-Caveat Lector-
{{I have not had time to read all of this but it appears to me
that we are going to soften our approach in the Andean
Initiative with more emphasis on economic an social rather
than law enforcement and security. If you want to read this
but it is too long to keep, you can read the briefing at State
Dept website.
~Amelia]}}
On-the-Record Briefing: Andean Regional Initiative
R. Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary of State for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs ; William R. Brownfield,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs;
Michael Deal, Acting Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for
Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID
On-the-Record Briefing: Andean Regional Initiative
Washington, DC
May 16, 2001
MR. HUNTER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We would
like to welcome you to the State Department briefing room this
afternoon for today's briefing on the Andean Regional
Initiative. We have with us today to brief you Rand Beers,
Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs; Bill Brownfield, the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; and from
the Agency for International Development, Michael Deal, who is
the Acting Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Latin
American and Caribbean Affairs.
I know a number of you here today were with us in March for
our briefing on U.S. Assistance to Colombia. Today's briefing
is a natural extension of that particular briefing since our
efforts in counternarcotics can't be seen in isolation, either
regionally or in terms of their impact on economic development
and the strengthening of institutions.
And so Mr. Brownfield will now give you a brief overview of
the status of the initiative, and we'll then hear from our
other briefers and turn it over to you for your questions. And
now, Bill Brownfield.
MR. BROWNFIELD: Thanks very much, and good afternoon. I think
you've heard of the names and the identities of the three of
us who will actually come up here and do a very brief
presentation before we throw it open to questions by all of
you. May I let you know as well, however, that we have even a
larger battalion of knowledge and resource with us and with
you this afternoon.
Also represented off to my right is Mr. Bob Brown of ONDCP and
representatives from the State Department's Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and the Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration. Between the seven or eight
of us, there is so much knowledge of U.S. policy and programs
in the Andean region that the air positively crackles with
kinetic energy this afternoon. If anyone were to throw a match
up here, it would probably explode.
May I invite you to take a look at what I hope is the press
kit that you have all received, and if you have not received
it, that I hope you will receive in the course of the next
hour. In it is a great deal of fascinating material, some of
which you have already seen before. I do want to draw your
attention to three documents that I believe are new and fairly
important. One is a document entitled, "U.S. Policy Toward the
Andean Region." This is at least an attempt at a strategy
document laying out what we propose to talk about in somewhat
greater detail over the next 10 to 15 minutes. There is, as
well, a one-page fact sheet entitled, "The Andean Regional
Initiative," and a one-page budget summary that attempts to
lay out in table form a set of budget figures for six
different budgeting accounts and seven different countries.
More on that in just a moment.
In the fall of 1999, as all of you presumably know, the
Government of Colombia developed a concept known as Plan
Colombia, which has nothing to do with the alarm that we now
hear going off behind us, but was rather an attempt by the
Government of Colombia to develop a strategy to address three
basic crises that they were confronting at that time -- an
economic crisis, a security crisis, and a drug crisis.
The United States response to and support for that effort was
approved by Congress in July of the year 2000. This was the
U.S. initiative in support of Colombia, or Plan Colombia. It
had, as you may recall, six basic elements to it: a push into
southern Colombia, support for interdiction efforts, support
for the Colombian National Police, support for institutional
reform, alternative development, and finally support for the
region.
In the course of the last year we have received a number of
comments, and in very rare occasions perhaps even criticism,
from several constituencies in the United States, some
elements of the United States Congress, and even -- rare
though it might be -- from some members of the media and the
press. Their comments tended to focus on two specific areas,
albeit in different ways. One comment was that the U.S.
response appeared to focus too much on security and law
enforcement issues, to the expense of social and economic
developmental issues; and, second, that the U.S. response
seemed overly focused on Colombia, ignoring the risk of
spillover or the risk of the Colombian crises migrating into
other countries of the region.
On the 14th of April, the President of the United States
rolled out at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Canada,
the gist -- the structure, at least -- of the United States'
proposed Andean Regional Initiative of the year 2001.
What the President introduced and what we are going to offer
much greater detail to you this afternoon is a proposal for
$882.29 million of assistance provided from the Function 150
Account. This is the account which funds the State Department
and USAID's foreign assistance programs.
