Dan Burton

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Is the gentleman aware that these advisory committee members testified before our committee and very clearly had conflicts of interest and yet they still voted on this? If we grant waivers to those people, we are going to continue the process which endangers kids in this country.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just say that we have held numerous hearings on this issue. We have found through the hearings that many of the people on these advisory committees have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. They have financial ties directly to the companies that are producing the drugs that they are voting on, the vaccinations they are voting on. We have just expressed clearly that children who took the rotavirus vaccine after there had been reservations about it, one died, and several hundred got sick and had to go to the emergency room. There were conflicts of interest. That needs to be eliminated. There are a lot of doctors and scientists we could get who did not have those conflicts of interest, those ties to the pharmaceutical industry, that could give an impartial judgment. That is what we need to do to protect the health of these children.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the health of every American child is affected by decisions made at the Department of Health and Human Services about vaccines. Those decisions have to be made free of conflicts of interest, and right now that just is not the case. Health and Human Services relies on two advisory committees to give scientific advice on vaccine policy. Unfortunately, those advisory committees are dominated by the pharmaceutical industry. HHS routinely gives doctors with serious conflicts of interest waivers to vote on vaccine policies. My amendment stands for a simple proposition. We should be getting the best scientific advice possible and it should not be tainted by possible conflicts of interest. We are going to hear from the other side that if my amendment passes they will not be able to find anyone to serve on these committees. That is just not so. The Committee on Government Reform has done an extensive investigation into these advisory committees. We took a close look at their votes to approve the rotavirus vaccine. That vote has had disastrous results. Children developed serious bowel obstructions. They needed emergency surgery. And one child died. The vaccine had to be pulled from the market 3 months after the official recommendation. Did this problem come up out of the blue? No. There was evidence of this problem in the clinical trials. This and other problems were discussed during the advisory committee meetings. Several Members had concerns. One doctor had serious reservations and expressed them. Yet every doctor on the committee voted to recommend approval of the vaccine. Why? Well, three out of the five FDA advisory committee members had financial ties to the drug companies that were developing the rotavirus vaccine. One of those doctors received $255,000 a year from the maker of the vaccine, Wyeth Lederle. Another worked at a university that received $75,000 from Lederle's parent company. Yet they got waivers so they could vote on the vaccine. The CDC routinely grants waivers from conflict of interest to every member of the advisory committee. The chairman of the CDC's advisory committee owned 600 shares of stock in a drug company that is developing a competing rotavirus vaccine. Now, I am not saying these doctors are corrupt or had any malicious intent. What I am saying is that when someone gets money from a company, especially large sums of money, it affects that individual's judgment. And I am not alone in my concern about conflicts of interest. Last year, the New England Journal of Medicine had a scandal on their hands. They found that 18 doctors who wrote articles about drugs for their Journal had financial ties to the companies that made the drugs. The Journal was seriously concerned and wrote an editorial about it, and here is what they had to say. ``What is at issue is not whether researchers can be bought in the sense of a quid pro quo, it is that close and remunerative collaboration with a company naturally creates goodwill on the part of researchers and the hope that the largess will continue. This attitude can subtly influence scientific judgment.'' They were right. Conflicts of interest are a problem and we need to do something about it. My amendment would prohibit HHS from granting waivers to members of vaccine-related committees who have serious conflicts of interest. If the New England Journal of Medicine can do it, HHS can do it, and there should not be anything controversial about saying we want the best advice possible without conflicts of interest. Our children's health and well-being depend on fair and impartial judgment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment, because the gentleman from Oklahoma raised the issue of collusion. We have held hearings with the advisory panels of the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC that makes recommendations on vaccines, and we have found through our committee investigations that many of the people who are on these advisory committees that are making the decisions on what kind of vaccines our children are getting are being paid by the pharmaceutical companies that own large amounts of stock in the pharmaceutical companies. So I would just like to say that the collusion that the gentleman refers to is not limited to the price controls or price problems that he has been talking about here today. We believe that there are other problems that need to be addressed. So I think the gentleman is on the right track, and I support this amendment strongly.