Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2007

FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - June 09, 2006)

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this is a very straightforward amendment. It increases funding by $30 million for the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund, and it decreases the Andean Counter Drug Initiative by the same amount. The reduction in the ACI account should come from eradication and military related aid above the President's request level. It is my understanding from figures provided by the Foreign Operations Subcommittee that, under the ACI, the President requested $506.2 million for Colombia; the committee provided $545.2 million for all these categories of aid. So even after this amount is reduced by $30 million, aid for Colombia requested by the President would still total $515.2 million, or $9 million above the President's fiscal year 2007 request.

Mr. Chairman, I have been on this House floor before expressing my concerns about our policy in Colombia. The drug eradication policy, to be blunt, has been a miserable failure. The Colombian military continues to commit heinous acts with impunity.

Now, I know that some of my esteemed colleagues who oppose this amendment will once again come to the House floor with their charts and graphs and arrows pointing this way and that, but no matter how you slice and dice it, the bottom line is that after 6 years and $4.7 billion for Colombia, we are exactly where we started out as far as drug cultivation is concerned. The same amount of coca is being grown today in Colombia as in 1999. And this isn't Jim McGovern just saying this; this fact comes from our own Office of Narcotics Control and Drug Policy. It is their figures, their findings, their conclusion; the State Department backs them up on this. $4.7 billion.

As the committee report accompanying this bill states so eloquently on page 62: after a massive increase in fumigation from 47,000 hectares at the start of Plan Colombia to today when we fumigated 138,775 hectares last year, we have accomplished zilch, Mr. Chairman. Coca cultivation in Columbia is at the same level or maybe slightly above from where it was when we started.

On Monday, Mr. Chairman, headlines in the newspapers informed us that a Colombian military unit murdered in a deliberate cold-blooded ambush one of the most successful U.S.-trained antidrug units in Colombia. Yesterday the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee froze $30 million in military aid because it was so enraged over these murders and the State Department's recent human rights certification.

Mr. Chairman, we have to respond to this. This House has to respond, and this is the moment to do so. We are not undermining President Uribe by adopting this amendment. Colombia will still receive more than what the President of the United States of America asked for in fiscal year 2007. But we can send a powerful message to the Colombian Armed Forces that we won't keep writing blank checks, we won't keep turning a blind eye, we aren't a cheap date you can take advantage of.

Mr. Chairman, we have the opportunity to do some real good with this amendment. We can fund the President's request for U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance fund. The fund currently stands at its lowest balance in over a decade. The State Department generally draws down between $60 million and $70 million in ERMA funds each year. There are just too many unexpected emergencies happening around the world. Without the increase provided by the amendment, we could be threatening the life-saving assistance that can mean the difference of life and death to persons caught in tragic violence or natural disaster. Whether we are looking at an increasingly explosive border between Chad and Sudan to preventing food aid pipeline breaks in Kenya and Uganda, to being able to respond quickly to victims of earthquakes or volcanoes, this fund is one of the President's most effective tools. With this amendment we can give the President what he has requested and needs for Colombia and ACI, and we can give him what he asked for and needs to meet emergency refugee crises. And at the same time, Mr. Chairman, and for the first time, we can send a powerful message to the Colombian military that our pockets and our patience are wearing thin.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague is absolutely right, eradication has dramatically increased in Colombia, but it has achieved absolutely nothing. There is even more coca in Colombia today than there was in Plan Colombia's first year. We have gone from 336,000 acres in 2000 to 355,000 acres, and that is actually a 6 percent increase. How is that success?

When Plan Colombia started, it was supposed to decrease coca growing by 50 percent over 5 years. That is what we were promised. Well, $4.7 billion later, we have a 6 percent increase over 5 years the amount of coca being grown in Colombia.

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Mr. Chairman, I would also insert in the RECORD an article that I referred to earlier that appeared in the Boston Globe about how ``Colombia says soldiers killed antidrug police.'' That Colombia's military unit assassinated a U.S.-trained, elite antinarcotics team at the bidding of the drug mafia 2 weeks ago. And what is the response of this House? Nothing. The United States Senate froze $30 million in military aid because they were so outraged that the Colombian military, who we finance, went out and killed in cold blood this anti-drug police unit.