Unlike last year, in which there was a single consolidated
emergency supplemental passed to support Colombia, this year
the proposal is to package six different funding lines into
one proposal, although the appropriations would be
appropriated in their regular funding channels of ESF,
development assistance, child survival and disease,
international narcotics control and FMF.
In short, what I am suggesting to you is that unlike last
year, where there was a single consolidated bill in which you
could find all of the President's proposed funding for the
Colombia supplemental last year, this year you will have to
find them in five different line items.
The proposal is to provide comprehensive and coordinated
assistance to seven different countries: the five countries
that we traditionally associate with the Andean region --
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela -- as well as
Brazil and Panama, to the extent that those countries are
affected by spillover from some of the Andean Ridge and Andean
regional problems or crises.
We are not suggesting that all of Brazil or Panama should be
treated as part of the Andean region. We are suggesting that
some of the crises that affect the Andean region do spill over
into Brazil and into Panama.
We heard all of the criticism and comments of the past year,
and most particularly the very helpful comments from the media
in terms of the difficulties with last year's presentation.
Therefore I am pleased to report that unlike last year, whose
supplemental assistance package was heavily focused on
Colombia, this year's Andean Regional Initiative breaks down
to about 45 percent of its assistance proposed for Colombia,
55 percent for the remainder of the region.
Unlike last year's package, which was heavily focused on law
enforcement and security assistance, this year's package
breaks out about 50/50 between law enforcement and security
assistance on the one hand, and social and economic
development and institutional reform on the other.
Prior to presenting this proposed budget to the United States
Congress, we did engage in consultations with the seven
governments of the Andean Regional Initiative, with European
and other potential donors, who we would hope would also take
a positive approach to support for this region, and obviously,
not being completely stupid, we pre-consulted with Members of
Congress and their staffs before rolling this proposal up to
Congress.
The President's proposal is before Congress right now, and I
presume I am betraying no secrets when I say we very much hope
Congress will support and pass the President's initiative.
That is the overview. May I suggest we might spend another
productive couple of minutes hearing first from Assistant
Secretary Beers, and then from Acting Assistant Administrator
Deal.
ACTING SECRETARY BEERS: Thanks very much, Bill. I will be
brief. What I want to focus on is the enforcement and security
side of the INL budget request, and then turn over to Mike for
the AID presentation.
What we are basically trying to do with the security and law
enforcement side is to sustain and preempt; that is to sustain
the effort that was begun under the Plan Colombia emergency
supplemental appropriation and preempt the possibility of the
transfer of some of the drug trafficking, cultivation or
institutions to other countries.
In terms of Colombia, which will still be the largest program,
on the enforcement side it will be $250-plus million. It is
essentially a sustainment package. It is essentially an
operations and maintenance budget. It is not an acquisition
budget, as it was in Plan Colombia. It will provide assistance
to both the police and the military.
With respect to Peru and Bolivia, Peru we will be requesting
$77 million on the enforcement side, and in Bolivia 54
million. This will be an effort to sustain the existing
programs, but to expand them beyond their regular levels. We
will be attempting through this process, in coordination with
these governments, to prevent a reverse flow.
As most of you are aware, the rise of the cocaine industry in
Colombia is very much related to the decline of the cocaine
industry in both Peru and Bolivia, and we don't want any
success in Colombia to result in a reverse flow back to those
countries. And in fact, we are concerned about it. This last
year, for the first time in a number of years, we began to see
a new growth in Peru in terms of coca cultivation. While the
eradication effort there outstripped these new coca, it is a
troubling feature of the drug environment there, and we want
to ensure that it does not become a significant factor. There
will be some major acquisitions here, or at least one, and
that is we will be refurbishing some helicopters for the
police in Peru in association with the eradication program.
With respect to Ecuador, we will be asking for $19 million in
terms of enforcement activities. This will be to preempt any
possibilities for cultivation to flow south into northern
Ecuador, but to also work with the Ecuadorian police and
military to reduce the narco-trafficking within the country,
particularly along the northern border.