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, a publication entitled the Burning Punjab reported recently that another priest was murdered in India on Tuesday, June 6, 2000 by militant Hindu fundamentalist extremists. He was murdered in his mission near Mathura in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The priest, Brother George, was a 35-year-old member of the Borivili order. According to reports, the killers locked up Brother George's servant, broke into his room, and beat him to death. The assailants quickly escaped following the brutal attack. Because the crime seems to form a pattern with a previous incident in which a priest and two nuns were beaten in their rooms in Kosi Kalan, many people are beginning to believe that this act was the work of Hindu nationalist militants associated with a branch of the RSS, the parent organization of the ruling BJP. Several Christian organizations in India, including the All-India Catholic Union, the United Christian Forum of Human Rights, and the All-India Christian Council, have lodged strong protests about the incident with the government. They also condemned the attempt by the National Human Rights Commission to minimize two violent incidents against Christians in April. Unless the National Human Rights Commission begins taking these incidents seriously, it unfortunately will be regarded as a puppet for the government. Mr. Speaker, just recently I informed my colleagues that many people already believe that the March massacre of 35 Sikhs at Chatti Singhpora was the responsibility of government forces. In fact, two separate investigations have already implicated Indian government counterinsurgency forces in that brutal massacre. If we discover that these recent crimes have been committed by this group of BJP militants or government forces, India will have much explaining to do to this Congress. In fact, they should be held accountable for all their senseless actions. For years, I have been providing this Congress with reports that the Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984; 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947; more than 65,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988; and tens of thousands of Assamese, Manipuris, Tamils, and Dalits. As a result, I still believe we should cut off U.S. development aid to India until it respects the hurpan rights of its people. Also, if we are looking for terrorism in South Asia, why are we completely ignoring India? Finally, we should openly support self-determination for the people of Christian Nagaland, of Khalistan, of Kashmir, and all the other nations seeking their freedom from India. We must make it clear that oppression in India must end and all people in South Asia must enjoy freedom. This pattern of oppression of Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, and other minorities is not going to end until America, the only superpower in the world, takes a strong stand and makes it clear to India that these actions are not acceptable, especially in a country that claims to be democratic. I am placing the article from Burning Punjab into the Record. [From the Burning Punjab News, June 7, 2000] Catholic Priest Murdered in His Mission Home New Delhi--A Catholic priest was murdered in his mission home near Mathura in Uttar Pradesh last night, All-India Catholic Union (AICU) alleged here. Quoting information from Archbishop of Agra Diocese Vincent Concessao, AICU said in a statement that ``brother George, a 35-year-old member of the Borivili order, was found battered to death in Nevada in the Adviki post area on the Mathura bypass.'' The Union also alleged that though there were no indications about the motives, the crime seemed to follow the pattern of violence at Kosi Kalan earlier this year in which a priest and two nuns were assaulted and their rooms ransacked. ``Early information said some persons, still to be identified, entered the house, locked up the servant, and then entered George's room. They beat him up till he was dead and then escaped in the night,'' the statement said. Besides AICU, other church and human rights groups, including the United Christian Forum for Human Rights and the All-India Christian Council, lodged strong protests with the Government on the violence. The church groups also condemned the alleged attempt by the National Commission for Minorities, which sent a team to Mathura and Agra in April to probe the attacks on Christians, to ``trivialise'' the violence in its report.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 343 and 344, I was unavoidably detained and therefore unable to be present on the House floor during that time. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall vote 343 and ``aye'' on rollcall vote 344. Motion to Reconsider the Vote: Offered by Mr. Frank of Massachusetts

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, on the vote for H. Res. 528, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Larry Bird was a great player, but he is also a great coach. Mr. Speaker, let me get back to the focus of my short message tonight. That is that the Indiana Pacers for the first time in history are going to be playing in the finals of the NBA. They are going to be playing the overwhelming favorite, the Los Angeles Lakers and Shaquille O'Neil, that titan of a man who is so tough to defend. But I want to tell a little story. I had an opportunity to talk to Jack Nicholson, the outstanding movie star, about another issue on the phone. He has won several Academy Awards. Mr. Nicholson, the first time I called him was at a Lakers game and I mentioned it to him. He said, ``Yes, I go to all the Lakers games.'' And I said, ``You know, Mr. Nicholson, it is a shame that the Los Angeles Lakers are going to be playing the Indiana Pacers, because we are going to beat their tail.'' And here is what he said: ``Not in your life, Dan.'' I do not know if that imitation was very good. ``Not in your life, son.'' So all I want to say tonight to Mr. Nicholson, if he happens to be watching in California, Mr. Speaker, is, ``You do not know anything about Hoosier pride, because we are going to win. We are going to win. We are going to kick the tail of the Los Angeles Lakers.'' Go Pacers.