SRID Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

SOUS-COMITÉ DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT INTERNATIONAL DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, May 30, 2001

• 1546

[English]

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.): I call the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to order.

First of all, I want to apologize, as I said, for wandering around and looking for this room. However, if you would just give us five minutes or less to do a little bit of housekeeping, we would appreciate it.

A couple of weeks ago we had spoken about having a meeting to discuss the problems in Sudan. Last week there was a motion, but we lost quorum, so we were unable to deal with that then. We have a motion here that the subcommittee agree to undertake a study of the situation in Sudan and that a meeting be held on Wednesday, June 6, 2001, with Senator Lois Wilson.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.): Who initiated the motion?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Who initiated that motion, do you know?

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Who's the mover?

The Clerk of the Committee: That's the motion that has been prepared, if someone would like to move it.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I'll move it.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Okay, Madam Chair, at the last meeting and a meeting prior to that, we had one of those meetings. The chair of the foreign affairs committee agreed with me that we're undertaking quite a bit by looking at Colombia and Sudan. We cannot deal with both items together. The Sudan activity we should postpone for late fall and give due process and proper attention to the Colombian situation at the moment. We're on the Colombian file. Let's stick with that and let's do a proper job. Let's not—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): We're not talking about not doing a proper job. All we're talking about is having one meeting to hear from Senator Wilson. It will be in addition to our meetings on Colombia. That would be merely for the staff to prepare direction for a study that we will undertake in the fall.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: And when would this meeting occur?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Wednesday, June 6, in the evening.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Madam Chair, will the item on Colombia be over?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): No, it won't be over. This is not instead of Colombia. This is just an initial hearing to—

Mr. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.): Get us started.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): —get a start on Sudan.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Why can't we postpone that until the fall and keep on going with Colombia while we're on the item of Colombia?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Well, I'll leave that up to the committee.

Does anyone else have a... Mr. Obhrai.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Canadian Alliance): I think it's a good point. We are not planning another study on Sudan, so it doesn't matter whether this motion is approved now. Senator Wilson is doing her work. We'll carry on. You can put this on the next agenda, for sure.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Do you feel the same?

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Mr. Irwin Cotler: Madam Chair, I think the situation in Sudan is urgent, as is the situation in Colombia, and if we don't meet on June 6 to discuss our work in the fall, we're going to meet in the fall to discuss our work in the spring. It really is a situation that cannot bear any delay at this point, because we're talking about an evolving genocide there. I don't use that word lightly.

I would strongly recommend that we have the meeting on June 6. It is without prejudice, in my view, to addressing the Colombian situation.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I agree with you. I think that one of the reasons we decided we should have this hearing so that we can begin as soon as we're finished with Colombia is that it is an urgent situation and there are potential solutions to this problem.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: I agree. Nobody's trying to put it off, but as things stand right now, a meeting with Senator Lois Wilson will not get... What is on our agenda for the fall? It's an empty agenda. The first thing we do is start from there and go right into it. There's no need—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Obhrai, I think one of the reasons we thought we should do this is that there may be a trip there in the fall. It may be a comprehensive study. We will be finished with Colombia in the fall, and we're looking at a comprehensive study of Sudan. A potential trip there needs time for preparation.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: If I might understand you correctly, then during this summer the committee meeting will prepare everything for Sudan without us?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Not the committee, the staff will.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Yes, that's what I mean, not the committee but the staff will be working during the summer for Sudan.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Yes, if we can give some direction for them and indicate that we are prepared to do this. We thought that Senator Wilson would be a good point to start. She'd have suggestions for us for our fall study.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Oh, I have a high degree of respect for Senator Wilson, but the question here is will we being delayed on that? It's not going to delay anything, is it?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): No, it's—

Mr. Irwin Cotler: It will delay it, because the kind of staff work and organization that can be done during the summer so that we get started in the fall will not take place until the fall unless we meet on June 6. That's why I say it's a question of timeframes. Unless we meet now and get organized over the summer, we'll start in the fall. But if we postpone that June meeting until the fall, it will get put off until the spring. That's part of the problem.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I personally believe that it should be put off. We can give staff due notice to prepare the file before the early fall, and we could have an initial meeting in early fall to terminate the Colombian file and then get on with the Sudan. It's only common sense to me.

(Motion negatived)

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you for your tolerance.

Mr. Irwin Cotler: It makes a statement on that.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Yes, I think it does too. I think it's unfortunate.

Anyway, let's get on with the next order. Today the committee will continue its study of the human rights development and other matters in Colombia.

We have with us the witnesses from the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America, Bill Fairbairn, who's no stranger to this committee, and Lilia Solano; from the Centre for Research in Latin America and the Caribbean, Emmanuel Rozental Klinger; and, as an individual, we have Kimberly Inksater; and one more person... Pablo Leal.

I'm sorry, I didn't get... You were with us, I believe, about a month ago. Welcome back.

Mr. Pablo Leal (Canada-Colombia Solidarity Campaign 2001): Thanks a lot. The coffee was great.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Well, we do the best we can.

Bill, would you like to begin?

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[Translation]

Mr. Bill Fairbairn (South America Program Coordinator, Inter—Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America): I would like to commend the members of the subcommittee for convening these hearings on Colombia and thank you for the opportunity to share with you our concerns and recommendations.

I am the South American Program Coordinator of the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin American, an ecumenical coalition comprising more than 20 churches and religious organizations. Our committee has closely monitored the situation in Columbia for 13 years, conducting regular missions to the country.

I am very pleased to be accompanied today by Ms. Lilia Solano, a professor of ethics in Latin American issues at the Javeriana University in Bogota. Lilia is President of the Latin American Theological Fraternity and a member of the Human Rights and Peace Commission of CEDECOL, the Evangelical Counsel of Churches of Colombia. CEDECOL, which is a partner of the Canadian churches, comprises approximately 70% of the Protestant churches in Colombia.

Lilia will make some opening remarks and I will continue by briefly highlighting some recommendations for Canadian policy towards Colombia.

[English]

Ms. Lilia Solano (Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America): When many people in the north hear of my country, they usually think of two things—drug cartels and violence. The mass media and Hollywood have left many with the false impression that all the violence in Colombia is related to drugs. This misconception has helped foster a climate that is now providing the justification for a massive military buildup by the United States, a buildup ostensibly aimed at fighting what is being presented as a war on drugs. The fact of the matter is it is only making this much worse for us, because the last thing we need is more weapons. There are already far too many weapons in my country.

It's true that the drug trade has contributed to violence in Colombia and many other countries, including Canada. This is a fact that we are not debating. But it is vital for you to understand that hiding behind this so-called war on drugs is a much greater source of violence that is largely being ignored.

Probably no country in Latin American shows as wide a gap between a handful of the wealthiest people and the vast majority of people who live in conditions of abject poverty. It is the grossly inequitable distribution of our country's resources that gave rise to and has fuelled an armed insurgency now more than 40 years old.

Land and access to land is increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Meanwhile, more than two million of my fellow citizens forced to flee their homes by the actions of paramilitary groups, state security forces, and guerrilla armies have become refugees in their own country.

Disturbingly, the distorted concentration of wealth continues to grow at an accelerated pace. Free market economic policies of globalization and structural adjustment that have been imposed in recent decades have led to growing social inequities and a worsening of the living conditions for the majority of our people, thereby exacerbating the conflict. Meanwhile, both rural and urban unemployment continue to increase every day.

Let me be clear: if we do not have peace in Colombia, it is first and foremost because we do not have economic and social justice. It is not that poor Colombians do not want peace; it is that they do not want to remain poor. Many Colombians may be forced to accept poverty, but that has required repression by state forces, and that repression in turn has led people to take up arms in response.

As churches, we do not believe an armed response is the way to resolve our nation's problems. Indeed, war has only deepened the situation of poverty and misery and led to more bloodshed.

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We continue to speak out clearly and forcefully against the serious violations committed by all parties to the conflict, including the guerrilla armies, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that the roots of the war lie in the extreme poverty of the majority, and that many people prefer fighting a war than living and dying in conditions of absolute misery.

It is also a fact that the armed conflict has not contributed to reforming our national structures. Just the opposite has happened. The most reactionary political, social, and economic sectors have become more solidified in our society. It is precisely these structures that have made violence inevitable.

For our politicians, far too often the word “peace” has meant that the Colombian people passively resign themselves to their poverty. They must not complain, protest, or rebel. Our constitution protects freedom of expression. I am sure that you have heard from the Colombian government how we are the oldest democracy in the Americas. But in practice, those who speak out against policies that continue to keep the wealth in the hands of the few are killed. Thousands of people have been systematically assassinated in my country—union leaders, human rights advocates, community organizers, indigenous leaders, and members of the opposition political parties. The victims also include former guerrillas who have chosen to lay down their arms, their weapons, in a desire to seek change through peaceful means. Impunity for these crimes is almost total.