And finally, Brazil, Panama and Venezuela, we will be
providing $15, $11 and $10 million, respectively. As Bill
indicated, with respect to Brazil, this will be mostly focused
on their western border where it abuts Colombia, but also the
Peruvian and Bolivian borders, but principally the Colombian
border. In terms of Panama, it will be to reinforce their law
enforcement capabilities there, both maritime and land. And in
Venezuela, it will be to reinforce their law enforcement
capabilities there, with which we have had very good
cooperation over the course of the last year.
Let me stop there in order that we can get to your questions
and turn to Mr. Deal.
MR. DEAL: Thank you. I would like to just take a few minutes
to describe and put into context the social and economic
development part of the Andean Regional Initiative. The
problems of drugs and violence will not be solved on a
sustained basis unless the fundamental causes of these
problems are also addressed; unless democratic institutions in
the region become stronger, more responsive, more inclusive,
and more transparent; unless the presence of the government,
both the national and local level in rural areas, is better
able to provide jobs and services to the rural poor and give
them a stake in the future and improve the quality of life;
unless the justice system becomes more accessible, becomes
more efficient and reduces impunity; unless the human rights
environment improves; unless the problem of widespread
corruption is solved; and unless legal employment
opportunities are created for the unemployed.
These are tough social issues, and they are going to take
time. They are going to take a sustained commitment and
continued U.S. Government assistance. USAID will manage 390
million of the proposed Fiscal Year 2002 funds under the
initiative. By way of comparison, our level last year was $151
million. Our Andean program builds on many of our existing
programs, but expands them somewhat in response to the
changing circumstances in the region.
We expect to be working in three main areas: democracy,
development and alternative development. The first major area
that we're working in is strengthening democracy, and that
includes a number of components. It includes administration of
justice, which is basically to help make the justice system
work; make it more modern and efficient, more transparent and
more accessible. Part of the program provides access to
justice for the poor through alternative dispute resolution,
basically in the poorer neighborhoods of major cities. We're
doing that now in Colombia and in Peru with very good results.
We have a program that is designed to help improve the
observance of human rights. In Colombia, our activities are
designed to help prevent killings through an early warning
system, working with the human rights ombudsman and channeling
information up the line to the military. We are working for
increased observance of human rights in Peru as well.
We have programs designed to help strengthen local governments
in the rural areas. This has been one of the greatest vacuums
in these countries, and lack of state presence in rural areas.
We are working with mayors, training mayors and council
members in identifying projects, setting priorities,
monitoring projects, handling financial resources in a more
accountable, transparent way. It is a very important part of
bringing democracy to these rural areas.
We also have programs in anti-corruption. We are helping
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to strengthen their ability to
expose corrupt practices and investigate and prosecute corrupt
officials.
The second major area that we're working on is development,
namely economic growth and poverty alleviation. To reach the
poor, we are working with micro-finance in Bolivia and
Ecuador. We're working on banking reform and macroeconomic
policy. Support for trade capacity development will be
strengthened to help these countries develop WTO-consistent
trade regimes. We will continue health programs in Peru and
Bolivia, and we will pay specific attention to education,
including an Andean regional center of excellence for our
teacher training, as announced by the President in Quebec at
the Summit of the Americas.
Protection of their natural resources, preserving their unique
ecological diversity and helping rehabilitate environmental
damage from illicit drug production will also receive
attention.
The third main area, and over half of the resources in the
initiative that will be managed by USAID involves alternative
development. This is a concept that does work, as we have seen
after a decade of work in Bolivia and Peru, a three-prong
strategy of law enforcement, interdiction in alternative
development was successful in dramatically reducing the coca
cultivation in both of these countries.
Alternative development does work and it is an important
essential element in that strategy. The concept involves -- is
the same in all countries and it involves groups of small
farmers, communities or farmer associations signing agreements
with the government, agreeing to voluntarily eradicate 100
percent of their coca crop in exchange for a package of
benefits both at the farmer level and at the community level:
at the farmer level, to help them get involved in legal
income-producing alternatives, and at the community level to
provide basic infrastructures such as schools, health clinics,
public water systems and rural roads.
It is important to note that there is nothing as economically
profitable as coca. The incentive to get out of coca on a
voluntary basis is not economic; it is the threat of
involuntary eradication. There has to be a credible threat and
a risk of continuing to stay in coca. In Colombia, we are
seeing that the risk is credible, and farmers just in the past
two or three months are lining up to sign these agreements.