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, for the first time in history of the NBA, the Indiana Pacers are going to be playing in the finals starting tonight. They are the Eastern Division champions and we are just so pleased in Indiana that that happened. The Indiana Pacers. Remember, they played the New York Knicks. They said it was the hicks versus the Knicks.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, we have not talked much about our national security. The Chinese have a $68 billion trade surplus; and after this agreement is signed, if it passes today and passes the Senate and is signed by the President, they are going to have more of a surplus, and that is more money with which to buy rope to hang us with. Let us look at what the Chinese have done and what they are doing. They stole our nuclear secrets. They are now capable, with our secrets they stole from the Los Alamos and Livermore Laboratories, they are able to build a mobile launch missile carrier, a rocket that can fire halfway around the world and can split into 10 parts with our W-88 warhead and hit 10 cities and kill over 50 million people, and we have no defense for it. We have been cutting our defense budget. They now have access to both ends of the Panama Canal, one of the things that is most important to our commerce. They are going to control the Panama Canal. Just yesterday we found out they are going to control part of the Suez Canal and probably all of it. They signed a 30-year agreement with Egypt to have Port Said controlled by them, in effect, because they are going to control the shipping port there. They are building the largest army in the world. They have the largest standing army in the world, and it is going to get bigger, and we are going to pay for it. We are going to pay for it, and all the while our defenses are being lowered and lowered. They threatened Los Angeles when we talked about coming to the aid of our ally, Taiwan. So they have threatened the United States in the not too distant pass. Yet we continue to say, Don't worry about that. They are stealing from us. They are stealing our secrets. They are an enemy of the free world. They threatened Taiwan, as well as the rest of that part of the world, and I think they are a threat to the entire world. Mr. Speaker, what are we doing about it? Instead of facing up to it and building our defenses to be prepared, we are doing exactly what happened prior to World War II. We unilaterally disarmed prior to World War II, and Winston Churchill warned about the future and the Nazis, and nobody paid any attention. What did they do? They gave more commerce to Germany, while Hitler built up his military. What are we doing? We are doing the same thing with China; and we ought to think about that. Long-term, what does it mean for America and our security?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. But there will be more.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, we talk about checks and balances. What kind of checks and balances will we have on China if they get permanent trade status? We have been reviewing them once a year and, because of that, they know that once a year we are going to vote on it and we can withdraw that favorable status that they have. They have 35 to 40 percent of our market. Thirty-five to 40 percent of their exports come to the United States. They are not going to cut off their nose to spite their face if we do not go along with them on this permanent trade status today. It means too much to them. What I want Members to do right now is to look back and see what has happened in China just recently and what they have been doing. They stole our nuclear secrets. They were involved in espionage at Los Alamos and Livermore Laboratories and they now have the ability to kill 50 million people in this country with one missile on a mobile launch vehicle with 10 W-88 warheads. They did not have that before. This just happened recently. Do my colleagues remember Tiananmen Square? I think the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) cited that very thoroughly and very well. There are 10 million people in slave labor camps making tennis shoes and other things for nothing but a bowl of gruel a day. And we talk about human rights. They are taking people who are alive in prisons and if you or I want a kidney and we are willing to go to China, for 30 to $35,000 they will take that person and they will kill him today, they will extricate their kidney, take it out of them, and they will immediately transplant it into you if you need it. If you have the money, you can go to China and get it. They will make a match, they will check your blood type and immediately you will get a kidney out of a live human being, guaranteed fresh. That goes on today. They have tried to influence our political process. We know that Liu Chao Ying met with Johnny Chung in Hong Kong and the head of the People's Liberation Army intelligence service, comparable to our CIA or DIA, Mr. Ji, came in and said, we like your President, we want to see him reelected and he gave $300,000 to them. Millions of dollars came in from that part of the world to try to influence our elections. Does that sound like they want to work with us? They now control or will control both ends of the Panama Canal. Li Ka Shing who is tied in with the People's Liberation Army and the Communist hierarchy in China now has ports at both ends of the Panama Canal and in the not too distant future they will be able to stop us from using it. Today we just found out the other canal in the world, the Suez Canal that is so important to all of us