Rep. Sam Farr - My introduction to Colombia was back in 1963. I was a young college graduate who just applied for the Peace Corps and was told that I was going to be accepted to a Peace Corps program in Colombia, South America.
My introduction to Colombia was back in 1963. I was a young college graduate who just applied for the Peace Corps and was told that I was going to be accepted to a Peace Corps program in Colombia, South America.
I was excited about it. I had traveled through Latin America when I was in college working as a factory worker in Argentina, and I fell in love with Colombia the minute I stepped off the plane. It is a country, an incredibly beautiful country with lots of green. Obviously the green is well known around the world because it is the major exporter of emeralds.
Colombia, as a Peace Corps volunteer, was the best 2 years of my life. I lived in a very poor barrio. We did not have much running water or electricity. Sewage was inadequate. But the people were so genuine and so friendly, and so much so that when my mother passed away with cancer when I was in the Peace Corps I came home, and immediately went back to Colombia, and my father, I brought my two sisters to Colombia.
My youngest sister, Nancy, who was in high school at the time, 17 years old, unfortunately was killed in an accident in Colombia. Rather than being very bitter about the country, we ended up falling in love with the country because the people were so friendly to our family and realized what a plight we were going through, and how much tragedy we were bearing.
The thing that I hope we can do tonight is put a human face on a country that we hear a lot about. It is a country that the Americans know of, Colombia, and unfortunately know of it for two reasons, one very negative, which is drugs, a country that grows the drugs and processes the drugs that are so destructive to our lives here in the United States and around the world.
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Unfortunately, we are the purchaser of those drugs and so we have this problem of those who produce and those who buy and use. And this relationship, Colombians always tell us that if we did not buy the drugs, they would not produce them. And we always say if they did not produce them, we would not buy them. And this is a battle where we have sort of lost sight of what this country is all about.
I hope tonight we can get into some of those issues. So put a human face on a country that is unique in its geographical location. It is the only country in South America that borders on both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. It is a country much bigger than most think by looking at a map. The third largest country in Latin America. It is bigger than California, Texas, Montana and Illinois all combined for about 625,000 square miles. It is a huge country.
It has 38 million people. The people are spread out in Colombia in many big cities. The most urbanized of all Latin America countries. The Colombian market is bigger than that of the market of New York and Texas put together.
It is a remarkable country because not only does it touch both oceans, but it starts almost at the equator and goes up to 20,000 feet with snowcapped mountains close to the shore. So it has every kind of microclimate and can grow anything. Colombia is the second most diversified country in the world. It grows more fruits and vegetables than any other country in the world; and, obviously, that makes it a climate that is attractive to growing things that are illegal. And with the poverty in the country, we can see why the drug crops expanded there.
Mr. Speaker, the issue now is how do we take a country and really get it on its feet? In many ways Colombia, despite all of the problems that it has had with drugs, has remained an economically strong country with an honest economy. It is one of the strongest in Latin America. It has had a longer period of growth with an average of 4.5 percent per year for the last four decades. Between 1990 and 1995, it has grown at 4.2 percent. This is the longest sustained record of economic growth in the Americas. In all of the Americas. Colombia has outperformed the United States.
Now Colombia is in the midst of a recession after more than 30 years of unbroken growth. It is in the midst of problems, turmoil, but it is a democratic country. It had a remarkable turnout in its election for its president, President Pastrana, despite the pressures on people not to vote. It has political factions in the country that are historical between the rebels, between banditos or mafiosos as they are known. So it has got a collection of interests where people are trying to defend their own private lands with privately hired mercenaries, so we have private armies, a public army, a national police. They have rebels, and they have other factions that play in the shadows of all of these.
So we as the United States are now giving aid to Colombia. We have given an awful lot of that aid in the military section primarily for suppressing drugs. The country has now come to the United States. The President has met with our President. They have sat down and worked out an agreement that encourages that Colombia needs to get its own act in order, so to speak. It has done so by coming up with a plan. It has taken that plan not only to the United States but to its allies in Europe and asked for help.
Now, we are on the verge of the last night of the session of the first year of the 106th Congress. The big vote here tomorrow night will be the vote on appropriating monies and particularly the foreign aid money. Colombia is not getting a great deal of that money, unfortunately, because other priorities have taken its place. And I think that we have to recognize that if we are a country that is going to ask them to extradite their criminals, the people they are arresting in their country, in violation of their laws and our laws, and extradite these people to the United States so that they can be tried, sentenced, and imprisoned here, at great risk to the Colombian politicians and to the Colombian government, that they are doing that at the request of our government, and in turn we need to think comprehensively about how we are going to give them enough aid. Not just military aid, but compassionate aid to help the people help themselves in a better life.
Mr. Speaker, I know that the gentlewoman from Wisconsin has come to discuss some of that; and I really, really appreciate it. I appreciate the gentlewoman being a new face in Congress with a new slant on the Colombian situation. It is so healthy for this body, which has sort of been debating the macho military aid by essentially people that are pro-military and pro-national police, to say that if we just help them we are going to really help the country. When we know and the gentlewoman knows, particularly the first voice that has
really come in and talked about the plight of women in this culture, and the fact that we are not going to win this war on poverty; we are not going to win the drug war; we are not going to win the political war or any war just by might. We are going to have to win that war through education. We are going to have to win that war through help with understanding family planning in countries like this. We are going to have to have micro-loan programs and do what we did in the Peace Corps.
Unfortunately, the Peace Corps left Colombia because it became too dangerous. But there are some 8,000 returned volunteers from Colombia, Americans who have lived in Colombia for at least 2 years who have learned the language and the culture, and who are very passionate about those years that they spent there and are wanting to see the country regain its incredible grandeur that it can and to develop the wonderful culture and people and particularly the opportunity for tourism. Making it safe for people to travel, safe for our sons and daughters to go and be educated in their great universities and essentially a much better cultural, educational, political interchange leads to support of a country through tourism and microtourism.
Mr. Speaker, I think that Colombia, because it is on both oceans, has so many opportunities for small economic development programs that would enhance the plight of people in rural areas by allowing them to have kind of ecotourism expand. So I appreciate the gentlewoman bringing these issues to the floor of the United States Congress tonight on the verge of our significant vote tomorrow night.