In Peru and Bolivia we are concentrating on sustaining the
dramatic advances made in these countries in coca eradication.
We want to help these governments and these farmers to
withstand the temptation to slide back under the shadow of
narcotics production.
It is not going to be easy, and it is going to take a
sustained long-term view on reforming institutions,
strengthening institutions, and bringing about the kind of
change in the social side that we are after through the AID
programs.
Let me end by saying that the Andean Regional Initiative must
be viewed as the national program in each of these countries
responding to their priorities and problems. They are the ones
that are going to have to make this work. Our role is one of
facilitating the process, and we will be working along with
them over the next several years in this effort.
Thanks.
Q:Can I ask a question, and this will be related to what you
were just saying. I'm a little confused. I must be reading
this -- these budget things wrong. But you just went through a
whole host of social-type programs.
Where are these being funded? In the two charts we have, we
have zero listed for economic and social programs for
Colombia.
Q:(Inaudible.)
Q:Yes, but that's under INC. There is $146.5 -- what
million -- listed on the green thing on -- but it's listed
under economic and social programs, but it's listed under INC,
and there is nothing for economic support funds, development
assistance and child survival and disease.
So where is the money for these?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: That is a peculiarity in the INL
budget process because we have functioned and are able and
authorized to fund a large array of programs. The Colombia
portion of those programs is funded entirely out of the INL
budget. But I didn't talk about it because we transferred the
money to AID essentially in order to execute the programs. So
it makes more sense for the executor to actually talk about
the programs. But it is INL money, and it is used for
alternative development and other support features for our
efforts in Colombia.
Q:Can you say how much of that there is? Or --
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: The figures on the table? In terms
of how much of it is going --
Q:Well, okay, why is it not the same in Bolivia, then?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: Because of the structure in
Bolivia. Mike, come on back.
Q:I just don't understand why you have it listed under
different things in one country --
Q:Or it's just some beaurocratic (inaudible) --
Q:Well, either that or they are trying to hide something.
MR. DEAL: No, of course we are not trying to hide something.
You know better than that.
There was not an economic development program in Colombia
other than what we have funded through INL, for a long period
of time. And we began that process. We basically transferred
the money to AID. Since we have always run that program in
Colombia, it made no sense to take it out of the INL budget
and fund it in the other.
All the other countries have programs that had already started
in AID, and we had alternative development programs in some of
them. So what we have done is taken all of the funding
streams, bring everybody together in the room and sit down and
say, all right, we are going to do this all together.
Now, when we did the supplemental budget, we didn't go back
and pull the strings of all the programs that AID runs through
the rest of Latin America. In this case, for these seven
countries, we want to put it all together and make sure that
it is all integrated and coordinated so that we are presenting
both to you and to the Congress and to the countries that we
want to work with an integrated package. And that is why it is
that way. It is a budget anomaly.
Q:I have a question for Mr. Beers. Are you aware of the
Satellite Study Commission by the Colombian Government in the
United Nations, the results of which came out this week and
which came to the conclusion that Colombia is in fact
producing much more cocaine than you say on your bits of paper
here? And how do you assess the reliability of this study?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: I am aware of it, only insofar as
it has been reported in the press. With respect to it, insofar
as I have been able to pull together information since the
story began to run, we are not in a position at this point in
time to specifically comment on the validity of the study,
because we don't have the information of the methodology
behind the study. This is not the first case in which other
organizations or countries have attempted to estimate narcotic
crop cultivation in a country.
When these situations occur, what we basically try to do is to
be in contact with the investigating country or agency to
understand the methodology behind their figures, indicate the
methodology behind our own figures, and try to resolve those
differences. The most pronounced case recently is Afghanistan,
in which UNDCP ran an estimate that was quite different, in
fact more widely different in Afghanistan than the difference
between this particular estimate and our own.
We have, as a result of discussions and meetings, reduced that
difference significantly over the course of the last year, and
we will try to do that in the time ahead. I think it is fair
to say, though, that that study, as our own indicates, that
coca cultivation is still increasing in Colombia and our
concerns there continue to exist. The comments that were drawn
from the article, however, that this is an indication of a
failure of the Colombian-U.S. effort to deal with cultivation,
I think are premature conclusions. I can't tell you when the
data for the study was derived, and therefore I can't tell you
whether it precedes or post-dates the beginning of the U.S.
effort there.
