Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy
On Landmines In Colombia
July 26, 2007

Mr. LEAHY.   Mr. President, the people of Colombia have endured decades of civil conflict characterized by widespread killings and disappearances of civilians perpetrated by rebel groups and paramilitary death squads, sometimes with the active participation of government security forces.  In recent years, both rebels and paramilitaries have financed their illegal activities through the sale of cocaine, which has also corrupted government institutions.

Each year since the inception of Plan Colombia, the United States has provided Colombia with more than half a billion dollars in mostly military and counter-drug assistance, totaling more than $5 billion. 

The primary goal of Plan Colombia, at least as sold to the Congress, was to decrease by half the amount of coca produced, resulting in commensurate reductions in the income derived from cocaine to the rebels and paramilitaries and the amount of cocaine entering the United States.

While there is no reliable evidence that Plan Colombia has affected either the price or availability of cocaine in the United States, the Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that profits from illegal drugs to the FARC rebels declined by about one-third between 2003 and 2005.  This is welcome news.  But whether this trend has continued since then or has ebbed and flowed like most other statistics relating to drug cultivation and trafficking in Colombia, is unknown.  Unfortunately, it is also not yet apparent that this reported reduction in profits has affected the FARC’s ability to operate.

While the majority of killings of civilians during the seven years of Plan Colombia are attributed to paramilitaries, sometimes with the active or tacit support of government forces, the FARC has engaged in many atrocities, including attacks against civilian targets and kidnapping.  But perhaps the most insidious of their crimes is the widespread use of landmines.

According to a report released yesterday by Human Rights Watch, casualties from landmines used by the FARC, as well as by another rebel group known as the ELN, have risen steadily in recent years.  As is so often the case with landmines which are triggered indiscriminately by the victim, most of the casualties in Colombia have been civilians. 

While the number of casualties did not exceed 148 a year in the 1990s, Human Rights Watch reports that last year the number was 1,107.  This increase contrasts sharply with the worldwide decline in the use of these insidious weapons.  In fact, Colombia is among the more than 150 nations that have signed or ratified the international treaty banning antipersonnel mines. 

According to press reports, the FARC defends its use of mines by claiming that they are used only against government security forces, not civilians.  That, however, is a specious claim, since mines are inherently indiscriminate.  They will kill or maim whoever comes into contact with them, often months or years after they are laid.  I have seen photographs of the horrific injuries suffered by both government soldiers and innocent civilians from rebel mines. 

While the FARC, like others who continue to use landmines, would undoubtedly claim that their military utility justifies their continued use, I reject that argument.  The harm to civilians and the contamination of the countryside caused by mines cannot be justified. 

While there are programs to assist Colombia’s mine victims with rehabilitation and vocational training, they are far from adequate.  I have supported efforts to increase U.S. assistance.  We are looking at ways to use the Leahy War Victims Fund to assist Colombian civilians who have been injured by mines, and we are supporting United for Colombia’s efforts to obtain surgery in the U.S. for Colombian soldiers who have suffered grievous mine injuries. 

Mr. President, I have been a consistent critic of human rights violations in Colombia where impunity remains a persistent problem.  There have been thousands of killings of civilians, including of human rights defenders, union members, journalists, and others who have been targeted by one armed group or another.  Hardly any of these crimes have resulted in convictions and punishment.  But none of that excuses the continued use of landmines by the FARC and ELN.  As I have said many times before, the use of landmines should be a war crime.  It is barbaric, it is inhumane, it is indefensible.

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