NEWS

House Foreign Affairs Committee

U.S. House of Representatives

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican

CONTACT:  Sam Stratman, (202) 226-7875, May 7, 2007

                     Lee Cohen, (202) 226-1139

For IMMEDIATE Release

Ros-Lehtinen Warns Against Funding Cuts for Colombia Aid

Returns from Weekend Visit to Colombia with Former Speaker Hastert

(WASHINGTON) – Congressional critics of aid to Colombia can expect vigorous resistance to any attempt to reduce funding for counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism efforts in South America, and Colombia in particular, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said today.

Her note of caution comes following a weekend visit to Colombia with former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The visit included meetings with President Alvaro Uribe, Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos, and site visits to anti-drug units of the Colombian National Police.

The visit by the two comes in the wake of an improving security situation in Colombia seven years into the U.S.-Colombia Andean initiative, known as Plan Colombia.

“Plan Colombia is helping the central government to successfully resist the narco-terrorists whose fortunes are tied to the deadly trade in heroin and cocaine,” said Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Since 1999, Colombia has dramatically reduced the widespread drug-fueled violence that brought the country to near-failed state status. What has been achieved by Colombians with assistance from the U.S. is nothing short of remarkable,” she added.

Ros-Lehtinen said critics may be readying proposals to make “draconian cuts” in assistance to Colombia when the foreign assistance appropriation bill is considered by the House of Representatives in late spring or early summer.

“Attempts to weaken our Andean strategy undercut our fight against drugs that permeate our culture and produce terrible violence in our streets, a deadly struggle in which more Americans die annually than the number who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “End our assistance to Colombia and watch a flood gate of narcotics open up, with the deluge of high grade heroin and cocaine aimed squarely at our children.”

During the visit, Ros-Lehtinen and Hastert visited a regional police training center where Colombia instructors are training anti-narcotics police from Afghanistan, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru, among others. Colombia is currently providing police training for Afghani anti-narcotics police in Kabul, and in Colombia who are fighting the growing heroin trade in Afghanistan.

Ros-Lehtinen and Hastert also visited a hospital operated by the Colombia National Police and met with officers injured in the line of duty.

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