So those are issues and questions that we will have in the
time ahead.
Q:Can you explain -- just a quick follow-up. Can you explain
why you were not brought in on this when this is a study being
commissioned by the Colombian Government and you are the
largest single contributor to their anti-narcotics effort?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: We've been aware for some time that
the Colombia Government was conducting an independent
estimate, and UNDCP always conducts estimates which are
independent of the United States. The results which you are
reading now which preview the results are simply the output,
and it's not done and we haven't had a chance to sit down and
talk about it. But, yes, we were aware of it.
Q:I have a question for Mr. Beers and one for Mr. Brownfield.
For Mr. Beers, the question is, how do you explain the surge
in cultivation in Peru, and does what you're saying is an
alarming development result from perhaps a need to -- or does
it make more imperative the need to renew the air bridge
shootdown policy that was in place before the missionary plane
was destroyed?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: With respect to surge, please let
me be precise. What we are talking about now are the estimate
results from calendar year 2000, which indicated that there
was a total eradication figure of 7,700 hectares and a total
new cultivation increase of 3,200 hectares, leading to a net
reduction of 4,500 hectares. That's not a surge; it is an
alarming fact because we hadn't seen any new cultivation in
the last several years. Surge is a little bit too strong.
With respect to the reestablishment of the air bridge denial
program, as you are all well aware, I am also engaged in an
effort to review the tragic incident that occurred on the 20th
of April, and we have not completed that and I am not going to
comment on that, so that no one else will ask me this
question.
But with respect to your question, that is but one of the ways
in which cocaine exits Peru at this time -- through air
flights to Colombia, through overland transit to Bolivia,
through sea transit out of Peru -- all are methods of
trafficking. And I think it is fair to say that the
traffickers who used to rely almost entirely upon the air
bridge between Peru and Colombia no longer rely upon that as
the predominant way of taking cocaine out of Peru.
Q:And for Mr. Brownfield, if I could. Sir, I wasn't quite sure
if you were being facetious when you talked about responding
to criticism from Congress and the press and perhaps
reorienting the policy. I mean, are we witnesses a fundamental
shift in U.S. drug policy away from a military buildup in
Colombia and toward a different approach?
MR. BROWNFIELD: No, shockingly enough and rarely enough, I was
not being facetious; I was actually -- it was one of those
rare moments where I was being serious in terms of what this
new initiative reflects. Now, I do allow myself one step back
in terms of saying we did not necessarily agree with all of
the criticism that was levied at the Colombia supplemental
last year in terms of its being overly focused on Colombia or
overly focused on law enforcement and security issues.
It was our belief all along -- as we stated publicly to the
media, to Congress, and whenever we had the opportunity to
speak on the record to larger groups -- that this was the
first step in a multi-year effort to address these crises,
these problems, these threats, and that the first step
obviously was focused at the heart of the problem, which, it
was our calculation in 1999 and the year 2000, the heart of
the problem was Colombia. And our initial focus, or at least
the heavy emphasis in the course of the first year, was to get
the sort of big ticket physical items on the ground and in
place that were essential in order to get started, if you
will. That drove much of the so-called hard side of the
equation and the imbalance in the numbers. Helicopters and
other aircraft, just by the nature of things, cost a lot of
money. That's the bad news. The good news is, once you have
paid for them once, you don't have to pay for them again, and
most of that cost, as Assistant Secretary Beers indicated, has
already been taken care of in the first year.
What we see with the President's Andean Regional Initiative of
this year for Fiscal Year 2002 funding is an effort that is,
in fact, more balanced between the economic social development
and institutional reform side and the law enforcement and
security side. And this, in fact, is not only what we had been
thinking all along, but, in fact, I submit is responsive to
some of the comments that we have received over the last year
of those who thought that our approach was both too focused on
one country and too focused on the so-called hard side of the
equation.
Q:A follow-up. Is there anything that you can say at this
point you did wrong with the first -- with the supplemental?
Anything that you think has gone wrong with Plan Colombia that
this intends to remedy, if you could be a little more
specific?
