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I am pleased we are having this full committee hearing today to focus on our vital and critical relationship with our neighbors in South America.
I hope that we will soon have an even more focused and targeted full committee hearing dealing with the growing radical Islamist threat in the Western Hemisphere—both deriving from individual groups, as well as from rogue regimes designated by the U.S. as state-sponsors of terrorism.
That terrorist focus for the Americas is sorely needed today, as evidenced by the recent arrest of a Syrian arms dealer trying to provide heavy weapons to the FARC narco-terrorists in Colombia, as well as the recent, thwarted JFK terrorist plot, linked to radical Islamist elements in the region.
The previous Hezbollah bombings, new indictments and recent Interpol action on possible international arrest warrants for former Iranian government officials and a Hezbollah leader allegedly linked to the AMIA terrorist attack in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, also needs our full attention, as does the growing Iranian influence and relationship with the Chavez regime and others as well in the region.
The committee should soon have a hearing dedicated to the threat of Islamist radicals and militants operating in our Hemisphere-- our backyard; our sphere of influence.
We ignore that increasing nearby threat at our peril, and it deserves special attention, as is growing self evident daily.
The title of this hearing is interesting “South America and the US; How to Fix a Broken Relationship”.
Some Members advocate measures that could result in the total shattering of our relations with our neighbors, and even greater damage and divide in our dealings with South America.
I am referring to the pending Free Trade Agreements with Panama, Peru and Colombia, and to the recent deep and disturbing House appropriations cuts in military assistance to Colombia to continue their successful efforts in combating terrorism in their country and the illicit drug trade from the region—a drug trade that takes more innocent lives annually than we lost on that terrible day of 9/11.
Plan Colombia was an aid program led by the Clinton Administration and a Republican House of Representatives.
Yet, it is now being misdirected, as well as under-funded for the first time in many years.
Congress rolls back support for the region’s free trade agenda; cuts vital drug fighting aid to places like Colombia and shelves already agreed upon Free Trade Agreements that would both help the poor and marginalized in the Americas, while promoting increased American investment in the region, we are headed in the wrong direction.
These three nations (Colombia, Peru and Panama) are vital allies in the struggle against terrorism, illicit drugs, as well as good and valuable trading partners and they all watch nervously the actions of this Congress and wonder whether or not it is a good idea to be allied with the U.S.
While some in Congress abandon or treat poorly South American friends and allies, they have yet to speak or act forcibly about the human rights problems, free press attacks and assaults on democracy from the worse nightmare for us in South America, the anti-democratic and radical Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela.
Chavez’s radical efforts to stir anti-U.S. resentment in the region, his support for anti American regimes across the Hemisphere, and his open and dangerous embrace of Iran, the global terrorist leader and other radical regimes around the globe, along with his assault on democracy and free press in his own nation, ought to concern all of us.
I hope that our committee will soon act on a resolution condemning the government of Venezuela’s dismal human rights record for months, and adequately take him to task for his assault on free press and other institutions in his once democratic nation.
Thank you.
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