Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, one problem with this debate is some of my colleagues come to the floor and make these points. Frankly, there does need to be a response. My good friend from Arkansas says that what will happen with this OSHA rule, dealing with repetitive stress injury, is it will do severe damage to workers comp laws in our States. There are some 12 attorneys general who have said in no way-- including one who testified in our subcommittee--will that happen, including the attorney general from Arkansas who has said this will not impact workers compensation laws. Then my colleagues say, this is a rush, they are rushing to promulgate a rule. It was Elizabeth Dole who, as Secretary of Labor, first pointed out that we needed to have an ergonomics rule because of the injuries taking place. My colleagues believe that this is a rush, though we have 600,000 workers every year who are severely injured. I say to Senators, it is surprising to me when there is so much pain, when so many workers are injured, when they can no longer work, when they cannot sleep at night, when it has damaged families, when so many of the workers are women, that my colleagues don't want OSHA to do its job. The mission of OSHA is to protect workers. I am proud of the fact that OSHA is trying to promulgate this rule. I view this amendment as being nothing but blatant, political interference against this agency doing exactly the job it ought to do. The same Senators who say OSHA is rushing after 10 years to promulgate a rule to protect workers, to have a safer workplace, they also believe we are rushing tonight to provide prescription drug benefits for senior citizens. Where have Senators been? On another planet? In Minnesota, 65 percent of senior citizens have no prescription drug coverage. It is an important issue to their lives, their children, and their grandchildren. Do I need to come to the floor and tell Members about people who are paying 50 or 60 percent of their monthly budget because of prescription drug costs? And then Members come on the floor and say: It is not time; we are rushing; we better not support this legislation. I don't know when Members think the time will come. I think the time has come. I think Democrats think the time has come. I agree with my colleague, Senator Durbin, this is a values debate. This is about where we stand. As a Senator from Minnesota, I stand with working people. I stand for a safer workplace. And I certainly stand for trying to help senior citizens meet prescription drug costs so they are able to get the prescription drugs that are so essential for their health. I need not say anything else. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I got a last-minute call from the Budget Committee, and we may have to work this amendment out. I will wait about 5 minutes before I offer the amendment. I am waiting for some last-minute wording. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, no, it is not. This amendment leaves several hundred million dollars out of the $900 million that would go to the southern Colombia military campaign. I will talk about the military and the right-wing violence groups and go through State Department reports and human rights reports about this. But in no way, shape, or form does this amendment say that.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, since there are a lot of Senators here on the other side, I will take 2 minutes to respond to the Senator from Ohio.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased for it to be on my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from California.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. WELLSTONE. For my colleague from California, just so she knows, the particular program we are talking about, which is the block grant, the SAMHSA block grant program to our States and communities for treatment programs, is $1.6 billion. My colleague's figure lumps everything and anything together.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am talking about direct treatment out in the community. When 80 percent of the adolescents in this country get no treatment whatsoever, and 60 percent of the adults get no treatment whatsoever, it is hard to come out on the floor and say we have already made this tremendous commitment, there is no reason to talk about some additional resources.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Does my colleague need more time?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield my colleague an additional 10 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I know the Senator from Georgia is here. I just want to thank the Senator from California.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I remind my colleagues that the amendment I have introduced with Senator Boxer takes nothing away from interdiction. It does not take away from this package. We are focused on the support for the military in the southern part of Colombia. That is what this is about. This is an amendment that would transfer $225 million from aid to the Colombian military for the push into southern Colombia into domestic drug treatment programs. It is that simple. It is not about not providing assistance to Colombia. It is not about not focusing on interdiction. A number of different questions have been raised. To respond to some of what has been said, I will respond to the comments of my friend from Delaware. It is important to note that right now in our country, according to ONDCP--General McCaffrey and others have talked about this quite a bit--there are about 5 million people in need of treatment and only about 2 million receive it, private or public. That means about 3 million people, more than half of the people who need treatment, don't get any at all. Why aren't we dealing with the demand side? We have a bill out here, almost a billion dollars, and the majority leader comes to the floor and says this is all about the war on drugs. I am saying, how about a little bit that focuses on the demand side in our country. Let us have