated the press in Peru, along with the
press in Cuba, as the only two that are not free in the whole
hemisphere.
I think we have been a little bit slow in our reactions
here and in the rest of the hemisphere as well. In the bad old
days, generals never criticized each other, 25 years ago, for
obvious reasons. Nowadays, the democracies ought perhaps to be
a little more supportive of each other I think and more
outspoken when this kind of thing happens. The human rights
groups have been very vocal. Human Rights Watch, Freedom House,
Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists in
a case like Peru have been extremely vocal, but the governments
have not, and our Government I think probably not as vocal as
it should be. So, this question of the less dramatic situation
is one that I think we need to focus on.
The second point I would make is we probably need to focus
more on the question of rule of law as opposed to free
elections themselves. We are pretty good at free elections even
in difficult cases. The hemisphere, as you said, is
characterized by free elections, and we are very good, we in
the United States and the OAS as well, at helping hold a free
election, at sending down observers and printing ballots and
really almost guaranteeing that there is a genuinely free
election. What is a lot harder is the reform of the judicial
proceedings, broadly defined, so that the rule of law is really
established.
As I think back to where we were 15 or 20 years ago, we
were rightly optimistic about free elections and even generally
about freedom of the press because if the government will just
let go, a free press will develop. But the rule of law has been
a great deal harder because more people are involved. Not just
the government, the judges, the prosecutors are involved. There
are a lot of people involved in the system, and the
opportunities for corruption are very great. We see, of course,
that in the context of drugs because there is so much money
floating around, the resources are there to corrupt the system.
I think here I would just say a word about Haiti, which you
mentioned in your opening statement, and which is one of the
worst cases from the democracy point of view. You may recall in
1994 when we intervened in Haiti, one of the reasons stated was
that those generals were involved in drug trafficking. Now it
is 1999 and the amount of drugs going through Haiti has
skyrocketed. In fact, it is estimated that something like 20 to
25 percent of all the cocaine coming to the United States comes
through Haiti. So, that intervention, if we are judging it by
drugs, certainly was not a success.
As you pointed out, they really have not had an effective
government in Haiti for several years now. There are supposed
to be local and parliamentary elections this year. I am not so
sure they are going to come off.
I think myself that Haiti presents us with another big
problem, conceptual problem, and that is, what do we do about
someone who is democratically elected, but is not a democrat?
That is the way I would characterize President Aristide from
his behavior after his election. It was our policy to restore
him to power as if he were the answer to Haiti's problems. I
think that proved not to be the case. And he may yet get freely
and democratically elected next year in the Presidential
elections in Haiti, and that I think may present us once again
with this problem of what do we do--and here the we is the
whole hemisphere, the whole inter-American system. When do we
declare after a free election that the activities of the
elected President now go beyond the bounds--this may be the
case of President Fujimori as well--go beyond the bounds of any
democratic or constitutional system and undermine that system
to the extent that defenders of democracy in the hemisphere
have got to speak out very forcefully?
I am coming to the end of the short period of time I wanted
to take.
But I think the rule of law is critical because people vote
maybe once a year, once every 2 years, once every 4 years, but
they deal with the legal system much more regularly. And if the
judges and the prosecutors and the whole system are corrupt,
their faith in democracy will be completely undermined.
The hard part is it is very resistant to help from the
outside. I think it is a real conundrum. We know how to help in
elections, but how can we help in the development of the
systems of rule of law?
Thank you.
Senator Coverdell. Mr. Secretary, take another 5 minutes
for yourself. I am going to do that across the board. Given
this different configuration, I do not want to cutoff. Even at
15 I know it cuts off the background you all represent, but go
ahead and let us add another 5 minutes to this and the same for
the others. Please proceed.
Mr. Abrams. Thank you.
I would just say another word about Haiti because I think
this is one that is not really on the radar screen right now,
but it will come back.
I think we have probably paid too little attention--I think
the U.S. Government has--to the question of drug trafficking
through Haiti, and I think the reason is that we wanted to
declare the intervention or the administration wanted to
declare the intervention a success. It is hard to call it a
success given the amount of drugs going through there and the
fact that democracy was not really restored.
We still have 500 troops in Haiti, but the head of the
military mission there, Colonel Morris, and the CINCSOUTH,
General Wilhelm, want them out on the grounds, among other
things, that their safety cannot any longer be guaranteed
because the public safety situation is deteriorating very fast
there. So, I think Haiti is going to be coming back very
quickly.
General McCaffrey of the ONDCP called the situation there
very grim, and I think that is quite right.
I think others will be talking about Venezuela, so I will
not talk very much about that except to say that I think if
that is not on the radar screen, it is going to be very quickly
because here again is a case of a free election. There is no
doubt, none whatsoever, that President Chavez was elected in a
landslide. The problem is at what point--and of course, we all
hope he will not get there--would we all have to say that,
well, he was elected, but then the activities he has undertaken
lead us to say, ``this is not democracy.''
As I have said, I think Peru already meets that definition.
In its 1999 report, Human Rights Watch said--I will just read a
sentence--``The anti-democratic tendencies of Peru's President
Alberto Fujimori became more pronounced as he maneuvered to
seek an unprecedented third term in office despite a
constitutional limit of two terms. Fujimori's machinations to
perpetuate himself in power continued to undermine the rule of
law and independence of the judiciary. The entire National
Magistrates Council resigned to protest laws restricting its
powers.''
Freedom House, as I mentioned, now calls the press in Peru
not free, and in one case, the famous case of Baruch Ivcher,
they actually took his citizenship away as well as taking his
TV station away. I will actually myself be one of the lawyers
representing Mr. Ivcher when that case goes to the Inter-
American Court of Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica later
this year.
So, I would say that I think we are handling the extreme
cases pretty well. We are handling the gray areas not quite so
well, and one of the reasons, of course, is that there are
always crises and we want to handle the crises rather than
turning to something that might eventuate into a crisis. But
they will eventuate if we do not do more.
On the bright side I would say, what can we do on the
question of rule of law, what can we do in these cases? A new
institution is being developed in the region that we are
supporting but I think we should support more: the ombudsman
institution. Broadly defined, as it is in Latin America, it is
not just a matter of ``I did not get my pension check.'' These
institutions are turning broadly into watch dogs over the
executive branch. In Peru, for example, the Defensoria del
Pueblo is a large institution that deals with questions of
democracy and human rights, and what we would call a kind of
comptroller general function about the administration of public
moneys.
These institutions I think can really help in many, many
countries in providing a check on government power and a
reassertion of the need for a rule of law that comes from
within rather than coming from outside the country. So, I hope
that in our foreign aid budget and institutions like the
National Endowment for Democracy, we provide a good deal of
support for these new and very promising institutions in Latin
American democracy.
Thank you. Thank you for the extra time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Abrams follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Elliott Abrams
Mr. Chairman: It is a pleasure and an honor to testify here today
about the condition of democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Given the importance of this topic, I want to begin by thanking you,
Mr. Chairman, for your initiative in holding this hearing. Too often we
react to crises rather than preventing crises when we may have the
chance. Today, you are examining the basic conditions that will lead
toward or away from stability in our region.
There are two main points I wish to make today. First, I think we
in this Hemisphere are better and better at responding to coups that
actually change a government. We are not nearly as good at responding
to slow-motion coups, to a slower but steady erosion of democracy, and
we need to think about improving our response. Second, we need to focus
more on one key ingredient to democracy, stability, and economic
growth: the rule of law.
What is the condition of democracy in this Hemisphere? I suppose we
have to say, compared to what? Compared to past decades when the region
was mired in military dictatorships, the situation is very good; and
compared to many other regions of the world, things seem positively
wonderful. The great wave of democratization of the 1980s has not been
reversed, and the vast majority of people in this Hemisphere live under
elected governments.
We have the luxury, then, of focusing on the problems that
democracy faces--and there are real problems, some of which require
American policy-makers to rethink current strategies.
In the Caribbean, the Castro dictatorship remains as repressive as
it has ever been. The hoped-for opening after Pope John Paul's visit
has not appeared, and instead the government has cracked down brutally
on the first signs of opposition or dissident groups--the first sprouts
in the creation of a civil society free of Party control.
But Cuba is not the only problem in the Caribbean: Haiti is
increasingly worrisome. The growth of drug trafficking through Haiti
has concerned me throughout this decade but has been played down by US
officials until very recently. Now it is acknowledged that an
extraordinary 20 percent of all the cocaine arriving in the United
States comes via Haiti, and the figure may well be much higher. Given
that stopping drug trafficking was one of the justifications for
sending 20,000 American troops to Haiti in 1994, billions of dollars
later it is very hard to call that policy a success. The greater
justification was to ``restore'' democracy to Haiti, but this has not
been accomplished either. According to Col. Morris, head of the U.S.
military mission there (now down to 500 troops), it is an increasingly
violent and unstable place--and both he and the CINCSOUTH, Gen.
Wilhelm, want the troops removed.
Local and parliamentary elections are scheduled for this year, but
may well not be held. Presidential elections are scheduled for next
year, but even if these can be held there is little reason to believe
they will solve Haiti's problems. The most likely winner in the
presidential election is former president Aristide, whom our troops
restored to office in 1994. It was Administration policy to act as if
he personified progress and democracy in Haiti, but we seem to care
more about those goals than he does. Today, corruption and incompetence
in the security forces there have left Haiti an open field for
traffickers, and there is no real way that democracy can grow in that
situation. Gen. McCaffrey of the ONDCP calls the situation ``very
grim'' and he is unfortunately all too right.
Several other Latin countries have experienced challenges to
democracy or are experiencing them now. You are familiar with the story
in Paraguay, where President Cubas commuted the sedition sentence of
Gen. Oviedo and ignored a Supreme Court ruling holding that move
illegal. This story seems to have a happy ending where respect for law
has been restored, Army rule--direct or indirect--avoided, and both
Pres. Cubas and General Oviedo forced out of power. In fact, a
Paraguayan judge just last week issued an extradition order for Gen.
Oviedo for involvement in the March 23rd assassination of Vice
President Argana.
In Ecuador, the instability that followed the removal of President
Bucaram has now apparently given way to regular democratic procedures
once again. In Venezuela, I think we need to be watching carefully
whether President Chavez, who was chosen fairly and with overwhelming
public support in a free election, believes himself bound by the rules
of the democratic game--or believes that he can discard any rules that
are an inconvenience. His rhetoric is soothing one day and alarming the
next. His reliance on military support and use of military men in
civilian posts is disturbing. I hope, and I believe, that the United
States is making it clear that our own relations with Venezuela will
change radically should he attempt to move Venezuela away from
democracy.
A very worrying case today is that of Peru. As you know, Mr.
Chairman, President Fujimori has never exhibited a great respect for
democratic procedures, having invented the ``auto-golpe'' or ``auto-
coup'' when he decided that Congress was just too annoying to put up
with. Peru's Constitution states very clearly that he is not entitled
to a third term in office, but he seems determined not to allow that
small detail to get in his way. He wants a third term, and is willing
to undermine democracy in Peru to achieve it.
Those who defend the Constitution and Peruvian democracy therefore
face government attack. When Peru's Constitutional Tribunal ruled that
he could not have a third term, he had the members who voted ``wrong''
removed. Human Rights Watch, in its 1999 report, states that:
The anti-democratic tendencies of Peru's President Alberto
Fujimori became more pronounced as he maneuvered to seek an
unprecedented third term in office despite a constitutional
limit of two terms. Fujimori's machinations to perpetuate
himself in power continued to undermine the rule of law and
independence of the judiciary. The entire National Magistrates
Council resigned . . . to protest laws restricting its powers.
. . .
As to freedom of the press, Freedom House now rates only two
countries in our Hemisphere as having a press that is ``Not Free:''
Cuba and Peru. Peru was moved from ``Partly Free'' to ``Not Free'' this
year. Freedom House stated that:
The nation's newspaper and magazines felt increasing pressure
from President Fujimori. . . . Since 1992, many journalists
have been pressured into self-censorship. Others have been
intimidated by libel suits, detention, house arrest, and in one
famous case the revocation of a TV station owner's citizenship.
Last year, two journalists were killed, 12 received death
threats, 10 were beaten or otherwise attacked, and five were
arrested. . . .
That TV station owner is Mr. Baruch Ivcher, whose case has been
adopted by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. The Commission
is taking the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa
Rica, where I will be one of the lawyers representing Mr. Ivcher. Mr
Ivcher's ``crime'' was that his station revealed corruption and
brutality at the highest levels of the Intelligence Service, and the
Fujimori government wanted to put an end to that kind of investigative
journalism.
Most recently, Mr. Ivcher has revealed documents from 1996 through
1998 showing that editors of Peru's most respected newspapers, owners
of most of its TV stations, and their investigative reporters were
subjected to a campaign of wiretapping, bugging, and intimidation by
the National Intelligence Service in Peru. The situation in Peru is a
sad and alarming one which has been documented--as have all these
facts--in the Human Rights Report of the State Department.
Peru, as well as Haiti, Paraguay, Ecuador, and if things go badly
Venezuela, raise an important issue for all of us: what should the
United States do and what should the Inter-American community do, when
democracy is threatened? There have been some good examples. When
President Fujimori pulled off his auto-coup and dissolved Congress,
U.S. pressure was influential in pushing him back toward electoral
democracy and a new election schedule. When President Serrano in
Guatemala tried the same thing, U.S. and Latin pressure helped force
him out and was critical in keeping Guatemala democratic. I think U.S.
and Latin pressure was important in Ecuador, in assuring stability
until last year's Congressional and presidential elections could be
held and President Mahuad could enter office. There is no doubt that
diplomatic pressure from Brazil and Argentina, Paraguay's partners in
Mercosur, joined with American pressure to help keep that country in
the democratic camp.
But these are cases of sharp, obvious interference with democracy.
What of insidious processes that subvert democracy more slowly--the
``slow motion coups?'' Often the leader conducting this slow-motion
coup was democratically elected--like Aristide in Haiti and Fujimori in
Peru--but is no democrat. Having been elected once does not give any
leader the right to erode the very free institutions by which he rode
to power. When do we admit that a democratically elected leader may be
no democrat? Here again Peru is a good example. In Argentina, when it
became obvious that the people did not want the constitution changed to
permit a third term for Pres. Menem, he was forced to abandon the
project. In Peru, Pres. Fujimori has refused to permit a plebiscite,
and is abusing his powers--including using the intelligence service
against opponents--to assure that he gets a third term.
Neither the Inter-American system nor the United States reacts
cogently to this situation. There is little effective regional pressure
on Haiti or on Peru today, for example. While the Inter-American human
rights machinery is working well in handling particular cases, it
cannot pick up the slack when it comes to systemic moves away from
democracy. And the reaction from leading political figures in the
Hemisphere is silence. It would have an enormous impact in these
situations were Hemispheric leaders, such as presidents and ex-
presidents, to speak out. During the years when military dictatorships
were common in the region, the generals had a code of silence whose
purpose was obvious: since all were human rights violators and all were
preventing democracy, it was evident that all benefitted from their
common silence. But it should not be this way today. There are rays of
light, including some statements by President Menem of Argentina, but
there are not many. Nor are we doing all we should and speaking as
loudly as we should. It would have an enormous impact were the United
States to speak out more clearly.
Within each society there are of course some brave voices. Just
this week the Chamber of Commerce in Haiti issued a statement
denouncing lawlessness and violence. Our members, the statement said,
``wanted to fight together for a new Haiti based on democratic
principles. But, what deception! The business community and civil
society, day after day, year after year, since 1986, have reaped
nothing but deception, bankruptcy, necklacing, embargo, and, today,
anarchy.'' In Peru, The ombudsman's office, called the ``Defensoria del
Pueblo,'' was established in 1996 and has proved to be a clear voice
for democracy and the rights of the people. Similar institutions exist
in several Latin countries and are on the drawing board in others, and
these are very valuable and promising initiatives. These institutions
can provide an independent voice for democracy and the rule of law in
situations where it is difficult to speak out. The United States should
be giving them our full support, for there will be an enormous
temptation for governments to try to shut them up and maintain a
monopoly on power and information.
My second point this afternoon relates to the rule of law. The
first step for Latin countries returning to democracy from military
dictatorship was to hold free elections, and free elections now
characterize the region. A free press was also critical for the
transition, and in most of the region the press is free or partly free;
as I noted, Freedom House says that only in Cuba and Peru is the press
not free. But what is also vitally important for the development of a
democratic government and a democratic society is the rule of law, and
here progress has generally been far slower. There are some shining
exceptions, such as Chile and Uruguay, but they are exceptions. Latin
America is more often characterized by judicial systems that do not
work and by widespread corruption. Of course, the two go hand in hand:
if judges or prosecutors are corrupt, if justice can be bought, there
is no real rule of law. This affects both civil and political rights
and economic development, for the security of property rights is an
absolutely essential building block of the kind of democratic
capitalism we all hope will expand in Latin America. And solving these
problems is made far more difficult when drug trafficking injects vast
sums of money and corruption into systems that are frail to begin with.
For most citizens, who may (or may not) vote in elections every
couple of years, interaction with police officers or with judges, in
civil and criminal cases, will be their most frequent interaction with
their government. If they experience corruption, their belief in
democracy will be badly undermined. They will see their own country's
return to democracy as a sham, a facade behind which the rich and the
powerful still run things for their own benefit. The rule of law is an
essential part of democratic order, as critical as free elections.
What can be done? The international community, including the OAS,
is very good nowadays at helping a country plan and hold and safeguard
free elections; and a free press will spring up by itself if left
unsuppressed. Moreover, there is widespread attention when freedom of
the press is violated or when elections are compromised. But building
the rule of law is far more difficult and takes far longer, and
violations are often hidden from view. As I look back to our human
rights policy in the 1980s, it seems to me we were correctly optimistic
about the spread of free elections and freedom of speech and press, but
too optimistic about the rule of law. Institutions must grow more
slowly here, for it takes longer to train a new cadre of judges and
prosecutors, and to establish mechanisms to guarantee their honesty.