The Colombian churches and many other sectors of Colombian society are deeply committed to finding a negotiated political settlement to the armed conflict that has ravaged our country. We welcome that fact that the Canadian government has expressed an openness to playing a positive role in supporting our search for peace. But if Canada truly wants to contribute towards peace in my country, there are a number of things that you must understand. I will mention just two.

First of all, this a long process. Peace will not be achieved because a few politicians desire it. Peace will not even be achieved because the majority of the population yearns for it. Peace will only be achieved when the causes of the war have disappeared. But far from diminishing, these causes have become more acute. It is therefore essential that the peace process address and find remedies to the policies that have created and exacerbated such profound inequalities.

Secondly, we know the Canadian government has sought to maintain a so-called neutral position in terms of the U.S. military aid package to Plan Colombia, neither supporting nor opposing it. I am not exaggerating when I say to you that, for us, silence means death. Approximately 80% of the so-called aid coming from the United States is military aid. Only a small portion is destined for alternative development programs. We are concerned that the social side of Plan Colombia will only end up mitigating the damage and destruction caused by the large military component.

As Colombians, we believe the military aid will undermine the peace process, worsen the humanitarian and human rights crisis, increase forced displacement, and aggravate the social and political crisis. We are joined in this belief by many sectors of Colombian society. We urge you, as members of the Canadian Parliament, to speak up and express your clear opposition to this militaristic approach. Your voice is important, and it will be heard in my country.

Thank you.

The Chair: Lilia, we're having the ambassador to Canada with us next week, so she can speak to some of your issues as well.

Kimberly, I understand you have to be out of here shortly. Do you?

Ms. Kimberly Inksater (Individual Presentation): Yes, I do. I need to leave by 4:30, or 4:40 at the latest.

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The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Okay, would you like to speak now, please?

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: I was just going to continue with part of the presentation, Madam Chair. I'll try to be brief.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Okay, I'm sorry.

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: As documented in our reports, which I understand are still in translation and will be ready tomorrow, the human rights situation in Colombia is suffering a dramatic deterioration. When I appeared before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in November 1999, I reported there was an average of 10 political assassinations or disappearances each day in Colombia. That number has now doubled, reaching an average of 20 such killings each and every day; 80% of these are the work of paramilitary death squads, often acting with the support or acquiescence of the state security forces.

In December 1999, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade issued a very important resolution that, among other things, called upon the Government of Colombia to

implement without delay the recommendations made to it repeatedly by UN and OAS human rights bodies, in particular those calling on the Government to permanently disband paramilitary groups...

You should know that the most recent report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that the Colombian authorities have failed to follow up the majority of the international recommendations aimed at addressing the human rights crisis. The UN found that paramilitary groups have grown by 81% over the past two years and that the Colombian government's commitment to counteracting them has been weak and inconsistent.

The report also confirmed the ongoing collusion between these groups and state security forces. Indeed, the United Nations denounced that it has repeatedly provided the Colombian government with detailed information about the location of paramilitary bases and checkpoints in the provinces of Putumayo, Valle del Cauca, Bolivar, Sucre, and Antioquia, among others. Yet despite the abundance of information and despite the fact that many of these sites are in close proximity to army bases, according to the report:

The paramilitaries have remained at all the sites observed all year, committing killings and massacres in the towns and countryside nearby...

This leaves one to ask the question, what kind of democracy are we talking about that allows its citizens to be murdered? It is urgent that more concerted pressure be brought on the Colombian authorities to take serious the UN recommendations and address the human rights crisis.

The second point I would like to make is that our hands are not as clean as we would like them to be. As our brief, which you'll receive tomorrow, illustrates, 33 military helicopters, which until recently were property of the Department of National Defence, are now in the hands of the Colombian armed forces in the province of Putumayo, an area of the country that has witnessed widespread collusion between paramilitary death squads and the state's security forces.

This disturbing reality, which I believe undermines the otherwise constructive role we might play in the peace process, was made possible through a loophole in Canadian legislation that fails to take into account the end user. As our briefs urge, this loophole needs to be closed so that similar situations do not occur.

In terms of further recommendations, we fully support the call for a Canadian parliamentary delegation to conduct a visit to Colombia. As an organization that has worked closely with Colombian partners for over a decade and facilitated numerous missions to the country, we would be happy in helping to provide support to such a mission.

We also express our concern that while we need to do all we can to address the root causes of the conflict so that Colombians are not obliged to leave such a beautiful country, we need to continue to provide a quick and effective mechanism to allow people in danger to seek asylum in Canada when that is their only option. We urgently need more resources for the post in Bogota, and we need to open our doors much wider to provide refuge to Colombians at risk.

Finally, Colombians are not saying they do not want trade and investment, but they do want assurances that foreign investment will benefit the people and not just a small elite. They want assurances that foreign investors will not end up being complicit in attacks against trade unionists opposing the selling off of state assets to foreign companies in areas such as oil and gas. And they want assurances that foreign investment will not violate the rights of indigenous peoples and the environment, as is the case in the EDC's $18.2 million U.S. support to the Urra 1 hydroelectric megaproject.

The 1999 resolution by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade called for increased monitoring of the impact of Canadian trade and investment in order to ensure that the presence and activities of Canadian corporations are not worsening the conflict or the human rights situation. I would submit that the response of the government to date—which has largely been to promote voluntary fora on ethical investment, which companies may attend if they wish—does not meet the intention of the resolution and that enhanced and effective monitoring needs to occur.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

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The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Kimberly.

Ms. Kimberly Inksater: I want to begin by apologizing for having to leave early, but I have a prior commitment.

I'll introduce myself just briefly. I'm an independent consultant, so I'm here as an individual. I have a background in human rights law and have worked in various countries in the Americas since the late 1980s. In that capacity, I've done human rights observation in Guatemala as part of the UN verification mission and other work with non-governmental organizations in countries like Belize. I'm also doing work as a consultant for CIDA in Bolivia with the human rights ombudsman.

Based on that background, I was also contacted by CIDA last year to do a conflict analysis of the situation in Colombia. I'd been in Colombia in the early 1990s as a law student in the capacity of a human rights internship with ILSA, an NGO in Bogota.

Based on my experience in the Americas, I began to do more serious academic study around intrastate conflict, human security, and development. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts very briefly on the conflict in Colombia and, what's more, the analysis that I've found useful around the Colombian civil war.

First of all, a number of academics have used what's called a closed-system analysis of intrastate conflicts, and I've found that helpful. It looks at the causes of violence by looking at systems that have been closed in a country which is in internal conflict. The reference to a closed system refers to the areas in which groups utilize their advantageous positions to close the system off and prohibit the participation by members of less advantaged groups.

In the case of Colombia, I would use—and it's not an exhaustive list of systems—the closure of the political system. There's also closure of the social systems and the economic systems there. I won't go into detail on the political systems, but there's a long history of a two-party system which is closed to... I guess you wouldn't say it was a true democracy. As Lilia was saying, it's a formal democracy, but not an inclusive democracy.

The social system is closed, and there's rigid social stratification in the country. This reinforces divisions between the elite and others. An “us and them” mentality is perpetuated.

Also, the economic system, as Lilia and Bill have already mentioned, is closed. It's a country with rich natural resources, but the concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite and transnational corporations has closed the economic system to the detriment of the majority of Colombians. In the case of rural areas, this is the concentration of land in the hands of a few people.

All of this has contributed to the weakening of the Colombian state. The closure of all of the above systems, as well as the history of armed conflict in Colombia, have debilitated the Colombian state to the extent that all sectors of the civilian population lack confidence in state institutions.

Those systemic causes of the conflict are intensified. Again, I don't have the expertise probably that the other speakers have, but I would name just a few categories that I would suggest would be intensifiers of the conflict or aggravating factors. Those would be, again, economic factors such as high unemployment over the last few years; an increase in poverty, especially in rural areas; and of course the drug trade.

Another intensifier over the years is that an ideological extremism has developed, where there's that “us and them” and the other labelled as the demon, if you want. That facilitates political labelling.

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And there's the further breakdown of the Colombian state, where the paramilitary has grown, as Bill said. Large parts of the national territory are controlled by non-state actors. There's corruption in public institutions, and the rule of law is very weak.

Of course the impacts of those causes, the closure of the system, and add to that the intensifiers... the impact has led to a culture of violence. So that has encouraged further militarization—I won't repeat the human rights violations that Bill has already referred to—and a lack of dialogue between the state and civil society. Again, the paramilitary operations and human rights atrocities go in impunity. Human rights defenders and trade unionists are labelled as subversive.

The communities have been displaced. There are the deep social class divisions, as I mentioned. And, on an individual basis, the displacement and other human rights violations break down social structures, and it gets to the extreme. I believe that the identity needs of individuals are satisfied by the culture of violence, and this encourages the participation in the armed conflict.