Mr. Chairman, we need to send a strong signal that we are not a cheap date, that we are watching, that we care and we demand accountability.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, we are very much committed to Colombia and committed to success, but the fact of the matter is that after $4.7 billion there is even more coca in Colombia today than there was in Plan Colombia's first year. We want success. We want to achieve results. We just don't want to go along because we don't want to admit that maybe we can improve this policy.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to put this debate in perspective. Nobody is talking about the dismantling our support for Colombia. Nobody is talking about withdrawing all of our support to Colombia. What we are talking about is sending the appropriate message at this appropriate time.

I will agree with the gentleman that fumigation has never been higher. But the problem is that there is even more coca in Colombia today than there was in Plan Colombia's first year. So maybe we need to rethink our strategy. Maybe it is not working. I think any reasonable person who looks at the statistics, provided by our own government, would come to that conclusion.

I will agree with the gentleman that President Uribe deserves credit for lowering the number of kidnappings in Colombia. But I am not prepared to give him a pat on the back in the face of what just happened, where U.S.-funded Colombian military soldiers went out and killed in cold blood antinarcotic policemen who are dedicated to combating drugs in Colombia.

What kind of message are we sending when we respond to that by doing nothing, by saying you have to continue to get everything that you expect? The United States Senate understands what is at stake. They froze $30 million in military aid in response to that. We need to send a signal too: we are not a cheap date. We want to support you, but we want there to be accountability. We want an end to the violence. We want the military not to be above the law.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Facts are stubborn things, and maybe I haven't been clear in this debate, but when the opposition here talks about we are cutting aid to Colombia, that is not true.

The bottom line is we are providing Colombia everything that the President of the United States has requested, plus $9 million more. That is not cutting Colombia. That is not walking away from the drug war.

What we are frustrated with is the billions that we are spending are not accomplishing the goals we were promised. We are concerned there could continue to be gross human rights violations by the Colombian military. We want to send a signal and strengthen President Uribe's hands in helping to bring those military men to justice who committed those terrible murders against those police officers. We also want to call attention to the fact that all of this money that we have been sending down there has done nothing to reduce the amount of coca cultivation and growth in that country.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just want to alert the Members that there is broad support for this amendment. The support ranges from the American Refugee Committee to Amnesty International to the International Crisis Group, International Rescue Committee, the Jesuit Conference, Mercy Corps, Refugees International, the Steel Workers, the United Methodist Church. I could go on and on and on.

Support for this amendment ranges from--The American Refugee Committee, Amnesty International, The International Crisis Group, International Rescue Committee, The Jesuit Conference, Mercy Corps,

To--Refugees International, The Steelworkers, The United Methodist Church.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, let me just kind of go over a few things here. First of all, on the issue that somehow we are withdrawing from our support for Colombia, let me remind my colleagues that the President of the United States asked for $506.2 million. The committee provided $545.2 million. My amendment would reduce that to $515.2 million, or $9 million above the President's request for Colombia. So we are not doing anything here to walk away from Colombia.

Secondly, on the issue of human rights, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported this year that more grave violations of human rights were committed directly by Colombia's military forces than in the past. The ICRC has recorded a 13.6 percent increase in disappearances. The number of people forced from their homes by violence increased by 8 percent over the past year.

I introduced into the RECORD earlier, and I will remind my colleagues about an article that appeared in the Financial Times. The headlines, Colombia, The Most Dangerous Place For Trade Unionists. And I also inserted into the RECORD, and I will remind my colleagues about this article that appeared in a number of newspapers that the Colombian military units assassinated U.S. trained antinarcotics teams at the bidding of the drug mafia. So in some areas, there is improvement, but Colombia is still near the top of any human rights watch list.

Let me, again, make one other point that I have made repeatedly here. We have invested $4.7 million in Colombia. We were promised that coca cultivation would be cut by 50 percent by the proponents of this. The bottom line is, according to this chart, that has not happened. In fact, coca cultivation has actually increased in Colombia.

