Opening Remarks Chairman Eliot L. Engel
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
U.S. Policy toward Latin America
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Good morning. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that all Members and witnesses' opening statements be included in the record, and without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and extraneous or tabular material to be referred to by Members or witnesses be included in the record, and without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that any Member who may attend today's hearing be considered a Member of the Subcommittee for the purposes of receiving testimony and questioning witnesses after Subcommittee Members have been given the opportunity to do so, and without objection, so ordered.
Colleagues and friends, I am pleased to welcome you to the first hearing of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee and my first hearing as Subcommittee Chairman. I first want to recognize my colleague and friend and our Subcommittee's Ranking Member Mr. Burton. We have worked closely together over the years and particularly over the last year when I served as Ranking Member and Mr. Burton as Chairman. We have had a seamless transition and I look forward to continuing our excellent bipartisan relationship on this Subcommittee.
Today's hearing will provide an overview of U.S. policy toward Latin America and developments in the hemisphere. We are particularly fortunate to have Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Shannon with us this morning. Universally, everyone I speak to in both the U.S. and Latin America has nothing but the highest praise for Mr. Shannon. You are a first-rate diplomat and although it sometimes appears that we cannot agree on much among Democrats and Republicans in Congress, I believe we can all agree on your tremendous skills as our chief diplomat for hemispheric affairs.
This morning's hearing is particularly timely in light of President Bush's March 8 - 14 trip to Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and Uruguay. I applaud the President on making this trip to the region and I hope that it is a sign of things to come in the remaining two years of the Bush Administration.
Ranking Member Burton and I along with members of the Subcommittee are pleased to be sending a letter to President Bush today applauding his upcoming visit to the region and encouraging him to more intensively focus on the Western Hemisphere during the rest of his presidency. In the letter, we explain that with anti-Americanism on the rise in our own neighborhood, positive engagement with Latin America can play a pivotal role in promoting a shared hemispheric agenda. We also argue that poverty and inequality are at the core of many political developments in the region. I firmly believe that working closely with our neighbors to combat poverty can serve the dual purpose of promoting development and reducing anti-American sentiments.
While I am hopeful that the President's upcoming trip will foreshadow increased engagement with the hemisphere, the Administration must put its money where its mouth is. I am seriously concerned with reductions in assistance to the Western Hemisphere in the President's 2008 budget including a $70 million reduction in development assistance and a $36 million reduction in funding for child survival and health programs. I am pleased that Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador have signed large compacts with the Millennium Challenge Corporation. But targeted assistance to these three CAFTA countries must not be a substitute for our traditional foreign aid and our engagement with other developing countries in the hemisphere.
I also continue to be concerned by the prohibitions on foreign aid that have been imposed on countries that have not signed Article 98 agreements with the United States. This is a major issue for countries in the Western Hemisphere. As you may know, last year I along with then-Chairman Burton, successfully led a bipartisan group of Foreign Affairs Committee members urging Armed Services conferees to strike restrictions on International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds in the Defense Authorization Act. As you know, this section has become law. I am also pleased by the President's recent waiver of Article 98 restrictions on Economic Support Funds to 14 countries including Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru. But, we are still unnecessarily tying our hands as only Colombia and El Salvador receive Foreign Military Financing (FMF) in the President's 2008 budget. As Secretary Rice once said, we are "cutting off our nose, to spite our face."
I would like to quickly address some of the issues facing specific countries in the hemisphere. First, I want to emphasize how pleased I am with President Bush's efforts to begin extensive cooperation on biofuels and alternative energy with Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil has been a top priority for me in Congress and I believe that we can learn a great deal from Brazil on this front. Ethanol supplies 40% of the motor fuel used in Brazil and in 2005, over half of new cars sold in Brazil were flex-fuel, running on a mixture of ethanol and gasoline. As the sponsor of a major bipartisan alternative fuels bill in the House, I look forward to learning more about U.S. - Brazil cooperation in this area and am interested in working aggressively with you to learn from the Brazilian model here in the United States and share our expertise with other countries in the region.
Haiti is personally very important to me. With a strong mandate to govern, President [René] Preval is in a unique position to reduce poverty and rebuild Haiti's fragile democratic institutions. For the first time in years, there is a window of opportunity in Haiti and a bipartisan consensus here on Capitol Hill. But that window is small and we must act quickly. I am pleased by the overall increase in foreign assistance to Haiti in the President's budget, particularly the $36 million increase in HIV/AIDS funding. It's important that we let Haitians know that the U.S. will stand by them for the long haul this time. Sustained engagement with and assistance to Haiti are key. And, as someone who proudly represents one of the largest Haitian communities in the United States, I am also interested in identifying ways that the tremendous talents of the Haitian diaspora residing in Spring Valley, New York, and elsewhere can be tapped into, so that they can contribute to Haiti's democratic path towards peace, prosperity, security and stability.
Moving on to Colombia, I have been impressed by the impact that Plan Colombia has had in reducing homicides, kidnappings and massacres, particularly under President [Alvaro] Uribe. But the current scandal involving alleged ties between paramilitaries and Colombian lawmakers is of serious concern to me. The scandal points out significant corruption within Colombia. Yet at the same time, democracy is not always neat and tidy, and the fact that these lawmakers are being arrested shows that the rule of law is taking hold in the country. As you know, many estimate that Colombia has the highest number of displaced persons in the world after only Sudan. This problem is particularly severe among Afro-Colombians, and I hope that President Uribe and the Bush administration can concentrate on this during the next phase of Plan Colombia.
Venezuela is obviously a country that all of us are watching closely. President [Hugo] Chavez has a number of policies which are of concern to me and some rhetorical excesses which do not contribute to a positive bilateral relationship. He also has several policies about which I am less concerned. As Chairman, I would like to stay away from a confrontation with President Chavez. And I believe that Mr. Shannon is steering the right course with Venezuela with his steady diplomacy.
Likewise, we are all watching developments in Cuba very closely. With Fidel Castro's temporary and likely permanent departure from the Cuban political scene, the U.S. needs to be prepared for a post-Castro Cuba. We cannot put off these considerations until "the day after."
Finally, I want to touch on an issue that is problematic throughout the hemisphere: impunity. The U.S. and international community need to work closely with our partners in Latin America in putting an end to impunity. The recent U.N. agreement with Guatemala to identify clandestine Guatemalan security groups and help dismantle them is a very positive step in the right direction. But, the murder of three Salvadoran politicians last week and then the murders in prison of four Guatemalan policemen linked to the crimes are particularly troubling. Likewise, gang violence in Central America continues to be extremely worrisome.
I realize that the issues I have discussed are wide-ranging but I hope that we have a chance to focus on a number of them in today's overview hearing.
Thank you very much. I am now pleased to call on Ranking Member Burton for his opening statement.
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