It is also more difficult for outsiders to help solve this problem,
for it requires more time and affects more officials and social
institutions that are far more complex. It is perhaps too much to say
that foreigners can do nothing to help, but often we cannot do very
much. What we can do, and must do, is to cheer when there is progress
and protest loudly when there are deliberate efforts to corrupt the
judiciary and debase the rule of law. Here again our support for
ombudsman offices, such as the Defensoria del Pueblo in Peru, can be
critically important, helping defend them against efforts to undercut
their influence or budget and shut them down. And when appropriate, as
with a number of Caribbean countries, we can lend a helping hand to
weak police forces in dealing with the worst enemy of law in many
Caribbean and Latin countries, the corruption that stems from the
narcotics industry.
The progress made during the last 15 to 20 years should encourage
us to maintain and indeed enhance our commitment to democracy in this
Hemisphere. However difficult it may seem, the task is less daunting
than the one we faced back then. But wherever those who would undercut
democracy are active--from the communist dictatorship in Cuba, to the
power grab of Fujimori in Peru, to the corruption spread by drug
traffickers--American words and action are critical. Sometimes we,
together with others in the region, can make an enormous difference. We
have an obligation to try, for the democratic principles at stake are
our own basic principles and this is, after all, the region in which we
live.
Senator Coverdell. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate
it very much.
We will turn to the Ambassador for your presentation.
STATEMENT OF HON. LUIGI R. EINAUDI, VISITING SENIOR FELLOW,
INTER-AMERICAN DIALOGUE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE
ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Einaudi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let
me join Secretary Abrams in thanking you for this opportunity
to present our concerns to you.
I would also like to reciprocate Elliott's nice words about
me by saying that since I did work directly with him when he
was Assistant Secretary, I can testify that his concern for
democracy and for human rights is nothing new, but has in fact
infused all of his work.
I share your views and those that Elliott Abrams has set
forth in terms of the news being basically good. I think that
since we are going to be talking about difficulties, it is
incumbent upon us not to do so in a way that adds to the easy
cultural stereotypes with which Latin America is often
associated, with bad news, with dictatorship, with earthquakes,
with breakdowns, with abuses.
I think that I also agree with what you said at the
beginning that Americans can be proud of having contributed,
but that our job is not yet finished. In my prepared statement,
I give a number of what I see as danger signs. I am not going
to go over them specifically here for reasons of time, but I
will say one thing about them.
First, I had a hard time giving them a clean intellectual
shake because I saw political danger signs, I saw economic
problems of fulfillment of obligations, I saw social tensions,
and I saw problems of criminality and the challenged government
authority and ability to maintain the rule of law.
I also listed things that affect virtually every country in
the hemisphere. I will admit that I did not hold my hand. I
even mentioned the United States in the sense that I think that
it is important that we realize that when the largest country
in this hemisphere, largest not only in the accident of
geographic size, but also in terms of wealth and power, directs
its attentions outside the hemisphere, does not follow through
on commitments for freer trade that would strengthen regional
integration, and manages to convey a sense of indifference to
what happens in the hemisphere, that that inevitably adds to
the ominous signs that things may not be going as well in the
hemisphere as we would like them to go.
Now, let me develop my remarks around three basic points.
First, since the basic good news is that we have not had
the classic kind of military coup in which officers rebel
against the authority of persons that they are sworn to uphold
in office--we have not had that for 20 years or more in the
hemisphere--that the issue at this point is to focus not on the
rhetorical desirability of democracy as opposed to
dictatorship, but really on the components and functioning of
democracy.
Second, on the importance of security to democracy--and I
think this is a point which is sometimes amiss, but that is
nonetheless fundamental--democracy requires a certain element
of citizen and national security in order to function well.
And then finally, some thoughts on regional arrangements
and cooperation, how to respond to the situation.
With regard to the key components of democracy, let me
stress I think that one cannot predict sort of straight line
improvements in life or continuation of democracy, but I think
at this point that we have succeeded in stopping the pendulum
between democracy and dictatorship. We are in the general
democratic camp in the western hemisphere, and I believe that
basically we are going to stay there, so that our concern from
a policy standpoint should not be on the desirability of
democracy and more on the quality of democracy.
When we talk about the quality of democracy, the components
that I think are important are free elections. I share Elliott
Abrams' view that we, and more importantly the Latin Americans,
have gotten rather good at that and that they do have problems,
but that basically they can handle elections reasonably well.
To pass to other key concepts, separation of powers and
public freedoms, which I think is the concern that underlies
Mr. Abrams' worries about Peru, and the general question of an
impartial administration of justice, which is accessible to all
citizens.
Now, in the statement, I go over a number of these points.
I am not going to go into them in great detail, but I do want
to underscore the fact that we have to worry about gray area
cases and about those cases that are not like the classic
interruptions of the political process, but rather lead to its
gradual erosion or change without consideration or respect for
basic constitutional procedures.
And the case I would throw into the hopper on this as a
sort of warning flag would be Venezuela. The institutional
order in Venezuela today remains intact, but it seems to me
that there are clear signs that there are political tensions
there that could jeopardize the survival of a democratic system
and that the confrontations that have taken place between the
elected President and the equally elected Congress and
constitutional supreme court make clear that the constituent
assembly, which is going to be working this summer, is going to
have its work cut out for it to prevent justified reactions
against corruption, against the disregard of popular needs to
become the basis for a denial of democratic rights.
On the question of security, let me simply say at this
point that while these democratic years, which have also, by
the way, seen--and I was the U.S. envoy in the settling of the
Peru-Ecuador conflict--that have really seen the States of
South America in particular, Argentina and Brazil on the
nuclear front, massive acceptance by military leaders and
institutions of non-political roles, of budget constraints, of
the need for confidence-building measures. So, we have seen
major good news on, let us call it, the field of interstate
tensions, that we have seen really major new danger signs in
the area of security forces that must now face organized local
and international criminal gangs that, because of the returns
of their criminal activity and not just drug trafficking--think
of the gangs that are stealing cars in southern California and
revamping them in Latin America. We are talking about billions
of dollars worth of activity here. These gangs in some cases
can have intelligence, communications, planes, weaponry that
can challenge the forces of government and, in turn, lead to
extra-legal forms and ways of society to organize themselves in
defense, including the rights of private security forces and
paramilitaries.
So, it seems to me that if we talk about the survivability
of democracy and the rule of law in the hemisphere, it is
important that we not duck the security issue. It seems to me
clear--I am not going to go into great length now in this oral
statement, but that you need to face up to civilian control, to
operations by security forces under civil law and a fully
transparent code. I think we need to separate the professional
military and police forces, ensure civilian led police forces.
And I think we have to be very careful about military and
counter drug operations to have them take a supportive but
probably not a lead role.
The case that perhaps raises many of these issues most
clearly for me is that of Colombia. You yourself, sir,
mentioned in your opening statement some of the abysmal
figures. It seems to me that the only long-term solution in
Colombia is the gradual development of a more inclusive
society. These guerrilla problems exist a long time, and they
go before the narcotics thing became major. And you need a more
inclusive society, one that is better able to deal with some of
these issues and also that has a more effective State
authority.
It is inconceivable to me that democracy can be
consolidated in Colombia without a military that is capable of
supporting that civilian government in its effort to assert
lawful authority against all-comers, whether it be the drug
dealers, the insurgents, or the paramilitary.
Finally, on regional cooperation or responses to this, let
me say that I think that General Assembly resolution 1080 of
the OAS has proved quite effective in dealing with the sudden
interruptions of democratic and institutional process. I think
that in the new grayer areas, there is a great deal to be done.
I think that it is important that we as Americans be aware. I
think Elliott Abrams did mention that it is a complicated thing
to try to act in these situations. I think it is very aware
that our power imposes special obligations of restraint, that
it is not our business to try to impose unilateral or even
multilateral standards on sovereign states.
I think, therefore, that we must accept the burden of
attempting to engage in proactive activities. We should focus
discussion in advance, as you have helped us to do and as I
have tried to take advantage of it, on the elements of
democracy and that we should try to, in that way, contribute to
an overall improvement in the situation.
I note that on the security point, I think we should
negotiate or support negotiated development of a new regional
security architecture. I will not go into that.
Let me end simply by saying this. The complexity of the
issues arising before us are such and the number of issues they
cover that it seems to me that the United States should think
in terms of the development of a new hemispheric bargain, one
in which, in effect, we would seek to meld cooperation against
drugs and crime and corruption in an explicit framework of
support for democracy, free trade, and the rule of law.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Einaudi follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Luigi R. Einaudi
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this opportunity to present
my concerns at the accumulating stresses against democracy and the rule
of law in this hemisphere.
The story of Latin America has been marked by a history of
alternation between democracy and dictatorship. In the early 1930s,
again in the late 1940s, and most recently in the 1960s, successions of
military coups established juntas and de facto governments in a
majority of the countries of Spanish America and in Brazil. In recent
years, this swing of the pendulum from democracy to dictatorship
appears to have stopped. The return to civilian governance that began
in the 1970s has continued now for more than 20 years without a single
classic military coup. It has become commonplace to talk of the
Americas as a hemisphere that, with the single exception of Cuba under
Fidel Castro, is entirely democratic.
This hemisphere-wide trend toward strengthening democracy and the
rule of law is both powerful and welcome. Our national interests are
vitally served by the prosperity and security of our neighbors. I
believe Americans should be proud that the United States, under a
succession of administrations headed by leaders from both parties, has
sought to support the long-term development and stability that can only
be nurtured by democracy and the rule of law.
Allow me, however to call to your attention several troubling
recent events:
Last March, Paraguay's Vice President was assassinated under
conditions that led to the impeachment and resignation of
Paraguay's President. The outcome was ultimately handled in
accordance with the constitution, but the whole process was as
unsettling as it was unscheduled.
Earlier this year in Brazil, South America's largest
democracy, a state governor almost provoked an international
financial crisis by refusing to pay debts his state owed to the
federal government.
In Venezuela, which is the largest foreign supplier of oil
to the United States, accusations of corruption amid widespread
poverty have given a succession of major electoral triumphs to
a dynamic former military coup leader and raised fears that key
democratic principles will be at risk in the months ahead.
In Colombia, the government must fight illegal drug mafias
in the midst of guerrilla and paramilitary violence that is
deep-rooted and spreading despite a long democratic tradition,
a revamped constitution and reinvigorated peace efforts.
In February 1997, the then-President of Ecuador was
impeached almost without warning by a Congress using a unique
constitutional interpretation. Today, despite peace with Peru
and a new constitution, partisan and regional differences have
if anything increased.
Meanwhile, in Peru, challenges to the separation of powers
and to individual freedoms have continued despite international
acceptance of a constitution written after the previous charter
had been illegally abrogated.
Chile has one of the hemisphere's most highly developed
legal systems, but its domestic legal procedures are being
questioned by assertions of international jurisdiction on
charges against former President Augusto Pinochet.
The English-speaking Caribbean remains steadfastly
democratic, but sheer lack of size makes its countries highly
vulnerable to the dislocations of globalization, whether caused
by NAFTA or our opposition to European banana quotas. The
entire Caribbean Basin, including Central America, which is
still rebuilding from the wars of the 1980s, has been hit hard
by plagues from drug traffickers to hurricanes that hamper good
governance and stimulate emigration to the United States.
In much of the hemisphere, local security forces face local
and international criminal organizations that take advantage
equally well of remote areas with limited government control
and new urban sprawls that concentrate underemployed and
undereducated populations.
While our neighbors struggle with these new uncertainties,
the hemisphere's oldest independent democracy and most
prosperous country, the United States, has its attention
focused on problems outside the hemisphere. We have not
sustained initiatives toward freer trade that would have
strengthened regional integration. And despite sporadic efforts
by some to prove otherwise, our neighbors are getting the
impression that we are generally indifferent to what happens to
them.
These events and patterns are very disparate and not easy to
categorize. Taken individually they seem mostly the normal stuff of
politics in a global era. They are not the blatant attacks on democracy
and the rule of law characteristic of Latin America's past. They are
not the product of the arbitrary rule of a single strongman or caudillo
as is still the case in Cuba. They are not the politics of despair that
still dominate Haiti. And they include no prototypical coups against
elected civilian authorities by military officers sworn to uphold
them--such as the 1968 coup in Peru that led to my first appearance
before this Committee thirty years ago last month.
We should be thankful this is the case. As a senior State
Department official reminded us recently, ``despite the turmoil,
constitutional processes in these countries have not been scrapped;
political differences have not generated bloodshed even when there were
thousands marching in the streets; the militaries have not stepped in
as alleged saviors of their country from chaos; the leaders and
citizens of these countries have not pushed aside democracy and the
rule of law'' (Acting Assistant Secretay of State Peter F. Romero in
Tokyo, April 9, 1999, emphasis in original).
But though these and similar events have not created the stark
choices characteristic of the past, I believe that over time they pose
important dangers to freedom in the hemisphere. The threats they pose
are different from our traditional fears of military coups and rampant
instability. When the threats change, our defenses must also adapt. But
because the threats are new, we and others have not yet had time to
develop agreed responses.
So today I would like to develop my remarks around three broad
themes:
first, the need to strengthen the key qualitative components
of democracy;
second, the importance of security to democracy and the rule
of law; and
finally, possible responses to the new threats, with
particular attention to regional arrangements and cooperation.
i. key components of democracy
The end of traditional dictatorships in Spanish America and of
colonialism in the Caribbean has been accompanied by elections that are
increasingly competitive. But the end of dictatorship has not ended
poverty, inequities or human rights abuses, leading some to question
the effectiveness of democracy. Arguments have been heard that petty
crime, drug trafficking, and corruption thrive in democratic
environments and should be met with a good dose of authority and force.
With the passage of time, the failures and abuses of the democratic
present can become more vivid than the dimming memories of even greater
failures and abuses of the dictatorial past.
I should make clear that I do not expect a generalized return to
dictatorship in Latin America or the Caribbean. Our neighbors are too
developed, too complicated, and too smart to fall into the mess of
domestic instability and lost international opportunities that would
inevitably result. I recognize that history is not the inevitable march
of progress and that setbacks, even major and lengthy diversions from
the path of democracy are possible and even likely. But I do think that
Latin America has progressed beyond traditional stereotypes to a point
at which the focus of policy concern and public debate should shift
from generic support for the desirability of democracy as opposed to
dictatorship to a focus on the quality of how democracy is practiced.
There is, of course, no single model of democracy. In this
hemisphere the British parliamentary model has long coexisted with a
wide variety of presidential systems. But there are elements that are
common to all democracies, and in whose absence claims to democratic
practice would be flawed. These include at a minimum free elections,
the separation of powers, public freedoms, and an impartial
administration of justice accessible to all citizens.
Consider elections. For elections to qualify as democratic, they
must be open to all voters and their ballots tallied correctly; they
must offer competing candidates who can express their views freely; and
they must be held at predictable regular intervals.
I understand that most electoral experts believe Latin American and
Caribbean elections now meet these key standards increasingly well,
despite serious questions that have come up in some cases about the
right to stand for election or reelection, whether or not voting should
be compulsory, about whether political parties should enjoy public
support, or the extent of voter turnout.
In several countries, but particularly Argentina and Peru,
controversies over presidential reelection have bedeviled national
politics. However, as long as they are dealt with constitutionally,
such issues should be approached respectfully, if at all, by
foreigners.
The content of constitutions and what happens between elections are
matters that deserve greater attention than is normally given to them.
Hemispheric practice is to consider that the principle of
nonintervention in the internal affairs of other states--since the mid-
l930s the cornerstone of the Inter-American System--requires acceptance
of the constitutional provisions in force in each independent state.
Just like elections, constitutions can vary but have characteristics
that determine their democratic quality. In general these turn on
accountability, the impartial administration ofjustice, the separation
of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches,
guarantees of public freedoms, including freedom of the press, and
provisions for efficient state institutions free of corruption.
The biggest regional political crises of the past decade involved
interruptions of the constitutional process. The first took place in
Haiti in 1991, where the constitutional congress and the military moved
against the constitutionally elected president. The second took place
in Peru, where the constitutionally elected president and the military
moved against the congress and the constitution, including the courts.
A third, in Guatemala, saw the elected President appeal to the
military, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to close the elected
congress.
These events were not classic military coups, but they struck
against the separation of powers and the rule of law, I will deal with
the regional response shortly. Here I merely want to note that because
they entailed a sudden and major interruption of established legal
processes, they proved unsuccessful partly because their patent
abusiveness automatically rallied opposition against them.
But there are a number of situations that are considerably less
clear. Some would argue that despite a new constitution and an elected
congress, Peru still poses important questions regarding the
independence of the judiciary and the freedom of the press.
Venezuela is another interesting current case. Venezuela's
institutional order remains intact. But it is also clear that political
tensions have emerged that could jeopardize the survival of a
democratic system. At what point does a legitimate reaction against
corruption and the disregard of popular needs become an undemocratic
denial of the rights of others? Confrontations between the President
Chavez and the Congress and especially the Supreme Court make clear
that the new Constituent Assembly that is to convene this summer will
have its work cut out for it.
ii. the importance of security
Military institutions normally get a bum rap in most discussions of
democracy. Their past associations with dictatorship, their role as
specialists in the use of force, their organizational strength and
sometimes privilege have often produced unbridgeable gulfs between
military and civilian elites.
From the standpoint of relations among states, recent news has been
uniformly positive. Military support for peace in Ecuador and Peru
confirms the new era begun by Argentina and Brazil's abandonment of
their nuclear programs and the Southern Cone's foreswearing of weapons
of mass destruction. Military leaders have expanded confidence building
measures and accepted budgetary constraints, but as yet no generalized
arms restraint regime has emerged. The OAS did, however, help transform
a Mexican-Rio Group initiative into a hemisphere-wide convention
against the illegal trafficking of small arms that has received the
support of the United States.
