Andean Regional Initiative - International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs assistance secretary Rand Beers - Transcript

DISAM Journal, Summer, 2001 by Rand Beers

[The following is a reprint of the testimony before the Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee, Washington D.C., July 11, 2001.]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss with you the Department of State's programs envisioned under the Administration's proposed Andean Regional Initiative (ARI).

First, I'd like to provide you background on the origin of the President's Initiative. In July 2000, Congress approved a $1.3 billion supplemental appropriation to carry out enhanced counternarcotics activities in the Andean region. Of that amount, approximately $1 billion in Function 150 funding through the State Department was the U.S. contribution to what has become known as Plan Colombia, a comprehensive, integrated, Colombian action plan to address Colombia's complex and interrelated problems. The initial two-year phase of Plan Colombia focused on the southern part of the country. It began with an intensive countenarcotics push into southern Colombia, along with the expansion of programs aimed at social action and institutional strengthening, and alternative development. Plan Colombia is now well underway and showing good early results. In addition to stemming the flow of narcotics entering the U.S., our assistance is intended to support institutional and judicial reform, as well as economic advancement , in one of this hemisphere's oldest democracies.

Members of Congress, the non-government community, and other interested observers had previously expressed concerns regarding aspects of U.S. government support to Plan Colombia. Those concerns focused particularly on three areas: that we did not consult widely enough in putting together our support package; that we focused too much on security and law enforcement, and not enough on development and institutional reform; and that our assistance was too heavily oriented toward Colombia as compared to the rest of the region.

The Administration has taken to heart those concerns in formulating the President's proposed Andean Regional Initiative. ARI is the product of consultations with the staffs of committees and members of Congress, with the governments of the region, and with other potential donor countries and international financial institutions. ARI addresses the three issues that lie at the heart of the challenges facing the region: democracy, development, and drugs. ARI balances the need to address the continuing challenges in Colombia with the competing priority of working with the rest of the region to prevent a further spreading of Colombia's problems or backsliding in areas where progress already has been made.

The President has proposed $882 million in Function 150 programs for the API. $731 million of the $882 million in ARI is for the Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) funding of the Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI). The API also includes funding for relevant Economic Support Funds (ESF), Developmental Assistance (DA), and Child Survival and Disease (CSD) programs, plus a small amount of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). The ARI covers programs in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, and those areas and programs in Panama and Brazil most affected by the region's problems and those where our assistance can best make a difference. In addition to being balanced geographically, our budget will likewise be balanced programmatically. About 50 percent of the ARI budget will be devoted to programs focused on development and support for democratic institutions. Integral to ARI as well are the economic development and job creation afforded by expanded trade op portunities. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) can help the entire region through increased investment and job creation. More immediately, renewal and enhancement of the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA) can provide real alternatives to drug production and trafficking for farmers and workers desperate for the means to support their families.

Our support to Plan Colombia was the first step in responding to the crisis underway in Colombia. The Andean Regional Initiative is the next stage of a long-term effort to address the threat of narcotics and the underlying causes of the narcotics industry and violence in Colombia, while assisting Colombia's neighbors to ward off those same dangers in their own countries. Their success is vital to our own national interests in promoting the spread of strong democratic institutions, the enhancement of trade and investment opportunities for U.S. businesses and workers, and the reduction of narcotics production and trafficking that threaten our society.

My USAID colleague will describe in detail the status of our alternative development projects. However, I want to point out that alternative development is an integral part of our plan for weeding out illicit coca and poppy cultivation in the Andes. We have had large alternative development programs in Bolivia and Peru for many years, and they have been quite successful, combining with aggressive eradication and interdiction programs to produce significant declines in the coca crops of those countries. Colombia is trying to replicate that success in Plan Colombia, combining a substantially expanded alternative development program with aerial eradication and interdiction activities in southern Colombia, currently the largest concentration of coca cultivation in the world.