some funding for drug treatment programs for people in the United States. Yes, we have some money in the budget, but it is vastly underfunded. The 2000 budget for SAMHSA altogether is $1.6 billion. This is the block grant money that goes to drug treatment. The States, which are down in the trenches using a different methodology, report that close to 19 million people in our country are going without any treatment. The ONDCP estimates, moreover, that 80 percent of the adolescents in our country who are struggling with this problem are getting no treatment at all. For women who are struggling with substance abuse problems, 60 percent of them get no treatment at all. In some regions of the country, the waiting list for treatment is 6 months long or longer. The overall cost to our country for elicit drug use is about $110 billion a year, according to the ONDCP. Right now we are spending $1.6 billion on a block grant program that gets money down to the communities for treatment. If anybody thinks this is just an inner-city problem, consider a COSA report entitled ``No Place to Hide,'' which showed that drug use, drinking and smoking among young teens, is higher in rural America than our Nation's urban centers. According to this report, eighth graders, 13- year-old children in rural America, are 50 percent more likely to use cocaine than those in urban areas--I remember when I heard Joe Califano say this; I was stunned--and 104 percent more likely to use amphetamines, including methenamine. Drug treatment is needed to treat addiction and to end the demand for drugs. This is not just an urban problem. We are talking about taking $225 million out of this almost-billion- dollar package for Colombia. We are saying, cannot any of this be put into treatment, if this is going to be called the war on drugs legislation, as the majority leader identified it. I think we have had a different debate on the floor. What I am saying as a Senator from Minnesota is, can't we take some portion of that and deal with the demand side? Can't we put some money into the war on drugs in our own country? If 80 percent of the adolescents aren't receiving any treatment and need some help, can't we get some help to them? This amendment is supported by Legal Action Center, National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Partnership for Recovery, and State Association of Addiction Services. Again, I say to my colleagues, this amendment, when all is said and done, is basically saying to Senators that we can provide assistance to Colombia, and we should. We should provide extensive assistance, including interdiction, but at the same time we ought to avoid entanglement in a decades-old civil conflict and we ought to avoid partnership with an army implicated in severe human rights abuses. Moreover, I am saying we can take at least a small portion of the resources and put it where it will do the most good, and that is in providing funding for drug treatment programs at home. I just want to echo the words of my colleague from California. It is quite incredible to me that we can find the money for the war on drugs--close to a billion dollars--for Colombia, but we can't take $225 million and put it into community-based treatment programs in the war on drugs in our own country. Moreover, we have in this legislation--and I think in particular this may interest the Chair--a shift via a 7-to-1 ratio from money for police to military. This is particularly worrisome because, right now, one human rights organization after another--and we have our own State Department report on violations of human rights abuses by paramilitary groups. It points out that we have a country where civilians make up 70 percent of the casualties in that horrible war, and paramilitary groups linked to the army commit over 75 percent of the abuses. I say to my colleagues, again, President Pastrana has made the political decision that he wants to conduct a military campaign in the southern part of the state. All of a sudden, this debate has shifted because Senators have come out here and have said: Yes, Senator Wellstone, we are taking sides and we should take sides. If President Pastrana says he needs money from us to support his military in this counterinsurgency effort in the southern part of Colombia with U.S. supporters on the ground with them, and if we don't stop this in Colombia, then, God forbid, for the whole future of South or Central America--I have heard this before--at least let's have this debate out in the open. I know this is a debate about a war on drugs, in which case I would say, yes, yes, yes. I would say, we have in this package support for the Colombian Government, but if we are going to have a war on drugs, do it in our country and deal with the demand side and put more into community treatment programs. I think we win that argument. I am sure the vast majority of people in Minnesota agree. If you are going to spend money on the war on drugs, put some money into our own country. We have a package out here that basically says, for the first time, we are going to be directly aligned with the military campaign in Colombia, in the southern part of Colombia. I have some very real doubts that militarizing this conflict is going to somehow be a successful war against drugs. Moreover, as I have said earlier, I have some very real doubts, which are expressed by human rights organizations and religious organizations and a whole lot of people in our country and in Colombia, that we should be taking sides and we should be supporting a military which, as recently as this year, has been unwilling to change its practice and stands accused by all of the reputable human rights organizations of human rights violations. Do we want to align ourselves with this military, with these paramilitary groups that have committed such terrorism against civilians and are responsible for most of the violence in that country? I have not a shred of sympathy or support for the guerrillas, the left- wing, the right-wing, any of them. The question is, If it is a war against drugs, don't