and to transportation of commerce, they now have the same organization headed by Li Ka Shing and the People's Liberation Army, they are going to have Port Said on the Suez Canal. They are moving around the world pieces of influence like chess pieces and they are going to checkmate us if we are not very careful and we are giving them the money and the influence to do it. Their trade surplus with us was $68 billion last year; and I submit if we pass this, it is going to be greater. Once American commerce goes over there and finds they can get labor for 50 cents an hour or less, you think they are going to want to pull out, especially if the human rights problems get worse and worse over there or they start trying to block our shipping if we do not do what they want? Of course not. We are getting pressure today by many business interests. What do you think it is going to be like when they start moving their plants over there and paying slave wages to people over there to produce goods and services? They are going to go along with whatever it takes because it means the almighty dollar. They are going to make money. All I can say to my colleagues is there are a million reasons not to approve this and only one to approve it. I submit that we should not approve it.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, real briefly let me just ask the gentleman this. Does he really believe after American industry invests plant and equipment and money over there that they are going to allow us to withdraw permanent trade status?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, after months of negotiations, an agreement was finally reached between the President of the United States and the Governor of Puerto Rico, with the full endorsement of the Department of Defense and Department of the Navy, which provides the best opportunity to resume essential live-fire training in Vieques. I, too, had concerns about the provisions expressed in the agreement and the precedent it could set. Yet, the unfortunate situation in Vieques is complicated by the fact that we are dealing with a territory that is neither a state nor an independent country, and that, as such, lacks the congressional representation that every State in the Union currently enjoys. I support Congressman Skelton's amendment to the FY 2001 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4205) after being assured by the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense, in a memorandum sent by the Deputy Chief of Legislative Affairs, that the Navy ``strongly supports Representative Skelton's proposed amendment as a substitute for the Vieques provisions of the bill.'' The Navy has already resumed inert bombing in Vieques; a vote for this amendment is a vote in support of the agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Administration.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow in Ankara, Turkey, Judge Ahmet Necdet Sezer will take the oath of office to become president of that vitally important Nation and its 65 million people. This is truly an historic moment. Judge Sezer is the first president of modern Turkey whose career has been spent neither in the military nor partisan politics. He is a distinguished career jurist who has served on Turkey's constitutional court for the past 12 years. Since 1998 he has been the President of the court, which is the equivalent of our Chief Justice. Judge Sezer, now President Sezer, has been an outspoken advocate for modernizing Turkey's legal system, for liberalizing the country's constitution, for reforming their laws regarding freedom of expression and dissent, and for providing equal protection for the rights of all Turkish citizens, including the Kurdish minority. The election of a reformist president in Turkey comes at an extraordinarily opportune moment. It was just 1 year ago that a parliamentary election was held which brought to power a coalition government that pledged itself to enacting major political and economic reforms. Mr. Speaker, it must be noted emphatically that the government of Turkey has compiled a remarkable record over this past year. It is a record that defies the skepticism of critics and exceeds the hopes of friends. The Turkish parliament, known as the Grand National Assembly, has passed 69 major initiatives, including constitutional amendments, that hold great promise for the future development of Turkey. Among the more important legislative changes that have been enacted are reforms to the social security system which will plug holes that had been wasting as much as 3 percent of Turkey's gross national product, strict limits on agricultural subsidies, a restructuring of the banking system, and a modernization of the entire budget process so as to control public spending and reduce deficits. In a series of overwhelming votes that the Wall Street Journal in August of 1999 has characterized as ``crossing an ideological watershed and a revolutionary change,'' Turkey's parliament enacted three constitutional amendments to open up the country to foreign investment, including international arbitration will be allowed on disputes between Turkey and foreign investors, administrative review of government contracts with foreign investors will be streamlined, and the state will formally recognize the privatization of public assets. On the political front, the Grand National Assembly has adopted legislation to provide political parties with protection against prosecution, toughen the sentences for convictions of such crimes as obstruction of justice and violations of human rights, extend the constitutional amnesty to Kurdish insurgents who have been trying to establish a separate country, and prohibit military judges from serving in cases that come before the state security court. All of these moves and many others that I have not even mentioned were rewarded last December when the