I agree with my friend from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) when he says the conservatives are supposed to, they don't want to eliminate waste and demand more efficiency in government. Well, by any measure, this has not been an efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

So, Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, let me just say that we have heard the arguments on the other side. Massive increases in fumigation, overwhelming support for President Uribe, kidnappings down, cities and highways safer. Well, Mr. Chairman, that is all true. But massive increases in fumigation have not led to any reduction in coca cultivation. Overwhelming popular support for President Uribe has not resulted in even a dent in the impunity enjoyed by military officers tied to drug lords, mafia kings, paramilitaries and who carry out violent human rights crimes and other criminal acts. Kidnappings are down, but assassinations, disappearances and death threats against labor, religious indigenous Afro-Colombian and other community leaders is skyrocketing according to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross and every other reputable human rights organization in the world. And if cities and highways are safer, the rural country side is as dangerous, violent, bloody and as perilous as ever.

We can do something good with this amendment. We can do something right. We can provide the President with a little more than he asked for, both for refugee emergencies and for Colombia. So I would urge my colleagues to support the McGovern-Leach-Payne-Lofgren-McCollum-Grijalva-Schakowsky-Lee amendment.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, it has been many years since we last debated this issue. In 1999 the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to stop funding the U.S. Army School of the Americas. That vote so shook the Department of Defense that the following year, they brought a proposal to the Congress to close the SOA and organize a new school, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

In the past 5 years, we have continued to see the notorious legacy of the School of the Americas live on. To this day, human rights violation and criminal acts continue to be committed by its graduates. But what about the Western Hemisphere Institute itself?

While it is still in its early years, already we have seen the Institute welcome to its courses well known, well documented human rights violators. This has happened with the 2003 admittance of a Salvadorian colonel responsible for the 1983 massacre at Las Hojas. This case, and his name, were cited in the United Nations Truth Commission report in 1993, and even in our own State Department Country Reports.

The Institute accepted and trained in 2002 a major from Bolivia responsible for kidnapping and torture of Waldo Albarracin, who today serves as Bolivia's human rights ombudsman. This is a case that was presented to the OAS Human Rights Commission.

And three Colombian officers under investigation for personal use of counternarcotics funds, and let me add under investigation at the insistence of the United States Justice Department, were admitted to the Institute in 2003.

What possible kind of pre-vetting program could possibly let such notorious figures into its classes? Why are our tax dollars being spent on giving these guys a junket in Georgia? And if the WHINSEC cannot even screen out well known murderers and criminals, what about those who are less well known?

Mr. Chairman, Latin America is already walking away from the WHINSEC. Argentina and Uruguay recently announced they will no longer send any of its military or police to the school.

Enrollment from Latin America has been steadily falling over the past 3 years. In 2003, there were 1,190 students at the WHINSEC. This year there will only be 668. 77 percent of the students come from just five countries, mainly the Andean nations.

But while enrollment has declined by 40 percent, funding for the school has remained steady or slightly increased. U.S. soldiers are now attending the WHINSEC to fill up the classrooms.

Mr. Chairman, what are we doing here? I will tell you one thing that we are doing, we are sending the wrong signal to Latin America. We are telling them that we will not shut down the school that is anathema to civil society and human rights organizations throughout the hemisphere.

And if you wonder what the old School of the Americas has to do with all of this, well, let me just tell you. Every time someone gets murdered in Latin America today by someone trained at the School of the Americas, their family, friends and colleagues, they remember that the U.S. trained this guy at that notorious school. That school still exists for them.

It is at the same military base, in the same buildings with much of the same curriculum and the same teachers as the old school. Excuse me if they do not get the difference.

If you do not think this is happening, let me go back to the article that I referred to in the earlier debate, in Monday's Boston Globe about the military commander who orchestrated the ambush and murder of U.S.-trained antidrug police, a U.S. trained antidrug police unit in Colombia.

That Colombian commander was trained at the School of the Americas. So we have a U.S.-trained Army officer murdering U.S.-trained antidrug police. It makes no sense. We can let Latin America know that we get at our human rights by stopping some of the funding for this school which remains to this day a powerful symbol of U.S. fixation on the military to the detriment of military rights.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, the following is a list of individuals that I cited in my opening remarks who are graduates of WHINSEC who have committed gross human rights violations against civilians:

Supporters of the WHINSEC consistently argue that nothing associated with the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) should be taken into consideration when debating the merits of the WHINSEC. However, even at these early stages, the WHINSEC is repeating the mistakes of its predecessor organization.

