Lindsey Graham: “I strongly support the approval of this assistance for Colombia. For the past 8 months I have chaired, together with…”

“I strongly support the approval of this assistance for Colombia. For the past 8 months I have chaired, together with General Brent Scowcroft, a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Colombia. This bipartisan Task Force released an Interim Report in March of this year which recommended that Congress approve the administration's aid request for Colombia, with two modifications. The first, that additional support should be provided to Bolivia, Peru, and other countries in the region, has been incorporated into the bill by the Appropriations Committee. The second modification, that additional trade benefits should be part of the package, I will address with the introduction of separate legislation later this week. Let me explain why I, and the Task Force, feel so strongly that this assistance package for Colombia needs to be approved. There is a crisis in Colombia that demands our immediate attention. While Colombia has experienced violence and guerrilla insurgencies for many years, the current crisis is unique in several important ways. First, Colombia is experiencing record violence which is killing over 25,000 Colombians each year. More than half of all kidnappings in the world occur in Colombia.”