And then one of the main complaints has been that there is
really nothing in the program to deal with the paramilitaries
and their human rights abuses and trying to contain their
spread and activities. Is there anything in this program that
might address that?
MR. BROWNFIELD: Sure. Let me take those two thoughts in the
order in which you offer them. I am not going to stand up here
before you all and engage in self-flagellation, identifying
what may have gone wrong with our approach in the course of
the last year. I will say that in a more perfect world we
obviously would have wanted to have provided a larger amount
of support and assistance for other countries and other parts
of the region in the course of last year. We didn't live in
that perfect world. Our world was defined by the willingness
of Members of Congress to devote the American taxpayers' money
to this purpose. Our calculation at that time was there was a
finite number beyond which we were probably not going to be
able to develop political consensus and an appropriation, and
it was our calculation at that time that if we had to start
with a smaller package than what we would have wanted in a
perfect world, the place to start was Colombia.
We also acknowledged -- and I believe to a certain extent we
have taken some criticism for the speed -- the pace with which
spillover was proceeding from Colombia to other countries. I
would argue that some of that criticism -- I would argue that
a lot of that criticism -- was exaggerated. Having said that,
we do acknowledge that the Colombia threat, the Colombia
cancer, if you will, of drugs and insurgencies and
paramilitaries and economic problems that create trans-border
movements of people and drugs and criminals and guerrillas,
is, in fact, a problem that we will continue to deal with in
the years ahead.
Paramilitaries. My argument, our argument, is that much of the
assistance that we are providing to Colombia, in fact, helps
the government of Colombia and the people of Colombia to
address the root causes that have produced the paramilitary
movement, not to mention, if I might add, the left-wing
guerrilla insurgency movements. These were not created in a
vacuum; they were created due to the economic and social and
political and, to a certain extent, law enforcement and
governmental conditions that existed in some parts of the
country and have existed there long before Plan Colombia was
created; for that matter, long before I entered the Foreign
Service of the United States, maybe even long before I was
born, although that's an awfully long time ago.
And our argument would be that as we attempt to address these
economic and social conditions through economic and social
development assistance, as we try to address these concerns
about governmental institutions that do not work, or at least
do not work well, what we are doing, in a sense, is denying
the ground to paramilitary organizations or in directly to
guerrilla organizations by which they support themselves. And
to that extent, I would say that most, if not all, of our
assistance, both in last year's Colombia supplemental and this
year's proposed Andean Regional Initiative, as it relates to
Colombia, would go to addressing the paramilitary problem.
Q:I have a couple of questions for a wide array of you. I
guess for Assistant Secretary Beers, what percentage of these
funds are going towards -- without getting into the whole Peru
incident or anything like that, how much now of this plan
relies on these intercept programs as part of the
counternarcotics effort?
And I guess for Mr. Deal, or whoever wants to take this, is
this Andean Initiative the sole amount of assistance towards
social development and economic development towards these
countries that they are getting, or is there -- are there
other portions of social and economic development from other
areas of assistance? Or is it just tied to the
counternarcotics effort?
And if someone from the Human Rights Bureau is here, is this
certification for Colombia for their human rights still in
existence, and are you going to tie the aid to other countries
on their attention and follow-through on commitments they made
towards their human rights?
Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: Good move. Lots of questions.
In answer to your first question, as I indicated earlier, the
mode of trafficking activity in Peru has changed since the
beginning of the Air Bridge Denial Program, or its high point,
I should say, in '95, '96 and '97. And as a result of that,
the traffickers have a variety of ways of moving coca, which
is not to say that the Air Bridge Denial Program is useless or
meaningless but that it is not as significant in terms of
dealing with trafficking in Peru as it was at one particular
point in time.
Are we entirely dependent upon it? No. Is it an important
program? Yes. Its status, by agreement between both
governments now, is that it is in suspension. When the review
is done, then we will have some more to say about that.
Q:So are you saying that you are kind of changing the way you
look at these intercept programs, perhaps as the mode of
trafficking has changed, that your intercept programs are
changing as well?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: I wouldn't so much say as it is the
intercept program itself that is changing as it is the balance
of our support for counternarcotics activities change in
response to changing trafficking patterns by the traffickers.