Latin American nominees are supposed to be thoroughly vetted, but pre-screening of applicants remains inadequate. Amnesty International detailed in a 2002 report, Unmatched Power, Unmet Principles, the many loopholes and gaps that exist in the current screening process. Already a number of students with previously well-known, well-documented histories of human rights abuses have been awarded scholarships to attend the WHINSEC, including:

Colonel Francisco del Cid Diaz (El Salvador) attended the WHINSEC in 2003. In 1983, he commanded a unit responsible for a very notorious massacre of indigenous peoples at the Las Hojas Cooperative in Sonsonate, El Salvador. This was a high-profile human rights case, included in the list of cases congressionally mandated for investigation during that period, and cited annually in the State Department's Human Rights Country Reports throughout the 1980s. The United Nations Truth Commission on El Salvador, established under the terms of the 1992 Peace Accords, identified Col. Cid Diaz as the commander who ordered and led the massacre and recommended he be brought to justice. Ironically, he returned to attend the SOA in 1988 and 1991, even after the U.S. State Department had identified the unit most likely responsible for the Las Hojas massacre. He then returned to attend the WHINSEC in 2003.

Major Fillmann Urzagaste Rodriguez (Bolivia) attended the WHINSEC in 2002. In 1997, then Captain Fillmann Urzagaste Rodriguez was one of those responsible for the kidnapping and torture of Waldo Albarracin, who was then the director of the Popular Assembly for Human Rights in Bolivia; Mr. Albarracin is now the official Human Rights Ombudsman for the Government of Bolivia. At the time, the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies Commission undertook an investigation of the case and determined that it needed to be sent to the courts for further investigation and prosecution, where unfortunately it languished given the military impunity during that period. This same case is also the subject of a high-profile petition to the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2002, Urzagaste Rodriguez, now a major, took a 49-week officer training course at the WHINSEC.

Captain Dario Sierro Chapeta, Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Patino Fonseca, and Captain Luis Benavides Guancha (Colombia) are all Colombian police officers under investigation for personal use of counter-narcotics funds. In June 2002, the Colombian Attorney General's office, at the request of the U.S. government, opened a ``disciplinary'' investigation into alleged activities of corruption by members of the Colombian National Police, including these three officers. The first two officers, namely Captain Sierro Chapeta and Lt. Col. Patino Fonseca, attended the WHINSEC in 2002 (it isn't clear whether the charges against the 3 were brought before, during or after their acceptance to the WHINSEC, but it was well known that their unit was under investigation). Captain Benavides Guancha attended the WHINSEC for 18 weeks in 2003, well after the targets he investigation were known to the Colombian and U.S. governments.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, let me point out to the gentleman from Florida, we are not against the training of Latin American soldiers. We train over 20,000 Latin American soldiers each year, but only a fraction of them, fewer than 600, are actually trained at the School of the Americas. We want to shut the School of the Americas down because we believe it is anathema to America's commitments and America's human rights.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, let me tell my good friend from Georgia, maybe he did not hear my opening speech, but I cited a case that happened 2 weeks ago where a graduate of the School of the Americas was involved in killing counternarcotics police in Colombia.

The other thing is, I have heard from the gentleman from Georgia and the gentleman from Arizona that the vast majority of graduates from this school go on to serve their countries honorably. How do we know? There is no follow-up done by this school and the Department of Defense. The only reason we know about the notorious cases is because of the hard work that goes on by human rights organizations on the ground and people in our own State Department. That is how we know, but there is no follow-up. There is no basis to say that the majority go on to serve their countries honorably. We do not know that.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time.

Mr. Chairman, if we want to let Latin America know that we get it on human rights, then let us shut down this notorious school. If we genuinely want to show Latin America that our priorities are not the military, but development and democracy, then let us establish a western hemisphere institute for judicial reform, for civil engineering, for local governance, for rural development, for human rights.

Let us show Latin America we get it on human rights, and by closing down this school, we also send a powerful signal to the rest of the world that human rights remains our highest priority.

I urge my colleague to support the McGovern-Lewis amendment to prohibit funds in this bill for WHINSEC.

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