There has also been some good news on the sensitive internal
fronts. With the end of the cold war, the decline in guerrilla
insurgencies, and most of all the end of military coups, the gulf
between military and civilian groups is beginning to erode. Military
matters are no longer the taboo for civilians they once were.
As I noted earlier, however, in much of the hemisphere, weakened
military and often ineffective police institutions now face criminal
organizations that take advantage equally well of remote areas with
limited government control and of new urban sprawls. Car thefts from
the United States are less discussed than the narcotics traffic, but
are also a business involving billions of dollars. Globalization of
drugs and crime has helped spawn gangs that sometimes have better
intelligence, communications, planes and weapons than the forces of
governments. One sign of the intensity of these problems is the rise of
private security forces and paramilitaries.
I suggest there are four keys to the role of the military and
security forces in a democracy: civilian control; operations under the
civil law and a fully transparent military code (no impunity); a
separate professional and civilian-led police force, and a supportive
but not lead role in counter-drug operations.
These issues are all present today in Colombia. Colombia presents a
very complex over-all situation for which the only long-term solution
is the gradual development of a more inclusive society with effective
state authority. This formula requires a professional military,
professional in that it has the ability to use force effectively but
does not do so needlessly because it obeys the law and is respectful of
human rights. The drug dealers and to some extent the guerrillas have
access to very major resources from the traffic in illegal narcotics. A
modern state and a democratic society in Colombia require a military
that can support a civilian government in its efforts to assert lawful
authority against all comers, be they drug dealers, insurgents or
paramilitary forces.
iii. regional cooperation in support of democracy and the rule of law
Representative democracy, human rights, and to a lesser but
important extent social and economic rights and freedoms are already
accepted as legitimate regional obligations, codified in the OAS
Charter and in international law.
In the crises in Haiti and Peru mentioned above, the hemispheric
community reacted by invoking OAS General Assembly Resolution 1080,
which calls for an immediate response by the governments of the
hemisphere ``in the event of any occurrences giving rise to the sudden
or irregular interruption of the democratic institutional process or of
the legitimate exercise of power by the democratically elected
government in any of the Organization's member states.''
In Haiti, the interruption lasted until the legitimate president
was restored to office three years later by international military
action under the auspices of the United Nations. In Peru, the
interruption lasted until a new Congress was elected and wrote a new
constitution. Resolution 1080 was also applied to subsequent crises in
Guatemala and Paraguay, which also saw the emergence of subregional
communities as important guarantors of democratic continuity.
The emergence of new and generally subtler challenges to democracy
poses special problems. The hemispheric community has a stake in the
outcome, but how it acts or reacts may be less a matter of the member
states deciding what to do in particular cases once a crisis has broken
out than of systematically supporting and sustaining democracy and the
rule of law.
The key is to find a balance between extremes. One extreme would be
to turn a helpless eye to even the most grotesque violations of
democratic practice. The other extreme would be to attempt to impose
unilateral or even multilateral outside standards on an offending
country. I believe a balance must be sought by focussing public
attention on key components of democratic constitutionalism as
discussed above, and by employing proactive observation and private
consultations to address specific cases. If an interruption of
legitimate democratic processes takes place despite these proactive
measures, there would be no choice but to apply Resolution 1080.
The time is also ripe to expand US support for the Action Program
of the 1998 Santiago summit meeting. Particularly as concerns
education, security, narcotics trafficking, and integrated cooperation
on the administration of justice, we should make an effort to ensure
major progress in time for the next Summit of the Americas in Canada.
For the United States, which is completing this year the withdrawal
of its military forces from Panama, I would recommend that we support
the negotiated development of a new regional security architecture. The
Inter-American Defense Board and College should be brought explicitly
under civilian control, and any new cooperative security arrangement
should also include the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies and the
School of the Americas.
iv. conclusion
This statement has been overwhelmingly about democracy within
countries. It is important that we also take into account the
importance of democracy among countries and among groups of countries.
The potential of the Americas has been held back by lack of mutual
trust and sometimes even respect. Cultural differences and
fragmentation have blocked action as Latin Americans have emphasized
the state and sovereignty as counterweights to the power of the United
States, and as we have tended to assume problems could only be solved
if approached our way.
Democracy and free trade have now created the foundations for a new
hemispheric bargain. The basis of the bargain should be cooperation in
the fight against drugs, crime, and corruption set in a framework of
democracy and free trade. The emphasis should be on cooperation not
aid, cooperation not sanctions, and perhaps even cooperation not trade,
if that proved necessary to reduce the vulnerabilities of small states.
Freedom is a great balance wheel. So long as people are free to
express themselves and organize peacefully, they will have the
opportunity to correct abuses and devise new methods of cooperation. I
believe that United States and its neighbors have great advantages to
reap through a new hemispheric bargain anchored in freedom.
Senator Coverdell. Thank you, Ambassador. I appreciate very
much your remarks. Both of you have written remarks that exceed
what you mentioned, and I hope you would submit them, to the
extent that you can, for our record which we would more than
like to receive.
Ambassador Einaudi. We will both do so.
Senator Coverdell. Thank you.
Mr. Sweeney, let me turn to you now.
STATEMENT OF JOHN P. SWEENEY, LATIN AMERICAN POLICY ANALYST,
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Senator Coverdell. Thank you for
the invitation to appear before this hearing today, and it is
nice to be here with my friend Elliott and share a table with
Luigi.
In the interest of brevity, I am going to jump over most of
my initial presentation because it would just cover ground that
Elliott and Luigi have already covered. I am going to turn to
the specific question of Colombia and Venezuela, which in my
opinion are probably the two biggest challenges the United
States faces today in the Western Hemisphere. I start this on
page 4 of my presentation.
On March 25, 1999, we published at the Heritage Foundation
a policy paper entitled ``Tread Cautiously in Colombia's Civil
War.'' I have included that paper as an appendix to this
testimony today to be included in the record.
Briefly though, Colombia, the world's largest producer of
coca leaf and cocaine, is today in danger of breaking up as a
nation. After 34 years of war against the Colombian State, the
Communist insurgents that belong to the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, the FARC, and the National Liberation Army,
the ELN, have gained the upper hand politically and
increasingly, it appears, in military terms as well.
Since the last 1980's, the FARC and ELN insurgencies have
financed their growth and activities by engaging in the illegal
drug trade and by kidnapping. Today they control over half of
Colombia's national territory, including a demilitarized area
in southern Colombia of 16,216 square miles, nearly twice the
size of El Salvador, that President Andres Pastrana gave to
them on November 7, 1998. Moreover, since early 1997, the
rebels have inflicted a series of stunning defeats on the
Colombian army in open maneuver combat.
President Andres Pastrana is suing for peace at all costs.
The Colombian Government has flatly ruled out any option other
than a negotiated settlement, even though the guerrillas have
maintained their attacks against Colombian army and police
forces and refuse to lay down their arms and have openly called
for the creation of a socialist/marxist State in the regions of
Colombia they control. Moreover, the Colombian guerrillas have
continued to kidnap foreigners, including three American
citizens who were snatched in Colombia and subsequently
murdered in cold blood in Venezuelan territory.
Let me add too that I think that eventually we are going to
learn that the missing American missionaries for the past
several years are also dead. I think that sooner or later will
be confirmed, if not by the FARC, by the Colombian Government.
Now, President Pastrana stance of pursuing peace at all
costs in my opinion is symptomatic of a profound lack of will
by the Colombian Government and by Colombia's political and
business elites to confront the narco-rebels and defeat them in
battle. Instead of strengthening the Colombian armed forces,
the Pastrana Government appears to hope that is the peace
process fails completely, the U.S. will come into the breach to
bail out Colombia. What makes this lack of Colombian will
particularly alarming is the Clinton administration's confusion
about what needs to be done in Colombia to terminate the
Communist insurgency and contain the illegal drug trade that
today accounts for as much as 5 to 7 percent of Colombia's
annual gross domestic product. Congress must guard against any
efforts by the Clinton administration to send U.S. soldiers to
Colombia, and Congress must also guard against any efforts by
the politically weak Pastrana Government to dump responsibility
for ending Colombia's civil war on the shoulders of American
soldiers and taxpayers.
Turning briefly to Venezuela, which is suffering perhaps
its worst economic crisis in this century, President Hugo
Chavez Frias is seeking to centralize all power in his hands
with the backing of some, but not all, elements of the
Venezuelan military. A new banking crisis is looming like the
one that 5 years ago cost Venezuela 14 percent of its gross
domestic product in 1994. Moreover, the non-oil economy is
completely paralyzed while investors and producers wait for the
final outcome early next year of the constituent assembly that
Chavez is vigorously pursuing. However, this constituent
assembly will not resolve Venezuela's economic crisis. When the
poor Venezuelans who elected Chavez realize that the
constituent assembly will not create jobs, ease their hunger,
or improve their wretched living standards, they may turn
against him with the same ferocity they showed toward former
President Carlos Andres Perez in February 1989 when the country
was rocked by bloody riots that lasted a week and caused over
300 violent civilian deaths.
It is too early yet to write off the Chavez Government in
Venezuela as a failure, but it is appropriate I think to
include some general remarks based on his first 3 months in
office.
First, President Chavez has an apocalyptic salvation
project that may further destabilized Venezuela in the next 6
to 12 months. His vision is populist, socialist, statist, and
militaristic. Moreover, his rhetoric indicates that the kinds
of constitutional reforms that Chavez has in mind would involve
more government ownership, control, and regulation of all
economic activity, and fewer political freedoms for his
opponents. He speaks significantly of participative democracy
instead of representative democracy. If you look at the Cuban
constitution under Castro, it is participative. In other words,
if you are with me, you are participating; if you are against
me, you are out of it. And that I fear is one of the things
that is happening now in Venezuela.
Second, Chavez says he supports democracy and free markets,
but his actions show otherwise. Currently more than 300 active
duty military officers are in civilian government posts. Some
of these posts occupied by these active duty military officials
involve general staff of the Colombian armed forces reporting
to officials who formerly were their subordinates. So, tensions
have been created within the structure of the armed forces of
Venezuela.
Second, since he became President last February, more than
2,000 former military personnel have been appointed to local,
regional, and national security jobs throughout Venezuela.
Chavez also has called repeatedly for the dissolution of both
the Venezuelan Congress and Supreme Court, and he also supports
eliminating free elections for State Governors.
Third, since assuming the Presidency barely 3 months ago,
Chavez has demonstrated a growing bias against the United
States. For example, he personally lobbied against the U.S. in
the recent U.N. vote in Geneva on Cuba's human rights
violations. Moreover, his Foreign Minister, Jose Vicente
Rangel, has openly disparaged the U.S. Ambassador in Venezuela
for the Ambassador's carrying out his job, and has stated that
Venezuela henceforth will vote in the U.N. with countries the
likes of Cuba, the People's Republic of China, Iraq, and Libya.
Chavez has also cozied up to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and
he has interfered in the Colombian civil war with a decided
preference toward the Communist narco-guerrillas of that
country.
Fourth, President Chavez does not have a viable economic
plan to pull Venezuela out of its present crisis. He has little
interest in economic matters, except as they may affect his
constitutional reform project. Moreover, he does not have a
coherent economic team and his cabinet is not composed of
first-rate individuals qualified professionally for the post
they now hold.
Mr. Chavez also has created impossibly high expectations
among the Venezuelan people that he cannot meet. It is not
clear yet how the Venezuelan people will react when they
finally realize that writing a new constitution will not
improve their socioeconomic standard of living. While the
constituent assembly process unfolds over the next 6 to 12
months, the public's support for Chavez may hold up, especially
if he launches very public efforts to detain and imprison
anyone perceived as being corrupt. Some of this has already
begun to happen.
During a recent visit to Venezuela, the son of a leading
Accion Democratica official was arrested based on an anonymous
telephone call held in communicado, and even when the Foreign
Minister and the Interior Minister both went to the office of
the State security police director to request this young man's
release, he laughed in their face. They had to go straight to
Chavez to get Chavez to get this kid set free. So, we are
seeing the whole notion of due process being trashed completely
by the Chavez Government.
When the constituent assembly process finally ends with a
new constitution, the Venezuelan people will realize that
populism is no substitute for sound free market policies, and
at that point it is possible that we will see outbreaks of
violence in Caracas and other major Venezuelan cities.
The last point on Venezuela. Chavez does enjoy widespread
support within the Venezuelan armed forces, but that support is
not unanimous. There are even dissident groups within his own
MBR 200 movement, including the Governor of Zulia, Mr. Ideas
Cardenas, who is considered the intellectual father of Chavez'
political movement. Ideas Cardenas has already broken publicly
with Chavez and said that he would oppose any effort to toss
out the country's institutions, as Chavez appears to be seeking
to do with his constituent assembly.
Moreover, the Venezuelan National Guard, which succeeded in
blocking two failed military coups in 1992, the first one being
led by Chavez, does not back the new President. He does not
have their support. Therefore, any attempt by Chavez to launch
a Fujimori style self-coup somewhere down the road would
undoubtedly result in street battles between armed forces and
National Guard units.
Finally, touching on what Elliott has said today and what
Ambassador Einaudi has said today, there is probably very
little that the U.S. could have done in the last couple of
years to prevent any of these threats to democracy from
erupting across the region. But the United States Government's
extended disengagement from Latin America since 1994 has
complicated the region's problems by projecting the mistaken
message that Latin America is not an area of great importance
to the United States. At a time when a strong U.S. presence in
Latin America could be of help to democratic governments in the
area who are trying to confront their economic and political
difficulties, the U.S. under President Clinton very lamentably
is not having even a marginal impact in some of these
countries.
By way of example, two of the most important countries in
South America, Argentina and Brazil, have been without an
accredited U.S. Ambassador for over 2 years and about 1 year,
respectively. Yet, Argentina is our only non-NATO special ally
in Latin America, while Brazil is the largest economy in South
America and a critically important actor in hemispheric trade
liberalization.
Now, more than indifference, in my opinion, the U.S.
administration's growing disengagement from Latin America is a
symptom of a deeper underlying in U.S. foreign policy, namely
that the Clinton administration does not have a coherent Latin
American policy and never has had such a policy. Since 1993,
this administration has consistently maintained that its
foreign policy in Latin America consists of promoting free
trade, consolidating democracy, and defending human rights.
However, these ideals that the U.S. administration seeks to
achieve do not in and of themselves constitute a foreign
policy, but rather a statement of policy objectives that we
hope to achieve. Still missing are the regional and country-
specific strategies designed to achieve our policy objectives
in Latin America.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sweeney follows:]
Prepared Statement of John P. Sweeney
In assessing the state of democracy and rule of law in the
Americas, one can point to both good and bad news. The goods news is
that, generally speaking, democracy and rule of law are stronger today
throughout Latin America than was the case only a decade ago. Having
said that, however, the bad news is that the region's democracies
remain very fragile, and rule of law remains very tenuous in many Latin
American countries. Political corruption, organized crime and drug
trafficking are pervasive throughout the region, and are becoming more
so with each day that passes.
While the U.S. Administration focuses all of its attention on
Kosovo, storm clouds are gathering closer to home, particularly in
South America where a succession of economic and political crises
during the first four months of 1999 have raised legitimate concerns
about the region's democratic stability.
The recent outbreak of economic and political turmoil in Latin
America is taking place following more than two consecutive years in
which economic freedom expanded at a faster pace in South America than
any other developing region of the world. Now that progress is
threatened in several countries, especially Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru,
Venezuela, and Colombia.
In Paraguay, a deadly power struggle between competing factions of
the long-ruling Colorado party led to the assassination of the Vice
President and impeachment of the President, who fled to asylum in
Brazil. This conflict was not between democrats and would-be coup
leaders. Instead, it was a power struggle between competing and very
corrupt factions within the long-ruling Colorado party. The fact is
that Paraguayan politicians have little taste for true democracy and
open markets. Additionally, Paraguay is home to Ciudad del Este on its
so-called Triple Frontier with Brazil and Argentina. Ciudad del Este is
a major center in South America for organized smuggling of merchandise
goods, and other criminal activity such as drug trafficking, money
laundering, black market arms sales, and terrorism. Paraguay is only
nominally a democracy.
In Ecuador, the combination of the El Nino weather phenomenon in
1998, political and corporate opposition to government economic
reforms, plus chronic corruption, bankrupted the economy of that
country. The IMF is bailing out Ecuador so that it will not be forced
to default on its foreign debt obligations. However, the Ecuadorean
people, its business leaders and the government's political opposition
clearly have no taste for the kind of austerity and restructuring
measures which are needed desperately to place the economy of Ecuador
on a sound footing.
In Peru, the overall economy is weathering the effects of the
Brazilian crisis in relatively good condition, but President Fujimori,
whose government is backed by the military, wants to extend his
presidency for a third five-year term as of 2000. Since Fujimori
carried out his self-coup in 1992, he has succeeded in defeating the
bloody Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru insurgencies, and in putting
the economy on a fast-growth path. However, Peru under Fujimori has
also suffered an increase in human rights abuses committed by the
government, official repression of free speech, political persecution
of Fujimori's critics, and a deepening of corruption within the
military establishment that controls the country in silent
``partnership'' with Fujimori.
The Caribbean region has become the playground of Colombian and
Mexican drug traffickers. The Dominican Republic and Haiti have become
major drug transit routes. Puerto Rico has become the main Caribbean
staging point for shipping drugs to the mainland U.S. Since it is a
U.S. Commonwealth territory, once the drugs arrive ``in country'' it is
easier to ship them by air on domestic U.S. flights--which are not
monitored as closely as foreign flights.