I think that intrastate conflict analysis is similar to the human security analysis that has developed since the end of the Cold War, and you may have had reference to that in previous sessions. The threat to one system or one subsystem of human security has an effect on the other systems. They're all interdependent. Therefore, if there's a threat, for example, to economic security when income is concentrated in the hands of only a few, this leads to threats to security in other inputs—for example, political security and social security.

I would contend that the political system needs to be a priority and that the role of the state to manage all of these systems is so weak in Colombia. Until there is a stronger state, the systems will not be inclusive; they'll continue to be exclusive.

I think development interventions can deal with the causes of the conflict. The goal of the interventions, however, must be structural and long-term. They need to move those closed systems and open them so that the culture of violence becomes a culture of peace.

Development programs, I believe, can be effective interventions if development is seen very broadly. So that's more than simply the standard of living calculation or the life expectancy calculation that many international agencies use to measure development. Rather, there must be a human rights and democratic development focus to development intervention. This will hold the Colombian state accountable, strengthen public institutions, and also encourage or facilitate a more inclusive democracy.

My recommendations simply as an individual for Canadian interventions in Colombia would be the following: first, for immediate intervention so that the state complies with its legal obligations. For example, Canada could pressure the Colombian state to comply with the responsibility to guarantee respect for international human rights and international humanitarian law norms. And this may not mean only to pressure but actually to offer support so that the capacity is built to both prevent and punish human rights violators.

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Another area is to pressure the Colombian government to increase its efforts to eliminate paramilitary activity. In order to do this, there needs to be a focus on the Colombian military's ability to address the paramilitary issue. The military is not only weak in numbers but also corrupt, and there's evidence of its compliance with the paramilitary.

Along the same lines, the Canadian government could support building the capacity of the civilian police, so they can take on many of the activities the military currently has a monopoly on—and which, in a democracy, would perhaps be better served by the police.

There also needs to be protection for human rights defenders. The Colombian government has an office and a law designed to protect them, but it has not been successful. There needs to be increased protection for labour leaders. There will be an ILO committee meeting in Geneva next month, and I would suggest that the Canadian government could support the Colombian labour movement's call for an investigation commission to Colombia.

With regard to the three systems, I mentioned the political system, the social system, and the economic system. Canada could look for ways to promote the opening up of those systems by including civil society groups that have traditionally been excluded.

Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Emmanuel?

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger (Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Latin America and the Caribbean): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm glad to be back here. We've met before.

I am here with Pablo Leal, whom I invited. He and I work together with a group that calls itself Invisible Struggles in Colombia. You might remember that this is a delegation of indigenous people, women's organizations, etc., that met with you here. When I found out that we were coming here, I contacted them and they sent regards. Actually, they also offered some recommendations for us to make here. I will be speaking today on their behalf—and I hope I do it well, in case they find out.

I myself am a Colombian, forced into exile close to two and a half years ago when I was doing research on violence prevention in Colombia. The previous speakers addressed many of the concerns and positions we'd like to address, so in order not to repeat those points, I'd just like to emphasize our agreement with those views, positions, and recommendations, and then take it from there.

I have passed around copies of the platform of Canada-Colombia Solidarity that was prepared and put out in December during a forum in Ottawa. It's a four-page document. On the third page you'll see that there were only four recommendations made by the participating NGOs, unions, and many other groups involved in and interested in solidarity with Colombia. I'll just stress these recommendations, because these efforts are along same lines and in the same direction as the Canada-Colombia campaign that we're working on now.

First of all, there's a very clear and direct opposition to Plan Colombia. I will refer to that later on, but there is a need to oppose this plan.

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Second, and that is very important as well, is continuing support for a negotiated solution for war in Colombia. We recognize that the Canadian government, and particularly the Canadian ambassador in Colombia, has been very supportive of the peace process. We encourage the embassy and the ambassador to carry on with their efforts.

I'm speaking here on behalf of the Invisible Struggles Group and the other popular movements in Colombia. They demand their right to participate in this process with a decision-making character. They don't wish to have a process like the one in Guatemala or El Salvador repeated, whereby an agreement was reached between armed actors, both from the state and guerrillas, and then most of the population was excluded. The levels of violence increased after the peace treaties were signed because the social determining factors for violence were not addressed, and the people who survived through violence are doing it now. There are all kinds of industries to survive through violence, which are the only means that people find to make a living.

If popular movements and organizations are not involved in proposing alternative solutions for economic and social needs, then the only alternative after peace treaties signed between armed forces is the exclusion of most people and a reproduction of violence. I don't want to get into it further; it's just a point that has to be underscored. Popular and social organizations have to take part as decision-makers in the peace process.

The third point, very important, has to do with Canada and Canadian policy on investment in Colombia. There is a need to examine and address critically both Canadian policy and Canadian investment in Colombia, with particular emphasis on the energy sector, and more emphasis still on the oil sector. Those sectors are involved in investment in areas where there is violence, displacement, particularly in southern Putumayo, where Plan Colombia is targeted. The main U.S.-led military operation is in southern Colombia, in Putumayo, where the Colombian Petroleum Company has recognized that most of the contracts for exploration and exploitation of oil in the region have been given out to Canadian companies. So I think it is essential to know that the economic interests in the region are Canadian interests and they are oil interests. That has to be addressed. I think it's urgent to do so.

Also, as the people from the Invisible Struggles Group said at a meeting here in Ottawa to the staff at CIDA who were kind enough to receive them there... They presented the fact that in 1999 CIDA hired a consultant to help review the Colombian mining code, particularly to review the process of prior consultation and make it more expeditious. In fact the legislation that is about to be approved has been protested by the Afro-Colombian movements, the peasant movements, and other people who inhabit areas where there are potential mining resources. With the help of Canadian consultants, the prior consultation has been weakened, and this is a major factor in the generation of violence and displacement. So we urge you, as part of the third point, to look and follow up on that question posed by the delegates during the recent visit.

Fourthly, there is the fact that Colombians are not only victims and excluded victims but mostly subjects and historical subjects who have been denied systemically the right to exercise that right. Most Colombians have not been entitled to use their own resources to participate and make their government accountable for the use of their resources and to have the distribution of the wealth produced by those resources benefit most of them. In fact most Colombians have been excluded, as has been stated here before.

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Now, we realize we're sitting in Canada and not in Colombia, and we don't want you to solve that problem, but we want you to realize what you already know. If you have an illegitimate partner, even if it is a legal partner, you will have a problem of a contradiction, because your partner and the partner you're using, in this case the Colombian government, if it does not legitimately represent the interests of most Colombians, will represent its own interests against most Colombians. And this is, I'm afraid we have enough evidence to say, the root cause of the conflict in Colombia and of its extension throughout the region.

Local elites throughout Colombia's history have expropriated and exploited most Colombians and denied political, social, and economic legitimacy to the system in Colombia, as Kimberly said before I did. With that as a background, foreign interests have further distorted the reality in Colombia by joining ventures with those elites precisely who are excluding people. This has led Colombians into two options, if you can call them such, to get out of exclusion.

One option, in order to fulfil their needs and necessities, is to enter illegal capital interests, which is what others call organized crime. That is the origin of industries such as the drug trade and drug trafficking, which is an expression of the problem but not the problem itself. And two, the only way to exercise political opposition in Colombia is through insurgency, in spite of the fact that most Colombians do not like armed insurgency and refuse to take part in it. But they have been forced by this process into that, which in the end has rendered invisible most Colombian social and popular movements who refuse to become involved either in illegal trade or in armed insurgency. But then they're caught under a government that doesn't represent them, an insurgency that says it represents them, and illegal trade that makes them invisible. That's why we talked about invisible struggles.

At the same time, there are more and more diverse social movements and proposals for diverse peaceable development in Colombia than anywhere else in Latin America. It is essential that the Canadian government and people recognize the existence of these people and begin to establish a partnership and a relationship with them, and demand from the Colombian government the recognition of these social actors who are in fact the majority of Colombians. In other words, there's a need for a new social contract in Colombia without which partnerships for trade or anything else will lead to further violence and distortion, which will extend throughout the region.

Those were the four main points and recommendations from here: one, support the invisible struggles; two, examine and actually change trade, particularly in the energy sector and trade within the energy sector, and Canadian policy toward Colombia; three, support a negotiated solution with the participation of most Colombians in decision-making processes; and four, have a very clear statement with regard to Plan Colombia.

What I'd like to state in ending this presentation is the fact that as exclusion is perpetuated in the region through a process such as the free trade area of the Americas—I'll put it in these words—foreign investment cannot succeed even in its own terms and interests if the well-being of most people is not guaranteed. If people are being forced into their own exclusion and poverty in order for investment to be successful, not only will that investment fail in an environment of war, deprivation, and increasing destruction, but also the poverty and the misery of most people in the region will increase.

I think I'm calling upon a regional continental responsibility that Canada has, and that this committee's taking on, to make a moral and ethical statement that development in the region in order to be peaceful has to be just. Colombia is an example of the opposite.

