Marc Grossman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs

Washington, DC
January 16, 2004

(3:00 p.m. EST)

MR. ERELI: I think we're probably still missing some people because nobody expected us to start on time including myself. But anyway, I think we have really a very special, a very special treat for you today. It's not often that we have on-the-record briefings with senior administration officials and it's even rarer that we have on-the-record briefings not only with a senior administration official but with senior officials from two other countries.

So let us first welcome our guests who will be participating in this briefing, the Permanent Representative of Mexico to the Organization of American States, Mr. Miguel Ruiz-Cabañas, and the Minister of the Presidency of Bolivia, Mr. Jose Antonio Galindo. They will be joining the Under Secretary of Political Affairs, Mr. Marc Grossman, to give an on-the-record briefing on the Bolivia Support Group meeting which took place today in Washington.

The agenda of today's briefing will be as follows: Under Secretary Grossman will give some introductory remarks, followed by Ambassador Cabañas, and followed by Minister Galindo, then we will be available to answer a few questions that will be chosen by our Acting Director of the Press Office, Ms. Julie Reside. So let me move away and open the mike to Under Secretary Grossman.

Thank you, sir.

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: Thank you, Adam. Adam, thank you very much, and we thank you all for being here with us this afternoon. I am joined at the podium by all of the people that Adam recognized. And may I also take a minute to recognize also from Bolivia, the Minister of Economic Development, Javier Nogales.

Sir, we're glad to have you here as well. And of course you know Roger Noriega, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

As Adam said this morning, the governments of Mexico and the United States hosted a meeting of 19 countries and 6 international organizations. We have passed out a list. I think there is a list of them at the bottom of this press statement. Secretary Powell had the opportunity to speak to the group today at lunch, and we will also make a text of his statement available to you, which I think is excellent.

The nations and organizations represented included not just our key hemispheric partners, but also most of our European allies, the United Nations and the international financial institutions.

The purpose of the meeting today was to renew all of our support for Bolivian democracy and economic stability. As you know, President Bush and many other of the hemisphere's leaders joined President Fox the other day in Monterrey for the Summit of the Americas and one of the things that they decided was that we should pay special attention to Bolivia and here, some days after that summit, that is exactly what we are doing.

I'll give you a little sense of what happened in the meeting to begin. Under Secretary Taylor, Mexican Under Secretary Hakim and I outlined the critical importance to the representatives of all of these countries and international institutions of the support, political support, economic support, trade support, moral support that is necessary to give to President Mesa's Government in Bolivia.

We then heard, if I might use the term, a sober report from Minister Galindo and Minister Nogales, who outlined their government's financial needs for 2004 and who also stressed the strategies that they had for strengthening democratic institutions, accelerating economic growth with equity, mitigating social conflict. And they did not just ask for our help, they presented what I consider to be a very powerful plan.

We then had a chance to hear analysis from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank experts and we also then heard later from the President of the Inter-American Development Bank, Enrique Iglesias and then presentations from each of the governments who were represented, all of whom, I think it is fair to say, gave strong support to the government and the goals of the Bolivian Support Group.

Our Bolivian colleagues proposed, and Mexico and the United States as co-chairs agreed, to set up a smaller follow-on group so that the actions that people talked about today can actually be carried out and that these pledges that were made of political support, moral support, economic support for President Mesa and his government can actually be mobilized.

If I could just take the opportunity so that you all know about it to elaborate for a moment on what the United States is doing in terms of aid to Bolivia. We provided Bolivia with an estimated $154 million in assistance in fiscal year 2003 and plan to provide approximately $150 million in fiscal year 2004, pending, obviously, the Congressional appropriation. And we want to ask for a similar number in fiscal year '05.

Our assistance includes funds for child survival, development, other forms of development assistance and very importantly, funds for counternarcotics efforts. We're currently working to identify assistance on top of what we have already given so that we might further help our colleagues in Bolivia. We intend to waive our counterpart funding requirement, freeing $16 million in Government of Bolivia funds and the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives plans, again, subject to Congressional action, to launch a new $5 million program for Bolivia.