On December 31, 1999, the last U.S. military forces will withdraw
from Panama, leaving that country without the ability to defend itself
from destabilizing incursions by Colombian guerrillas, para-militaries
and drug traffickers. Some critics doubt that the Panamanian government
can maintain and operate the Panama Canal efficiently. Many Panamanians
also share those doubts.
Measured against these countries, the situation in Brazil and
Mexico appears to be positively bullish. The economic crisis in Brazil
appears to be easing, and the Mexican economy has grown stronger thanks
mainly to its membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). However, a note of caution about both countries.
The economy of Brazil may well start to recover in the second half
of 1999, as the Cardoso government and IMF are both predicting, but the
Brazilian people will continue to suffer for years the effects of the
economy's 4-6% projected contraction this year. Brazil accounts for
about half of the poorest people in Latin America. As in Mexico after
the 1995 peso crisis, the effects of the economic crisis in Brazil will
include a severe and prolonged downturn of living standards in the
domestic or non-export economy, accompanied by an increase in
unemployment, crime and govermnent corruption.
As for Mexico, the NAFTA has clearly helped to strengthen the
Mexican economy as it becomes more closely integrated with the U.S.
economy. Mexico today is our second most important trading partner.
Measured overall, NAFTA has been a major commercial success. However,
that success has been eclipsed almost completely by the emergence of
Mexico as a major force in the U.S.-Latin America drug trade. Mexico
has become the principal gateway for over 60% of the illegal cocaine
smuggled into the U.S. each year. Government corruption is endemic here
too, especially among police and military officials. Drug-related
corruption in Mexico reached very close to the highest levels of power
during the Salinas Administration. During the Zedillo Administration,
there have been numerous cases of drug-related corruption within the
Mexican military and police establishments. Mexican drug traffickers
have amassed significant political and economic influence in Mexico
during the past decade, while in the U.S. they control the drug trade
from the Southwest to the Pacific Northwest. They have also gained
market share at the expense of Colombian drug traffickers on the
Eastern seaboard from South Florida to Maine.
In 1994 the expansion of free trade was at the top of the U.S.
Administration's foreign policy agenda for Latin America. Today the top
U.S. foreign policy priority in Latin America is the war on drugs, and
Colombia is the epicenter of that war. So I'm going to focus on
Colombia, and its neighboring country Venezuela, for the balance of my
presentation.
On March 25, 1999, The Heritage Foundation published a second
policy study entitled ``Tread Cautiously in Colombia's Civil War.''
That paper has been included as an appendix to this testimony today.
Colombia today is in danger of breaking up as a nation. After 34
years of war against the Colombian State, the Communist insurgents that
belong to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the
National Liberation Army (ELN) have gained the upper hand politically
and, increasingly, in military terms as well. Since the late 1980s, the
FARC and ELN insurgencies have financed their growth and activities by
engaging in the illegal drug trade. Today they control over half of
Colombia's national territory, including a demilitarized area in
southern Colombia of 16,216 square miles--nearly twice the size of El
Salvador--that President Pastrana gave the rebels on November 7, 1998.
Moreover, since early 1997 the rebels have inflicted a series of
stunning defeats on the Colombian Army in open maneuver combat.
President Pastrana is suing for peace at all costs. The Colombian
government has flatly ruled out any option other than a negotiated
settlement, even though the guerrillas have maintained their attacks
against Colombian army and police forces. Moreover, the narco-rebels
have continued to kidnap foreigners, including three American citizens
who were snatched in Colombia and subsequently murdered in cold blood
in Venezuelan territory.
President Pastrana's stance of ``peace at all costs'' stance is
symptomatic of a profound lack of will by the Colombian government, and
by Colombia's political and business elites, to confront the narco-
rebels and defeat them in battle. Instead of strengthening the
Colombian armed forces, the Pastrana Government appears to hope that,
if the peace process fails completely, the U.S. will come into the
breach to bail out Colombia. What makes this lack of Colombian will
particularly alarming is the Clinton Administration's confusion about
what needs to be done in Colombia to terminate the Communist insurgency
and contain the illegal drug trade that accounts for as much as seven
percent of Colombia's annual gross domestic product (GDP). Congress
must guard against any efforts by the Clinton Administration to send
U.S. soldiers to Colombia, and must also guard against any efforts by
the politically weak Pastrana government to dump responsibility for
ending Colombia's civil war on the shoulders of American soldiers and
taxpayers.
In Venezuela, which is suffering perhaps its worst economic crisis
in this century, President Hugo Chavez Frias is seeking to centralize
all power in his hands with the backing of some (but not all) elements
of the Venezuelan military. A new banking crisis is looming, like the
one five years ago that cost Venezuela 14% of its gross domestic
product in 1994. Moreover, the non-oil economy is completely paralyzed
while investors and producers wait for the final outcome early next
year of the constituent assembly that Chavez is pushing vigorously.
However, the constituent assembly will not resolve Venezuela's economic
crisis. When the poor Venezuelans who elected Chavez realize that the
constituent assembly will not create jobs, ease their hunger or improve
their wretched living standards, they may turn against him with the
same ferocity they showed towards former President Carlos Andres Perez
in February 1989, when the country was rocked by bloody riots that
lasted a week and caused over 300 violent civilian deaths.
While it is too early to write off the Chavez government in
Venezuela as a failure, it is appropriate to include some general
remarks based on his first three months in office.
1. Chavez has an apocalyptic salvation project that may
further destabilize Venezuela in the next 6-12 months. His
vision is populist, socialist, statist and militaristic.
Moreover, his rhetoric indicates that the kinds of
constitutional reforms that Chavez has in mind would involve
more government ownership, control and regulation of all
economic activity, and fewer political freedoms for his
opponents. He speaks of ``participative'' democracy instead of
``representative'' democracy.
2. Chavez says he supports democracy and free markets, but
his actions show otherwise. Currently, over 300 active duty
military officers are in civilian government posts.
Additionally, since Chavez became President last February more
than 2,000 former military personnel have been appointed to
local, regional and national security jobs throughout
Venezuela. Moreover, Chavez has called repeatedly for the
dissolution of both the Venezuelan Congress and Supreme Court,
and he also supports eliminating free elections for state
governors.
3. Since assuming the presidency barely three months ago,
Chavez has demonstrated a growing bias against the United
States. For example, Chavez personally lobbied against the U.S.
in the recent UN vote in Geneva on Cuba's human rights
violations. His Foreign Minister, Jose Vicente Rangel, has
openly disparaged the U.S. Ambassador in Venezuela, and has
stated that Venezuela henceforth will vote in the UN with
countries the likes of Cuba, the People's Republic of China,
Iraq, and Libya. Chavez has also cozied up to Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro, and has interfered in the Colombian civil war
with a decided preference towards the Communist narco-
guerrillas of that country.
4. Chavez does not have a viable economic plan to pull
Venezuela out of its present crisis. He has little interest in
economic matters, except as they may affect his constitutional
reform project. Moreover, Chavez does not have a coherent
economic team, and his Cabinet is not composed of first-rate
individuals qualified professionally for the posts they now
hold.
5. Chavez has created impossibly high expectations among the
Venezuelan people that he cannot meet. It's not clear yet how
the Venezuelan people will react when they finally realize that
writing a new constitution will not improve their socioeconomic
standard of living. While the constituent assembly process
unfolds over the next 6-12 months the public's support for
Chavez may hold up, especially if he launches very public
efforts to detain and imprison anyone perceived as being
corrupt. Obvious targets for such arrests are the traditional
politicians and business elites who wrecked Venezuela, but that
circus won't last indefinitely. When the constituent assembly
process finally ends with a new Constitution, the Venezuelan
people will realize that populism is no substitute for sound
free market policies, and at that point outbreaks of violence
will be very likely to occur in Caracas and other major cities.
6. Chavez enjoys widespread support within the Venezuelan
armed forces, but that support is not unanimous. Moreover, the
Venezuelan National Guard, which succeeded in blocking two
failed military coup attempts in 1992 (the first one led by
Chavez), does not back Chavez. Therefore, any attempt by Chavez
to launch a Fujimori-style self-coup would undoubtedly result
in street battles between armed forces and National Guard
units.
No Latin America Policy. The United States could have done very
little to prevent any of these economic and political difficulties from
erupting across the region in recent months. However, the Clinton
Administration's extended disengagement from Latin America has
complicated the region's problems by projecting the mistaken message
that South America is not a region of great importance to the United
States. At a time when a strong U.S. presence in South America could be
of help to democratic governments in the area in confronting their
economic and political difficulties, the U.S. under President Clinton
is not having even a marginal impact.
For example, two of the most important countries in South America--
Argentina and Brazil--have been without an accredited U.S. Ambassador
for over two years and about one year, respectively. Argentina is the
only non-NATO special ally in Latin America, while Brazil is the
largest economy in South America and a critically important actor in
hemispheric trade liberalization. Meanwhile, in Chile, the Clinton
Administration's ambiguous response to the illegal detention of the
former Chilean President, General Augusto Pinochet, has helped to
reopen old wounds that still fester deeply in Chilean society.
Moreover, while President Bill Clinton was in Central America last
March pledging $954 million of reconstruction aid for countries
devastated by Hurricane Mitch, he said nothing about helping Ecuador
recover from the nearly $3 billion of damage caused in 1998 by the
weather phenomenon known as El Nino. Instead, President Clinton
formally apologized to Guatemala and other Central American countries
for alleged American military involvement in human rights abuses
committed during the 1970s and 1980s, even though the U.S. military
never was involved directly or indirectly in such abuses.
More than indifference, the Clinton Administration's growing
disengagement from South America is a symptom of a deeper underlying
problem in U.S. foreign policy, which is that the Clinton
Administration does not have a coherent Latin America policy. Since
1993, the Clinton Administration has consistently maintained that its
foreign policy in Latin America consists of promoting free trade,
consolidating democracy, and defending human rights. However, these
ideals that the U.S. Administration seeks to achieve do not constitute
a foreign policy, but rather a statement of policy objectives. Still
missing are the regional and country-specific strategies designed to
achieve these policy objectives.
[Appendix I]
Tread Cautiously in Colombia's Civil War
executive summary
After six years of ignoring the growing connection between
Colombia's drug traffickers and Marxist rebels bent on toppling the
democratically elected government, President Bill Clinton has decided
to increase U.S. military aid to Colombia to step up efforts in the war
on drugs. He is also backing a questionable peace plan proposed by
newly elected Colombian President Andres Pastrana to negotiate with the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National
Liberation Army (ELN), two Marxist guerrilla organizations that have
battled the Colombian state for over three decades. In fact, General
Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House Office on National Drug
Control Policy, has stated that the FARC is ``heavily involved in
protecting, transporting, and in some cases operating drug labs.''
Pastrana maintains that after a peace pact is signed, the rebels
will aid the government in fighting Colombia's war on drugs. If
Pastrana's peace initiative fails, his only options will be to
surrender nearly half of Colombia to the over 20,000 well-armed FARC
and ELN insurgents, or to order the Colombian army to try and defeat
them in battle. However, the Colombian army is not capable of defeating
them. U.S. defense experts estimate that it will take at least two
years to train, equip, and field a modern professional Colombian army
capable of defeating rebel units of between 300 and 1,000 guerrillas.
The United States should do all it can to help Pastrana's new
Colombian government end the country's decades-old civil war and
eliminate the illegal drug trade. However, in January 1999, the FARC
announced that all U.S. military and law enforcement personnel in
Colombia would be considered legitimate targets to be killed or
captured. Before endorsing the Administration's decision to increase
U.S. military involvement in Colombia, Congress must know how the
Administration will react if the peace talks break down.
President Clinton's priorities in sending additional military aid
to Colombia are unclear. Is the increased military aid to Colombia to
be used to fight drug traffickers, or will some of it be spent training
Colombian army forces to battle the rebels, who earn close to $1
billion from drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and other crimes
each year? Moreover, what measures will the Administration take if
Pastrana's peace talks fail and the civil war becomes more violent?
Would the President propose sending U.S. soldiers to Colombia to help
keep the peace, as he has done in Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Somalia?
The peace talks, which officially opened on January 7, 1999,
promptly stalled because the rebels have no real incentive to negotiate
an agreement. They believe they have the upper hand politically and,
increasingly, in military terms as well. Even if Pastrana successfully
negotiates peace, the illegal drug trade will not be affected. Cocaine
and heroin are Colombia's largest export products, ahead of coffee and
petroleum, and they account for between 5 percent and 7 percent of the
country's annual gross domestic product. If, as part of the agreement,
the rebel organizations do crack down on the illegal drug trade in the
areas they control, the drug traffickers will simply move operations
elsewhere.
In December 1998, the Clinton Administration acknowledged that U.S.
policy in Colombia is being set by default. This is an alarming
admission, given President Clinton's decision to increase U.S. military
aid--including sending additional U.S. military advisers into a country
where over 200 American military and law enforcement personnel are
currently stationed. Before agreeing to the President's plan, Congress
should ensure that the Administration's Colombia policy is based on a
clear strategy that spells out objectives and limitations. U.S.
soldiers must not be sucked by default into Colombia's civil war.
Specifically, Congress should:
Initiate a thorough review of U.S. drug policy in Latin
America. With trade expansion off the Administration's policy
agenda indefinitely, Congress should ascertain if U.S. anti-
drug aid to Latin American law enforcement and military forces
is being used properly and effectively before considering
increasing the aid.
Abolish the annual drug certification process. Certification
has become a pointless annual exercise that compresses the
national drug policy debate to three or four weeks a year, yet
one that poisons relations with America's most important Latin
American allies and trading partners.
Set clear limits on U.S. military aid to Colombia. Congress
should ensure that no U.S. soldiers participate in battles
between the Colombian army and drug-trafficking rebel
organizations.
Manage the drug-related insurgency as a law enforcement
problem. The FARC and ELN rebels are involved in drug
trafficking, and as such should be treated as organized
criminals who are an integral part of the drug threat facing
the Western hemisphere.
Implement a serious anti-drug assistance program with
Colombia. In demanding better results from the Colombian
government, the U.S. Administration failed to provide
sufficient material support, which seriously undermines the
anti-drug efforts of Colombian law enforcement and indirectly
helps the rebels gain the upper hand in combat.
Agree to help train and equip a professional Colombian army.
A civil war in Colombia can threaten U.S. interests in Latin
America, but the conflict can be solved only by the Colombians.
The United States should aid the democratically elected
government to field a modern, professional Colombian army that
is capable of defeating the rebels in combat.
Seek a multilateral approach to managing the Colombian
crisis. A unilateral increase in military aid to Colombia
without a counterbalancing multilateral approach involving key
Latin American countries would be repudiated in the region as
U.S. imperialism. A multilateral approach should include the
participation of the Organization of American States,
especially in monitoring reported human rights abuses in
Colombia.
conclusion
It is clearly in America's national interest to help Colombia end
its civil war and eradicate illegal drugs, but the Clinton
Administration should tread cautiously in escalating U.S. military
involvement in Colombia. President Clinton and Members of Congress
would be wise to remember that America's involvement in the Vietnam war
began with a few dozen U.S. military advisers and a small financial
investment. If the limits of U.S. military involvement in Colombia are
not spelled out clearly at the outset, the risk is great that
significant numbers of U.S. soldiers could, by default, be sucked into
the Colombian quagmire.
______
Tread Cautiously in Colombia's Civil War
The marriage of Communist insurgency and drug trafficking in
Colombia, the world's largest producer of coca leaf and cocaine, has
elevated a decades-old civil conflict into a dangerous war that now
threatens stability in Latin America. It also endangers vital U.S.
interests in the region, including the war on drugs.
Colombia produces 80 percent of the cocaine and two-thirds of the
heroin making its way into the United States.\1\ According to the
Colombian Finance Ministry, the illegal trade brings in between $3
billion and $5 billion a year, making it Colombia's top export
earner.\2\ The amount of land in Colombia devoted to the cultivation of
coca--the raw material for cocaine--increased in 1998 alone by 28
percent, according to General Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House
Office on National Drug Control Policy.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Douglas Farah, ``Colombian Army Fighting Legacy of Abuses,''
the Washington Post, February 18, 1999, p. A15.
\2\ Reuters, ``Drug Hauls and Kidnappings in Colombia Surged in
1998,'' the Los Angeles Times, December 20, 1998, p. A4.
\3\ John Otis, ``Despite Eradication Bid, Another Bumper Coca
Crop,'' the Houston Chronicle, February 12, 1999, p. 28.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States worked
closely with both the Colombian police and military. But in 1993, the
Clinton Administration sharply reduced military aid to the Colombian
army because of its poor record on human rights. Meanwhile, the
Administration insisted that Colombia step up its drug interdiction
efforts, and it imposed economic sanctions on Colombia from 1995 to
1998. That policy undermined U.S. relations with Colombia as well as
with other Latin America countries.
However, since the election in 1998 of Colombian President Andres
Pastrana, the Clinton Administration has increased anti-drug aid to
Colombia, from $100 million in 1997 to $289 million. Moreover,
President Clinton recently announced he will increase U.S. military aid
to Colombia to step up efforts to fight the drug traffickers.\4\ And he
endorsed Pastranas plan to eradicate the drug trade through alternative
crop development programs that are financed by the United States and
other countries.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Although the Administration is providing $40 million of
training, intelligence, and logistical support to Colombia during 1999,
U.S. military aid can be expected to increase over the next two or
three years as the Colombian civil war escalates. Moreover, more
military aid likely will be accompanied by an increasing number of U.S.
military advisers in Colombia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The wisdom of his decisions is questionable. Colombia is perilously
close to internal collapse. If that happens, Colombia could become a
Balkan-type problem in America's backyard, with much of its northern
territory controlled by paramilitary groups and drug traffickers,
southern Colombia controlled by Marxist rebels, and the government
hanging on to the urban central region that includes the important
cities of Bogota, Medellin, and Cali. Such a balkanization of Colombia
into volatile mini-states, with its ensuing political and social
instability, would contribute to a tremendous explosion in the illegal
narcotics trade.