we want to put some money into the war against drugs here? Other than that, do we want to take sides in this military conflict? That is what my colleagues have been talking about today, and they say we have to. They say that if we do, we will be able to--we have language in this legislation that will safeguard against human rights violations by the military, that we will be able to invest this money in the military operation in southern Colombia and make sure everything will be above board. Frankly, I think that is problematic at best. I am not sure people in Colombia or in the United States have the faintest idea what we are about to do. We haven't been able to stop any of these human rights abuses over the years. But now, all of a sudden, we are going to be right in the middle of this and take sides, and we are going to be aligned with this military campaign in southern Colombia, and we say we are going to vet it and make sure there aren't any human rights violations. Never mind that all the human rights organizations on the ground say that will not work and the religious community says it is a profound mistake; that all sorts of government organizations in Colombia with a tremendous amount of credibility say, don't do this; don't align yourselves with this military campaign in southern Colombia. We are being told, no problem; we can vet this now. I also want to say to my colleagues I don't think we have taken these human rights abuses, either directly by the military or the military assigned with these paramilitary groups, very seriously. Again, that is a declaration from social and human rights nongovernment organizations in Colombia; there must be 45, 50 organizations, or more. We just disregard them. They are saying, yes, interdiction, give us the package. But they are saying don't align yourselves with this military, with such a horrendous, horrific record of violence, murder, violation of human rights--alignment with the worst of the atrocities that have been committed Colombia--just as we don't want to side with the left- wing guerrillas. Why are we now taking sides? Again, some of my colleagues come out here and say this amendment is basically taking away assistance to Colombia. It is not. Senator Boxer did a great job on that point. We can take a couple hundred million dollars and put it into the war on drugs in our own country. We deal with the demand side. It is so naive to believe that all of what we see in our inner cities and our rural areas and suburbs, all of the addiction, all of the substance abuse which destroys people's lives--it is so naive to believe that if we now put money into a military campaign in southern Colombia, this is the way to fight a successful war on drugs. We have been down this road forever and ever and ever and ever. When are we going to get serious about dealing with the demand for drugs in our own country and the treatment programs? I don't know. My colleagues just sort of give the human rights question the back of the hand in this debate. I have here the annual Human Rights Watch Report World 2000--I will read it again--talking about the paramilitary killers and how stark they are in their savagery, and all the ways in which the military has turned a blind eye to it, and sometimes it is connected to these groups. And now we want to put several hundred million dollars into supporting this military directly in a campaign in southern Colombia with some of our people on the ground with them? I have to be concerned about the path we are taking. I am not going to bore my colleagues with the statistics. Let me ask the Chair how much time I have.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this amendment is a sensible approach which permits extensive assistance to Colombia while safeguarding U.S. interests and avoiding entanglement in a decades-old civil conflict and partnership with an army implicated in serious human rights abuses. Moreover, it moves resources to where they will do the most good; that is, providing funding for drug treatment programs at home. In my State of Minnesota, according to the Department of Human Services, there are 21,277 people who have requested treatment for substance abuse and have not been able to receive it. An additional 4,000 received some treatment but then were denied further treatment because resources weren't available. Most cited lack of funds to pay for the treatment, or they were put on a long waiting list when they needed the treatment the most. Others said treatment services were not appropriate for their needs--women with children, people with transportation problems, people who were trying to find jobs and needed treatment. This amendment calls for some balance. When we started this debate several hours ago, the majority leader came out on the floor and in a very heartfelt way said this is about the war on drugs; this is about what is going on in Colombia and the ways in which that country is exporting their drugs to this country; they are killing our children. If it is about the war on drugs, then let's make it balanced. Let's support efforts to have a war on drugs in Colombia. But let's also support the war on drugs in our own country. Some of this money ought to be put in treatment programs. It is absolutely naive to believe we are going to be able to deal with the substance abuse problem in our country without dealing with the demand side. It is shameful that we have so little for the prevention and the treatment programs. This amendment takes just a little over $200 million and puts it into community-based treatment programs. I doubt whether there is a Senator, Democrat or Republican, who either does not know a friend or even a family member who struggles with alcoholism or drug abuse. We ought to be doing a much better job of getting the treatment to people. This war on drugs is focused on interdiction. It is focused on a military solution in Colombia. I argue that it is one-sided. I would argue it is naive. Second, I have today read from about five different human rights organizations' studies, human rights