European Union accepted Turkey as a candidate for membership and the International Monetary Fund approved a 3-year $4 billion loan program to help the Turkish government fight inflation. With an ambitious privatization program now being implemented and with the government exerting fiscal discipline, Turkey is already ahead of the IMF schedule for both revenue growth and reduction of inflation. All of this is not to say, Mr. Speaker, that Turkey is without challenges, but it is to say that Turkey has turned a decisive page in its history. Mr. Speaker, I believe the government of Turkey will continue along the path of reform that it has staked out. There will be critics, of course, but the salient question is simply this: Looking at the explosive region in which Turkey finds itself, how many other countries in that part of the world would America rather rely upon? Turkey has been a faithful friend and trusted ally of the United States for nearly 50 years, and has been essential to the support of America's strategic regional interests. They have been a great and vital ally in NATO. In a region where most countries are racing to produce nuclear weapons and other tools of mass destruction, Turkey has repeatedly and publicly foresworn the nuclear option. Turkey is not looking to dominate its neighbors, it is interested only in being a good partner and a force for stability in a region that has known too much instability. It is my strong belief that America should give Turkey our unswerving support in the future.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall No. 166. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.'' Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 152 and rollcall No. 153, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been here I would have voted ``yea'' on both.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4040, the ``Long Term Care Security Act.'' The Government Reform Committee, in particular the Civil Service Subcommittee chaired by Congressman Joe Scarborough worked in a bipartisan manner to bring forward this legislation. The bill will allow all federal employees, retirees, active duty and retired members of the Uniformed Services, as well as their qualified relatives to purchase long term care insurance. By offering the program through the federal government, we can provide long term care options at affordable rates. The Civil Service Subcommittee held several hearings on long term care. We found that as Americans have begun to live much longer, the number of individuals needing long term care is on the rise. As the baby boomers are reaching retirement age, we will only see our elderly population increase. As a result, the need for long term care will continue to grow. The cost of long term care, whether in a professional facility or at home presently exceeds $45,000 a year. What many people do not realize is that their health plans, disability insurance, or even Medicare will not cover these costs. Unfortunately, many find out that they are not covered when it is too late--when a family member suddenly needs that care. Our Committee has heard from people who have depleted their entire life savings caring for a loved one. A family's assets are sometimes just not enough. Without the proper insurance, the vast majority of families is unprepared for the burden of long term care. Through our hearings, we found that for many, the best way to maintain retirement security is to purchase long term care insurance. I am pleased that our Committee was able to work together in a bipartisan manner to bring that security to our federal workforce and Uniformed Services. Mr. Scarborough, along with Mrs. Morella and Mr. Cummings, worked very hard to ensure that the long term care bill took into account everyone's concerns. We wanted to ensure that there would be open competition in the contracting process in order to achieve the best rates. H.R. 4040 is a strong consensus bill which the Committee believed would provide the framework for a strong long term care plan. Under the legislation, the Office of Personnel Management would be able to negotiate with the insurers for the best plans with the most options while keeping premiums affordable for all federal employees.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, for several years now the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the chairman of the Committee on International Operations and Human Rights, and I, as chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, and the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) and the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Mica) and a number of others have been working trying to get helicopters and other equipment down to the Colombian National Police and the military in Colombia so they can adequately defend that country against the FARC guerillas, who are, and I hope my colleagues will get this, are getting as much as $100 million a month from the drug cartel. That is a billion dollars a year. Now, what happens if we do not do anything? What happens if we do not do what the President has suggested? And the President is a late-comer to this fight. I am very happy that he is on board with this $1.3 billion, but it is coming rather late. What happens if that money does not get down there? The FARC guerillas who have been trained by the Cubans, who are Marxist oriented, they may very well take over that country. We may have a narcoguerilla government running Colombia. There will be no impediment to the heroin and the cocaine coming out of that country into the United States. Ninety percent of the cocaine coming into America comes from Colombia. Sixty-five percent of the heroin coming into the United States comes from Colombia. One out of seven people, according to officials in Baltimore, are heroin addicts. We have an absolute epidemic. Yes, we need to