U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman

August 23, 2000


JOINT PRESS AVAILABILITY SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT AND
ALBANIAN PRIME MINISTER ILIR META

Washington, D.C.

Q: I'm sorry, this again is on one of your four countries and not
Albania. But Madame Secretary, I know the President has already
commented on this but it was the State Department whose officials met
face-to-face with Colombian human rights organizations and the State
Department had the responsibility for making a recommendation.


These human rights groups say now that promised legislation is not a
sufficient commitment from President Pastrana and I wanted to know
whether, now the decision is made, you could explain a little bit more
about how these concerns weighed in on the recommendation and whether
you're comfortable with that decision or whether you'll still be
taking some strong words to Colombia when you visit next week to make
sure that Pastrana is following through on these promises.


SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: First of all, I think it's very important to see
the entire picture of the comprehensive Plan Colombia which is dealing
with the problem of narco-trafficking, dealing with the peace process,
the social and economic issues and, obviously, human rights. At the
times I have talked to President Pastrana or when I was in Colombia or
when Under Secretary Pickering deals with them, we have made the
importance, the centrality of human rights very clear. President
Pastrana has, in turn, made very clear the importance of human rights
to him and I think that when he was here, standing where Prime
Minister Meta is standing, he said that he didn't want to end his term
or after his term be followed around with signs that said "I didn't do
anything about human rights" or something to that effect.


So he is very dedicated to it. I think they understand that they
continue to have problems with it. The military that is providing kind
of the protective package around the police that's going into Putumayo
Province, each of the individuals has been vetted for not having human
rights violations. And we will continue to press on this. Obviously,
it is always part of what we talk to them about. We think that they
have made some good faith efforts, are making very good faith efforts
on this, and that they need to continue to do this.


It is in our minds and will continue to be there. But we believed that
the waiver was a good idea and the certification is very important and
that we need to be supportive of President Pastrana in the process.



(end transcript)