We've also worked with our partners in the OAS through adoption of Permanent Council Resolution 852, which supports the Government of President Mesa and calls on the government and all sectors of society to strengthen democratic institutions and their commitments to the values embodied in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

As Adam said, I'd now like to turn the podium over to Ambassador Miguel Ruiz-Cabañas, who is Mexico's representative to the OAS and very ably this afternoon represents Under Secretary Miguel Hakim, who very, who so ably helped us co-chair this meeting. Mr. Ambassador.

AMBASSADOR CABAÑAS: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I think that Under Secretary Grossman has been very eloquent presenting the main reasons that we met this morning in the international community group focus on Bolivia, so I will not repeat what he has already said. He also chronicled what the meeting was about this morning so let me focus only in the two or three reasons that Mexico is participating in this exercise.

And first of all, we were approached and we were glad to be approached by the Government of Bolivia asking our solidarity in this exercise and so we are very glad to participate hand-in-hand with the Government of Bolivia, trying to focus international community in the special needs that Bolivia faces at this very moment. Mexico is a Latin American country. We are part of the Latin American community so we felt it was important to support explicitly Bolivia at the time that they needed this assistance.

Secondly, I think, just as Under Secretary Grossman mentioned, this might be called the first concrete result of the Monterrey Summit of the Americas. In the Monterrey Summit of the Americas, besides the multilateral exercise, besides the adoption of a consensus political declaration, we had many meetings among presidents and bilateral meetings, and in that regard, it was important for many of them, again, to focus on the special Bolivian needs.

So President Fox directed the Foreign Minister Derbez and Under Secretary Hakim to come to participate, to co-host in this meeting, and to try to mobilize the international community, especially the international, as well as regional organizations, that might help Bolivia. We are talking not only about economic and financial needs. We are talking about political needs.

The Organization of American States has already played a very important role within the framework of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to help Bolivia. And I think it is important that for the Bolivian people, the Bolivian Government, know that the international, the hemispheric community will be with them in this important time.

So I think this is a very timely initiative for the Government of Mexico. It is also very important to be with all the countries participating and to keep a permanent interest. So we are going to proceed with the Government of the United States to establish a steering committee, a follow-up mechanism, just to ensure that this is not a one day event. Thank you.

MR. GALINDO: Thank you very much. Last October, my country almost lose its democrat living, kind of living, the democracy. After Carlos Mesa took office, we also found out that we had a big fiscal deficit, and we call on the United States and they help us close that deficit. That was 2003. And now, for 2004, we have again the same problem, but we have decided that not have a donors meeting.

We talked with Mr. Fox from Mexico and with the United States in order to have a group to help us find out how can Bolivia go on the road of progress and democracy again, not only to just close the deficit. So this was just the first meeting. And we had a full support of 19 countries on international institutions.

So let me thanks -- give my thankful heart to Mexico and to the United States. This is just the beginning of the path. We hope to have new meetings, and we hope to have the help of all the countries that have been today with us to solve not just the short-term problem, but the long-term problem.

Thank you.

MS. RESIDE: Our guests are able to take a few questions. Sir.

QUESTION: Is there any condition to be able to bring the funds or help to Bolivian Government, I mean, conditions like eradication of coca plants or new taxes?

MR. GALINDO: (In Spanish.) We have not talked, not even one statement, about eradication. (In Spanish.) We have been talking about development, about our economic situation, about our social situation. (In Spanish.)

QUESTION: New taxes?

MR. GALINDO: (In Spanish.) We cannot ask the world to help us if we cannot help us ourselves.

QUESTION: When will these meetings result in any concrete money, aid money being given to Bolivia?

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: Well, first, I think that as you could tell from my presentation, some concrete aid money certainly from the United States already is being given to Bolivia.

Second, one of the things that both of the Bolivian ministers talked about was the need for some of the international financial institutions to speed up the disbursement of loans that have already been approved. And both the spokesperson for the IMF and the spokesperson for the World Bank said that they would do so. So I think that also will bring some new funds, I hope quickly, to Bolivia.