Q:Thank you.
MR. DEAL: On your resource question, the levels that we are
including here, as Bill Brownfield mentioned earlier, come
from several accounts. So for the social and economic
development program, this does represent the entirety of our
assistance program for these countries. It is composed of
development assistance, child survival, economic support
funds, as well as the INL funds for alternative development.
MR. BROWNFIELD: With two small caveats to what Mike has just
said, which he will agree with. First, to the extent that
there is PL 480 food assistance, that would not be
incorporated in the Andean Regional Initiative.
And second, as relates to Panama, I believe there is some ESF
that would be going to Panama that would not be treated as
part of the Andean Regional Initiative. That gets back to my
earlier point, where I noted we are not suggesting that all of
Panama and all of Brazil are, if you will, Andean regional
countries. We were suggesting that there are -- there is some
spillover into those countries that this initiative is
supposed to address.
Finally, in your long list of questions, you had also brought
up the certification issue. I will tell you that at this
stage, what the President has proposed to the United States
Congress is a budget. It is a funding bill. We have suggested
nothing other than a sum of money, $882.29 million, to be
appropriated in five different appropriations accounts for
seven different countries for a variety of specified purposes
and programs.
What Congress will do with that, either in an authorization
bill or an appropriations bill, obviously is up to Congress,
and needless to say, we are willing to work with them on
certification conditions or anything else that Congress might
propose.
I would however close this question, certain of the support
and concurrence of my DRL colleague seated to my right, that
whatever Congress does, there is an annual Human Rights Report
and process by which the human rights behavior of each of
these seven countries is annually assessed and annually
presented to Congress, to the press and to the American
people, and for that matter, anyone in the world to assess. So
there is certainly not an effort to try to conceal or
dissemble.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: And we are also required by law not
to transfer funds to people known to be human rights abusers,
and to cease transferring funds if we discover after we have
begun the process that they are in fact so. So we have those
requirements specific for all assistance that we follow.
Q:But is there a concern -- if I just might follow up very
quickly -- is there a concern, though, that as you help these
countries increase their law enforcement capability, that they
might go along the roads of some of the problems that you have
had with Colombia, that the crackdown was in fact affecting
human rights in the countries?
MR. BROWNFIELD: I think our concern for human rights,
monitoring, tracking and supporting respect for human rights,
I mean, will remain consistent. We will have -- any assistance
that we provide to any of these seven countries will be held
to the same standards of in-use monitoring, to the same
standards of our observation and participation in the use of
these funds, to the same process by which the funds are
transferred under memoranda of understanding or memorandas of
agreement that will have written into them precisely the
conditions which we have tried to represent as representing
fundamental U.S. and American values over the last 200
and-some-odd years.
Q:Thank you.
Q:I have a question for Mr. Beers. You trace the Venezuelan
cooperation. In fact, your text says that they are cooperating
aggressively. What are they doing now that they weren't doing
a year ago when you criticized them for denying overflights?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: I'm making the distinction between
overflights and other law enforcement cooperation. The other
law enforcement cooperation, cooperation with our drug
enforcement administration and other U.S. law enforcement
agencies carrying out investigations, cases, arrests and
seizures of drug traffickers has been good over this
timeframe, and that is what I was drawing attention to, which
was the basis of our annual certification of Venezuela in
March.
Q:Yes. I'm trying to get a picture of the big war on the
narcotics, and what it tells me is that after 10 years of war
we have a lot more production than we had in the beginning; we
have much more eradication than we had at the beginning; we
still have a rising consumption of the drug, especially the
cocaine; we have a higher purity of the cocaine; and also it
is easier for anybody in the States to find cocaine in the
streets. But there is also something that tells me that goes
wrong, and it is the price of the drugs in the streets in the
States. Prices are going down.
So with this picture, how do we think that this is a
successful strategy after all?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: Let Bob Brown and I take an effort
to respond.
Firstly, with respect to the point about 10 years of effort in
rising cultivation, that is not the case. The figures, if you
look at them in the chart, while I am not claiming a huge
decrease, there is a modest decrease that started in 1995, and
only in 2000 did it slightly rise. The success in Peru and
Bolivia was greater than the increase in Colombia during that
timeframe. That is the first point.