The United States should help the Colombian government end its
civil turmoil peacefully and terminate the illicit drug trade. It
should also help the government disarm the paramilitary groups and
encourage the Pastrana government to stop the systematic human rights
abuses reportedly committed by members of Colombia's armed forces.
These goals are consistent with U.S. foreign policy objectives in Latin
America of expanding free trade, consolidating democracy, and
eradicating the illegal drug trade. However, greater direct U.S.
military involvement in Colombia's civil war is not. In addition, in
January 1999, one of the rebel organizations announced that all U.S.
military and law enforcement personnel in Colombia would be considered
legitimate targets to be killed or captured.\5\ Furthermore, ``If they
are in army or police barracks and there is a fight, we will confront
them, rebel leader Raul Reyes said.'' \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Agence France Presse, ``Colombian Guerrillas Warn US Advisors
Could Be Targets,'' January 4, 1999.
\6\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If peace talks between the government and the rebels break down and
U.S. military advisers are targeted, Congress must know how the
Administration will react. Before President Clinton obligates U.S.
troops to become directly involved in fighting Colombia's drug problems
and civil war, he should establish clear contingency plans to safeguard
the lives of U.S. military personnel in Colombia in case Pastrana's
peace plan fails.
Moreover, before agreeing to increase U.S. military aid to
Colombia, Congress should:
Initiate a comprehensive review of U.S. drug policy in Latin
America;
Abolish the ineffective and politically damaging drug
certification process;
Set specific limits on U.S. military aid to Colombia;
Ensure U.S. troops do not become involved in fighting
Colombia's civil war by limiting the number of U.S. military
advisers and monitoring how the military aid is spent;
Manage the drug-related insurgency as a law enforcement
problem;
Implement a serious anti-drug assistance program, building
on the $289 million one-year, anti-drug package that Colombia
received in October 1998;
Agree to help train and equip a professional Colombian army;
Seek a multilateral approach to managing the Colombian
crisis.
colombia's peace plan
The centerpiece of President Pastrana's strategy to end the civil
war, repair the economy, and terminate the drug trade is a negotiated
peace pact with the Marxist rebels, who are now involved in drug
trafficking. Pastrana maintains that after a peace pact is signed,
these ``narco-rebels'' will help wipe out the drug trade in areas they
control. As part of his ``Plan Colombia,'' Pastrana agreed to give
control of a large area of Colombia to the rebels and to fund large-
scale agriculture and infrastructure development programs to substitute
food crops for coca and opium poppies. Currently, the Colombian
government estimates this crop effort will cost up to $4 billion
overall. Most of the money for this effort is to come from the United
States, other as-yet unspecified countries, and multilateral
organizations.
Pastrana's peace plan is unlikely to succeed. First, the Colombian
government has been unable to counter the growing involvement of
Marxist insurgents in drug trafficking, and the Colombian army has been
unable to defeat the rebels in battle. Moreover, the rebels have little
incentive to abide by a peace agreement because they believe they hold
the upper hand. Second, by making major concessions to the ``narco-
rebels,'' Pastrana is conferring political status and an implicit
legitimacy on their efforts. Third, even if the peace talks succeed,
the illicit drug trade that funds the rebels' activities is unlikely to
be deterred significantly. Even if the FARC and ELN rebels decide to
curtail drug operations in their areas, the traffickers will simply
move their operations. Clearly, President Clinton should not have
endorsed this plan.
Flaws in Colombia's Peace Plan
After 34 years of fighting the Colombian government, the Communist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National
Liberation Army (ELN) now control nearly half of Colombia's territory.
Over 35,000 Colombians have been killed in the civil war, and between 1
million and 2 million have been displaced. Colombian President Andres
Pastrana has stated that he wishes to end the violence and unite the
country. He maintains that the rebels are not seeking permanent control
of any part of Colombia's territory, but instead, once a peace pact is
signed, will join the government's fight against drug trafficking.
However, the prospects for a peace accord are poor. FARC's rebel
leaders say their goal is to establish political control over as much
of Colombia as they can capture in order to install a Marxist Socialist
regime.\7\ They will have to fight paramilitary groups to do this.
Carlos Castano, who heads the largest and most violent paramilitary
organization in Colombia, warned Pastrana that the paramilitaries ``do
not share the concept of peace at any price because we consider it
dangerous for the existence of the nation and its institutions.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Tim Padgett, ``The Backyard Balkans,'' Time, January 18, 1999,
p. 44.
\8\ ``Pastrana's Peace Process,'' Latin American Special Report,
Vol. 6, No. 12 (October 31, 1998), at http://www.latam-news.com.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the official peace talks began on January 7, 1999, the FARC
demanded ``sweeping changes in State bodies,'' blamed the United States
for the political violence that started in 1964, verbally attacked the
International Monetary Fund, and called for a new constitutional
assembly to replace the constitution approved in 1991. It demanded that
the government increase the demilitarized area under its control to
include five more municipalities.\9\ It also demanded that some 500
imprisoned guerrillas be freed and all aerial spraying of illegal drug
crops inside the demilitarized area be halted immediately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Inravision TV-A, ``FARC reportedly wants demilitarized zone
expanded,'' BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, January 19, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FARC commander, Manuel Marulanda Velez, even demanded that the
government recognize the FARC as a military force. FARC wants a new
military doctrine based on the defense of Colombia's borders, a
reduction in the size of Colombia's armed forces, and greater respect
for human rights. It has called for a revision of Colombia's military
treaties, a 10-year moratorium on Colombia's foreign debt, and a drug
``solution'' that targets demand in the United States and other large
consumer countries, instead of interdiction of supply and production in
Colombia.\10\ Marulanda said he intends to pursue a clear socialist
agenda that ``combines the best from Soviet socialism, from Chinese
socialism, from Vietnamese socialism, and from Cuban socialism.'' \11\
In alluding to the increased U.S. military aid for Colombia, he added
that the FARC aspires ``to keep Colombia from becoming a new Vietnam.''
\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Bryan Bender, ``2 Fronts, 1 War,'' Jane's Defence Weekly, Vol.
31, No. 4 (January 27, 1999).
\11\ Semana, ``Interview with FARC leader Tirofijo,'' BBC Summary
of World Broadcasts, January 18, 1999.
\12\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The talks stalled after paramilitary groups killed over 130
suspected rebel sympathizers. The FARC rebels gave the government until
April to take firm action against the paramilitary groups. And the ELN
rebels broke off talks when their demands for a demilitarized zone in
an area of northern Colombia that would be approximately one-fifth the
size of the FARC's zone in southern Colombia were rejected.
FARC and ELN narco-rebels have demonstrated repeatedly that they
have no real incentive to lay down their arms and negotiate a peaceful
resolution of the Colombian conflict. (See sidebars.) They have
continued to assault police and Army units throughout Colombia, killing
dozens of police and civilians and capturing scores of prisoners and
weapons. Moreover, on March 4, 1999, the FARC viciously murdered three
U.S. human rights workers, including two women, by shooting them
execution-style in the face and chest.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Adam Thomson, ``Colombia Peace Process Faces Threat,'' the
Financial Times, March 12, 1999, p. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although Pastrana insists that the peace talks are starting to
gather momentum, it appears more likely that the process will drag on
indefinitely as the rebels try to extract additional political and
economic concessions. The FARC and ELN clearly feel they have the upper
hand. If the peace talks fail, Pastrana's only options are to surrender
Colombia to the rebels or order the Colombian army to fight them. In
its present state, the Colombian army cannot defeat the rebels. It is a
garrison army of conscripts who have little tactical and strategic
training or mobility. The Colombian army is poorly trained, poorly
equipped, poorly led, and severely tarnished by its long history of
corruption and human rights abuses.\14\ Moreover, for most of the past
decade, it has failed to stage a single successful offensive against
the rebels. In recent years, the Colombian army has lost more than 80
engagements involving 300 or more guerrillas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ U.S. Department of State, ``Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices,'' at http://www.state.gov/www/global/human__rights/
hrp__reports__mainhp.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because he lacks the resources to fight the FARC and ELN
successfully, Pastrana is pursuing peace with foes whose stated goals
include toppling his government. Since his inauguration on August 7,
1998, Pastrana has conferred full political recognition of FARC and ELN
rebels and acknowledged their political and administrative control over
nearly half of Colombia. Moreover, on November 7, 1998, he
demilitarized a region of 16,216 square miles in southern Colombia--an
area that is twice the size of El Salvador where more than a third of
Colombia's illegal narcotics crops are grown--by withdrawing all
Colombian soldiers and police. Originally, the FARC-controlled zone was
to be demilitarized by February 7, 1999, but Pastrana extended that
deadline until the end of May 1999.
Who Are the Rebels?
On April 8, 1998, U.S. Marine Corps General Charles Wilhelm of the
U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) warned that Colombia's armed forces
are incapable of defeating Marxist guerrillas in the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN).\15\
Three days later, FARC's high command urged ``all revolutionary''
forces to unite and fight U.S. involvement in Colombia in a communique
stating that ``the open meddling of the empire (the United States) in
Colombia's internal affairs fully justifies the armed revolutionary
struggle.'' \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Thomas B. Hunter, ``FARC Proposes Anti-US Unity,'' Jane's
Intelligence Review, Vol. 5, No. 6 (June 1, l998), p. l6.
\16\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FARC was established in 1966 as the military wing of the
Colombian Communist party. The smaller ELN began in the 1960s, and was
inspired by Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba. For over three decades,
these rebels sought to establish a Marxist Colombian state by force of
arms. Until the 1980s, the FARC had fewer than 1,000 guerrillas, but
over the past decade, it has grown to at least 15,000 well-armed
guerrillas. The ELN now boasts about 5,000 guerrillas.
The largest concentrations of FARC guerrillas--and the biggest
expanse of coca fields in Colombia--are located within a regional
triangle in southern Colombia. The FARC controls about 50 small ports
in the Gulf of Uraba in northern Colombia through which it smuggles
weapons and precursor chemicals for manufacturing cocaine and heroin
from Panama. The FARC and ELN control and administer about half of the
Colombian national territory. More than 57 percent of the country's
mayors support or obey them. \17\ They patrol the roads and waterways,
regulate fishing, and hold trials for suspected criminals. In some
areas, they created public services and agriculture credit banks and
collect funds for road improvements at toll stations.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ David Spencer, ``A Lesson for Colombia,'' Jane's Intelligence
Review, Vol. 9, No. 10 (October 1, 1997), p. 474.
\18\ Outside Colombia, the FARC has opened representative offices
in Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Spain, and in 1998 sought
unsuccessfully to open a sixth office in Brazil similar to what the
Palestinian Liberation organization (PLO) was allowed in Brazil during
the early 1980s.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FARC exploited the demise of the cocaine cartels in the l980s,
first by providing security to drug crops and clandestine labs, and
later as coca growers and operators of illegal processing labs. Today,
some rebel units own warehouses and aircraft and control clandestine
airfields that formerly belonged to the Medellin or Cali cartels.\19\
The Colombian government has estimated that the FARC and ELN earned
over $900 million from drug trafficking and kidnapping in 1997.
According to General Rosso Jose Serrano, chief of the Colombian
National Police, the FARC completes guns-and-cash-for-drugs deals with
organized crime groups in Chechnya, Russia, Ukraine, and
Uzbekistan.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Colombian National Police estimates that in 1997 about 3,155
guerrillas were directly involved in protecting drug crops,
laboratories and airstrips, as well as collecting war taxes from those
associated with the drug business. Between 1994 and 1998, guerrillas
fired over 160 times at Colombian police aircraft and helicopters on
anti-drug operations, killing 44 anti-drug agents and wounding 75
others.
\20\ Jamie Dettmer, ``Drug War on U.S. Streets is Fought in
Colombia,'' Insight on the News, November 24, l997, p. 36.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Catalog of Rebel Attacks
Since 1994, the intensity of Colombia's guerrilla war has
increased. The FARC demonstrated in the past two years alone that it
has the ability to confront and defeat Colombian army units in open
combat and amass large units against multiple targets around Colombia,
and the ELN has demonstrated its intentions clearly as well: \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Ibid.
On February 26, 1998, a Colombian army brigade was
dispatched to break up a concentration of 600 guerrillas
reportedly ready to attack Cartagena del Chaira near the Caguan
River. The guerrillas organized a successful ambush. After
three days, 80 soldiers had been killed, 43 captured, and the
rest dispersed in the jungle.\22\ This was the first time the
FARC defeated a large elite Colombian army unit in maneuver
warfare.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ David Spencer, ``Bogota continues to bleed as FARC find their
military feet,'' Jane's Intelligence Review, Vol. 10, No. 11 (November
1, 1998), p. 35.
\23\ FARC can now field its entire force--l5,000 fighters--on
sustained operations for up to one week at a time. The M-16 has
replaced the Soviet-era Kalashnikoff assault rifle as the guerrillas'
weapon of choice, which is smuggled into Colombia from Central America
by Arab smugglers operating out of Panama and Ciudad del Este, a South
American city located where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and
Paraguay meet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the first week of August 1998, before Pastrana was
inaugurated, the FARC and ELN launched at least 42 attacks in
14 different sectors. More than half of the attacks involved
guerrilla units of 300 to 1,000 fighters. After two weeks of
fighting, 104 military and police were dead and between 129 and
158 government troops taken prisoner; 243 guerrillas had been
killed.
On October 18, 1998, the ELN sabotaged Colombia's main oil
pipeline, causing a huge fire that destroyed the small village
of Machuca; 45 people burned to death and another 26 died later
from severe burns.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Radio Cadena Nacional, ``ELN rebels to continue attacks on oil
facilities,'' BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, November 4, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On November 2, 1998, the 120-man police detachment in Mitu,
a town of 14,000 located about 400 miles from Bogota near the
border with Brazil, were assaulted by up to 1,000 FARC
guerrillas who arrived by river. About 80 police and 10
civilians were killed, and 40 police were taken prisoner. FARC
units ambushed about 500 soldiers and police approaching the
besieged town by land. At least 28 soldiers and police were
killed in that attack.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On March 4, 1999, the FARC viciously murdered three U.S.
human rights workers, including two women, by shooting them
execution-style in the face and chest.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Thomson, ``Colombia Peace Process Faces Threat.''
In the majority of these attacks, the guerrillas covered their
withdrawal by placing scattered land mines and ambushing groups of
approaching soldiers.\27\ The FARC is also able to jam Colombian army
and police communications with electronic equipment in small aircraft.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ ``Some 100 dead as Colombian soldiers, rebels battle,'' Agence
France-Presse, November 3, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United States should support a sensible effort by the Colombian
government to end the civil war, eradicate illegal drugs, and overcome
the country's economic slump. However, Pastrana's ``Plan Colombia''
will not achieve these objectives for these reasons:
It is not a peace plan. Pastrana's peace proposal is
little more than a white flag signaling the government's surrender.
Instead of unifying Colombia as a single nation, Pastrana's plan will
likely balkanize it. Colombia's urban centers would remain nominally
under the government's control, but most rural territory would fall
under rebel and paramilitary control. According to Pastrana, by
agreeing to the plan, the rebels would give up nearly $1 billion a year
in proceeds from drug trafficking and extortion. But these lost
``earnings'' would need to be offset by a massive infusion of
internationally financed cash and development aid. This is not a
Marshall Plan, as President Pastrana would have the United States
believe; it is a transfer of wealth to Communist rebels that will not
guarantee their criminal activities will cease. In the United States,
this would be called extortion.
It fails to implement serious reform plans. To achieve
lasting peace, Pastrana must change Colombia's institutions and
legitimize and protect private property rights. Moreover, he must
change the culture of institutionalized corruption, violence, and
systematic abuse of human rights. Although the involvement of the FARC
and ELN rebels in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and cattle
rustling makes them criminals, and not revolutionaries, the fact
remains that some of their grievances against the Colombian state are
valid. Historically, the ruling political class has sought self-
enrichment and ignored the needs of the people. In addition, it has
ignored the need to strengthen Colombia's military with resources
sufficient to defeat the Communist insurgency. Significantly, both the
rebels and the paramilitaries who oppose them share similar and
skeptical opinions about the new government's willingness to negotiate
an agreement based on real institutional reforms.
It weakens the government's position while strengthening
the rebel position. Pastrana's actions have weakened the government's
negotiating position and strengthened the rebel position. He conceded
giving up 16,216 square miles of land and began discussing a prisoner
exchange months before the official peace talks began. He legitimized
the FARC by acknowledging their administrative control over large parts
of Colombia and downplaying their involvement in the drug trade. And
although he has replaced the high command of the armed forces with
officers who are known to be honest and concerned about human rights,
he has been slow to articulate a plan to modernize and strengthen the
armed forces quickly. Meanwhile, the rebels exploit his concessions to
make him appear weak to Colombians and the world. For example, when the
peace talks were officially launched on January 7, 1999, Pastrana sat
alone at the dais while the FARC commander-in-chief sent a low-ranking
official to read a letter attacking the government--and the United
States as an imperial aggressor--but which said little about peace.
It is unlikely to satisfy the different groups involved in
the crisis. All of the key parties involved in the peace process--the
government, the FARC and the ELN, the paramilitaries, the armed forces,
and the Clinton Administration--have different expectations. Pastrana
wants to demobilize the insurgency and end the political violence that
is hurting the people and the economy and damaging Colombia's image.
Eradicating illegal narcotics is a secondary consideration. U.S. and
Colombian law enforcement officials claim that Pastrana ordered all
counter-narcotics operations halted in the FARC-controlled
demilitarized zone as long as the peace process is ongoing.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Tod Robberson, ``U.S. Pins Anti-Drug Aid to Colombia's Plan
for Rebel-Run Zone,'' the Dallas Morning News, February 11, 1999, p.