organizations that I believe command tremendous respect, I hope, from all of us. I read excerpts from the State Department report of this past year. I read a letter signed by 70 nongovernment organization, human rights organizations, and people who were down in the trenches in Colombia. They all said it would be a tragic mistake for our Government to now move away from supporting police, supporting interdiction, supporting a lot of efforts in Colombia, and shift a considerable amount of money to a direct military campaign in southern Colombia--a military aligned with paramilitary groups and organizations that have committed most of the violence in the country, a military with a deplorable human rights record. It would be a tragic mistake for us now to become directly involved in this civil war. It would be a tragic mistake for our Government to support this military with Americans on the ground with them in southern Colombia. What are we getting into? I conclude this way: I do not agree with some of my colleagues who have said that if we don't do this, it is the end for Colombia, and watch out for all of South America and Central America. I have heard that kind of argument before. It is eerie to me. It has an eerie sound to me. I do not agree that we should take sides in this military conflict. Instead, I think we should be providing all of the support we can to President Pastrana in his good-faith effort to deal with drugs in this country, to build democratic institutions, and to have economic development. I do not believe we should turn a blind eye away from the blatant human rights violations of the military. I think it is extremely one-sided to ``fight a war on drugs'' which won't work, which will militarize our foreign assistance to Colombia, which will have our country directly involved in this military conflict, away from at least providing a small amount of money for community-based treatment programs. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. I sent this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Boxer. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to. We are working on this final wording because we are trying to figure whether to do this out of emergency designation or whether we can do this in a different way. What this amendment says is that we absolutely are committed to institutional building in Colombia; we are committed to helping out in every way, shape, or form, including interdiction and police action. There are very serious concerns that have been raised by a whole range of religious groups. I have a list of hundreds of nongovernment organizations in Colombia, but a particular portion, $225 million, would go to this one military campaign in southern Colombia. This money instead would say--and this follows up on what General McCaffrey and others have said, which is that we also need to deal not just with interdiction but also the demand side in this country. I say to the majority leader, I am going to be presenting compelling evidence about the huge gap in the number of people who are not getting any treatment. We have to figure out a way to cut down on the demand side in our country so we will provide money for prevention and treatment programs in this country.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, I appreciate his comments and I did not want to interrupt him while he was speaking. I will, in as thoughtful a way as possible, respond to some of his comments. I don't think there is any question that we need to deal with narcoterrorists. I don't really believe that is the issue. I will take time to develop this. My colleague from New York wanted to speak. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to follow the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, we are working on the final version of the amendment, but I will outline for colleagues what this amendment is about. I will send the amendment to the desk in a short while. This amendment would essentially transfer $225 million--as I said to the majority leader, this is by no means an amendment that says we don't supply assistance to Colombia--from the Colombian military for purposes of the push into southern Colombia to the domestic drug treatment programs. Specifically, this amendment would transfer funds to the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant program to provide--I will marshal evidence to colleagues--desperately needed funds for State and local community-based programs and for drug treatment programs within a variety of different facilities, such as correctional facilities and other facilities in the country. By the way, part of the argument that I present today is that we deal with this drug problem for sure, but there is a considerable amount of evidence that we don't want to all of a sudden militarize this whole package, especially with the record of the military in Colombia. Moreover, we want to deal with the demand side in our country. By the way, I am sure the vast majority of people in the United States of America agree. This amendment leaves substantial assistance for the Colombian Government and civil society, including all sorts of alternative development programs such as judicial reform and human rights programs. I want to make this clear, given some of the comments of the majority leader. It also leaves extensive funding for interdiction, investigating, and prosecuting drug trafficking and money laundering, and for the counternarcotics effort of the Colombian national police, as well as for other counternarcotics programs in other Latin American countries. It doesn't cut 1 cent from any of that. I want colleagues to know what they are voting on. It simply removes and transfers to more effective domestic use the resources in this particular bill destined for the Colombian Army's push into southern Colombia. Since 1989, virtually all U.S. assistance to Colombia has officially been intended to fight illicit drug production and trafficking. The majority leader comes to the floor and speaks as if we have not been making this effort. But what