deal with education and rehabilitation and a lot of other things. But we have got to go to the source and take on these guerillas who are being supported by the drug dealers down there, the drug cartels, because if we do not, they are going to have a sanctuary from which we will not be able to do anything to them. Now, my feeling is that the problem may get so big if we do not deal with it right now that we will be forced to send American troops in there to deal with it. I do not want that to happen. I do not want American young men and women fighting in the jungles of Colombia with the drug cartel and the drug guerillas. That could very well happen. They now have 20 to 30,000 people in that army. Many of those people, those combatants have been forced into being involved, and they are going to have more because of the tremendous amounts of money that they are getting from the drug cartel. Let me just tell my colleagues what they are doing. The day before yesterday, there was a police outpost in Vigia del Fuerte. I hope my colleagues on the minority side will get this. For 36 hours they held off the FARC guerillas who attacked them. After 36 hours, after the Colombian National Police ran out of ammunition, they came in and they hacked them to death, 26 people, with machetes; they castrated the men; they chopped off the heads of the mayor and the head of the Colombian National Police there; they put them on spikes in the middle of the town as a warning to anybody that gets in the way of the FARC guerillas down there. The people are terrified of the FARC guerillas. As a result, a lot of people, including people in the Colombian National Police and the military, are scared to death of them. They know if they are captured, they are going to be chopped into pieces. They took one man who was in the Colombian National Police, they hacked his wife and child to death in front of him and then they tortured him to death. These are the kind of people we are dealing with. Either we give the Colombian government and the Colombian National Police and the Colombian military the wherewithal to fight these people or they are going to take over that country in all probability. If that happens, what do we do? Do we let them flood this country with heroin and cocaine with impunity because we know how porous our borders are? No, I think what will happen then is we will have to get directly involved militarily, and that is something none of us wants. There is an old commercial in Indianapolis that shows a guy with a Fram oil filter saying, ``You can pay me now or you can pay me later.'' The implication is that if you do not use a Fram oil filter, and this is not a commercial, that the engine is going to go bad on you and you are going to have to buy a whole new engine. I am saying to my colleagues today, we can either deal with the problem today as the President has now seen fit to do and give them this $1.3 billion or we can wait around another 4 or 5 years until the matter gets so bad that we have to send our lifeblood down there to fight these guerillas. I think it is better to do it now. It is the prudent thing to do. I urge my colleagues, not because the gentlewoman from California does not have a good heart and not because she is not making some sense but this is the time to send the money to Colombia to fight the guerillas and also to do the other things that need to be done as the time goes by, but fight the guerillas now, defeat them as they have in Peru and Bolivia and to make absolutely sure that we do not have to send our young people down there in the future. Mr. Chairman, I include the following material for the Record: U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, March 28, 2000. Re Support Assistance to Colombia Dear Colleague: I am writing to urge your support for the Administration's proposed assistance package for Colombia in the Supplemental Appropriations bill. Colombia's President Pastrana has taken bold action in his effort to deal with the country's drug production and its civil conflict. He has requested the assistance and the Administration has proposed that we provide it. President Pastrana is a friend of the U.S., he is taking action to our country's benefit, and we should provide that aid. Helping Colombia is in our fundamental national interest. The scourge of drugs is tearing at the fabric of our society, and Colombia is ground zero in the fight against drugs: More than 80% of the cocaine and much of the heroin that arrives on our shores comes from or through Colombia. Colombia is also a key regional state. It borders five other South and Central American countries, whose 40 million citizens face serious social, economic, and national security challenges. With Plan Colombia, President Pastrana has proposed a bold agenda for addressing his country's inter-related challenges of drug-trafficking, weak state institutions and a faltering economy. The Government of Colombia estimates that $7.8 billion will be needed over the next three years to reverse the country's role as the hemisphere hub for drugs, rebuild its economy, and strengthen its democratic institutions. The government had committed $4.5 billion to the Plan--including $900 million in credits from international financial institutions--and President Pastrana is asking the international community for $3.3 billion in foreign assistance, of which the Administration has proposed that we provide $1.6 billion. The Administration's initiative is a balanced and integrated approach that will help Colombia fight the drug trade, foster peace, institute judicial reform, promote the rule of law, improve human rights, assist the internally displaced, and expand economic development. I know that some Members have reservations about human rights conditions in Colombia, and I have been critical of Colombia's human rights record. But this package is geared to improve