18A.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FARC and ELN rebels want to establish a Marxist government in
nearly half of Colombia's territory, nationalizing banks and natural
resource industries, redistributing land to millions of peasants, and
expelling foreign investors. Klaus Nyholm, head of the United Nations
Drug Control Program in Colombia, says that the FARC and ELN rebels
``speak like a handout from the Soviet embassy in the 1970's. They
don't have any definite ideas about what they would do. Their main idea
is that the (Colombian) government and the international community
should come in with massive assistance.'' \29\ Meanwhile, the
paramilitaries who are financed by private landowners and drug
traffickers are determined to wipe out the FARC and ELN at any cost.
They also oppose free-market policies that Colombia has followed since
1990. The drug traffickers want to continue doing business, regardless
of who runs the country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ John Otis, ``Columbian (sic) Guerrillas Unlikely Allies in War
on Drugs; U.S. Doubts Offer to Help Replace Coca and Opium With Legal
Crops,'' the Houston Chronicle, February 14, 1999, p. A30.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Colombian army's credibility and image have been tarnished by
high-level corruption in the chain of command, and systematic human
rights abuses. It hopes to erase this image and the humiliation it has
suffered from an inability to control the rebels by destroying the
rebels instead of making peace.
The Clinton Administration is supporting the peace process to the
extent that it helps to eliminate illegal drug trafficking. For
example, the U.S. Administration and Congress both warned the Colombian
government that any reductions or delays in carrying out large-scale
aerial spraying of illicit drug crops within the FARC's demilitarized
zone would lead to a suspension of U.S. anti-drug aid.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. and Colombian business interests care less about drugs and
guerrilla insurgencies than about creating a stable economic
environment that is conducive to investment, growth, and profits. The
FARC and ELN insurgency inflicts destruction that is equivalent to
between 4 percent and 5 percent of the annual gross domestic product,
which scares away billions of dollars in potential foreign investments.
The rebels have no real incentive to negotiate peace and
then adhere to an agreement. One of two conditions must exist in order
to conclude a successful peace agreement. Either one side is so strong
that the other side is compelled to seek peace, or both sides must have
a genuine desire for peace. The guerrillas are not strong enough in
military terms to capture Colombia's urban centers and topple the
elected government, but they have clearly defeated the Colombian army
in jungle warfare and achieved sufficient legitimacy to shape the
political agenda. The extent of the FARC and ELN's alleged desires for
peace should be weighed against their continued attacks on military and
police units and their stated determination to capture and control as
much of Colombia as they can.
The rebels are part of the drug trafficking problem.
During a visit to the United States in October 1998, Pastrana declared
that the fact that guerrillas and drug crops are found in the same
general areas in Colombia might be more coincidental than
deliberate.\31\ Joe Toft, former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) office in Colombia from 1988 to 1994, would
disagree: ``The rebels are in it for the money they get for providing
security to the drug lords. The rebels are criminals, period.'' \32\
Nearly two-thirds of the $1 billion taken in each year by the FARC and
ELN is derived from drug trafficking, and the remainder comes from
activities like kidnapping, cattle rustling, and extortion. To its
credit, the Clinton Administration is not buying Pastrana's argument.
General Barry McCaffrey says that the FARC is ``heavily involved in
protecting, transporting, and in some cases operating drug labs.'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ National Press Club, speech by Colombian President Andres
Pastrana, October 30, 1998.
\32\ Paul Reid, ``Colombia: Kaleidoscope of Violence,'' the Palm
Beach Post, December 27, 1998, p. 1A.
\33\ Ian Kemp, ``Military Leaders Are Replaced in Colombia,''
Jane's Defence Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 17 (August 19, 1998). See also
Linda Robinson, Gordon Witkin, and Richard J. Newman, ``Is Colombia
Lost to Rebels?'' U.S. News & World Report, May 11, 1998, p. 38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The alternative crop development strategy is mere window
dressing. A key element of ``Plan Colombia'' is a scheme to attract
large-scale foreign aid to underwrite the cost of an alternative crop
development program to substitute legal food crops for coca and opium.
The rebels are demanding that repressive anti-drug measures--such as
aerial spraying--be suspended and U.S. anti-drug resources used instead
to finance these development efforts.
However, Washington remains committed to aerial crop spraying, for
which Congress approved $200 million in October 1998, compared with
only $60 million earmarked for alternative crop development programs in
Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. The United Nations estimates that Colombia
will need at least $1 billion for alternative crop development. Other
estimates range as high as $5 billion just for a regional alternative
development program in southern Colombia, with no guarantee of denting
the illicit drug trade.
The alternative development programs have reported some success in
Bolivia and Peru, but any decline in drug cultivation usually has been
offset by increased drug crop cultivation in areas outside the
development zones. A large-scale effort in Colombia would have to
target illicit drug cultivation across the entire nation, which would
cost many billions of dollars. So far, the Inter-American Development
Bank (IADB) pledged to contribute $1.6 billion to a fund to support the
Colombian peace process. Part of this money would be used for
alternative development. The IADB has already committed $90 million a
year for a Colombian crop substitution effort called Planta.
Additionally, the United Nations agreed to provide Colombia $80 million
a year for such alternative development.
These amounts are too insignificant to have a lasting impact on the
drug trade, because no other crop is as profitable as the coca plant,
which produces up to $2,500 a year for Colombian peasants compared with
about $300 a year from legal crops. Moreover, coca and opium growers
live in remote and inaccessible areas without the infrastructure to
warehouse, transport, and market alternative food crops.
Peace with the rebels will not affect the illegal drug
industry. Even if the rebels sign and respect a peace agreement, the
drug trade will continue to flourish. Drug traffickers have the
capability to defend themselves against the rebels, hire paramilitaries
for protection, and fight the government to a standstill. Moreover,
drug traffickers always have the option of moving operations to
locations outside rebel-controlled areas and beyond the reach of police
and military forces.
setting u.s. colombia policy by default
A White House official told a reporter for the Washington Post in
December 1998 that Colombia ``poses a greater immediate threat (to
America) than Bosnia did, yet it receives almost no attention. So
policy is set by default.'' \34\ This is a startling admission. The
Administration does not have a sound policy to deal with the growing
political and security crisis presented by the turmoil and drug
trafficking in Colombia. It is also alarming in light of President
Clinton's decision to increase U.S. military aid to Colombia as part of
a stepped-up strategy to fight the war on drugs. If the
Administration's policy in Colombia is evolving more by reaction than
by design, then the limits of U.S. military involvement in the
Colombian conflict have not been determined.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Douglas Farah, ``U.S. to Aid Colombian Military; Drug-Dealing
Rebels Take Toll on Army,'' the Washington Post, December 27, 1998, p.
A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Policy Shift. The Administration maintains that the United States
will not get involved in Colombia's 34-year-old civil war. However, it
has become increasingly difficult to separate Colombia's war on drugs
from its war against the Marxist rebels. David Passage, the State
Department's former Director of Andean Affairs, says that the United
States could help the Colombian military regain control of the
territory held by the rebels with ``a few dozen (American) military
advisers and making a small investment.'' \35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Ibid., p. A8.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the U.S. military's involvement in the war on drugs in
Latin America has been growing since the late 1980s (see the Appendix),
President Clinton's decision to increase military aid to Colombia
represents a significant policy shift for his Administration.
For example, from 1994 until 1998, the Clinton Administration's
Colombia policy was one that:
Ignored the growing regional security threat posed by the
FARC and ELN rebels involved in drug trafficking and extortion;
Insisted that no linkages exist between drug traffickers and
rebels;
Withheld anti-drug assistance that would help the Colombian
National Police be more effective in drug interdiction while it
demanded that Colombia battle its illegal drug trade more
effectively;
Refused to help the Colombian military because of its poor
human rights record, which enabled the rebel insurgency to
grow; and
Abused the annual drug certification process in a failed
effort to unseat former President Ernesto Samper, who was
elected in 1994 with the help of more than $6 million in
contributions from drug traffickers.
When the Medellin cocaine cartel was finally destroyed in December
1993 following the death of its head, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the
Colombian government was in a good position to attack drug traffickers
effectively. However, 1994 was a presidential election year in
Colombia, and the Clinton Administration made little effort to
encourage outgoing President Cesar Gaviria \36\ to maintain the
pressure against drug traffickers by going after the Cali cocaine
cartel, which at the time controlled over 80 percent of the global
Colombian cocaine trade.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Gaviria is currently Secretary General of the Organization of
American States (OAS).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How Decertification Backfired. The situation in Colombia started to
deteriorate rapidly in mid-1994 with the election of Ernesto Samper, a
member of the incumbent Liberal Party. Samper was absolved of concerns
about his drug connections after a political trial in the Colombian
congress, but the U.S. Administration repudiated him and sought
unsuccessfully to force his resignation by imposing sanctions from 1995
to 1998. These sanctions led to sharp reductions of U.S. aid, including
anti-drug aid, which further weakened the Colombian National Police's
fight against the drug traffickers. Moreover, from 1994 to 1998,
Colombia's armed forces--and particularly its army--grew significantly
weaker, partly as a result of the Clinton Administration's refusal to
provide military aid to Colombia's military units if even one
individual in the unit was suspected of abusing human rights. Samper's
ties to the Cali drug traffickers also gave the FARC and ELN an excuse
to declare his administration illegitimate and refuse to engage in
talks.
The Clinton Administration's campaign to oust Samper by
decertifying Colombia backfired. First, the sanctions inflamed
Colombian nationalism and favored his eventual absolution by the
legislature. Second, they undermined the Clinton Administration's
efforts to step up the fight against drug traffickers, despite the
arrest of the Cali cocaine cartel's top kingpins in 1995. Third, they
distracted U.S. policymakers from the regional security threat posed by
the rapid expansion of Colombia's drug-financed insurgency. And,
fourth, they caused a general deterioration of U.S.-Latin America
relations, as Mexico and other countries in the region joined Colombia
in publicly repudiating the drug certification process.
The Thaw in Relations. The four-year chill in U.S.-Colombian
relations started to thaw during Pastrana's official visit to
Washington on October 27-30, 1998. President Clinton even proclaimed
the Harvard-educated Pastrana's inauguration as ``a new beginning for
Colombia,'' and promised that the U.S. would help to end the civil
war.\37\ Pastrana hailed the arrival of ``a new era in relations
between Colombia and the United States,'' \38\ and pledged to fight
drug trafficking, resolve Colombia's civil war peacefully, halt the
depredations of the paramilitary groups, and end human rights abuses
committed by the Colombian army. The two heads of state signed a new
bilateral ``Alliance Against Drugs,'' and President Clinton pledged his
support for Pastrana's peace plan. Since Pastrana's inauguration, the
Administration has increased anti-drug aid to Colombia by almost 300
percent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ ``Colombia's Pastrana, Clinton promise to fight drug
trafficking,'' Agence France Presse, Washington, D.C., October 29,
1998.
\38\ George Gedda, ``Two Countries Agree to Expand Cooperation on
Drugs,'' Associated Press, Washington, D.C., October 28, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Behind the warm smiles and professions of friendship, however, the
``new'' U.S.-Colombia relationship is tenuous. Washington has serious
doubts about the viability of the peace plan, and it is concerned that
the negotiations could halt U.S.-financed operations in southern
Colombia to eradicate cocaine crops and destroy clandestine jungle
laboratories. The Clinton Administration doubts the ability of the
Colombian government to prevent the civil war from spiraling out of
control if the peace process collapses. U.S. policymakers are also
skeptical that the FARC and ELN are committed to peace.
And yet, despite these reservations, when the Colombian government
asked the Clinton Administration to meet secretly in Costa Rica with
senior FARC representatives, the answer was yes. In mid-December 1998,
Philip Chicola, a mid-level official with the State Department's office
of Andean affairs, met secretly in San Jose, Costa Rica, with a small
group of FARC leaders that included Luis Edgar Devia (Raul Reyes), the
FARC's coordinator of international activities. Devia's role is similar
to the one played by Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams in Ireland.
The unprecedented meeting took place in the home of Alvaro Leyva, a
former legislator and minister of the now-ruling Conservative Party,
who is exiled in Costa Rica because he is wanted by the Colombian
judicial authorities for his alleged ties to the Cali drug cartel.
Although the Colombian government requested that the Clinton
Administration meet with the FARC, it did not participate in the
meeting. The FARC immediately embarrassed the Clinton Administration
after the meeting by disclosing the secret meeting to Colombian news
media. James P. Rubin of the State Department was forced to explain
lamely that the Administration's intention had been ``to demonstrate
our support for the Colombian peace process.'' \39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Associated Press, ``U.S. Met Colombian Rebels at Bogota's
Request,'' the New York Times, January 5, 1999, p. A3.
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needed: colombia policy by design
In January 1999, the FARC announced that all U.S. military and law
enforcement personnel in Colombia would be considered legitimate
targets.\40\ If peace talks between the government and the rebels break
down and U.S. military advisers are targeted, Congress must know how
the Administration will react. Would President Clinton propose sending
U.S. soldiers to Colombia to help keep the peace, as he has done in
Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Somalia?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Agence France Presse, ``Colombian Guerrillas Warn US Advisors
Could Be Targets.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because of America's escalating drug problem and its vital
interests in Latin America, the United States must consider doing all
that it can to help Colombia end its decades-old civil war with the
Communist insurgents and battle Colombian drug traffickers effectively.
However, before Congress endorses President Clinton's decision to
increase U.S. military aid to Colombia, it should require the
Administration to spell out in detail the goals it expects to achieve
in the next two years. Congress should make certain that the
Administration's decision to expand military aid will not eventually
suck American soldiers into the maelstrom of Colombia's ongoing civil
war.
Congress should demand that the Administration explain the limits
it will set on America's growing military involvement in Colombia.
Congress should know how long the Administration plans to give military
aid to the Colombian army, how much that aid can be expected to
increase, what it will include, and whether there is a clear exit
strategy. These are crucial details. Today, over 200 American soldiers
are stationed in Colombia at any given moment, but this number will
likely grow if the Administration increases U.S. military aid to the
Colombian army.
To design an effective Colombia policy, Congress should:
Initiate a thorough review of U.S. drug policy in Latin
America. Congress is already moving in that direction. On March 3,
1999, Representatives Benjamin A. Gilman (R-NY), Elton W. Gallegly (R-
CA), Dan Burton (R-IN), and John L. Mica (R-FL) agreed to seek a full
investigation of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement by the State Department's Office of the Inspector General,
to determine how U.S. anti-drug aid is being spent in Colombia. This is
a good beginning, but congressional review of U.S. drug policy in Latin
America should be expanded to include U.S. anti-drug activities in
Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Such a review
undoubtedly would conclude that from the U.S.-Mexico border to Tierra
del Fuego, U.S. drug policy is a shambles.
The Clinton Administration has been unable to reduce the
cultivation and production of illicit narcotics in Colombia, which has
turned into an increasingly violent narcostate teetering on the brink
of collapse. In Mexico, the Administration's much-vaunted bilateral
cooperation in the war on drugs has become an annual exercise in
political posturing designed to hide the fact that drug trafficking and
related corruption continue to grow unchecked. In Central America and
the Caribbean region, which the Clinton Administration largely ignored
since 1993, drug traffickers are spreading their distribution networks
relentlessly, overwhelming weak legal and political institutions in
countries that have no hope of obtaining trading parity through the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Without such trading
parity, governments in Central America and the Caribbean cannot
effectively attack the widespread poverty and lack of economic
development that drug traffickers exploit. And in South America, drug
traffickers have opened new markets and routes for shipping cocaine to
Europe and Asia, partly to escape U.S. anti-drug monitoring and
interdiction efforts in the Andean and Caribbean regions.
Abolish the annual drug certification process. Congress
should take a hard look at the annual drug certification process that
has become a major cause of growing tension and discord between the
United States and Latin American countries.\41\ Many policymakers
support the yearly drug certification ritual as a means for continuing
to apply pressure on the Administration and the governments of major
drug producing or drug transit countries.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ The U.S. Anti-Drug Act of 1986 created the annual drug
certification process that requires the U.S. President to report by
March 1 the countries that cooperate with America's war on drugs and
those that are not cooperating. Congress created the drug certification
process to monitor the results of the tens of billions of dollars the
United States has spent in the past three decades chasing elusive
international drug traffickers. The certification process was also
intended to serve as a carrot-and-stick policy tool for keeping U.S.
pressure on major drug-producing countries like Colombia. For example,
anything less than a full certification--such as a national interest
waiver or outright decertification--would trigger automatic cutbacks or
suspensions in U.S. aid.
The Administration does not certify countries like Colombia and
Mexico on objective benchmark criteria, but rather on the basis of U.S.
political considerations. From 1994 to 1998, the Administration
dictated that Colombia should be sanctioned on four consecutive
occasions. However, Mexico was repeatedly certified during this period
as a fully cooperating ally in the U.S. war on drugs, despite clear and
compelling evidence that drugs continue to flood into the United States
through Mexico, where powerful drug cartels are gaining increased
control of political and legal institutions. This double standard
outraged Latin Americans and produced a region-wide consensus that the
U.S. drug certification process is interventionist and imperialist.
The drug certification process also compresses the drug policy
debate in Congress to only three or four weeks each year. Congress
should abolish the drug certification process and focus instead on
working with the Administration to develop and implement an effective
anti-drug policy in countries like Colombia and Mexico.
Set clear limits on U.S. military aid to Colombia. The
Administration should specify whether Colombia only will receive U.S.
military aid during the last two years of this Administration or if the
military aid will be extended over a longer period. In a best case
scenario, according to congressional defense analysts, it will take two
years to train and equip professional Colombian soldiers, although a
complete overhaul and modernization of Colombia's armed forces could
require up to a decade of sustained effort. Strict limits should be
imposed on sending U.S. soldiers to Colombia. Sending additional
military advisers to Colombia should not be a backdoor attempt to
increase the number of U.S. soldiers in Colombia, especially if the
FARC and ELN continue their war against the government and target U.S.
advisers. The crisis in Colombia is a clear threat to regional
stability, but it is a crisis that can be solved only by Colombians.