is sold as a war on drugs to the Congress and the American public is far more complex. This is where I dissent from the majority leader. This is much more complex than just a war dealing with drug production and trafficking. Colombia today is embroiled in the hemisphere's largest and longest civil war with the military increasingly linked to paramilitary death squads. The majority leader says this is just a matter of whether or not we are serious about the war on drugs. That is not what this amendment deals with. I am serious about the war on drugs. I am serious about interdiction. I am serious about getting the assistance to Colombia for that. But when the majority leader says: I am concerned about human rights, he then quickly brushes this aside. We need to understand that there is a civil war in Colombia. There is a military link to paramilitary death squads with massive corruption and widespread human rights atrocities. The rebel insurgency has also expanded throughout large sections of the country, and innocent civilians have been killed by these rebels as well. Colombia now has the third largest internally displaced population in the world. Before I go any further, since we are now by a 7-to-1 ratio going to change our assistance from police to military--that is what worries me with American advisers--let me talk about the military. Let me, first of all, quote from the 1999 country reports on human rights practices released by the U.S. Department of State, February 25, 2000. Paramilitary groups and guerrillas attack at increasing levels unarmed civilians expected of loyalty to an opposing party in the country. Government forces continue to commit numerous serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings, at a level that was roughly similar to that of 1998. Despite some prosecutions and convictions, the authorities rarely brought officers of the security forces and the police charged with human rights offenses to justice, and impunity remains a problem. At times, the security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses. Paramilitary groups and guerrillas were responsible for the vast majority of political and extrajudicial killings during the year. Throughout the country, paramilitary groups killed, tortured, and threatened civilians suspected of sympathizing with guerrillas with an orchestrated campaign of terrorizing them into fleeing their homes thereby depriving guerrillas of civilian support. This report goes on. It basically says you have the military directly linked to these paramilitary groups which have committed widespread abuses of human rights and which have murdered innocent civilians. I am all for interdiction. But I have to raise some questions about what we are doing all of a sudden in this package by dramatically changing the ratio of our support and giving much more to the military linked to these death squads. I don't think that is what our country is about. Moreover, I don't believe the militarization of this package will work. I will get to that in a moment. The majority leader says he is concerned about human rights. He said it in a word or two. But I would like to spend a little bit more time on this. ``Human Rights Watch World Report 2000,'' in Colombia, Paramilitary groups working in some areas with the tolerance and open support of the armed forces continue to massacre civilians, commit selected killings and special terror. Democratic Senators and Republican Senators, now we are going to give this military, given this record, a massive infusion of money for a campaign in southern Colombia with American advisers with them. Let me quote again from the ``Human Rights Watch World Report 2000.'' That is this year. Paramilitary groups working in some areas with the tolerance and open support of the armed forces continue to massacre civilians, commit selected killings and special terror. I argue that we should take this seriously. Amnesty International, May 3, 2000: Jesus Ramiro Zapata, human rights defender, was abducted and killed in Segovia, department of Antioquia. Several days earlier he reported that members of paramilitary groups had inquired into his whereabouts eight times in the latter part of April. On the 3rd of April, 500 paramilitaries reportedly entered the municipalities of Segovia and Remedios, setting up camp in Otu. The large number of Colombian National Army 4th Brigade troops stationed in the area did nothing to confront the illegal paramilitary group. That is a report from Amnesty International. I could go on. The armed forces, the military that we are now going to provide money to with American advisers watching and standing by idly as paramilitary groups violate human rights, abduct innocent people and murder them, and we are going to be providing all of this support for this military? Colleagues, if there had been some evidence over the last couple of years that there has been a change, that would be a different story. This is a letter from a number of different religious organizations in the United States of America. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all of these documents be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. They are opposed to this aid package for the push into southern Colombia, again with the same concern about the basic violation of human rights and the close connection between the armed services and these paramilitary terrorist organizations. Mr. President, I also have here a document which is from Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations and the Peace Movement In Colombia. I ask unanimous consent this be printed in the Record. There being no objection the material was ordered to be printed in