the conditions that have led to poor human rights. For example, all assistance that is provided to Colombia's forces will go to fully-vetted units. The military units trained by the United States will not clash with insurgents or para-militaries, unless these elements directly support illicit drug cultivation and production. Indeed, the cornerstone of President Pastrana's administration is the search for a negotiated peace with Colombia's various insurgent groups. I welcome the Administration's statements that Colombia's insurgency problem must ultimately be resolved through negotiation, and not military action, and this view will guide the United States approach to implementing this assistance package. To help stanch the flow of drugs to the U.S., to help a key neighbor and to help preserve stability in our hemisphere, I urge you to join me in supporting the Colombia assistance package. Most Cordially, Tom Lantos, Member of Congress.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, back in 1993 I met a gentleman named Binh Ly. And Mr. Ly told me and other Congressmen that he had a business partner, Mr. Nguyen Van Hao, who met with former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown to seek his help in normalizing relations with Vietnam. Mr. Ly said that Mr. Hao who met with Ron Brown three or four times told him that Ron Brown wanted $700,000 in up-front money to start the normalization process with Vietnam. Mr. Brown said initially that he never met with Mr. Hoa, but later, it was found out that he did indeed meet with him three times. The FBI, on October 2 of 1992, was reported in the New York Times to have discovered evidence that the Vietnamese government was preparing to establish a special bank account in Singapore, and the evidence was in the form of a large transfer of an undisclosed sum of money or a transfer of undisclosed sum of money between the East Asian banks. The interesting thing about this is that Mr. Ly told us before we found out about that that there was going to be $700,000 transferred to the Banque Indosuez in Singapore for Mr. Brown from the Vietnamese government. Now, the reason I bring this up is we had hearing on this, and Mr. Brown was investigated. Unfortunately, Mr. Brown died in a plane crash over in the former Yugoslav a few years ago, but the fact of the matter is, Mr. Ly made this statement, and the normalization process then did go forward. The administration said that the reason the normalization process was going forward was we wanted to heal old wounds and that the Vietnamese government had agreed that they would give us a full accounting of the 2,300 POW-MIAs that were still missing and unaccounted for in Vietnam while we normalize relations with Vietnam. And we have received a few reports on the POW-MIAs that were unreported up until the normalization took place, but the process went forward. And we normalized relations. Mr. Speaker, now, here we are 7 years later in the year 2000, and we still have 2,023 POW-MIAs unaccounted for. Every President up until this administration had said that we would never start the normalization process until we had a full accounting of our POW-MIAs. There is a lot of families in this country that still wonder what happened to their husbands, their fathers, their sons that do not know and may never know what happened to them because the Vietnamese government has not lived up to the commitment that they made. Many people believe to this day that the reason the normalization process took place was because of the potential money being given to Ron Brown and others in the government as a payoff to start the process. Others believed that the administration really did want to get a complete accounting of the POW-MIAs and they believed the Vietnamese government when they said they would give us a complete accounting. Here we are 7 years later, and we have had an accounting of maybe 200 out of the 2,300 that were missing and are still missing and unaccounted for. The reason I come to the floor tonight is because I am very concerned about something that is taking place as we speak. The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Mr. Cohen, has gone to Vietnam. And he is meeting with Vietnamese leaders to talk about the POW-MIA issue and to show good faith on the part of the United States Government in the peaceful agreements that have been made by this administration with the Vietnamese government. The thing that concerns me is that our Secretary of Defense has gone over there at almost exactly 25 years to the day that we have seen our troops pull out of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. That really bothers me. They are celebrating in Vietnam. They are taking our Secretary of Defense around to war memorials showing where their valiant airmen shot down our young Americans who were killed, and they are celebrating their victory over the United States 25 years after the fall of Saigon. Our Secretary of Defense is over there during this celebration. To me, as an American, it seems unseemly. And I think a lot of Americans, especially those who served in Vietnam or who had loved ones that died and are still unaccounted for in Vietnam, would feel the same way. Mr. Speaker, I just say to this administration and to the Secretary of Defense, if he wanted to go to Vietnam to talk to them about the POW-MIA issue, if he wanted to go to Vietnam to tell them how important their relationship with us is, then why in the world did he do it during their celebrations of the defeat of the United States and Vietnam? It makes no sense to me. It rubs me the wrong way. I hope that the Secretary of Defense and others in the administration hear what we had to say. He should have done it at a different time.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, we have no more speakers on our side, and I yield back the balance of my time.