The United States should help the Colombian government end the civil
war and battle drug traffickers, but U.S. military personnel should
not, under any circumstances, take part directly in any armed
confrontations against the rebels, drug traffickers, or paramilitary
groups.
Manage the insurgency as a law enforcement problem.
Pastrana made a mistake when he conferred political legitimacy on the
FARC and ELN and portrayed their insurgency as not linked to drug
trafficking. The Clinton Administration suffered a greater lapse
ofjudgement when it met secretly with FARC officials last December. The
FARC and ELN are criminals, who care most about the profits they earn
from drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and cattle rustling.
Moreover, in October 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
announced that the FARC had been added to the State Department's list
of terrorist organizations--and U.S. policy has long been that America
does not negotiate with terrorists. Instead of supporting Pastrana's
decision to grant these rebels political status, the Administration
should encourage Pastrana to withdraw his government's political
recognition of the rebels.
Implement a serious anti-drug aid program. Washington has
failed to provide the Colombian authorities with the resources they
need to fight drug traffickers effectively. The bulk of the U.S. anti-
drug aid in Colombia is earmarked for the destruction of drug crops by
aerial spraying, yet the Colombian National Police is short of
helicopters to transport anti-drug police units and sustain their
operations in Colombia's drug producing regions. Its 70 helicopters,
including many Vietnam-vintage UH-1 (Huey) helicopters, are between 35
and 40 years old and cannot be operated safely at the altitudes where
most coca plants and opium poppies are cultivated.
In October 1998, Congress approved a $289 million anti-drug aid
package for Colombia, which required the Clinton Administration to
certify that the FARC-controlled demilitarized zone was not being used
as a haven for drug traffickers and illegal crop cultivation. This aid
package, consisting almost entirely of helicopters and other counter-
narcotics assistance, was a step in the right direction. However,
congressional leaders have already warned that the aid could be
suspended if the Administration verifies that the Pastrana government
is allowing drug traffickers to operate unchallenged inside the
demilitarized one.
It would be a mistake for Congress or the Administration to hold up
the anti-drug aid. Suspending the aid will only weaken the anti-drug
effort and strengthen the rebels and drug traffickers. Instead of
threatening Colombia with sanctions, the Administration should increase
anti-drug assistance to bolster Colombia's efforts to fight the illegal
drug trade.
Agree to help train and equip a professional Colombian
army. The Colombian army has about 125,000 soldiers, of which 55,000
are committed to protecting urban centers, oil fields, and other key
installations. At present, only about 30,000 soldiers are being used
for counter-insurgency operations. Because it is so thinly stretched,
the army has established small company and platoon-sized posts wherever
possible, but this enabled the rebels to achieve local numerical
superiority, a situation that is exacerbated by the lack of equipment
for small Colombian units. The Colombian military has only 20
operational helicopters and three AC-47 gun-ships, and part of its
armored inventory dates back to 1943. This effectively renders the army
as a military constabulary with only internal security functions.
Typically, its soldiers go into the rebels' zones carrying only 80
rounds of ammunition (compared with 250 rounds per U.S. soldier). There
is no hope of making this army a professional army in just six months.
In a best-case scenario, it will take at least two years and cost U.S.
taxpayers billions of dollars. Colombia's Defense Ministry has already
asked the Clinton Administration to underwrite the cost of a $1.5
billion plan to train and equip professional counter-insurgency units.
Adopt a multilateral approach to manage Colombia's crisis.
President Clinton's decision to increase U.S. military aid to Colombia
may prove unwise if the Administration fails to win the support of the
Latin American countries that share lengthy and mostly undeveloped
borders with Colombia. The perception that the United States is acting
unilaterally would undermine the success of the Administration's
efforts. Such countries include Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and
Venezuela. The United States has vital commercial interests in assuring
the continued security of the Panama Canal, and in Venezuela it has
vital energy interests in which U.S. oil firms have invested many
billions of dollars. The United States also has a compelling interest
in working closely with Brazil to contain the spread of Colombian
rebels or drug traffickers in its northern Amazon region.
Similarly, Colombia's neighbors share an interest in keeping the
Colombian civil crisis confined within Colombia's borders. Brazil,
Peru, and Venezuela recently began increasing their military presence
along their borders with Colombia and officially wamed the Colombian
government and rebels to keep their differences strictly inside
Colombia. Since 1994, however, the Clinton Administration's misuse of
the drug certification process has strained relations between the
United States and the Latin American countries that annually appear on
the State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
The Administration should work through the Organization of American
States (OAS) to build hemispheric support to rid Colombia of drug
traffickers and the Marxist narco-rebels. The Colombian civil war, with
its drug underpinnings, threatens not only the security interests of
the United States, but also the security and economic stability of many
Latin American democracies. In particular, the OAS should develop and
implement a program using Latin American human rights observers to
monitor and report on the activities of all groups in conflict in
Colombia, including the armed forces, Marxist rebels, and paramilitary
groups. However, to become involved credibly in a multilateral process
aimed at preventing the balkanization of Colombia, the Secretary
General of the OAS--former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria--should be
replaced by someone from a different Latin American country in order to
assure all parties of the organization's neutrality.
conclusion
Colombia is on the verge of becoming a ``lose-lose'' situation. If
President Pastrana accepts the demands of the FARC and ELN groups for
political and territorial autonomy, Colombia would start to break apart
into Balkan-type factions. Paramilitary violence would escalate
rapidly, and regional stability would be threatened. If the Pastrana
peace talks fail, which appears increasingly likely, Colombia will sink
deeper into a vortex of violence that could spill into neighboring
countries, endangering the region's stability. The country is no less
than a tinderbox awaiting only a careless spark to explode in flames.
It is clearly in America's national interest to help the Pastrana
government end Colombia's decades-old civil turbulence and eradicate
the illegal drug trade. But the Clinton Administration should tread
cautiously in escalating the U.S. military's involvement in the
Colombian narco-insurgency. Before it can fight the rebels effectively,
the Colombian army needs to be modernized, professionally trained, and
reequipped with the arms and other equipment needed to achieve tactical
and strategic mobility on the battlefield. This could take several
years of sustained effort involving extensive U.S. training of
Colombian military units, and could cost Americans billions of tax
dollars.
The Administration's new Colombia policy should include a specific
timetable for providing military aid, clear objectives and transparent
methods for measuring the resulting gains (or losses) from that aid,
and strict limitations on the extent of America's escalating military
involvement in Colombia. It also is vitally important that the
Administration's new Colombia policy detail contingency plans to
safeguard the lives and security of U.S. military personnel in Colombia
if Pastrana's peace talks fail and the violence escalates dramatically.
Above all, the Clinton Administration must not lose sight of the
fact that the Colombian conflict between the government, rebels, drug
traffickers, and paramilitaries is fundamentally a Colombian problem
that Colombians must resolve. If the limits of U.S. military
involvement in Colombia are not spelled out clearly at the outset, the
risk is great that significant numbers of U.S. soldiers would be
swallowed up by the Colombian quagmire. President Clinton would be wise
to remember that America's involvement in the Vietnam War--which he
opposed as a university student--began with a few dozen U.S. military
advisers and a small investment.
[Appendix II]
At the end of the 1980s the Communist insurgency was believed by
many to be dying in Colombia. A decade later in 1999, Colombian
President Andres Pastrana is suing for peace at any cost, with drug-
financed insurgency that wields the upper hand politically and,
increasingly, in military terms as well. Moreover, the Colombian civil
war increasingly threatens the stability of a region that includes
Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. How did this happen?
1. The U.S. Administration has contributed to the escalating crisis
in Colombia. The U.S. government has known since at least 1992 of the
growing involvement of the FARC and ELN in Colombia's illegal drug
trade, but chose to ignore it. From January 1993 until October 1998,
the U.S. Department of State took the position that the Colombian
insurgency and the Colombian drug trade were two different and
unrelated problems. This position was based mainly on the
Administration's concerns about the Colombian military's poor human
rights record. The Clinton Administration's decision to end U.S.
military aid to Colombia in 1993, and sanction Colombia four times from
1995 to 1998 in the annual drug certification process, weakened the
police-led war on drugs in Colombia and implicitly helped the expansion
of the FARC and ELN. At a more direct level, since 1993 the U.S.
Department of State has fundamentally mismanaged the distribution to
Colombia of anti-drug funds and equipment, routinely holding up anti-
drug aid approved by Congress. Whatever anti-drug aid offered to
Colombia by the United States never arrives in time, and is never
enough. While continuously demanding better anti-drug results from
Colombia, the U.S. Administration has consistently failed to provide
Colombia with sufficient financial and material anti-drug aid. For
example, most of the helicopters provided to the Colombian National
Police (CNP) by the U.S. government are aged clunkers between 35 and 40
years old without the altitude ceiling where opium poppies are grown.
2. The Clinton Administration has been unclear about why U.S.
military aid to Colombia is being increased. In October 1998 President
Clinton said the increased U.S. military aid would be used to fight not
guerrillas, but drug traffickers. However, in March 1999 U.S. Secretary
of Defense Cohen stated that the purpose of increasing U.S. military
aid to Colombia was to ``enable the Colombian army to face the
guerrillas more efficiently.'' From Haiti to Kosovo, this is not the
first time that the Clinton Administration has issued contradictory
statements about the purpose of policy initiatives involving any use of
military force.
3. The Pentagon has not been engaged in Colombia, and does not want
to become engaged. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) does not have a
strong interest in this issue for budgetary and doctrinal reasons, and
in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) for political reasons.
America's armed forces have become seriously over-extended as a result
of large budget cutbacks, and the numerous international humanitarian
and peacekeeping deployments ordered by President Clinton as he
stumbles from one foreign policy crisis to another.
4. Outside the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), there is very
little interest or support at the Pentagon for greater military
engagement with Colombia if that means a bigger slice of the Pentagon's
budget has to be earmarked to Colombia from other needs. Doctrinally,
U.S. defense strategists do not see any security threats in Latin
America that would endanger the territorial integrity of the United
States. President Clinton and Republican leaders agree that drugs
threaten U.S. national security and have obliged the U.S. military to
become increasingly involved in anti-drug operations. However, in terms
of U.S. strategic military doctrine Latin America is little more than a
backwater, especially ten years after the end of the Cold War with the
now-defunct Soviet Union. There are no Latin America war scenarios at
the Pentagon.
5. The drug trade is flourishing within the demilitarized zone.
Illegal flights by drug traffickers are operating unmolested out of the
DMZ, through what is called the Colombia-Ecuador-Brazil air bridge.
Illegal drug flights from the DMZ to Cuba are also increasing.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military presence in the region is being scaled
back. AWACS support for anti-drug operations has all but vanished over
Colombia as DOD has diverted assets to Kosovo. Moreover, on May 1, 1999
Howard Air Force Base in Panama will be closed down. Most anti-drug
flights originate from Howard. The loss of this forward base will
severely curtail U.S. counter-drug operations in the region.
6. The stability of Panama is at high risk. The Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) are expanding their presence in the Darien
region in southern Panama. The end of the U.S. military presence on
December 31, 1999 will leave Panama unprotected. The Panamanian
government is unprepared to manage the situation by itself.
Senator Coverdell. I appreciate your comments, Mr. Sweeney.
Let me try to get a general question versus a country-
specific. We may come to that, but I would like to begin just
in the context of sorting out a broader policy.
I may ramble here for a minute, but when we accomplished
the framework for democratic institutions in the United States,
the population was the highest paid work force in the world
already. They could all read because of the study of the Bible,
and so they were a very unique population upon which you could
build a framework of the order of law. Conversely, as we have
seen democratic institutions find themselves throughout the
hemisphere, they are not confronted with similar populations.
Now, if we set the narcotic or institution of criminal
activity the Ambassador has alluded to beyond narcotics aside,
you still would have been dealing with the very fledgling
institutions of enforcement, judiciary, et cetera. And with
that aside, clearly the interaction of free trade and commerce
and activity, along with reasonable support from the
international community and here, I think these democratic
governments by their nature would have led to a progressively
improving infrastructure. It still would have taken years to
build.
To use I think one of the better examples, not without
problems, is some of the work that has been accomplished in
Nicaragua among the judiciary, the human rights issues, et
cetera as they endeavor to come from almost a still shot for 20
years prior to the new government.
Now we impose this very far-reaching, powerful, well-
financed, sophisticated management, best assets surpass many of
the hemisphere's armed forces, and we overlay everything we
have been talking about with this ingredient. To me the
security question has become the overriding question in terms
of the nurturing of these democracies.
I think, Mr. Secretary, you alluded to the trade and that
needs more impetus, more attention, et cetera. I think it is
coming. The ups and downs of our own politics and
administrations here either speed up, slow down, but I think
the trend line will continue to show that commerce and
integration of trade activity is going to continue.
So, as I look out across the hemisphere, it is the threat
you alluded to, Mr. Ambassador, that is the most troubling to
me, and for the life of me, I cannot, given our approach to
sovereign rights--and you look at the infrastructure under
there that was just beginning, that seems to me to be a very
dark problem that I have not heard anybody get a fix on.
So, I would like each of you to--well, one, if you disagree
that that is not the center of the stalemate, say so and tell
me what is. If it is, how in the world do we get at it?
I, just as an anecdote, met with General Serrano of the
Colombian police force I guess within the last 2 weeks. What a
daunting task. You kind of wonder where his perseverance comes
from. But I did not leave the meeting very comforted not
because of what he was endeavoring to do, but it just seemed
almost an interminable and daunting task.
I will stop with that. We will go in the same order. Mr.
Secretary, is that right? If that is wrong, where is the
fulcrum of our problem? And your general comments.
Mr. Abrams. This is a very difficult and complicated
question you have posed.
I guess I would say that I think that security is not the
only central issue--security/drugs. There are others. One of
them, the difficulty in some countries of building those
institutions from the ground up anyway. You would be having,
for example, in Haiti a good deal of trouble without drugs. No
question about that.
Senator Coverdell. And I was trying to make that point,
that even if you removed everything, it still would have been a
daunting task that would have taken years and years and years.
Mr. Abrams. I guess I would say, second, another big
problem is there are people in positions of power in the region
who are very much opposed or seem to be opposed to the
achievement of this model of democracy and rule of law.
Obviously, Fidel Castro is at the top of that list. There are
many others. And we now debate, for example, as Mr. Sweeney
said this morning, where is President Chavez on that spectrum?
But security--and this was in Ambassador Einaudi's
testimony and I think very rightly--is critical. So, what can
we do?
I think there are some things we can do. How can I put
this? It is not just that we are pushing the supply of
security. There is a demand for security on the Latin and
Caribbean side, and to some extent, we are not meeting it. That
is, I think if we were willing to provide more help for police
and military training, a number of countries in the region
would be happy to accept that help.
I think we need to recognize--and to some extent we do--
there are countries that cannot do it. It is one thing to say,
well, you know, maybe we can offer a little bit of training to
Brazil, but what about Grenada? What about Dominica? What about
St. Vincent? These are countries which do not have the
resources.
Now, we are dealing with them. We have agreements with a
number of Caribbean countries in which they permit us to patrol
the waters around their country, and in a sense they are
sacrificing a bit of their sovereignty in order to gain a bit
more security. And we should continue with that kind of
arrangement because they cannot do it. There is no possible way
they are going to be able to get the resources the drug
traffickers have.
But I think in the case of Colombia, we are going to need
to make a decision perhaps a little bit down the road, 6 months
from now, how deeply involved we want to be. It is going to be
a very tough question because either we are going to have to
decide that we will just leave the Colombians to stew in that,
or we are going to have to take the risks of joining them in
what may be a very difficult struggle against the guerrillas.
Now, we can hope to avoid that. Maybe the peace
negotiations that have just restarted will make some progress.
Maybe it will be possible to do better against the drug
traffickers without getting more directly involved. But I think
that is an issue.
We are now directly involved throughout the Caribbean,
naval and Coast Guard forces and to some extent air force. That
I think is the key question we are going to have to ask about
Colombia. How involved do we wish to be and are we willing to
be if the Colombians are willing to accept more help?
Senator Coverdell. This benign neglect that has been
referred to in the Clinton administration--would you say that
with some exceptions that this has been a problem for a long
time in the United States? We really have not paid enough
attention to the hemisphere really anywhere along the line with
some few exceptions.
Mr. Abrams. Yes. We have tended to react to crises. James
Reston of the New York Times once said Americans will do
anything for Latin America except read about it. I think for
long periods, there has been a tremendous amount of
inattention. And when something happens, Castro takes over
Cuba, or the Sandinistas take over Nicaragua, there is a huge
reaction for a few years and then it ebbs away. Other things
come to the front page, and we do not pay the attention we
should.
Senator Coverdell. Ambassador.
Ambassador Einaudi. Thank you, sir.
I guess that my answer would be do not underestimate
people, do not underestimate the military, and do not
underestimate our neighbors, even the smallest countries. And
let me give you a couple of examples and then get to my bottom
line.
I remember the Nicaraguan playwright and poet, Pablo
Antonio Cuadra, reacting with real outrage when some visiting
Europeans commented that it really did not matter that the
Nicaraguans did not have much freedom under the revolutionary
Sandinista regime because everybody knew that poor people were
not capable of appreciating or using freedom.
I think that those Europeans were underestimating the
Nicaraguans and I think that in fact democracy, if one looks at
its different forms, can be practiced by poor people in their
communities quite as much as anybody else.
Do not underestimate the military. I said in my written
testimony that the military often gets a bum rap in discussions
with democracy because everybody thinks that is where the
dictators come from. The dictators come from there. They are
the ones that use force, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In my
experience, whatever the past, over the past most recent 10
years, military leaders have been looking for civilian
guidance, and one of the striking things in the inter-American
system is that we have an Inter-American Defense Board that
does not come clearly under political authority. And it has
been the military that are asking for that, to match the
gradual democratization and constitutional structures, that
progress has been taking place in their countries.