Third, Under Secretary Hakim and I agreed just before I came here that we would quickly define the steering group, get it to meet as quickly as possible, and then start to be very specific about some of the things that were pledged today, and also see if there isn't some more.

So we're going to work on all of these paths simultaneously.

QUESTION: Obviously, in Bolivia over the last few months, there has been a certain anti-American sentiment. Do you not think in some way, with America hosting this group, it could be counterproductive and it might be better to allow in the steering group the Latin American countries to take the front seat and you guys take a back seat?

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: Well, obviously, I'd let the representatives of Bolivia talk about public opinion in their own country. But we have no hesitation here about speaking out forcefully for Bolivian democracy and we have no hesitation here about speaking out forcefully for the need for Bolivians to have prosperity and social inclusion and justice. And so for us it is perfectly natural to host a meeting like this.

We also felt, perhaps along the lines that you say, that we ought to do this as a hemisphere issue. And that is why the Bolivians and our colleagues from Mexico suggested we do this together.

And the third thing, just to emphasize the point that Ambassador Cabañas made, was this is a very first result of the summit just held in Monterrey.

So I think in all of those areas this is a matter for the hemisphere and a matter for those countries and international institutions who are prepared to support the hemisphere. So we are for [Bolivian] democracy, we are for the success of [Bolivian] democracy, and we will do all that we can to make it successful.

MR. GALINDO: May I add something?

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: Yes, please.

MR. GALINDO: I believe that your question is very important in the sense that it shows that we do need in this exercise Latin American participation, and that's one of the reasons that Mexico is participating, as well as Argentina and Brazil. They participated in the morning, and I am sure they will continue participating in the future in whatever scheme we establish as a follow-up mechanism.

But at the same time, it cannot be only a Latin American exercise. We need our friends from other countries, from the United States, Canada, from European countries as well as Japan, international financial organizations, the United Nations. It is a multi-dimensional exercise it make also.

QUESTION: My question is this Group of Friends of Bolivia, it's -- this already has a concrete plan to resolve the political needs to reach the political stability in Bolivia?

And my second question is, it was mentioned in some follow-up group. Could you be more specific on that?

Thank you.

MR. GALINDO: We have presented a plan, a short-term plan and a medium-term plan. But if I can link this with the question that has been asked before, this is not only a problem of Bolivia. Bolivia could bring instability to the region, so that's why it's very important also.

And this short-term plan and this medium-term plan will be analyzed by our friends -- from our friends, and then we will see what can they do with us, not for us, and what are they willing to do, and if they'll walk with us the road.

It's not a matter of the United States -- the gentleman was asking. It's not that we have an anti-American thing in Bolivia. It's that the people feels that the system has failed, not the Americans or the Europeans. The system has failed. And we have and we ought to do something real fast to show them that we care not only for the macroeconomics but also for the small people from the rural areas.

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: May I just -- one other thing, and that is to say that you asked whether the meeting today was to produce a plan for Bolivia. And I just wanted to emphasize the point that our Bolivian colleagues have just made as they came here with a plan. And the point of the session today was for us to support a Bolivian plan on political and economic reform; and so many countries came, and so many countries wanted to support that plan.

The second answer to your question, which I think is an important one, is that with our Bolivian colleagues, and with our Mexican colleagues, we will try now to define this steering group. Under Secretary Hakim, at the end of the meeting, invited anyone who was interested to be in contact with us.

So I think we'll wait a reasonable time and see if there is interest -- I'm sure there will be -- and then with our colleagues from Bolivia, with our colleagues from Mexico, we'll choose that steering group. And as I said in a previous answer, we want to do that quickly. It should meet quickly, so that we are able, as best we can, to support Bolivian democracy.

QUESTION: I just want to ask in Spanish for our Spanish listeners. (In Spanish.) Thank you. (In Spanish.)

MR. CABAÑAS: (In Spanish.)

MR. GALINDO: (In Spanish.)