Secondly, we have never had access to this level of resources
to deal with this particular problem until the last several
years, and in particular the peak here of the Plan Colombia
supplemental.
I'll let Bob talk to the issue of consumption, particularly in
the U.S., but not just in the U.S.
MR. BROWN: It would be my pleasure, Randy. Thank you. Bob
Brown again from our Drug Policy Office, ONDCP.
Drug demand in the United States, broad picture
chronologically. Early '80s we had 12 percent of our
population as frequent drug users, 20-some million people.
More recently here in the last calendar year or so, that is
six percent of our population, 12-plus million drug users.
Fifty percent reduction in overall drug use in the United
States.
With regard to specifically, if I heard all of your question
to cocaine, that reduction in number of drug users is around
70 percent. Essentially, most all of the casual use of cocaine
has dissipated.
That still leaves us -- because that's perhaps an unfair rosy
picture -- but it's the broad picture, and I make a positive
broad picture -- it nonetheless leaves us with 3-plus million
hard-core cocaine addicts, spending 30-some billion dollars a
year to retail level on cocaine, at substantial social cost to
our country in terms of lost productivity, hospitalization,
other medical costs, victim costs, carceration and so forth.
So that may have been overly broad, if I -- I didn't hear all
the question, but I think in general, drug use in the United
States is a broad, positive story. It still leaves us today
with unacceptable costs. I think you saw or heard the
President last Thursday, as he nominated Mr. Walters to be the
next -- my next boss, the next Director of ONDCP, emphasize
the continuation of a balanced drug policy, with both supply
programs, as we are focused on today, and continuing to drive
down the demand for drugs in the United States.
Specifically, he pointed out some strengthening of our
community anti-drug coalitions, dealing with the treatment
gap, zeroing out drug abuse within the federal prison system
and so forth. So how about a shotgun response?
MR. BROWNFIELD: And finally, may I close the loop by bringing
us back to the subject of today's briefing, the Andean Region
Initiative? The Andean Regional Initiative is not a
counter-drug initiative. It is a strategy that has three
elements to it, and since we are very simple people, we start
them all with the letter D -- democracy, development and
drugs. Counter-drug obviously is a part, a very important
part, of the Andean Regional Initiative, but it is an attempt
to integrate a coherent approach that covers all elements of
the problems and threats affecting the Andean region and
indirectly the United States of America today.
Democracy, by which we mean not just support for elections but
human rights and education and, where required, humanitarian
assistance. Development, which is not just pure economic and
social development but would include, at least within our
meaning, trade issues such as the Andean Trade Preference Act
which the President has announced he hopes will be extended at
the end of this year, and the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas, which the President has been even more clear about
his hope that it will be completed by January of 2005. And
finally, yes, as a key essential component, counternarcotics,
an aggressive and balanced counternarcotics approach.
But I do want to leave that message with you. The Andean
Regional Initiative is an attempt to integrate all of these
elements into a single coherent approach.
Q:I had a couple questions on contractors, the use of
contractors in Colombia. How much is the U.S. Government
currently spending on private contractors in Colombia? And
besides DynCorp, which we've all heard about, what are some of
the other companies receiving contracts? And is there any
trend to train Colombians to do the jobs of some of these
contractors?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: I can't speak to the DoD
contractors and so you'll have to ask that question at the
Defense Department. But with respect to the DynCorp contract,
it has ranged over the last several years between 35 and 50
million dollars on an annual basis. The adjustment upward has
come really at the end of calendar year '99 and in calendar
year 2000. It was below that prior to that.
With respect to your question about Colombianization, we have
as an active policy -- and it has been for some time -- to
transfer as many of the functions that are currently provided
by U.S. contractor support, at least on the INL side, to
Colombians. And the issue has been finding qualified
Colombians who are able to take on those missions and
activities.
Q:Are there other companies besides DynCorp that have
contracts?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS: Subs of DynCorp. INL's contract in
Colombia is essentially with DynCorp.
MR. HUNTER: I would like to thank our three briefers today for
their insights into the three D's, and all of you for your
interest. We will hope to organize further such briefings as
this initiative takes shape. Thank you.
Released on May 17, 2001
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