I think that again, a lot of people were surprised that
Peru and Ecuador made peace, and one of the reasons they were
surprised that the military in both countries would oppose it.
In fact, when given clear authoritative directions, the
military stood at attention and did what was in the national
interest and what they were being told to do by their
constituted authorities. So, I think we do not have to worry or
underestimate the military.
I agree with what has been said about some of these small
places. But what has been fascinating to me is that they have
been showing the capacity to organize together, to come
together. The eastern Caribbean States have managed to come
together to pool resources and to help each other at moments of
crisis.
Part of the reason why the interruption of government in
Paraguay has not worked has been that the neighbors, the
immediate neighbors, the countries of MERCOSUR, have banded
together to work to support things.
What I think is needed most of all here--and I do not want
to sound terribly Pollyanna-ish because what I am really saying
is, look, these people can do it. What we need is the right
framework. We then need to pay attention in a consistent
fashion and be patient and not expect overnight results. The
right framework is democracy and the rule of law because it
guarantees participation and it is a self-regulating framework
in that when you have got freedom, you can always correct
abuses and errors.
Pay attention. You asked Elliott Abrams the followup
question on that. I think the problem is not a problem of the
Clinton administration. I think one should give President
Clinton his due. He has attempted to be supportive on Central
America. I hope the Congress will complete the special
appropriation there.
I never had difficulty in getting his support at critical
moments, just as I never had difficulty, let it be said, in
getting the support of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and the House International Affairs Committee at key moments of
the Peru-Ecuador problem.
The issue, as Elliott was saying, is not moments of crisis,
it is sustained attention and caring that is justified by the
very special relationship--it is a horrible word that goes back
to the Nixon times, I admit, but the special relationship that
the United States and the other countries of this hemisphere
have and share together, sharing the same hemisphere. Once we
get the right framework and we pay attention, then we have to
be patient because none of these organizations, certainly not
the OAS, and with all due respect, sometimes not even the U.S.
Congress is going to solve everything overnight.
Senator Coverdell. I am just astounded you would make an
assertion like that.
I want to pursue that just a bit further because I think I
completely agree with what we should not underestimate. What I
am trying to do is size, though, what we should estimate from
this criminal threat and their ability to destabilize what
would have been the natural tendencies of the people, their
institutions, the military.
Another anecdote. I remember meeting with the defense
minister in Guatemala immediately following the signing of the
peace accord, and he was exceedingly proud that he would be the
last military secretary, whatever, of defense, minister of
defense in his country. It would revert, following him, to
civilian rule, and he was exceedingly proud of it.
But at least it is my observation that there is a
possibility of being overwhelmed. You have alluded to it and I
would like you to--if that is not a warranted concern, then I
am relieved. If it is a warranted concern, I am troubled and
struggling with exactly how we get at that.
Ambassador Einaudi. It is a warranted concern, sir, and I
will respond with two things.
One is brand new. It is not in my statement, but I think it
is the truth. Unfortunately, we are helping the gangs in these
neighboring countries by the way in which we are deporting
aliens or persons of foreign origin who have committed crimes
under the latest Immigration and Naturalization Act. If you
look at the number of people that we have deported to the
Dominican Republic or to El Salvador, you will discover that we
have sent them well-trained, street-smart criminals in numbers
that match local police forces. So, I do not have a clear
solution, but I want to flag it because it is something that
our neighbors are suffering and they are not very comfortable
about the way it is working. At least we seem to be giving
advance notice now, but there are major problems there.
But let us do something positive, and this is the second
point. It is what I ran over in my testimony. All right, we are
going to send them street-smart criminals. Let us do something
about helping to train security forces within the right
framework. Let us get an inter-American security system that is
modern and is based on all of the right caveats, but that
ultimately when you are through and done with it, it makes sure
that under civilian authority, you have military guys that are
capable of being trained, of exchanging experiences, and of
learning to interoperate with each other.
I am not talking, let it be clear, to committing U.S.
troops to Colombia or something like that. What I am saying is
to create some sort of a regional framework--it would have to
be negotiated and worked out--that does not allow these gangs
to do what they have been doing. The narco-traffickers--as soon
as we or another country together work up resistance to their
activities, they shift them and they go elsewhere. What we need
to do is develop a common, multilateral approach that will meet
them there. They cannot shift, and that gives people the
professionalism and the competence and the ability to work.
There is an enormous amount to be done, sir, in the sharing
of intelligence. It has got nothing to do with sending
Americans abroad. It has to do with working out ways in which
we can help improve the intelligence of our governments and of
civilian-led professional police, not just military, to respond
to these gangs. And I think that there are many things that can
be done in that area.
And I am sorry. I am running on too long.
Senator Coverdell. No, no, no. I most appreciate it. I
might come back to that in a moment, but I do want to give Mr.
Sweeney a chance.
Mr. Sweeney. Well, thank you, Senator.
I find it difficult to believe, from the 33 years I lived
and worked in Latin America, that the United States is
exporting street-smart Central Americans back to their home
countries so they can engage in crime down there. I think many,
if not most, of the people we are deporting for criminal
activities entered this country illegally in the first place
and many of them had prior criminal backgrounds. So, I do take
issue with Ambassador Einaudi on that. I do not think the
United States is responsible for sending street-smart trained
criminals down to Latin America to make things more miserable
for the Latin Americans.
I think the threat of organized crime and drug trafficking
in Latin America could conceivably undermine everything the
United States is trying to achieve in the region. I think that
if we want to get ahead in Latin America, one of our basic
foundations of Latin America policy must be trade integration
with the region. On this I do fault the Clinton administration.
There has been no effort by this administration, since December
20, 1994 when the Mexican peso collapsed, to move the trade
issue forward in Latin America. As a result, we have lost
influence, we have lost leadership in the region, we have
become marginal players in the trade process, and increasingly
countries down there are not really trying to cooperate with
us.
I think we underestimated the extent of the threat that
faced us in the region after the cold war in terms of organized
crime and drug trafficking, and I think we overestimated the
region's capacity to reform its institutions, particularly the
judicial system, the courts, and public administration.
I want to close with this final point. Most of the policy
reforms that have been enacted throughout Latin America in the
last 10 years grew out of the so-called Washington Consensus
more than a decade ago. You may recall, sir, when it was argued
here in Washington that if we applied macroeconomic free market
policies in Latin America, the region would start to achieve
its potential and the political reforms would follow. I think
we underestimated how much resistance there is in the region to
the kinds of institutional and political reforms that are still
needed to establish a functional, transparent, capitalist
democracy type of system in Latin America.
And that was recognized last year, by the way, by the World
Bank, which 10 years after the Washington Consensus formula
came out, they came out with a study saying institutions do
matter and they identified the judicial system, financial
system, public administration, and education as the four major
institutions that need reform. If you look today at the
financial system in Latin America, the judicial system and the
system of public administration in country after country, that
is precisely where you find the nexus of corruption and
organized crime undermining the democratic institutions,
fragile as they are.
Senator Coverdell. How do you take to the Ambassador's
concept of an inter-American security system?
Mr. Sweeney. I agree fully. I think one of the problems
with U.S. policy in Latin America has been that when President
Bush articulated his Enterprise for the Americas initiative in
June 1990, he talked about trade, not aid. But the whole
security dimension was left off the agenda. The present
administration has not built upon that. We have seen no trade
expansion and very little progress in terms of security
arrangements.
Nonetheless, even if we had a hemispheric-wide security
arrangement in place, it would be utopian for us to believe
that we are going to be eradicate completely organized crime in
drug trafficking in Latin America. Drugs, like the sex trade,
like alcohol, like gambling, are a human vice crime. They have
been with us for centuries and they always will be with us. But
we know here in the United States we cannot eradicate it, but
we also know that we must have transparent judicial and law
enforcement institutions capable of at least achieving a degree
of control which is acceptable for society. That is a goal we
should seek in Latin America, and to get there, it is going to
take a long time and it is going to take a lot of work building
up these institutions.
But we are not engaged right now. We are not there. We need
to get back into the game. We need to put trade back on the
agenda. We need to take the leadership in pushing for a
different hemispheric security arrangement. I know there is a
lot of concern about this in military circles that deal with
Latin America. They feel that is a big vacuum in our policy
toward the region. But if it is not addressed at the highest
levels by our congressional leaders and, most importantly, by
the President of our country, the administration, we are not
going to get there.
Mr. Abrams. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add one note to
this, on the security side that you are raising.
Senator Coverdell. It is good that you are raising the
question because I was just about to raise one with you. So,
you go ahead.
Mr. Abrams. May I?
Senator Coverdell. Yes, please.
Mr. Abrams. I would just raise the question of whether at
this moment, at which we perhaps should be doing more to
address the security problem and particularly the drug side of
it, we are diminishing our ability to do so because of Panama.
Now, I am not suggesting that we should now insist on
maintaining bases in Panama if the Panamanians do not want us.
But our ability to operate in the region depends on having
bases. Yes, you can do it from Florida, but the Pentagon has
data on how much harder it is if, for example, we do not have
Howard Air Base.
Now, maybe there are places in the region that we could use
as substitutes, and I know that we are talking and negotiating.
But it would be tragic, if at a moment at which perhaps there
is a consensus that we may need to do more, it turns out that
we are able to do less.
Senator Coverdell. Well, I would expand upon that in that
the--with regard to security, almost every institution that in
the interim, while we do not have an inter-American security
system--in the interim have the principal responsibility for
protecting us, which as a secondary effect protects others--
almost all of those assets are being reduced. The Coast Guard,
Customs, DEA are all shrinking at the moment. Now, that has not
happened because it has not been ratified by the Congress. I do
not think it will be. But those are the kinds of proposals that
you are facing.
I was going to ask you, Mr. Secretary, in this committee we
have been discussing a--we have used the word ``alliance''
instead of inter-American security system. That has been being
bandied around here for some time. Some proponents, my good
friend from Connecticut, see it as a substitute for
certification as a general process. Others see it more in the
context I think that you have described it, Mr. Ambassador.
I have the distinct view our own State Department is one of
the principal hurdles. There has not been a coming forward
around this idea. It is almost as if it would open up a threat,
intelligence which I suspect is a real problem, but also a
platform for which to assert and challenge and the like.
I was wondering if you agreed with that, have seen any
evidence of it. Having been in the State Department, do you
think that is a reasonable concern that they would have with
regard to developing an inter-American security platform?
Mr. Abrams. I do not think it is a particularly compelling
concern. Some of the problems you could eliminate by being
vigilant as you set the system up. And the other thing is that
if NATO is a system of countries in which we are essentially
dominant, although it includes nations like Britain, France,
and Germany, we are going to be pretty dominant in any such
system that is set up in the Western Hemisphere, as we have
always been, for example, in the OAS and the Inter-American
Bank.
So, I think it is a very difficult process. It will be if
we decide to go that route. But I do not think that it presents
really those kinds of dangers to us.
And I think it presents us with great opportunities because
it is true, I think if you look back, that every year, as we
get to the point of almost certifying or decertifying
Colombia--it has been true over the past 10 years--they do
things. Then they say, ``we did not do it because of
certification.'' It was just a coincidence I guess that they
did it the week before the vote.
Nevertheless, there is something wrong with that basic
posture. The notion that the country which is the market for
the drugs and consuming the drugs sits in judgment on much
poorer countries having much trouble, fighting the war on the
front line against the drug traffickers--the notion that our
best possible position, our most helpful position is to sit in
judgment and issue condemnations, rather than achieving a kind
of better alliance to fight this scourge, just seems to me not
as good a solution as we can reach.
Mr. Sweeney. May I add to that?
Senator Coverdell. I am going to come right down the line
again. Ambassador, do you want to comment on that question?
Ambassador Einaudi. Let me try to be succinct. It seems to
me that the State people from my memory are not overly
enthusiastic about inter-American security forces or
cooperation in part out of the traditional interagency battles
that seem to dominate life in Washington, in part because they
are correctly aware that a large number of Latin American
governments would react as though this gave them a great
headache. This is partially because of past histories of
intervention, partially because when countries are cooperating
with us or want to cooperate with us on economic and trade
issues, the last thing they want to appear is as though they
are becoming our puppets on the security side and working with
us. And there the disproportion of American weight is enormous,
and it does create major problems politically in negotiating
the architecture which is what I hope that we will try to do.
That probably means that we are going to need to include in
the negotiation, if we are going to take it seriously--and I
think we must--some questions that will make clear that what we
are looking for is not some sort of new jumping off point for
American interventions or military action in South America. In
that sense, it could turn out that the fact that we are
removing all of our forces from Panama this year might actually
suggest, even to our critics, that we are willing to modernize
and look for new modern relationships. And it could well be
that something can be negotiated if it is clear that that is
our position.
It seems to me that the major initial stress should not be
on force deployments. That is not the issue. The issue should
be on education, the kinds of things we have in the Inter-
American Defense College. We have a Center for Hemispheric
Defense Studies. We have a School of the Americas. All of these
are heavily American influenced institutions because of the
resources we have put in them, because of the lack of civilian
control from our neighbors. All of them have various degrees of
controversy. The function they fulfill in this new situation is
indispensable and we should be talking about how to put them
into the right framework and how to strengthen them. And that
is where we need to make things work, not thinking about
shooting guns or putting our people in jeopardy.
Other countries want to solve this problem. You mentioned
the extraordinary dedication of some of the Colombians that you
have met. Let us not forget they have lost more soldiers and
people in this war than can be--I do not have the number----
Senator Coverdell. It is approaching the Vietnam--it is
38,000.
Ambassador Einaudi. It is extraordinary. They are putting
their lives on the line. Let us work with them to make sure
that they put them on the line as effectively as possible, that
the use of force--and it is a question not of indiscriminate
use of force. That is precisely the point, how to discriminate,
how to apply effectively, how to support the creation of
government authority where now, in all too many cases, there is
not any.
Senator Coverdell. Mr. Sweeney.
Mr. Sweeney. Speaking about Colombia briefly, a lot of
people have died in the conflict in Colombia. But it is
interesting to note in Colombia that as many people
approximately die in 2 years as American soldiers died in the
entire Vietnam war. It is also interesting to note that about
85 percent of the people who die violently do not die as a
result of political violence, they die as a result of criminal
violence in Colombia. So, that is an important point I think
that needs to be made.
I think there are certain things, certain opportunities the
United States could have made use of in recent years, which we
have not made use of. I am not a diplomat. I am a journalist by
profession and I have been in business for myself before I came
to Washington. But it seems to me that reciprocity and
negotiation are the tools of a good, effective diplomat. Let me
give you two examples: the Caribbean and Central America.
We have been trying unsuccessfully for 6 years to approve
NAFTA parity for the Caribbean Basin Initiative countries. More
recently the United States has been conducting a banana war
with the European Union basically favoring one or two major
U.S. multinational corporations but putting the Caribbean
community in a situation that they face economic distress. It
seems to me that a well-reasoned diplomatic response to our
friends in Central America and the Caribbean would seek to
balance out our concerns for defending the free trade interests
of our American exporters with preserving and protecting our
security interests in the region as well. There is an example
of reciprocity that has not been forthcoming from the United
States and which has created ill will amongst the Caribbean
nations toward us, to the point that they have threatened to
stop cooperating in the war on drugs.
Let me give you a second and more important----
Senator Coverdell. There are several maritime agreements
that they are threatening----
Mr. Sweeney. A second and more important issue, the case of
Colombia which has become the epicenter of this country's
foreign policy in Latin America, the war on drugs in Colombia.
We have for years been demanding that the Colombians do more
and better in fighting the war on drugs, and then we fail to
give them systematically year after year the kinds of resources
and equipment and material they need. The helicopters that we
have given the Colombians until recently, now that we have
approved Blackhawks for them, but until recently we have been
giving them Vietnam era Huey helicopters that cannot even
operate at the ceilings where the poppy crops and a lot of the
coca crops--they do not have the range to reach these crops.
If we want to work with the Colombian Government, and we
expect the Colombian Government to do more in fighting the war
on drugs, then the United States must give Colombia the
resources it needs to fight that war, whether we sell them the
resources or grant them the resources as a gift, whatever it
is. We cannot ask our friends to fight an 800-pound gorilla
with a fly swatter. And that is what we have been doing for the
last 5 years.
Senator Coverdell. I am going to bring us to a close. We
have been at this about an hour and a half. I want to thank
each of you panelists for your illuminating remarks and your
dedication to your country over the years.
We will probably submit several written questions to each
of you, and again, it is at your discretion. You are not
agencies, so we cannot demand that you respond to them. But
whatever information you might share with us would be most
helpful.
I would just say in concluding then that we all began with
the good news, but clearly there is a cloud here that has to be
confronted and pretty quickly because it does have the
potential of destabilization and it is enormously forceful and
powerful. You have all alluded to it in varying ways.
This has been most helpful to me and I am sure it will be
others as well as we try to fashion how we are going to move to
the new millennium in our relations with the hemisphere.
I think one of the pieces of good news that has not really
been mentioned here is the general attitude of our fellow
countrymen. I mean, I think there is a growing integration
mentally of the economic prowess of the hemisphere. You can go
to in my State any rural community, and they are very much
aware of their relationship with the hemisphere because it is
affecting them. It is affecting jobs and opportunities. So,
some of the traditional problems that have existed and mind
sets I think are vanishing, which I think is a very positive
sign and may be the undergirding that allows us to move to
these other issues because I think the Nation is prepared to be
more involved with this hemisphere, whether the politician is
or is not for the time being. I really think that is a strong
possibility among our own countrymen and probably the will or
the backbone upon which we can build some of these new ideas.
Again, I thank each of you very, very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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