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will quote one section: In this same vein, because we feel it is a mistake-- They are talking about this package-- we are obliged to reject the fact that Plan Colombia includes as one of its strategies, a military component that not only fails to resolve the narcotrafficking problem-- I say to the majority leader and others, ``that fails to resolve this problem,'' but that is what we want to do, is resolve the problem-- but also endangers the efforts to build peace, increases illicit crop production, violates the Amazonic ecosystem, aggravates the humanitarian and human rights crisis, multiplies the problem of forced displacement, and worsens the social crisis with fiscal adjustment policies. It is from a variety of about 70 nongovernment organizations, including religious organizations as well, in the country of Colombia. They are saying don't do this. Provide the assistance; we need it. Let's get it to the civic-building organizations, get it to the police, get it to some of the interdiction efforts, get it to some other economic development efforts. But don't put the money into the military for this campaign, given the military's record of torture, murder, and widespread violation of human rights. In short, continuing to pursue our current Colombia counterinsurgency policy, cloaked under the veil of antinarcotics efforts--that is not what this is about. This is not about an antinarcotics effort. That is not what the vote is about. The vote is about whether or not you are going to put money into this military anti-insurgency effort. It risks drawing us into a terrible quagmire. History has repeatedly shown, especially in Latin America--just think of Nicaragua or El Salvador-- that the practical effect of this strategy now under consideration is to militarize, to escalate the conflict, not to end it. That is, I think, the flaw in this package. The call by the administration for a massive increase in counternarcotics assistance for Colombia this year puts the United States at a crossroads. Do we back a major escalation in military aid to Colombia that may worsen a civil war that has already raged for decades or do we pursue a more effective policy of stabilizing Colombia by promoting sustainable development, strengthening civilian democratic institutions, and attacking the drug market by investing in prevention and treatment at home--the demand side of the equation, right here in our own country? The decision to fund the Colombian Army's push into southern Colombia is an enormous policy shift. It represents a 7-to-1 shift in funding from the Colombian police to the army. General McCaffrey says the purpose of Plan Colombia is to help the Colombian Army recover the southern part of the country now under guerrilla control. But honestly, if the purpose of this military aid is to stop drug trafficking, should some of that aid not target the northern part of Colombia as well? Something strange is going on here. If we want to deal with the people who are involved in drug trafficking, then one would think we would also have a campaign in the northern part of Colombia. There you have the right-wing death squads involved. Colombia is currently the largest recipient of U.S. security assistance. It is exceeded only by Israel and Egypt. Foreign aid and other assistance to Colombia, since 1995, now totals $739 million. Yet the administration's own estimate shows a 140-percent increase in Colombia coca cultivation over the past 5 years. Colombia now produces 80 percent of the world's cocaine. Drugs today are cheaper and more available than ever before. If the drug war was evaluated like most other Federal programs, I suspect we would have tried different strategies a long time ago. More weapons and more soldiers have not and cannot defeat the source of illegal narcotics. While the Colombian Government and people merit our assistance, more money for guns is not the answer to Colombia's troubles or our own troubles with the serious use of drugs right here in our own country. Being tough on drugs is important. But we also need to be smart about the tactics we employ. No one disagrees that Colombia faces a difficult challenge and we should respond to President Pastrana's call for help to combat illegal drug trafficking. I agree. President Pastrana has argued that U.S. support is necessary to ``strengthen democratic institutions, stop the flow of drugs, and bring peace to the country.'' I agree. I would support the army's push into southern Colombia if I felt this proposal would make that happen. But, in fact, I think a military push would have the exact opposite effect by weakening democratic institutions and bringing more hardship to the Colombian people. There is not anything in the world we can do, by way of monitoring this, to make sure that this military--which has been so clearly linked to these right-wing death squads and terrorist organizations--will change its practice. Amnesty International, the State Department report, ``Human Rights World Watch Report''--I could spend hours just reading from these reports on the atrocities committed by the military, or the atrocities committed by these death squads, these paramilitary organizations toward which the military basically has turned a blind eye. Now we are going to provide the money for this military, for a military campaign, with American advisers, in the southern part of Colombia? That is what is problematical about this. At the same time, however, forces from within Colombia threaten democracy. Paramilitary groups operating with the acquiescence or open support of the military--the very military we are going to support-- account for most of the political violence in Colombia today. I need to make that point. Yes to interdiction, yes to going after drug trafficking--but understand that this is a country in civil war. This is a country with the largest internally displaced population, maybe in the world, certainly in the hemisphere. And this is a country where too many innocent civilians are murdered. This is a country where paramilitary groups, operating with the acquiescence or open support of the military, account for most of the political violence. Yet Colombia's military leaders have not taken a firm stand or taken clear steps necessary to purge human rights abusers from their ranks. The evidence is clear. They have taken no steps to purge human rights abusers from their ranks. They have