• 1635

We said this to the Colombian ambassador to Canada personally. We visited the Colombian ambassador with the tour, and the delegates of the tour, in the presence of Ms. Sheila Katz from the Canadian Labour Congress, who attended as a witness, were forced to tell the ambassador that the Colombian embassy in Canada did not represent them because: one, it was excluding them with the political and economic policies that were being implemented; two, it did not guarantee their safety anywhere; three, it denied human rights abuses that were connected to government forces and proved everywhere; five, when specific requests were made everywhere to listen and consider the interests of most people, systematically the Colombian government denied that; and sixth—and most important for international policy—the most important piece of international policy in the region today, Plan Colombia, was developed and approved without any discussion by any elected Colombian institution.

Thank you very much.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Kimberly, did you want to add something? Do you have a few more minutes?

Ms. Kimberly Inksater: Yes. If there are any questions, I can take them before I leave.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Pablo, did you have a presentation, or are you here just to hold his hand?

Mr. Pablo Leal: No. I would only underscore the specific request by the delegates you met about a month ago that the episode with the mining code, which Canada formally participated in the drafting of, and which they say has very detrimental effects, be looked into officially and formally. They say it has facilitated the kind of investment that has historically brought violence, and there's research to support this. So they feel we have the faculties here, and the resources and the responsibility, to look a little more in depth at the kind of activity we're carrying out in a country that is so volatile.

I don't know how to pursue that from this point on, but if a formal petition could be made so that the work with the mining code draft in Colombia and its subsequent effects could be looked at, then perhaps in the future, if it turns out to be such a detrimental process, that kind of venture will be undertaken with a little more care.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

I think, Kimberly, one of the things you said during your presentation was that the priority should be on reforming the political system. That tone seemed to be continued with Emmanuel. Would anyone like to comment on that? We're looking for solid recommendations.

Ms. Kimberly Inksater: I think it's difficult when the system's so closed and, as Emmanuel said, it's... I use the term “weak”, but some would say it's an “illegitimate” state. Or another term used often by conflict analysts is a “failed state”, and that's why you have the conflict here now to the extent or the severity you have at the present time.

I think to increase democratic mechanisms in Colombia to achieve a state that is truly representative will be long term, and it will necessarily include both economic aspects and social aspects. Because there's that upper class, or elite, if you want to use that term, in Colombia, who have had the privileges they're enjoying today since independence. So it's a long-term change of attitudes.

I think one of the things that Canada can do is to facilitate and promote participation by civil society in the peace process to ensure that public institutions are transparent; to support only public institutions that are, if you can say, non-corrupt and well respected in Colombia, as for example the Defensoría del Pueblo, the human rights ombudsman; and to choose partners carefully.

It's difficult to be more concrete than that from my perspective.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Yes, Emmanuel.

• 1640

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: The one concrete recommendation and proposal—it's probably more feasible politically as well, but also necessary—is that Canada can play a stronger role in supporting the construction of the social actors that can help strengthen democracy. This can be done by not only acknowledging their existence but also by specifically carrying out activities that help them present their views and positions. There are many, and they're visible—unions, social organizations, black people's movements, women's organizations throughout the country.

So what we have called invisible struggles and other names, etc... but popular movements and organizations need to be supported to develop their own position in the main or critical aspects that are required to reconstruct the country and overcome the crisis—political, social, economic, and cultural issues—and their stance on these issues. So Canadian support, rather than opposing the government or opposing this faction and the other, but in promoting the development of the popular views and positions on these issues as a political recommendation, is a contribution to the peace process and to the generation of an outcome overcoming the crisis in the future.

That would be a recommendation that this committee could, in our view, carry through.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I see you're packing up and ready to leave.

Ms. Kimberly Inksater: Yes, Madam Chair.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Well, thank you for being with us today, Kimberly—

Ms. Kimberly Inksater: Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): —and we'll try to sort through this. Thank you.

Ms. Kimberly Inksater: If you have any further questions or need clarification on what I gave you, please feel free to call.

The Acting Chair (Ms Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Bill.

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: Yes. I wanted to echo some of what has just been said about supporting popular movements in Colombia. I've worked with the Inter-Church Committee for the last 18 years, and throughout that period I've travelled regularly to most of Latin America, from Chile on up to Colombia, and I can truthfully say that I've never seen more courageous people. The men and women that I meet on my trips are often people who have faced death threats. Some of them are now in exile. Some of them are dead. I think of a lot of the human rights workers that I have known, and some of them have been murdered.

I think that we cannot go far enough to provide support to these courageous women and men who are in Colombia right now. I think of a number of initiatives that have taken place recently. There was a forum which our committee cosponsored together with the Canadian Embassy, which brought together a number of miners in Colombia. It was sponsored by the mine workers' union, and it happened just a few weeks ago. They brought together miners from across the country to look at the theme of resource extraction, environment, and peace; and they came out with a number of very important proposals and recommendations for foreign investors on investment—things that one needs to look into very carefully.

Over the last few days as well, indigenous peoples from the Embera, Tule, U'wa, and Cuna nations of the Pacific region of Colombia held their very first congress, where they wanted to discuss the impact of the armed conflict on their culture and environment. They are also expressing concern about a number of proposed megaprojects in their zone and the impact that this is having on their culture and on their livelihood.

In August of this year, there are two different initiatives of caravans to Colombia. One will travel to the south of Bolivar, where right now there are attempts to engage in peace talks between the ELN and the government, and they are being met with a great deal of resistance by paramilitary groups in the zone. There is also another caravan which will go to Barrancabermeja, which is a city under absolute siege right now—again, by paramilitary forces. That caravan is in support of the popular women's organization, an organization comprised of the most courageous women I've ever met in my life.

So I would like to echo that Colombians are active and that it's a very difficult situation we're describing. I've seen a marked deterioration since the first days I went to Colombia, but I'm always impressed that people continue, and people are coming out with alternatives and proposals. Colombians are not sitting with their hands in their pockets and saying, there's nothing that can be done. They are developing alternatives, and we need to listen to them. That's the first point.

The other is that I really think that these hearings are very important. I said that in my introductory statement. We often get messages in our office of hearings that the European Union are holding and statements made by the European Union, and I know that for us and for partners in Colombia, these sorts of initiatives are extremely important.

• 1645

It's extremely important to know that parliamentarians are taking note of what's going on in the country and looking for ways to make a positive impact, so even statements... The last resolution that was issued by the standing committee on foreign affairs and international trade went down to Colombia, and it was a source of great hope for a number of people who look to the Canadian parliamentary committees and were inspired by that.

Visits, like the visit of your chair right now in Colombia, are really important. Svend Robinson went to Colombia earlier this year as well and went to a city—Barrancabermeja—which was in the midst of a very intense conflict. I know that his presence in Colombia provided support and solidarity to people who are under the gun.

I'd just like to make a comment about the weak state, because very often we hear the Colombian government... and I'm sure that if the Colombian ambassador is going to make an appearance next week, you'll hear it again. The Colombian government often presents itself as an innocent victim of extremes on the left and extremes on the right. There are nasty guerrillas, which there are; there are nasty drug traffickers, which there are; but the state is somehow absent. It's a victim. It's invisible. Emmanuel spoke about the invisible struggles, but if there's any invisibility, it's the Colombian government's willingness to account for its own responsibility.

I have witnessed... I have travelled in many regions of Colombia over the last decade, and I remember areas where I've gone where I've seen paramilitary squads walking within two minutes of the military base. When I went to the general in the base and said we'd just seen paramilitary units just around the corner, he said, “Well, human rights delegations keep telling me that they're in the area, but every time I send my soldiers out, they can never find them”. We have seen this time and time again.

In every part of Colombia there's evidence of collusion between the state security forces... And we're not talking about a few bad apples—we're talking about senior military commanders that allow paramilitary groups to conduct murder. These days, they're not even using guns. The weapon of choice of paramilitary death squads is chainsaws. I've taken many accounts from many witnesses and evidence by people who talk about the mocha-cabezas, the head choppers, that will come into their village. This has resulted in massive forced displacement of the civilian population.

As Lilia said, the guerrillas are also responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law, and that needs to be denounced, but right now the main source of violence is paramilitary groups, and there is abundant evidence of collusion. In fact, the human rights ombudsman in Colombia has spoken about the paramilitary groups as being the illegal wing of the armed forces. They are, in fact, the people that do the dirty work that the armed forces shouldn't be seen doing because it will compromise the military support that they're getting now.

If we look at a pattern of the abuses over the last six or seven years, we can see that, as the abuses committed openly by state security forces have descended—in fact, now I think it might be between 2% and 4%—the abuses by paramilitary groups, which used to be about 10%, are now up to 80%. So in fact they are doing the dirty work that the Colombian government doesn't want to be seen doing.

Do I think that President Pastrana pushes a button and calls on a paramilitary group to go into this village and massacre people? No. But I know that the Colombian government is not taking the measures necessary to dismantle paramilitary bases. The reports that I have here from the United Nations Human Rights Commission have almost given the Colombian government street addresses where they can very easily locate paramilitary units. These units are very close to military bases.

We talked about the absence of the state, but a lot of these killings are taking place in regions where the state is quite present. They're not absent. The Colombian government continues to say that they can't find these bases, or they haven't been able to dismantle them. I seriously believe that they have not even tried. If you read the documentation from the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Organization of American States, Amnesty International, our own committee, and many, many Colombian sources, you'll find that this is the truth.

So I would urge you, in your conversations with the Colombian government, to hold the Colombian government accountable. It's not right that year after year after year, countries mention this collusion in their speeches at the United Nations. There's evidence of it, yet there's no cost to be paid. We're not calling on Canada to sever diplomatic ties with Colombia—far from it.

• 1650

I think our embassy in Bogota has played a very positive role through the leadership of Nick Coghlan, who is now in Sudan, but also Ambassador Rishchynski. These are people who have expressed a deep appreciation of the situation in the country. They are also people who travel to regions of the country that are quite dangerous, and we recognize that. I think they are trying to tackle the situation in Colombia.

But there has to be some cost paid for a repeated failure to implement the recommendations of the United Nations, which, if implemented, would have an incredible impact in improving the human rights situation and would protect the lives of so many women, men, and children who right now are being slaughtered. So I would again urge you to maintain a strong position with the Colombian authorities.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Lilia.

Ms. Lilia Solano: I would like to say something that I should have mentioned at the beginning. I've been in Canada for eight months on sabbatical, so thank you so much for your patience with my strong Spanish accent.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): It's beautiful.

Ms. Lilia Solano: Thank you.

I would like to say something about my time in Canada. It's almost coming to an end. I am going back to Colombia in mid-June.

One thing that really struck me is that for many Canadians, the response to the Colombian war is that we are neutral. This sort of neutrality really worries me, because for us, neutrality means agreement. If you are quiet in the face of war, it means you agree with it. You don't know how much danger you can cause for a Colombian in being quiet.

Many Colombians die every day. It's something that is real; it's not only on CNN. It's not because of the war against drugs that they die; it's because of all these issues that we mentioned—structural causes, political, economic, and military causes.

With this Plan Colombia, the military aid that the United States sends, I would invite you to at least take a position you can agree with and say it. Or disagree and say we understand Colombia doesn't need any more weapons. We could be clear on that. But this sort of neutrality is worse for the Colombian people.

I remember the Vietnam War and people who protested, people who were jailed, people who were pushed by the police, but people who stood up and said they were against that war.

The stronger they say it, they will save many people from this war. We need that now in Colombia.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Obhrai.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: I'm not an expert on Colombia. This is actually the first I started looking in depth at this situation. My colleague Keith Martin visited Colombia. So I'm listening, and I was in Geneva and I did talk to the United Nations Human Rights Commission

Were you in Colombia?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): No.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Sorry, not Colombia. I meant Geneva.

• 1655

They did mention some factors. One point that all of you mentioned, and any of you can address this point, was the atrocities committed by the paramilitary—which is why you call them right wing, I guess, or whatever. But somehow or other—and I did ask this in Geneva—it seems to me that because of the security factor for the local populace in the area of conflict and the inability of the military to provide any kind of safe environment for them, and subject to the atrocities committed by guerrillas, or whatever, speaking in general—you're from there so maybe you can tell me—the populace in that area seem to view these right-wing paramilitaries as a necessary evil or a necessary thing that protects them. So they look at them as protectors to some degree, hence they seem to be getting some support from the populace.

I checked. I asked this at the UN, and they said that to some degree this is true. I'm not justifying the right-wing military. I think it's the responsibility of the government to create a safe environment, not guerrillas and not paramilitary groups. Maybe you can enlighten me. I'm listening quite carefully to what you're saying.

Ms. Lilia Solano: Back in 1962, advisers from the United States advised Colombia that there was not enough military presence, especially at the borders. They were supposed to hire private justice to keep control, because the guerrilla groups were growing and they were out of control. This was a solution that made things worse. The paramilitary groups, like private justice, have grown so much that right now they have turned into a huge army of killers. So the supposed solution left the poor peasants with more problems, facing more death, without answering the problem.

This has been the case for a long time. The truth is that the paramilitaries protect the interests of the rich landowners and the interests of some politicians, and they try to cover up the human rights violations that in the past belonged to the national army.

Here in Canada, I have found that people keep saying, yes, the United Nations says 80% of the human rights violations are committed by paramilitaries, but what about the 15% of violations committed by the guerrillas and 5% of the violations committed by the national army? So it worries me again that there is not a strong statement against the huge human rights violations made by the paramilitaries.

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: I would like to add a bit to that.

Carlos Castaño, who has emerged as the leader of the paramilitary groups—he calls them the self-defence groups of Colombia—seems to be able to have great access to the Colombian media. In fact, I think every journalist in Colombia knows how to find Carlos Castaño, but for some reason, despite the dozens of arrest warrants for him, the Colombian army can't seem to track him down.

But Carlos Castaño frequently gives interviews. In fact, he was on national television and spoke about 70% of their funding coming from the drug trade. Carlos Castaño, in the case of Barrancabermeja, has gone in, and the paramilitary groups have basically bought off a lot of people. They have offered money to young unemployed youth, and this is part of the way they have made incursions into a number of areas. They go in with a lot of money, and they pay for people to work with them. In other areas, we've had direct testimony from indigenous people in the north of the country who say they forcibly recruit people, as well, to join their ranks.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought. I had another point, but I'll come back to it.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Why would these drug lords be funding the paramilitary?

• 1700

Mr. Pablo Leal: Could I make a comment on that?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Yes.

Mr. Pablo Leal: There's a lot that is not understood. There's more that is misunderstood than understood about the paramilitary phenomenon.

The paramilitary phenomenon has a history of militancy that goes back to the 1960s. Then in the 1980s there were alliances made with some of the drug cartels where they jointly trained some of their forces, etc. And now even Pablo Escobar, when he was arrested, said “You can worry about me all you want, but there are certain people you are not running after who are going to probably seize control of the drug trade in this country”. He was referring to the Castaño.

I want to make a comment about the logic behind paramilitarism. For example, in the Easter week massacre, according to some estimates, between 130 and 150 peasants were massacred under the pretext that these people were guerrilla collaborators, etc. It turns out that's an area where anywhere between five and seven megaprojects are planned.

In the area of the Embera-Katio indigenous nation, with which Bill Fairbairn and ICCHRLA have worked quite a bit, the assassination of indigenous leaders did not have to do with indigenous collaboration with the guerrillas, where in fact they have been at odds for a long time with guerrilla forces in the area insisting that they leave their territory, but rather their opposition to a hydroelectric dam project—in which, by the way, Canada had put a significant amount of money through the Export Development Corporation. And in fact there was a hue and cry about it.

So their resistance to a dam project meant indigenous leaders were assassinated until even a little while ago. After the conflict was supposedly resolved, they're still being targeted by them. Does this have to do with people needing to defend themselves from the atrocities of the guerrillas? Not really—not in these circumstances, in any case.

Other cases where you see this are gold mines, for example, in the south of Bolivar, where peasants who have been there for 20 or 30 years mine gold in an artisanal way—on a very small scale. There are concession interests in those lands, and of course paramilitaries start to act to try to displace people. That logic has been documented and mapped out over a 20- or 30-year process.

That's the history that has to be looked into when you try to understand the paramilitary phenomenon and what their incidence on Colombian territory is really about.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: How powerful and what is—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Could you wait until next round?

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: I have to go to make a speech in the House.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Mr. Dubé has been waiting patiently as well.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: You can ask the question and I'll read it. How powerful and what is the strength of the left-wing guerrillas?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Do you want to allow him that?

Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, BQ): Yes.

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: With this rise of the so-called paramilitaries, what is the status of the left-wing guerrillas? Are they losing control? Are they as powerful or in control? Where do they stand in this whole picture? It seems to me—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Where are they getting their funding?

Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Yes, where are they?

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: These are, on the one hand, essential questions in the debate internationally, but also the historical questions that must be addressed. I love the fact that they're coming forth right now, because that's where the discussion with the Colombian government, the emphasis, will be. That ends up affecting most of the rest of the people in Colombia, because we end up discussing two things that have to be discussed—violence and armed actors and the drug trade. But we end up not discussing where most people are and what their position is facing this situation.

I'll answer the questions specifically on guerrillas and paramilitaries. The background is there are major economic interests and contested territories that are being fought over by violent actors on behalf of those economic interests.

The economic interests are of two great types, although there are disputes between these and they're not clearly black and white. There are two groups. One is the national elites, including local and regional landlords together, supported by or in articulation with international and transnational interests, where—as I mentioned before—oil and energy sectors play a major role. The relationship—I'm not saying a cause—of determination, which means...

• 1705

For example, President Samper announced an alternative canal to the Panama Canal. Almost immediately a massacre was committed in the region and the 7,000 inhabitants of villages in the area were massively displaced by the paramilitary. Do they work for the companies that are going to construct the canal? Probably not in those circumstances, but in others, yes, they do. They work for oil companies and they responded to funding from them.

Colombia is right now a contested territory. The actors are either national or transnational economic interests that are either legal or illegal. And that's where the drug trade comes around. Drug lords are business people who are involved in both legal and illegal trades. They've acquired large amounts of land in the country—land that in the future and now is going to be exploited for mining, oil, etc.

If you want to access those resources, you will deal as a government with the drug lords as well. Those territories have also been contested by guerrilla forces, because either they have influence on the people in the region and they have been the only authority in the region for a long time, or because they're being pushed out by the incoming forces that are supporting the economic interests.

The equation is different from who is right here, the drug lords or the guerrillas or the paramilitary? The real question is what economic interests are being represented in the war and massacres taking place in Colombia?

The fact is Colombian state armed forces articulated with paramilitary forces are involved in the commission of most massacres. This is leading to the displacement of two million Colombians in the last 15 years, 317,000 last year. And these are poor people from territories that researchers have shown again and again are now cleared for multinational and national mega-economic projects. So there is displacement in Colombia for the wealth and benefits of the territory and the armed actors are part and parcel of that process.

So I'm just inviting—and it would be interesting—you to ask the ambassador these kinds of questions. What is actually the relationship between economic interests of the few and the displacement and violence taking place in the country? The greatest and most successful counter-agrarian reform in Latin America has taken place in Colombia in the last ten years, where the poorest people have been removed from their ancestral land and a few wealthy people have taken on that land—not to make it produce food. Colombia is now importing coffee.

If the Government of Colombia can defend that kind of regime... What they are doing is an advertisement and a propaganda machinery that says we are trapped by guerrillas, drug lords, and paramilitaries, when in fact what they are doing is selling out the country. Could you please ask the Colombian ambassador why during these governments royalties or revenues from oil for the Colombian people decreased from an already low 20% to 6%? And if she can deny that, we can provide you with the documentation and the legislation that proves that. Actually, Colombian revenue from oil has gone down during the last government, when there is oil in Putumayo, where Plan Colombia is being targeted.

This is the process of violence in Colombia. First, there are economic resources in the region. Second, armed actors come into the region to create space for those resources by getting rid of the only obstacle, organized people defending their rights. Thirdly, the resources are open for international legal and illegal interests. And we are not here to defend paramilitaries or guerrillas; we're here to defend most people in Colombia, and we ask you to start speaking that way.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Monsieur Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: I understand the situation because we have had a few meetings with several grassroots movements, and so on.

• 1710

My first comment is for the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America, represented by Mr. Fairbairn and Ms. Solano. Do church members figure among those people who have been killed? You said that at least 20 people are killed every day, 20 people are assassinated. Have church members been killed? I would like to know whether or not they respect people—

[English]

Ms. Lilia Solano: Last year we held a meeting with pastors and priests and nuns from the area and from the Protestant Church. There were 32 pastors killed, mostly because they opposed the recruiting of young kids. The guerrilla and the paramilitaries recruit kids from 12 years up, and churches especially oppose that kind of recruiting very strongly.

I live in Bogota, and many times we receive calls from different churches asking us to take their kids, because they prefer to love the kids than to give them to one of the two armed groups, the paramilitaries or the guerrilla. And it's because churches are everywhere in the country, in every village, in every little town. They are present in all these regions of violence. They are not being targeted because they are churches, but because they are part of the population, because they also have Colombians who happen to live there.

So we have the numbers of the priests and pastors who died, but the total number of people from churches we don't know. We just have these numbers, 32 pastors and priests who died in the last two years.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: You are an inter-church committee. By Church, I mean a religion such as Catholicism. Have all of the churches had victims in their membership or have the targets been primarily those churches that have been more active, that participate or assist to a greater degree, or who have been more actively against the recruiting of young people?

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: First of all, I am talking about the Inter-Church Committee in Canada, which is a Canadian coalition that includes the Catholic Church, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, etc. Obviously, in Columbia the Catholic Church is the main church, but there are also some smaller Protestant churches, such as the Mennonite Church and the Presbyterian Church, which are very active in human rights advocacy.

I think that the people who have been targeted the most in these attacks are those people from churches that work closely with the poor, that work on the front line, that are demanding justice. These people are, obviously, the ones that have been attacked whereas those who are in favour of the status quo have not experienced as many problems as the others.

As Lilia mentioned, there is a list of individuals, ministers, priests, both Protestant and Catholic, who have been the victims of attacks because of their commitment to achieving justice and, in the case of several ministers, because of their advocacy work against the recruiting of children.

Mr. Antoine Dubé: I would like to focus on another issue. According to my information, an election will be held in a year or in 18 months. You said that the most invisible group is really the government. Given that situation, are there political parties in Columbia all the same? We are parliamentarians from all parties and, generally speaking, we try to respect parliamentarians from other countries. We all realize, however, that not all parliamentarians are respectable people. I'm sure we understand each other. We do have to keep this in mind.

• 1715

I would like to know, for example—perhaps this was provided in other documents—what the voter turnout was like in the last elections.

[English]

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: I think that's a very important question, and this is another point the Colombian government will present throughout its presentations all over—the fact that, and Lilia referred to it in her presentation, Colombia is portrayed as the longest-living democracy and the most stable democracy in the region. Colombia has held elections and the electoral process has been in place and not interrupted, except for a short period of time when there was a dictatorship that was put in place by the elites in the region.

The fact is that the formal democratic process that takes place in Colombia has, in general, involved the participation of minorities of people. Voting is not obligatory in Colombia, so you don't have to vote, like in other countries in the region. The participation in the democratic process has been tied to, and here I use the word again, “invisible” but very tangible processes that take place in every community and everywhere in the country. Any Colombian could tell you this, wherever they live.

Colombia is in a permanent electoral campaign. Elections are going to be next year. The candidates are well known already, presidential candidates. But the election has never stopped since the previous president was elected. It goes on all the time, because what you do is you buy votes and you acquire that way positions, funding, etc., at every level and almost everywhere.

I am a practising surgeon. I used to teach surgery at a public university, a state university in Cali. I knew that, for example, the directors of hospitals were constantly appointed by politicians, and they would get appointed depending on the number of votes they promised to obtain for the specific candidate who would be elected. This has been going on forever. For a piece of chicken, sancocho, on a Sunday during electoral campaigns, you can get a whole neighbourhood to vote for you.

In fact, and I'll put it in a more specific way, the obligation of the state, and you know this very well, is to actually manage public resources for the well-being of people; but you are public servants, you represent your constituents and constituency, so you're supposed to make use of public resources. Colombian authorities and democratically elected authorities do not perceive that to be their role. They actually use the resources for the construction of a road or infrastructure, whatever it is, in exchange for an electoral position and so on. So you will get a school, an education that you should get as your right, only if you tie the votes of your family, your community, etc., to certain persons. This is established in such a way that most Colombians do not believe in the formal democracy, but at the same time believe there is no other way and keep voting every four years. Because if you're out of the loop, you're not into the resources. So then you have authoritarian government, who present themselves formally as being democratic.

That's the traditional history of what goes on, which is one small point in ending this. This is one subject that really hurts us in Colombia. The creation of a democratic opposition in Colombia has been an impossibility financially, because to get funds to establish a political party in opposition to what exists already, the Liberals and Conservatives, is almost impossible. You will not get the resources; they're tied into a corrupt machinery that controls the resources for democratic elections or maintains control through violence.

• 1720

When guerrilla movements in the past have sought to become political parties, they have been victims of genocide. In the 1980s, when the Unión Patriótica, the members of the FARC, entered the political campaigns, more than 3,000 of their members who were participating in democratic processes were murdered. You could ask the ambassador about that, and she'll give you her version, but the fact is you can only participate in the political process in a large way, in a significant way, because there are token positions here and there, only if you belong to either traditional families or a corrupt system. If you try to do opposition, you can say whatever you want, but if you are a threat to the system you will be murdered and nothing happens. It's a very established situation.

Ms. Lilia Solano: Coming to your question, historically there have been two main political parties, Liberals and Conservatives. But there are a number of players of different parties who are coming to participate, and historically what happened is many people who came with a different idea, a possibility, a dream for the country, have been killed.

But we have in this next electoral campaign a plural number of political parties, people who are from the grassroots levels. These are union leaders and political parties who want to participate, and want to run in the elections and to contribute to the country. So one thing you can do in Canada is to support this kind of plural participation, not the two main political parties, which always avoid having different people in the country participating.

People from the grassroots level are leaders in the country. They have solutions. They have ideas. They want to be part of the rebuilding of the country. I can say that there are many visible possibilities, many visible people. Some people are so visible that they kill them. So one strong idea is to support these people who have no power or control but want to participate. And the country knows these people.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Dubé, I can't give you more time; we're almost out of time.

Mr. Cotler, please.

Mr. Irwin Cotler: I want to say that I agree with what Lilia Solano mentioned, that as a general principle and proposition neutrality can be part of the problem and not part of the solution. In this as anywhere else, neutrality really means coming down on the side of the victimizer and not coming down on the side of the victim. It's the danger therefore of silence that is expressed as neutrality.

So I think you're correct. I think we need to speak up, to speak up and support the Colombian invisible and popular struggle, and to inquire into and expose any Canadian complicity in the transnational trade and investment in the energy sector that may involve human rights abuses. And we should oppose a Plan Colombia in its present form, because it again raises the issue of neutrality and thereby complicity.

During the visit of the representatives of the Colombian invisible and popular struggle and their testimony before us, I raised the question with them at the time of Canadian corporate complicity that may lead to human rights abuses. I asked if there was some specific evidence about this. And here, if I may, I'd like to turn to Emmanuel Rozental, although anyone can answer this, on three specific areas.

You referred to the energy sector, particularly the oil and the mining sectors, regarding Canadian involvement. I'm wondering if you might have more evidence than your initial presentation would have permitted regarding the three following considerations.

First, you mentioned the Colombia Petroleum Company and contracts given out to Canadian companies. What impact has this had on human rights violations in terms of Canadian complicity as a result of these contracts given out?

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The second has to do with the Canadian involvement in the Colombian mining code. Reference has been made to the fact that this is facilitated investment that has “distorted the situation”, if I can quote the words. My question is what recommendations would you have here on this issue, which you asked us to look into?

And third, you made reference to how the investment and trade policy of multinational corporations and the like has led to population displacement, and a particular reference to two million people who have been displaced. Again, is there any evidence of specific Canadian complicity in investment and trade projects that have led to this population displacement?

Mr. Pablo Leal: I'll start with the issue of the mining code. I think it's an issue that warrants a deeper kind of investigation and a more formal kind of investigation to look at the cause-and-effect relationship that might have existed. And the idea we're putting forward is not necessarily that this was done with bad intentions, but to understand the relationships that exist in conflict situations. This is a mining code that, in the end, mitigates people's right to be consulted. The ILO Convention 169 is meant to facilitate the consultation of local peoples, but the protest from the indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and peasant movement and the mine workers union is that what's happening is just the opposite.

At the same time, we see interests of Canadian mining companies that are trying to move in. And these popular movements are saying there's a relationship here. It's a very pure relationship between displacement and certain types of investments. Does this mean that the CEOs of these companies meet in a dark room smoking cigars, with secret handshakes, and say “I want to hire your henchmen”? No, it doesn't mean that. It just means, as one person has said, if a person is a hemophiliac it's best not to give him a blood thinning agent. If this is a territory that's under dispute, and then somebody says there's oil under there, let's put that up for sale, you know that something is going to happen. You know there's going to be that kind of displacement. And this is the kind of analysis that needs to be in place before the investment takes place.

As was said here before, Colombian people are not against trade and investment; they're against the kind of trade and investment that exacerbates the situation in a country where the land is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. If this situation is only augmenting the concentration of lands, then something has to be looked at. And if the Canadian government is dealing specifically or concretely in certain areas, then that has to be looked at.

I think the mining code is an interesting example that merits looking into in a more formal way. What are the protests from Colombians? Are they legitimate, and for what reason? What is the process they've gone through? How did Canada become involved in supporting the drafting of the mining code? And in the end, who is going to benefit from this? We could probably come up with some names and addresses, and mail boxes and websites, or something like that. And to be able to map those things out in that way, it's very useful for us to advance the way we do business around the world.

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: I have a point to complement that.

I want to respond to those three points you made, one of which is on the energy sector, and particularly ECOPETROL, and so on. We know about the extraordinary growth in investment and interest of Canadian oil companies in Colombia. It is actually the largest growing investment and interest in the world. In fact, the director of the Colombian Petroleum Company was in Japan about a month ago, and in order to encourage Japan's investment in Colombia made the comparison to Canada, which came from being one of the minor players to being the most important player in terms of growth in oil investments. So that statement is very important. There's been a dramatic change and a great growing interest.

Second, and I think this is a good start in looking at this question, right now one of the regions that is targeted for aerial fumigation at the moment, right at the border between Colombia and Equador, is the region... I'll pass the transparency because I don't have the specific map with me, but the transparency is here. You can see there how the Alberta Energy Company, in several situations—the largest interest in that region is Canadian, and Canadian energy and oil companies are involved directly there.

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So there is no longer an indirect deal here. The fact is it is predicted that at least 100,000 people will be displaced from that region. Aerial fumigation is being used and it is causing devastating damage to everything there, not just cocoa.

Three, there is oil there that is going to be extracted from the region when those people are not going to be there any more. By the time the fumigation is over, they will be displaced. So the revenue from that is going to benefit Canadian companies. The area is the Amazon, and the Amazon will be severely ecologically damaged. And the oil will be taken out by Canadian companies.

I don't need to know any more than seeing the map, knowing that Plan Colombia is targeted there, and knowing that aerial fumigations with glyphosate are taking place in that area, and knowing that displacement from there has already been massive to Equador and Nariño. There's a direct relationship between those companies, their interests, and the displacement of people from the area in Plan Colombia.

Whether or not these companies are directly involved, I think it is very important... the violence itself... I think it's already essential to know that there is a relationship that must be established.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): What do you mean fumigation?

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: Plan Colombia has aerial spraying—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Aerial spraying for what? The cocoa plant?

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: To destroy cocoa plants. They're using what is called Roundup Plus, which is glyphosate plus an oil base. It is used from far up in the area, and the argument is that it is for the targeted destruction of cocoa plantations in the Amazon.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): It will destroy people, too, won't it?

Ms. Lilia Solano: Animals, plants, everyone where it is being spread.

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: But the Colombian government consistently denies the damage to anything but cocoa. The question was asked about parliamentarians. Democratic Senator Wellstone visited Colombia and he was told by police officials in charge of fumigations that this did not affect anything but the very specific areas where cocoa was growing—and he was sprayed.

Fumigation takes place in this area, where Canadian companies are going to take oil. Talisman is one of these with a different name.

Ms. Lilia Solano: I would like to add to your question about evidence. I think further research is needed in these areas. We have many clues about what is going on in the regions, but it would be impossible to say we have total evidence on these, and I think further research could be supported by the Canadians on that specific point.

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: If I could just add to that too, we don't have a smoking gun—if I can say that in the war room. What we're all saying is that we need to be extremely careful. You can't go into a country like Colombia, which is a country that has had this prolonged war and where there are many different armed actors, and just think that one can invest as if it's any other country. One has to be extremely careful.

I know that after the resolution from the standing committee the embassy helped host a number of voluntary fora, again on ethical investment. And that's important, but that's not enough. There needs to be much more scrutiny and teeth to the mechanisms we establish.

If you take a look at the sectors that Canada is interested in investing in, and which they're looking for the privatization of state companies, take a look at the petroleum sector. The petroleum workers union in Colombia has been among the hardest hit by physical extermination, by assassination of their members, by imprisonment of their leaders, death threats, forced exile, and so on. This is the area we want to go into. Is our push to privatize this sector in any way contributing to the death threats, the murders, of these unionists?

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We look at the Urra dam. Kimy Pernia appeared before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1999. He was an indigenous man from the north of Colombia whose livelihood has been affected by the construction of the Urra I hydro-electric project, which was built by funds contributed by the Export Development Corporation.

We got word from the Embera a few months ago. There's an SOS now because there's a dengue and malaria epidemic in the zone, directly related to the construction of this dam, which was supported mainly by Swedish money but also by Canadian money.

This weekend we got news from the Embera that eight more members of their community have been picked up by paramilitary groups, and as far as I know, they still remain disappeared. This is added to the list of so many Emberalitas who have been murdered, all because the dam came into the zone and brought a lot of problems.

So our investment in this case has in fact exacerbated a conflict, has made the Embera a target, has deprived them of their only source of protein, and now has brought a malaria and dengue epidemic to the zone.

The helicopters I was speaking about earlier—we have very loose export controls that really need to be tightened up, because we have sold helicopters to the Colombian armed forces. We have testimony about how helicopters have been used by the military in operations targeting the civilian population. In fact, in late 1998 a Huey helicopter similar to the ones we just sold, which are now in Putumayo, dropped a 20-pound cluster bomb over a hamlet in the Department of Arauka, and that resulted in the death of 19 defenceless civilians, among them seven children.

I'm just saying that, yes, we have to be extremely cautious about our investment links in trade with Colombia to make sure we're not going to exacerbate the conflict or lead to more human rights abuses.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Thank you.

Mr. Bellemare.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I am quite impressed, Madam Chairman, by the presentation today. As a matter of fact, it's one that I am most impressed with and I've learned a great deal.

I think the key is natural resources, and all the activities that everyone has been telling us about for the last few months are related to the natural resources, petroleum development and mining. So there's greed and non-inclusiveness of the communities.

I thought the presentations were excellent. I only have some very minor points.

How is the mining code... I'm quite intrigued. If Canada helps—and I'm sure it was by goodwill and not by connivance of any kind—with the mining code, how can that be detrimental to the communities of Colombia?

My colleague Mr. Cotler went along that line in his questioning, but I don't think the answer was on, or I missed something. I wonder if you could elaborate.

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: I'll just say briefly that I think it might be interesting for this committee to invite Jamie Kneen, who is a colleague of mine from Mining Watch Canada. He has just participated in a forum convened by the mine workers union of Colombia that is looking into the current mining code that is before the Colombian congress right now.

I know a previous version of the mining code really sold out the country. It was very much designed in the interests of foreign corporations and really not benefiting the local communities. This was the complaint that—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: CIDA provided some funds, by hiring a consultant to help out with the mining code.

We have a mining code in Canada. I don't see people being massacred with chainsaws in the streets. We don't have codes here that provoke or promote guerrilla warfare across the country. I don't understand the implications of a mining code creating that havoc and Canada being in complicity with the bad guys. I don't understand that. Tell me something about CIDA and what we've done wrong.

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Mr. Pablo Leal: I think what we need to do is remember the other things that have been said this afternoon. It's not that the mining code creates the havoc. It's that certain types of activity can either contribute to violence and displacement or mitigate them. The mining code is designed to do one thing: ensure people's participation in the decision-making process with respect to development in the region in which they live.

A code can either increase or enhance their participation or it can mitigate it. What the popular protest is, and what we're saying, is not necessarily that it's one way or the other, but that it's worthwhile investigating. The popular protests are saying this code mitigates our participation and decision-making ability with respect to these investment projects. In essence, if their participation is mitigated, they're at the same time being put under a lot of pressure.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: But the contribution of Canada in the mining code process could have been a positive activity and not a negative activity, as you seem to suggest.

Mr. Pablo Leal: I think that's what we need to look at.

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: I was in Colombia last year and I met with the president of the mine workers union. We had a very good meeting, and he raised concerns around where investment is going. Foreign corporations are moving into certain zones where paramilitary groups have arrived, massacring the civilian population. In one case they decapitated a man and put his head on a pole, facing the mines, saying this area is being cleared for foreign investment. This was the testimony that the mine workers took in the Department of Bolivar.

When I talked to Francisco Ramirez, the president of the mine workers union, in his office... at one point we had to go outside to run an errand, and he went into the closet and pulled out a bulletproof vest. He put on his vest and then we walked out on to the street, with two armed men beside us—bodyguards. He has suffered four assignation attempts. This is a man who has raised a number of concerns around the way the mining code was developed.

No one is against the mining code. Of course, if there's mining there needs to be a mining code, but the way the mining code was—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: You're not answering my question. Was Canada complicit in atrocities by helping out in developing a mining code?

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: No.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Because that is in fact—

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: I'll tell you what the point is here. The point is, under the constitution in Colombia there is a requirement by any corporation becoming involved in mining specifically, in any region, for prior consultation with the communities, particularly the indigenous and black communities, who have ancestral rights over those territories, before anything can be done. Those communities can refuse to have mining carried out in the region. That has been the pattern in Colombia.

Two processes have to take place. One, the mining code is made weaker interpreting those constitutional rights so that corporations can access those resources, or, two—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: But Canada did not suggest they make the mining code weaker so that—

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: That's exactly what popular movements and unions have been stating recurrently about the involvement of Canada's consultant. First of all, the consultant had a direct relationship with Canadian interests in the region. He wasn't a neutral observer. He was somebody who had worked for mining companies who have interests in the region. So they didn't go there to establish a mining code that would be any mining code, but a mining code that could, because of the background of this person, favour specific interests, corporate interests, etc., not the local communities.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: So you think Canada was duped?

Mr. Emmanuel Rozental Klinger: I haven't been making that statement, but those who live in the area and those who have been studying the mining code process in Colombia have made that statement clearly about Canadian involvement in the development of the mining code. Hector Mondragon was here in Canada last December, and he made that very statement, saying Canada was a major participant in the reform of the mining code, and the consultant involved had a vested interest in the company and the company in the consultant.

I think at the very least that should be looked into. I am not saying I know the subject and I accuse the company or the consultant or CIDA. I'm saying that both at CIDA, during the meeting with the “invisible popular struggles” representatives, and in December when Mondragon came, and from Francisco Ramirez, on at least three occasions these very serious groups have made clear statements that CIDA hired a consultant that was somebody who represented specific interests rather than local and national interests.

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Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I appreciate that comment.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): Emmanuel, I don't think you have to apologize for suggesting that we may be less than perfect here.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Mr. Fairbairn, you suggested that there are 33 former Canadian helicopters now in the hands of—I'm not too sure who they are—paramilitary groups, or military, or...

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: Between 1998 and February 2000, 40 twin-engine Huey helicopters—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Forty?

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: Forty of them were sold from surplus stocks of the Canadian Department of National Defence to the U.S. State Department. They were subsequently refurbished and sent down to Colombia.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I take exception to the way and manner in which you said that. That is tantamount to saying I sold my car, let's say two years ago—a beautiful big sedan—to a dealer and then some gangsters bought it; therefore, I seem to be coupable dans la situation. I seem to have encouraged the gangsters.

In this case, tell me, yes or no, did Canada sell helicopters to Colombia via a route that was the American army, or American surplus, or some organization in the United States, with the intent to supply helicopters to Colombia to do nefarious activities?

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: I don't think I can answer with a yes or a no on that one. I think I have to elaborate. I would say that Canada has sold helicopters in the past, classified as civilian helicopters, directly to the Colombian armed forces. We have raised concerns about that in the past, because the helicopters were sold to armed forces—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: In the past. Do you mean last year?

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: No. There are two different types of helicopters, civilian and military. Let me talk first about the civilian and then I'll get on to the military.

Bell 212 helicopters have been sold to the Colombian armed forces directly by Canada. These helicopters did not need an export permit because technically they were classified as civilian helicopters. We have raised concerns about that with the Canadian government, saying this provides a loophole. This allows us to sell helicopters to the armed forces of Colombia, armed forces that have been implicated in serious human rights violations.

We think changes need to be made to legislation so that we're looking at the end user. So if the Colombian armed forces in this case are the end user, then there need to be export controls so that we cannot sell equipment... they may leave Canada as civilian helicopters, but there's nothing to stop them from being equipped with machine guns and used in the way this helicopter... this other case I spoke about, where a 20-pound cluster bomb was dropped on a village, killing a number of civilians. That could happen. We need to close that loophole so that this won't happen.

The other helicopters I'm talking about are actually military helicopters, which since they went back to the United States... They were not acquired with special permits. They were allowed to go to the United States. The timing of it coincided with the development of Plan Colombia. It was widespread knowledge that the United States was pumping a lot of military helicopters into Colombia at the very time Canada sold them to the U.S. State Department.

The concern we have is that helicopters that previously were military helicopters owned by the Canadian government are now in Putumayo, in the south of Colombia, in a region where there has been a pattern of collusion between the state security forces and paramilitary death squads, which have resulted in deaths of civilians. That's our concern.

Do I have a memo that says the Canadian government knew these helicopters going through the United States would subsequently find themselves in a war zone in Colombia? I don't have that memo, but I know the timing—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Does the memo exist?

Mr. Bill Fairbairn: I don't know if it exists, but I do know the timing of it... it would be impossible, or at least the person would be extremely negligent, not to know that the Colombian government and the U.S. government were looking to buy military helicopters to go to a war zone in the south of Colombia. It's impossible that they did not know that.

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We're saying that we need to close this loophole so that we... We need to make sure we know, when we sell something, whom it's going to. If we have helicopters going to the U.S. State Department... In this case it was 40 helicopters, and 33 have now found their way down to Colombia. We must have known that they were going to Colombia. I say that from my own belief and the belief of the members of my committee. I don't have concrete proof, but I think it does reveal a loophole in Canadian legislation that we need to close to make sure we're not going to be complicit in any future violations.

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier): I think it's kind of a jump. We can assume that the Canadian government knew, but I don't think that assumption is based on fact. They could have ended up in Africa. They could have ended up in any country the U.S. supplies military equipment to. However, the point has been well taken.

Our time is up. This has been an extremely informative and interesting session. I thank you all, and I hope we will see you again soon. Thank you so much.

The meeting is adjourned.