acquiesced to these human rights abuses. Sometimes they support these human rights abuses. And we are going to provide this money for this military with American advisers? I support the addition to this bill that requires conditions on assistance based on human rights concerns. But just as the Committee on Appropriations noted in its committee report to this bill, I, too, ``have grave reservations.'' I quote from the Committee on Appropriations: . . . grave reservations regarding the Administration's ability to effectively manage the use of these resources to achieve the expected results of reducing production and supply of cocaine while protecting human rights. Human rights organizations have detailed abundant and compelling evidence of continuing ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights violations. In its annual report for 1999, Human Rights Watch reports: [I]n 1999 paramilitary [groups] were considered responsible for 78 percent of the total number of human rights and international humanitarian law violations [in Colombia.] Human Rights Watch collected this evidence with the help of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, a highly respected human rights watchdog within Colombia. It has also collected evidence linking half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units to paramilitary activity. In other words, military support for paramilitaries remains national in scope and includes areas where units receiving or scheduled to receive U.S. military aid operate. This is quite unbelievable. I hope all Senators will consider this seriously when they vote on this amendment. I was also given a book detailing the human rights situation in Colombia by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Colombia Support Network. This organization is working to establish a sister-city relationship with the war-torn town of San Pablo in southern Colombia. San Pablo is directly in the path of the suggested push into southern Colombia. This is just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of heartbreaking stories: A young woman, with a confused and almost hopeless air about her, answered my questions and spoke into my taperecorder. She had been forced to join a military patrol and walk for 13 days through the mountains, guiding the soldiers and carrying their knapsacks. Although she witnessed numerous cases of torture and the destruction and burning of humble campesino dwellings, it was the brutal murder of Jesus Pastrana which affected her the most. I myself had met this campesino leader on one of his visits to Bogota to attend meetings of ANUC (a national peasants organization with strong support during this period). According to the terrible details the young woman gave me, Chucho, as Jesus was affectionately called, died a slow and agonizing death on October 31, 1981. He was hung from a tree as psychopathic soldiers cut off his ears, his fingers, hands, then arms and testicles and finally shot him 21 times. Other colleagues have come to the floor to speak, and I want to make sure they speak. If this were an isolated example and if I did not have in hand the evidence from respected human rights organizations and the State Department reports of blatant violation of human rights now of these paramilitary organizations committing so many of these atrocities, most of the violence, with the military acquiescing and sometimes linked to it and supporting it, with no evidence the military is taking any steps to purge its ranks of human rights abusers, I might think better of this dramatic change in our package, 7 to 1 from military to police, for a campaign in southern Colombia with American advisers, putting us in the middle of the civil war aligned with this military. I want to have aid for Colombia. I want President Pastrana to have our support, but this effort will not be successful. Moreover, I think, we are, on very treacherous ground, moving into this area. I will summarize so that other colleagues may speak. We could put this money into the demand side. I am simply saying we take $225 million, leaving $700 million, or thereabouts, and we put it into the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant program which basically is a block grant to our States. Whether or not we are talking about the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy or whether or not we are talking about the data that is collected in our States, we are talking about a situation where 50 percent of adults or more and 80 percent of adolescents or more who need treatment are receiving no treatment because we do not have the funds for the treatment programs. Our police chiefs tell us drug abuse is the most serious problem in their community. They also identify a shortage of treatment programs as a real limitation on their ability to deal with it. We know from study after study--and I will talk more about this when I have more time--that money put into treatment programs pays for itself over and over. I have dramatic statistics and data I will present, but the long and the short of it is, if we have this package and if there are questions to be raised about the militarization of this aid, putting the money into the military for the southern campaign, a military directly linked to human rights violations, with so many organizations in Colombia saying do not do this, it will lead to more violence; do not do this, America, you could be sucked into this conflict; at the same time, we could provide a significant package into building democratic institutions for economic aid, $700 million, and we could take a tiny portion of it and deal with the demand side for drugs in our own country, which is also critically important, and get the funding to the community level that would help us provide some treatment for people, that is a win-win situation. I hope this amendment will receive strong support from my colleagues. Amendment No. 3518 (Purpose: To provide additional funding for the substance abuse and mental health services)

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded