FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 22, 2000

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): Colleagues, we will get this session going, a follow-up of our study on the situation in Kosovo.

This afternoon we have with us three NGOs: CARE Canada, the Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation, and Médecins Sans Frontières. We'll take you in the order you're in on the order paper.

We'll ask you to go first, Ms. Gordon. Please keep your remarks to about ten minutes, to leave more time for questions.

I apologize to you if we're interrupted by votes, but the opposition these days in the House is—

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): It depends on what the government—

The Chairman: —creating havoc wherever they may.

Nancy, as I said to you earlier, we have no Australians in your group.

Ms. Nancy Gordon (Deputy Executive Director, CARE Canada): We may get to that one later.

The Chairman: Welcome before the committee.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure for me to be here and to represent CARE Canada.

I applaud this committee on its deliberations on the Kosovo issue. As Ms. Augustine and I were just saying, it is a difficult and complex issue, and one that requires us all to think long and hard about Canadian defence policy and foreign policy and what it should be.

We last came to this committee in 1994, when the committee was doing a study of Canada's foreign defence policies as a whole. My comments today will reflect CARE Canada's ongoing efforts, over the last six years, to address the very difficult policy decisions that have been created in the work of the humanitarian disasters such as we've seen in Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and of course Kosovo.

While the geopolitical and military events surrounding the Kosovo emergency are no doubt familiar to you, it is useful to understand the scale of the disaster that befell the world just about a year ago now. It was the worst humanitarian crisis to hit Europe since 1945.

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I think you are aware of the various statistics. You know the kinds of things that had to be done—the fact that there were a million refugees within several weeks who were fleeing their homes; the fact that 120,000 houses were damaged and destroyed, almost half beyond repair; that the health services had fallen down and were not working again; and that 1,100 schools were damaged and 10% of them destroyed. The last word we had was that as of December, only about 250 of those schools had been repaired.

In addition, there are the menaces now of the post-conflict situation. There are landmines—only Angola has landmines in more density than Kosovo—and an unknown number of unexploded cluster bombs. The electricity works sometimes, but mostly not at all, and certainly not consistently. As we've seen in the news in the past couple of days, there are ongoing attacks, assaults, arsons, and murders still between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. Most are clearly motivated by revenge.

The humanitarian community has responded and is responding to this crisis, in collaboration with the UN interim administration headquartered in Pristina, and with the support of thousands of individuals who gave money through the darkest days of the Kosovo crisis.

Here I would like to formally pay tribute to the Canadians. Many Canadians, in their individual capacities, donated generously to the work of non-governmental organizations. In addition, we have had generous and timely funding from CIDA, which has allowed CARE Canada and the other Canadian NGOs—I expect I speak for my colleagues here—to play a significant role in alleviating the suffering of the refugees driven from their homes, and in assisting in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of returning Kosovars.

Since your committee's stated purpose is to shed light on the events of 1999, with a view to better understanding their implications for Canadian defence, foreign and international assistance policies, I will not dwell on our particular work in Kosovo today. Attached to our written submission is a list of the various things with which we are involved. I'd be happy to speak to them, if you have questions.

Instead, I would like to devote my time to the policy issues on which CARE is most qualified to speak: humanitarian action during conflict, reconstruction, and peace-building; the role of the non-governmental sector in dealing with peoples at risk during conflict; and what Kosovo has to tell us about how to deal with these issues when they arise in the future—as, I regret to say, I think they surely will.

A year ago CARE Canada, in partnership with the University of Toronto, released the results of a multi-year interdisciplinary study on humanitarian action in complex political emergencies. This report was called Mean Times, and it drew on our experiences—in Somalia, the Rwanda genocide, and Sierra Leone's civil war, which I regret is ongoing still.

The main conclusions of that study pointed to the stark and increasingly intractable dilemmas we all confront when rendering assistance to victimized peoples in the midst of conflict and mass poverty. The Kosovo crisis exploded only a few weeks later, and many of the same issues emerged. I would like to draw the committee's attention to some of the most critical.

I have copies with me of that Mean Times study, if anyone is interested in seeing it. I expect it was probably circulated to your offices a year ago, but in case you have misplaced it, we have copies of it here today.

The Chairman: They just get filed in inaccessible places.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: I know. Yes. I'm sorry. I misspoke. For ease of access, we have copies of it.

The Chairman: That's very helpful.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: One of the central conclusions of the Mean Times study was that many of the most intractable problems facing the humanitarian community in complex emergencies stem from the lack of security, for both victim populations and those who are there to assist them. The Kosovo emergency went a long way to proving the point, in both negative and positive ways.

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On the bright side, if you were a Kosovar run out of your home who had managed to become a refugee, say across the Macedonian or Albanian border, the significant presence of NATO soldiers, Italian police, and even some of the OSCE verifiers made refugee camp life relatively safe, if not exactly pleasant. This is a distinct difference from the situations in Somalia, Sierra Leone, and especially Rwanda-Zaire, where security came too late or not at all.

This happy exception, however, also proved the rule. If you were a Kosovar who'd stayed inside Kosovo's borders, you were at the mercy of a predatory and murderous army and out of reach of the humanitarians who were rendering assistance to your cousins just a few kilometres away.

This unprecedented involvement by NATO raised novel and complex problems for humanitarian NGOs. Some military forces arrived with a distinctly humanitarian mandate, while others were designated as possible belligerents. All were thrown into intimate contact with humanitarians from many nations, including NATO countries, also sending troops and aircraft.

Canada, as you are aware, had soldiers in Macedonia, aircraft in Italy, OCSE observers in Albania. And through CIDA and NGOs like CARE, World Vision, MSF, CCECI, and others, we had significant refugee assistance programs in Albania, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Humanitarians of all stripes had to come to terms with the ubiquitous presence of the military.

On the one hand, humanitarians were grateful—especially after the dreadful experiences we had in Somalia and Zaire—to be able to give aid and comfort when and where it was needed. On the other hand, they were wary about how proximity to the military and the generally cooperative spirit that did in fact emerge would affect perceptions of their neutrality in the future.

Regardless of whether NATO and the European actions in the Kosovo emergency turn out to be an exception or a precedent, humanitarian NGOs must devote resources to evaluating the events of the last year and coping with the political and policy dilemmas they posed. As the Mean Times report concluded, the happy days of simplistic neutrality are gone forever. Effective humanitarian action, like it or not, has become a more nuanced and sophisticated affair.

Secondly, while each humanitarian disaster holds new surprises and unforeseeable challenges, some old problems continue to crop up, no matter how often they are pointed out. In our 1994 report to Parliament, CARE devoted considerable effort to describing the arcane, wasteful, and ineffectual international system for funding humanitarian actions and allocating resources and tasks among the various organizations.

Throughout the crisis, and indeed since the start of our program in the region in 1993, CIDA has proved an excellent partner. CIDA officials provided timely and good advice in response to queries and requests for funding. At the international level, however, the system remains dysfunctional in many ways.

For the period of the Kosovo crisis, UNHCR, usually a strong coordinating influence in such situations, showed itself to be weak and unprepared. This impression was initially based on anecdotal evidence, but it has been recently confirmed by a report issued by UNHCR itself last week.

Filling the coordination vacuum was the stronger presence of national and regional donors, such as USAID and ECHO. While this structure held some advantages in relation to the speed of response because field representatives of national donors could make funding and programming decisions quickly, effective and consistent allocation was much more difficult because powerful donors had divergent views and priorities that were not channelled through a single agency.

While access to the region was easy, in comparison to places like eastern Zaire or the Horn of Africa, many more organizations showed up. Some 250 NGOs operated in Albania and Macedonia, but only 20% of those—and CARE was one of them—were UNHCR's regular partners in implementing refugee assistance projects.

The large presence of NATO exacerbated the usual division of labour and resource allocation difficulties in a number of ways. Having deployed in force and initiated humanitarian operations, such as camp management and logistics—a hugely inefficient and unnecessarily costly method of operation—military management of such activities continued long after it should have.

Another practice that ran against the better judgment of humanitarian relief professionals was the evacuation by air of thousands of people out of Albania and Macedonia to western Europe, North America, and Canada. This was a politically palatable activity, and I understand that, but it did very little to ease the lives of those affected, and it could have been done at far less cost on the ground.

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Finally, the international funding system seems incapable of recognizing the investment of financial and human resources NGOs typically must make in order to be able to take on the care and feeding of thousands of displaced people on little or no notice.

At the height of the refugee crisis CARE Canada was managing camps and way stations for a quarter of the entire country's refugee population and investing in facilities for an even larger caseload. Within weeks of the end of the war, most Kosovars had managed to return home, which was a happy situation. However, the international focus then shifted back to Kosovo, along with the Kosovars, and the Albanian government and the humanitarian agencies that had been set up to help them cope with the influx of refugees were left essentially holding the bag, with large unpaid bills.

We believe it is essential for the continued effectiveness and professionalism of humanitarian operations that the international system come to grips with the genuine costs involved and find a means to fund them adequately and on time.

My third and final point has to do with the rapidly evolving nature of humanitarian relief operations generally. Humanitarian relief has in a mere ten years evolved into a complex cluster of diverse operations, with social, economic, ethical, and political challenges previously unknown. Wanting to “do good” is no longer good enough.

More and more the environments where NGOs and like-minded UN organizations operate have become actively hostile places in which to work. Not a week goes by where a humanitarian worker is not killed or injured badly in the course of his or her work. Increasingly, and on the whole correctly, humanitarian organizations are held accountable when things go wrong, when the result is unanticipated pain and suffering.

The complexities and dilemmas inherent in such an environment are many, and they are at the centre of debates and discussions at the highest levels of international policy-making. In the remit your committee has given itself, you have bravely undertaken to study most of them. I will leave you to consider one that goes to the heart of all humanitarian work: the need for neutrality versus the demand for witnessing and warning.

Humanitarian organizations traditionally have celebrated and attempted to institutionalize—and for the safety of their staff, I might add, have come to rely upon—the attitude of neutrality in order to gain access to peoples in need and raise funds from a diverse donor base. Non-sectarianism and non-partisanship are written into the constitutions of almost all international humanitarian organizations.

But working against the need for neutrality are new and equally compelling factors: witnessing and early warning. The existing Rwanda and Yugoslav war crimes tribunals and the future permanent war crimes tribunal will rely, no doubt, at least in part on the witnesses in order to obtain successful prosecutions. Who often makes the best and earliest witnesses? It's NGO development and relief staff who have been in the area while the conflict or abuses have been going on.

In addition, NGOs and their staffs are increasingly expected, as part of the early warning and peace-building agendas of many national donors, to be on the watch for signs of impending social ethnic conflict. It is no wonder that one of the greatest recent failings of the international community, including NGOs, was in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide, when no adequate timely warning of what was being planned was heard. It was sometimes said, but it wasn't heard.

It is easy to see, however, the myriad ways in which appropriate moral and even legal obligations to witness and to warn could come into direct conflict with equally appropriate requirements to be neutral. So far this has proven to be an intractable dilemma.

In an attempt to come to grips with problems such as these, CARE Canada, with funding from a private Canadian charitable foundation, is building a multidisciplinary international partnership, bringing together researchers, humanitarian professionals, librarians, and scholars to study some of the issues that are at the core of your deliberations. In the coming months and years I hope we will be able to provide at least a few insights as this committee continues its work in greater detail and to help Canada carry its full weight in international forums where humanitarian action is the central concern.

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I shall stop there. I'd be very happy to take questions and engage in comments.

We have no answers to the dilemma of neutrality versus witness. I simply bring it to your attention because it is a topic that is exercising us a lot these days.

Thank you.

The Chairman: I wish we had an answer to the dilemma of where to find the money.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: So do I.

The Chairman: It's a big dilemma for all of us.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Next Monday.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: If we hang around outside next Monday, we will find some.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Everyone will be waiting with baited breath.

Mr. Conoir.

Mr. Yvan Conoir (Spokesperson, Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to take part in this meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and to share with you some of the experiences of the Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation or CECI in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo.

CECI is a medium-sized Canadian organization which is not part of the family of families, that is it is not a member of an international federation such as MSF, CARE, World Vision, LWF or OXFAM. It is a uniquely Canadian organization based in Montreal, although in terms of human resources and external impact, its influence is far more international in scope, given its work in some thirty different countries. Every year, CECI hires over 1,200 people worldwide, including 200 to 250 Canadians.

Our organization does not have a long history of involvement in the Balkans. In fact, it wasn't until the spring of 1999 that we decided to get involved in this region in response to the plight of refugees streaming across the border. It became possible for CECI which, I repeat, is a medium-sized organization, to rely on local and regional partnerships and synergies to assist in the relief effort.

Unlike large Canadian NGOs which enjoy the backing and support of a network, CECI is supported only by its own funds. Our organization has worked to develop European partnerships with French NGOs and national partnerships with Albanian NGOs. These have enabled it to move immediately into the regions affected and to capitalize on the experience and knowledge of these NGOs. It intervened with the express purpose of providing important and timely aid with the funds received from CIDA and also, I might add, from private donations from other institutions and from members of the public.

It is very important that Canadians understand the need arising from the crisis in Kosovo and Albania. Consider the funds each of our organizations was able to raise. CECI managed to raise nearly $400,000, an enormous sum of money, for the humanitarian relief effort in a remote part of the world where it had no previous operational presence.

The first point I make in the paper I distributed to members is that local and international partnerships do provide a tangible way for Canadian NGOs to gain a foothold in certain countries.

Secondly, it is important to recognize that CIDA was quick to lend us its support. We appreciate its inclusive, synergistic vision and support. From the outset, the Centre de l'aide alimentaire and International Humanitarian Assistance, separate branches but nonetheless CIDA partners, placed their trust in us and allowed us to become involved in a program to provide food care packages to the city of Tirana.

Regarding this type of activity, which is very similar to what CARE was doing in the early days in Europe, it should be noted that our efforts directly complemented the exceptional generosity displayed by Albanian families toward Kosovar families. One has to have experienced this situation to understand that each individual family sheltered as many people as it possibly could in private apartments, garages and storage sheds, anywhere for three to up to 30 or 60 people per family, depending on the available space. These initiatives were generously supported by CIDA and by the agencies representing CIDA.

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Another important point worth mentioning when a crisis like this erupts is that unlike the events that transpired in Rwanda in 1994, there were very few Canadian humanitarian aid workers in the region. Canada has maintained a very limited presence in this part of the world. No Canadian agency workers were on the ground in Albania for weeks, aside from the first military personnel to arrive on the scene. We could not count on the support of Foreign Affairs or CIDA during the first days and weeks of the crisis. This didn't stop us from working, but it explains why there were so few Canadian workers on site. I think we could count the number of such workers who were present during the initial weeks of the crisis on one hand. That would be the people seated here at this table, in addition to one or two other persons working on their own.

However, when the tide began to turn in July and refugees returned to Kosovo, CIDA made up for lost time in terms of the level of support and aid provided. It set up a small work unit, initially composed of one, but soon after, of two persons who endeavoured to foster some synergy between Canadian workers. I'm excluding MSF, which maintained its neutrality at the time. Rather, I'm thinking more about the partnership that was forged between CECI and CARE Canada. Working together, the two developed a program to assist Kosovar refugees in preparing for the upcoming fall and winter seasons.

Canadian agencies maintained a highly visible presence on site as a result of their synergetic and inclusive efforts. Because they were well situated, geographically speaking, that is next to Canada's KFOR contingent, they were able to work effectively and to lend credibility and visibility to Canadian aid efforts. I think there is a lesson to be learned from this for the future in terms of what Canadian NGOs can accomplish together when given the opportunity.

Finally, there are two other very important points that we observed in connection with the handling of this crisis since last April, namely the clarity and strength of Canada's political commitment, as noted by the Minister, Ms. Minna, on several occasions. We were able to intervene in keeping with an overall regional vision, and not simply engage in short-term humanitarian operations which would have lasted no more than six or ten months. Therefore, given the clear political will to get involved, we were able to think in terms of more than basic humanitarian relief, to consider ways of capitalizing on the reconstruction efforts and to focus on the reorganization of local powers. This is the next stage that we plan to undertake with CIDA in Kosovo. We are moving quickly from the humanitarian aid phase, where our focus was to rebuild shelters, roofs and homes, to a phase in which we will provide technical support to Kosovar municipalities. The time has come to shift our focus to the future, to the political reorganization of a province and perhaps a future state, and to lend support, drawing on Canadian expertise, to municipalities which some day soon will have elected councils and functioning technical and administrative departments that will require our support.

This synergy and regional vision mustn't make us lose sight of economic considerations or of the need to strengthen economic intervention capabilities. These must constitute phase III of the plan for Kosovo, and possibly and ideally, phase II for Albania and Macedonia, a sympathetic country in the region.

CECI has decided, along with CIDA which supports its efforts, to commit to economic investment, to supporting training in the financial services field, to micro lending, to the search for subsidiaries in the agricultural sector—something that Macedonia's economic stakeholders could capitalize on immediately—and to raising the economic standards of the population.

One very interesting aspect of this crisis is that it has allowed for the possibility of developing very quickly, while sustaining humanitarian and rebuilding efforts, programs geared to development and to sustainable development. There is a considerable difference between this situation and how the crisis in Guatemala and Honduras, which you undoubtedly recall, was handled. In that instance, after important announcements from CIDA and the Minister at the time, agencies who had been involved in the humanitarian relief effort in Guatemala and Honduras were unable to capitalize quickly on the economic reconstruction, because funding was not forthcoming. The proposals which we had put forward were not favourably received and aren't likely to be. After helping with rebuilding efforts, we were unable to give people back their dignity by lending them some economic support. In Kosovo, we're seeing a very positive effort to correct this oversight.

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From our perspective, our intervention is part of a long-term vision which can also apply to other types of activities in the same region. By participating in the process of strengthening the capabilities of municipalities in Kosovo, it is quite conceivable that in the near future, the same kind of technical aid program can be extended to other states in Central and Eastern Europe that may require some assistance.

Similarly, when Canada supports an economic initiative in Macedonia aimed at improving the access of local economic stakeholders to micro lending, financial and other services, it's possible that this could lead to similar action being taken in other Eastern and Central European countries that Canada would like to assist.

Therefore, I invite you to monitor closely follow-up operations in the weeks and months to come and to reflect upon the actions that could be taken by Canada and the models that could be applied in the near future in Eastern Europe.

That's basically what I wanted to say about our efforts in the region. The important thing, to my mind, is to stress the synergy and complementary nature of the interventions and actions in Kosovo by Canadian contingents, Canadian NGOs and the representatives of Foreign Affairs, in contrast to the overwhelming confusion that prevailed during the initial stages of operations in Albania. Owing to the lack of coordination, the many stakeholders, and the unclear mandates, we were unable to act with any clear vision in the early stages of the operation.

Thank you for you attention. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Conoir, for that very interesting presentation. We'll come back to you later for questions.

[English]

but first, Médecins sans frontières.

Mr. Richard Denham (Spokesperson, Doctors without Borders): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm representing Médecins sans frontières, which is, as the name implies, an emergency humanitarian organization that focuses primarily on medical assistance.

Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby—Douglas, NDP): Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry to interrupt. Could Mr. Denham indicate if he is actually a doctor?

Mr. Richard Denham: I was just about to get to that.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Okay. Great.

The Chairman: I wouldn't tell him. He might want a free consultation.

Mr. Richard Denham: I am not a doctor. I'm an engineer, a water and sanitation specialist. I have worked with Médecins sans frontières on three of the extraordinary emergencies that we've witnessed this decade, the first one being when the Kurds fled into Turkey in 1991, the second when the Rwandans fled into Zaire in 1994, and recently I was involved with the Kosovars in Macedonia. I have worked with them as a water and sanitation specialist brought in because of the extraordinary circumstances there, where water and sanitation was an integral part of the health care field.

Today I propose to put forward to this committee two issues relating to Kosovo. One is the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in that situation and the second an issue that is lovingly being called “mission creep”.

Let's first deal with the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kosovo. The UNHCR mandate includes the protection and assistance of the refugees as a mandate to ensure that international recognized standards for refugee care are met—registration, reunification—that the individual needs of refugees are met, particularly the more vulnerable groups, that the refugees are not forcefully repatriated or relocated, and that they're treated humanely.

The response of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees varies from crisis to crisis—in the ones that I've personally experienced. The response of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Zaire and Rwandan crisis was excellent. However, in Kosovo it was somewhat different and would fall into the “poor” category.

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The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has received significant criticism for the actions or the inactions of that organization in Kosovo, criticism because they were slow to react, they were inadequately prepared, they displayed excessive arrogance once they were deployed to the field, and they have excused their actions based on the fact that Kosovo presented them with a unique situation, a unique situation complicated by the presence of NATO and by competing priorities that they had not experienced in previous situations. They were overwhelmed—and they were overwhelmed because they were unable to field quality staff, capable staff.

However, they have undertaken an evaluation. They have engaged an independent team that has published a 150-page report entitled The Kosovo refugee crisis: an independent evaluation of UNHCR's emergency preparedness and response. In the handout, which you may have by now, I have provided you with the website address where you can find that document if you're interested.

That 150-page report includes a number of excuses for the performance, a couple that I found quite interesting. I quote: “UNHCR's status as a non-political humanitarian agency”. I find it hard to believe that the UNHCR would suggest they are non-political. Here's another quotation:

Responsibility for weak co-ordination in the Kosovo response is shared equally between the UNHCR, other humanitarian actors, and the donors.

There are a number of recommendations made as a result of this evaluation. Through my review of this document, I would say that they're good and thorough recommendations and, if taken seriously and implemented, would have the ability to impact on the quality of the delivery of service of the UNHCR in the future.

What does that mean for this committee? Canada is a member of the Security Council. Canada is in a very powerful position within the United Nations. Canada is in a position such that I would hope it could take action to ensure that the recommendations of this report are implemented and, in fact, to ensure that the report, the actions, are monitored and the recommendations are implemented in the ongoing activities of the UNHCR.

As a humanitarian organization—and having witnessed the situation in Macedonia this summer—we cannot allow this to happen again. We cannot allow a million people to be left at risk. It's just not acceptable.

So my recommendation to this committee, then, Mr. Chair, is that the ongoing activities of the UNHCR be monitored and evaluated on a regular basis to ensure quality and responsiveness in the delivery of their mandate and that Canada participate in the evaluation process to ensure that action is taken. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for that study and that report to sit on the shelf, Mr. Chair.

My second issue relates to mission creep—and that is not a political term. Humanitarian actions deal with the preservation of life and dignity and are concerned with the welfare of populations at risk. What is happening is that the humanitarian mandate is being stretched from time to time to cover areas beyond the prime task the humanitarian agencies are intended to focus on. These include such things as conflict resolution, peace-monitoring tasks, negotiating activities, and peace-building.

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We at MSF feel it's critical that we keep the roles and responsibilities clear. For example, what's the role of the military? The role of the military is surely in the area of removing mines, de-mining. Mining is one of the number one areas of public health concern in these areas. The role of the military involves safety and security so that the humanitarian agencies can do their jobs. And in some cases the military can play a significant role in heavy logistics and transportation. Rwanda was a good example of that, where the military were responsible for bringing in water treatment and sanitation equipment to deal with that crisis.

But when the military gets into the area of providing direct aid, it's not providing the security that is critical. The military is not a humanitarian organization and should not be confused and try to provide humanitarian services.

The role of the UNHCR is to protect and assist refugees, as I mentioned a minute ago; to ensure international standards; to provide financial and logistical foundation for relief efforts; to coordinate the relief efforts; to coordinate the efforts of the NGOs and the military; and to provide liaison and negotiation with the host governments.

What happens, and what happened in Kosovo this summer, is when the UNHCR does not meet its obligations, then there's pressure on the humanitarian organizations to fill the vacuum. That's where the term “mission creep” comes in. Those of us who have been very focused on medical assistance are now being asked—and I know we're not the only ones—“Well, couldn't you just do this?” That is starting to push the boundaries. That is not an acceptable situation.

MSF must maintain its independence, its neutrality, its humanitarian focus, and its ability to speak out. The need for humanitarianism occurs when a political system has failed or is in crisis, and it's not to assume the political responsibility but to relieve human suffering.

The recommendation I would bring relating to that issue then is that the committee recognize and maintain the difference between humanitarian assistance, which deals with the preservation of life and dignity, and political involvement. Humanitarian agencies support humanitarian activities. Political agencies, whether that's the military, the UNHCR, or others, undertake the peace-building and security activities that are also important.

In summary, I'd like to leave you with a quote from our president, James Orbinski, during his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1999:

We act not in a vacuum, and we speak not into the wind, but with a clear intent to assist, to provoke change, or to reveal injustice. Our action and our voice is an act of indignation, a refusal to accept an active or passive assault on one another.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, sir.

[Translation]

Ms. Picard.

Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): I'm very pleased that you accepted our invitation to appear before the committee. Thank you for your very interesting presentations.

There's one question that concerns me. In their presentations, Ms. Gordon and Mr. Conoir delivered more or less the same status report. I'd like to focus on something you said, Ms. Gordon. You noted the following:

The large presence of NATO exacerbated the usual division of labour and resource allocation difficulties in a number of ways.

You also point out that military forces were thrown into contact with humanitarian organizations from many nations.

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Are we to understand from the status reports presented by CARE Canada and CECI that aid efforts in Kosovo were ineffective?

[English]

Ms. Nancy Gordon: No, I don't think so. I was raising the issue of the close proximity of NATO forces and humanitarian organizations in a relatively small geographic area.

You'll recall that in June—no, earlier—there were large NATO contingents within, say, Albania, which is where I'm more familiar with, because we are running camps there. There were also a lot of NGOs; 250 of them showed up in response to the Kosovo crisis, because of ease of access from western Europe. So to some extent, we were tripping over one another.

Like my colleague at MSF, I don't think it's a wise use of resources to have the military, which of course comes in as a self-contained unit, providing the kind of humanitarian assistance that organizations such as the three of us represent can provide and are good at doing, and do at much less cost.

I don't think we're ineffective. I don't mean that. I just mean we have to learn ways of working together. We were delighted to have the security the NATO forces and the militaries were able to provide in the camps in Albania and in Macedonia, because we had had dreadful problems in Rwanda, where we were essentially running camps for a government-in-exile of Hutus, who were trying to run the camps for us and who were asserting their own authority. They were the ones with the guns. We didn't have any. We had unarmed civilians there as the arm of the international community.

So this was a better situation than that, much better. But we have to learn how to work together. There are security concerns that military forces are trained to do and should do. There are humanitarian actions that organizations such as ours are trained to do and should do. Therefore that's what we should do.

Do you have a follow-up?

[Translation]

Ms. Pauline Picard: That's what I wanted to know. I apologize for my ignorance, but I'm new to this area. I got the impression on listening to your presentations that when a conflict like the one in Kosovo erupts, an emergency situation is declared, all UN countries arrive on the scene at the same time with military forces and humanitarian organizations and everything goes about their own business. I'm certain that you were able to lend support to people and that everyone one of you helped to save lives and to provide food and basic aid.

It was my understanding that everyone arrived on the scene and then went off and did their own thing, but that there was no communication between the different groups and that no one was in charge of overseeing the various operations. You stated that the international system in place governing the financing of humanitarian relief and the allocation of resources and responsibilities between the various agencies was outmoded, far from cost-effective and inefficient.

I'd like to know if my understanding of the situation is correct?

[English]

Ms. Nancy Gordon: May I just follow up a little bit?

What normally happens, and what happened in the last three emergencies—Yvan and I worked together in the Rwanda emergency—is that UNHCR is the main coordinating body for the UN system. So UNHCR comes in, and it's the one that has to look after all the refugees who have moved.

• 1625

UNHCR says to MSF, “You do the medicine.” It says to CARE often, “You do camp management and food distribution, because you're good at that.” It says to OXFAM, “You do sanitation and latrine and stuff like that.” It sets these various tasks. That's what normally happens.

So while it is initially a very confusing week or so, things get sorted out that way, because UNHCR has partner organizations that it knows it can subcontract its work to, since UNHCR has no ability to do that work itself.

In Kosovo it was quite different, because UNHCR, as we have both alluded to in this report that my colleague has mentioned—

Mr. Richard Denham: I more than alluded to it.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: I'm sorry; you spoke to it at some length.

UNHCR didn't act in the coordinating function it usually does. They had weak people there. They weren't prepared. It was a larger emergency than they thought would happen. And in addition, there were all these NATO forces also around. So that's why it was more confusing in Kosovo than it is normally.

I should let my colleagues speak.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Conoir: I think Ms. Gordon has addressed the situation at considerable length.

First of all, I'd like to share with you a few key reasons for the tremendous confusion that reigned. During the first few weeks of April, Albania resembled a vast humanitarian zoo. That's the only way I can describe the situation.

Let me recount a story to you. One day, I was in the office of the provincial governor. I happened to be there at the same time as some French civil security officials who were on duty. They generously extended to the governor, the official in charge, an offer to set up a refugee camp for 5,000 people. The camp would be completely equipped with water purifiers, distribution and storage systems and so forth. The governor was a little taken aback by the offer because earlier that day, Greek officials had offered to set up a refugee camp for 10,000 people, while the Americans had offered to set up facilities for 20,000 refugees. He was wondering where he could possibly locate one more refugee camp.

That's a true story. There were so many humanitarian relief agencies on site in Albania, it was almost ridiculous. All military forces on site got involved in the relief effort and built refugee camps.

Secondly, a number of humanitarian agencies not accustomed to dealing with this kind of conflict arrived on the scene. Given the region's proximity to Europe and to Italy, many civil security forces along with municipal and religious workers were thrown into the mix, each with a genuine desire to get involved in the humanitarian relief effort, each with their trucks full of blankets and aid packages. That's the second point.

Thirdly, the situation was extremely volatile. In 1994 in Rwanda, people arrived in secure zones and stayed put. In Albania, people were continually on the move for six to eight weeks. The flow of refugees continued throughout the duration of the conflict. Instead of restricting people to a particular zone or zones, aid agencies were forced to follow refugees around.

Another problem was the total absence of communication and the relative lack of coordination, largely because the HCR failed to do its job, but also because most of the players involved were not used to working as part of a coordinated humanitarian effort or to taking orders. Rather, they were accustomed to working on their own. When 250 people fail to communicate and when there is no coordination structure in place in an extremely volatile environment, inevitably there is considerable confusion.

Getting back to your question, after this initial state of confusion, phase II was the rationalization stage. We did not follow through with our original plans. Why? Because after our initial needs analysis and a further analysis several days or weeks later, we concluded that the best approach would be to take the funds allocated to us by CIDA and to work in partnership with such organizations as the World Food Program, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and with the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC. All of these organizations worked together on the food relief effort.

We negotiated with one of these parties, namely the federation, to take on responsibility for one particular component of the relief program, namely supplying food packages to Kosovars staying with Albanian families. Three quarters of all the food aid in Albania was directed to such families. In this manner, we rationalized our interventions and I believe that we made a very useful contribution.

Ms. Pauline Picard: Thank you.

• 1630

[English]

The Chairman: Madam Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you.

Thank you also to the witnesses for coming in and bringing another perspective to what we've been hearing so far. You've raised a lot of questions in my head in terms of the work international humanitarian organizations do.

I want to go back to the whole issue of neutrality. You indicated that neutrality is almost new in the context of Kosovo. I somehow thought neutrality was always an underlying modus operandi of all the work of humanitarian organizations. I wonder if you can explain a bit further what exactly you meant by this, and this demand for witnessing and warning, and whether that was working in the situation of Kosovo.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: Neutrality is not new for humanitarian organizations. It's part of the code of conduct under which we have always operated. What is new is the necessity, or the growing expectation, that we will also be witnesses and we will warn.

I don't have any answers to those questions, because the difficulty with engaging in witnessing and warning is that you might be putting your staff in danger, the people who are working there. Do you have to withdraw from a place before you witness?

One of the problems we are facing now is with the criminal justice tribunals. Societies attempt to heal themselves from conflicts in various ways. I just heard Bishop Tutu last week in Toronto talking about truth and reconciliation commissions as opposed to criminal prosecutions. But if there are criminal prosecutions, then we will be required to witness. What does that do to the safety of staff who are working in a place where they have witnessed atrocities and then will have to testify about them?

I raise this only because it is a dilemma facing us. I don't know that we know the answers to it.

You'll recall, Yvan, in the Rwanda situation in 1994, all the NGOs got together and issued a declaration talking about the dreadful, absolutely horrendous situation in which we found ourselves. There was great angst amongst all the field staff about us doing that, because they were afraid for their lives. There were people in those camps with guns, who were not afraid to use them, and had used them in the past.

So it's that kind of dilemma I'm raising.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Also, can I ask about the evaluation that was done, the UNHCR evaluation? Are there timelines? Is there an implementation aspect to that report, or is it just a report that evaluates the situation?

Mr. Richard Denham: I don't recall specific timelines, but it has, say, half a dozen specific chapters dealing with individual elements, and at the end of each chapter is a series of recommendations as to what actions the UNHCR should take to rectify the situation.

My assessment of it is that those recommendations are largely extremely valid, from my observation. They are well thought through and well put forward, and they should be moved into an implementation stage. The report does not include an implementation timeline, but that would be the next obvious step, in my estimation, of where that should go.

• 1635

That is why I brought that forward to this committee, to use whatever pressure this government can bring onto the United Nations to make sure that report is implemented to the extent it's possible. A lot of good work has gone into it.

Again, I make the distinction between the actions that were taken in Rwanda and the actions that were taken in Kosovo, which were as different as night and day. Certainly they were both horrendous situations, but the actions of the UNHCR in Rwanda were much, much more positive. They took an equally horrible situation and moved forward quickly, coordinating the United States army along with the Canadian army and all the NGOs and everybody else who was there.

I mean, maybe it didn't have quite as many actors, but it was sure close. It was just the difference between night and day in the way the UNHCR took their responsibilities on in Rwanda as opposed to Kosovo.

So I feel very strongly that this report should be pushed, as hard as possible, for implementation.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Thank you, sir.

The Chairman: Mr. Speller.

Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for coming forward.

I want to follow up on this whole issue of neutrality and security. Are we getting into a situation now where, as you seem to suggest, the conflicts are getting more difficult for your people and there needs to be more coordination between your groups and some of the armed forces? If that happens, and then you run into the catch-22 of then being part of these groups...

As well, if I remember correctly, in the newspaper there was something about CARE in Kosovo, and neutrality. They were charging that because you were being funded by CIDA you were just an arm of the Canadian government. Could you bring me up to date on that? I can't remember what it was, I just remember a note on that.

How do you deal with these dilemmas? Are you working with these groups?

I know you said, Mr. Denham, you don't like armies delivering humanitarian aid, but are we coming into a situation where they may be the only ones who are able to deliver?

Ms. Nancy Gordon: I can talk a little bit about the neutrality issue and the most recent flurry of media allegations about CARE.

I think for all of us, without exception, much of our funding comes from CIDA or from UNHCR. These are enormously expensive operations. The millions and millions of dollars that are expended on these operations could not be raised, at least in this country, or not that I know of, unless there was government and multilateral support for the activity. So CIDA and UNHCR and WFP and the others subcontract us to do it. We couldn't do it for more than a week if we didn't have those kinds of contracts.

The one you are talking about is a different type of contract, which has raised some discussion and debate within CARE, within the NGO community, and within the wider community. We are quite good at hiring people and recruiting them and getting them into difficult field posts. We're good at that because we've had a lot of experience doing it. So we have for many years done a contract for CIDA called “Bosnia experts”, where we in fact are the hiring agency for Canadians who are then seconded to the office of the high representative or to the OSCE or to various organizations in Bosnia that are rebuilding that society. The people involved report to and are employed by the organizations to which they are seconded, but we do the logistics and management and administrative work.

When the OSCE decided in the fall of 1998 that they would try to contribute to keeping the peace in Kosovo by providing a monitoring operation, Canada wanted to play its part, and through CIDA came to us and asked us if we would do that same type of work, hiring people for them to second to the OSCE.

• 1640

So we did. Although OSCE chose the people, we put forward CVs of people who had the various areas of expertise that were needed, and we did some briefing on what kinds of situations they were going to get into. We arranged the travel and insurance and all those kinds of things.

CARE Australia was the lead agency in Yugoslavia, and CARE Australia had thus agreed to our doing this work. We operate that way. However, the chairman of CARE Australia, Mr. Fraser, the former prime minister, apparently had not been informed of this and did not think it legitimate kind of work for humanitarian agencies to do. The situation was exacerbated in Australia because right at the beginning of the bombing, in Australia, three CARE Australia workers were arrested and charged with espionage.

Now, none of the stuff CARE Canada was doing was ever part of that. It didn't come up in the court documents. It didn't come up anywhere. But it has surfaced recently because of what we think is a rather unscrupulous television program. We are cursed in this sometimes. At any rate, that's why it has arisen now.

The debate is a legitimate one, I think. There are policy implications for doing this kind of work. We happen to think that peace monitoring and peace building are legitimate activities for humanitarian organizations.

My colleague here disagrees with that. I think it's quite understandable to have a difference of views on that kind of thing.

Our experience in working in Bosnia—and in Rwanda, God knows—and Zaire is that if you can initiate programming that attempts to solve some of the ethnic differences that have exacerbated the problem and caused conflict to happen, then you have a better chance of completing your humanitarian mandate.

That's quite a long answer, but you had raised several related issues.

Mr. Bob Speller: Not a concern.

By the way, what happened to the Australians?

Ms. Nancy Gordon: They were released. I think President Miloscevic gave them clemency.

The Chairman: Mr. Denham.

Mr. Richard Denham: My point was not that we shouldn't recognize that there's a value to what the military will bring to these situations. Their value is to provide security. We've acknowledged that. I just think that when they start moving into, for example, the health care field, they're getting a little out of their element.

I mean, sure we have military hospitals, but in establishing a network of health care clinics to serve the refugee camps in Kosovo, that requires a lot of coordination, a lot of communication, a lot of understanding of the situation. Communication, coordination, and understanding are not terms you would generally use to describe the military. So they should stick to their knitting. They are very good at providing security, they are good at de-mining, and they're good at transportation and logistics, and that's the role they should legitimately play.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Ms. Picard.

Ms. Pauline Picard: In light of the recent escalation of violence in Kosovo, how do you feel about Canada's decision to withdraw its troops from the area?

[English]

Mr. Richard Denham: That's a tough one. I think we are all faced with, from time to time, decisions about withdrawing our services, and it depends on the situation. I can't speak for my colleagues here, but I do recall at least two occasions where Médecins sans frontières withdrew services from the camps in Zaire just because of the situation. They then reassessed the situation weeks or months later and went back in. But there are times when you have to assess and decide, no, we can't go any further, it's too risky, and we're not providing a service, etc.

So I'm willing to assume that the decision to withdraw troops was a good one.

• 1645

[Translation]

Ms. Pauline Picard: Mr. Conoir, earlier you spoke about the expertise that a future state of Kosovo would require. Do you view the independence of Kosovo as a lasting solution to the tensions between Serbs and Kosovars?

Mr. Yvan Conoir: I believe I used the term in another context, that is in reference to a particular area of expertise. For example, CARE was involved in Experts CARE in Bosnia, which subsequently made its presence felt in Kosovo and in Albania.

In this particular instance, I was referring to transferable skills in a similar environment, that is skills and expertise that could be eventually be imparted to municipalities in Kosovo or elsewhere, for example, expertise in such areas as management, micro lending, micro financing, financial services in Macedonia. This expertise could also be exported at the regional level.

Getting back to your specific question, namely if Kosovo should one day become an independent province or state, quite honestly, I'm not in Mr. Koushner's shoes. The reality in Kosovo is such that we will support the process now underway. I'd like to speak briefly about this process.

I believe Mr. Koushner's decision to organize the electoral and political process in Kosovo is the right one. He has started by organizing elections where they were most needed, that is at the municipal level, in order to put in place a territorial administration.

Secondly, it was also a good idea to establish an interim governing council in Kosovo and to set up a similar administrative structure at the municipal level. Paradoxically, this is an historical moment for municipalities between all Kosovar parties have an opportunity to be part of a consensual decision-making process, free of opposition, as is normal in a democracy.

In Kosovo today, there is no opposition party or majority party, only Kosovars who assume an advisory role and make consensual decisions along with a MINUK administrator who, as a legal representative, will implement these decisions.

Once elections are held at the municipal, and then possibly later, at the regional and national levels, could we possibly see the emergence of an independent state? Clearly, that's a possibility. However, I believe there are many other factors that will come into play and, what with the Security Council, the political situation in Yugoslavia and so on, I really can't say.

Ms. Pauline Picard: Thank you.

Mr. Yvan Conoir: My pleasure.

[English]

The Chairman: Perhaps I can ask a few questions. It seems to me there are a couple of areas we could use some help with in terms of our understanding.

Mr. Denham, you drew attention to the inadequacies of UNHCR. We'll have a look at the report to see how that's being addressed. Obviously the committee is anxious to ensure that the UN agencies are competent and capable of managing these situations. I wouldn't say the UN bureaucracy is one of the world's most favourite organizations, and it's subject to great criticism, as you know, so I'll be very interested to have a look at that report to see how better NGO coordination could be made.

I took it from your comments, though, and from the comments of everyone else that the only way to manage these large humanitarian situations is to have the UN as the coordinating agency and then draw on the expertise of NGOs from around the globe, perhaps trying to avoid what happened in Kosovo, where you get 250 NGOs falling all over one another. Somebody has to have the disciplinary power to say, no, you go here, you go there, and you go away.

My question is, can the UN say that? You mentioned the fact that they came in and said they had three camps all ready to be built in one place at one time. Who says which one is the best one to do it, or to provide medical services? We went through the camps and saw Médecins sans frontières and other medical services.

Who arbitrates between these various NGOs, and how efficient is that arbitration? I guess that's the question I'm struggling with.

• 1650

Mr. Richard Denham: I would relate back to my example of the activities in Zaire with the Rwandan crisis, where it was equally complex. There were maybe not quite as many NGOs present, but certainly a significant number. It was not a matter of saying no, you can't do that. I think it was more a matter of the capability of the UNHCR staff they brought to that situation to assess the need in the field, to assess the capabilities of the NGOs they had and to delegate the jobs, the responsibilities, to the appropriate NGOs.

There's never enough aid. It's not a matter of saying no, you can't do this, go away. There's always something for everybody to do, and more than enough for everybody to do. It's the skilled administrators within the UNHCR that have the confidence and the capability to say okay, certain camps are needed here—CARE, you manage this camp; MSF, you look after this; and U.S. Army, maybe you can do that.

Again I go back to the Rwanda situation, where the UN organized all the NGOs to participate in getting water into those camps. There were one and a half million people camped along the border, with no water. Everybody brought their little bit to the table, and within three days every one of those camps had water.

That was a coordination effort. It was a matter of bringing the bits and pieces together and coordinating it to a focused target. That's what it's about. It takes skill. It takes diplomacy. It takes more than diplomacy to get the U.S. Army to cooperate in that kind of any effort, but they did. So it can be done.

The Chairman: Yes.

Without bringing up a discussion, because we could spend a lot of time on this, when we were in Macedonia we had tremendous complaints from the Macedonian government about the role of UNHCR and how dictatorial and arbitrary it was, ordering food and things, bringing expensive goods in from Europe. That suited the donors and the NGOs, but didn't suit the local people, who said “Hey, we bake bread. Why are you importing bread from Italy?” Well, that suited the NGOs from Italy, because it was a nice way to send the bread over. So everybody felt happy about sending bread. Meanwhile, Macedonian wheat was sitting in the field uncut, unbaked, and so on. You got into these sorts of discussions.

I'm not saying who's right or wrong. All I'm saying is who has the ultimate authority to arbitrate, and how do we, as Canadians, try to ensure the system works the best way possible? You have the experience of being through these things.

Mr. Richard Denham: I believe that should be manifested in the UNHCR. I believe they have the mandate to do it. I think we should just continue to support that and make sure they have that.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: One of the things I think we need to remember is that UNHCR has the ability to say you do this, or you don't do that, by letting their contracts. They let contracts to agencies to do one thing and another. If you don't get a contract, you can't afford to stay around there very much longer. What we need, what didn't happen in the Kosovo situation, is skills and management people at the HCR level. But they can be very good and very capable.

The Chairman: What we're hearing now from at least Mr. Koushner, who's obviously the chief civilian responsible for administration in the present Kosovo, is that he totally lacks resources, that the member states that promised they would step up with resources are not living up to their promises. In the committee, we've heard from many people so far that if you would put in some of the money that you spent on bombs and reparations, we might actually see a chance of rehabilitation. But there seems to be a lack of that.

Is that your experience in the area? And if so, is this the responsibility of the UN, or the members states, or...

Ms. Nancy Gordon: If I can speak for CARE, it's certainly our experience. As you may recall, we're still quite active in Albania, which is a very poor state.

I don't know if you visited Albania when the committee went. There was certainly a lot of talk when all the refugees went into Albania and were welcomed there, as opposed to being held up at the border into Macedonia.

The Chairman: Right.

• 1655

Ms. Nancy Gordon: There was a lot of talk: Oh, yes, we won't forget Albania. Well, people have forgotten Albania, and there are unpaid bills.

If I could say anything to this committee, it would be to remind people that both the UN agencies and the Canadian government need to continue to fund these things after the war is over. That's when it is less expensive in terms of military expenditure, but it's way more important in terms of stopping the need for military expenditure the next time. That's where the concentration needs to be. Mr. Koushner is absolutely right: it's very bad.

Mr. Richard Denham: A year after the crisis.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: Yes.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Conoir.

Mr. Yvan Conoir: There's something else that we need to consider. During the summer, there was a legitimate reason to believe that we had to transfer to Kosovo funds provided by CIDA to launch emergency operations.

When I was in Albania a mere 15 days ago, the HCR was making "discreet" arrangements—it was an open secret—to handle an influx of refugees from Montenegro. In northern zones, agencies were pre- positioning themselves, depending on scenario A, B or C, for an influx of either 20,000, 50,000 or 80,000 refugees. This is a simple illustration of the ongoing possibility of new movements of people within the region.

This brings us back to square one. One of the main reasons for the HCR's failure last April was the lack of preparedness or per- positioning, because clearly, no one had ever imagined having to deal with such a flood of refugees.

Therefore, bearing in mind Montenegro, the possibility of a coup tomorrow morning by Milosevic and of the takeover of Podgorica, and the eventual influx of refugees from Montenegro into Albania, we have to realize that this drama is still unfolding. It's better to be prepared and vigilant than to be caught off guard once again.

The Chairman: That's very encouraging.

Mr. Yvan Conoir: I tend to have a more pessimistic outlook.

[English]

The Chairman: That led me to my other question, which was more on the political level.

The other discouraging thing we're seeing is that we're not seeing the level of security for the Serbian population in Kosovo that one would have expected in view of the tremendous military presence there. That's clearly one of the things that have to be addressed.

Now, is this where you, Mrs. Gordon and Mr. Denham, are differing in terms of the role of NGOs vis-à-vis military? Obviously the military are playing a police function at the moment. We're trying to bring in civilian police as well, but it requires the military to play a police function. On top of that, we're told we need courts, we need judges, we need... All of these presumably are roles of NGOs or at least of forms of state actors other than the military.

What is the possibility, in your view, of seeing in the near term a return of civil order in Kosovo such that any citizen can live in peace and security? Or are we destined to live in this limbo for the unforeseen future?

Ms. Nancy Gordon: It is my view that with enough skilled help and expertise and some money, certainly the citizens of Kosovo can lead a reasonable life in the future.

If you look at Bosnia, five years ago, when Dayton was signed, it was a very unhappy place. I don't mean to paint an idealistic picture of Bosnia, because it's not ideal, but people are learning how to live together. Slowly and surely, they're learning how to live together again. I think there has been, through bilateral funding, through UN funding, through quite a lot of World Bank funding, a lot of effort put into making that happen in Bosnia.

• 1700

Kosovo is still in a rawer state, if you will, and still needs a lot of both military and police forces. The military are essentially acting as police forces.

We've all heard what Mr. Koushner has said about needing a whole bunch more people, and the international community—I mean, whoever the international community is, it is us—needs to pay attention to that and ante up with some people and some money. Otherwise, the kind of scenario you are painting is your former scenario, and it's going to happen again.

You saw the dreadful things that happened in Kosovo. That takes a long time to get over, if one ever gets over it. But you can learn how to put in place various peace-building mechanisms, if you will, that can aid that process.

[Translation]

The Chairman: I have one final question for you, Mr. Conoir. Have the sanctions against the former Yugoslavia had a positive effect, or have they in fact exacerbated the current situation? Have you looked at the whole issue of sanctions?

Mr. Yvan Conoir: I understand your question, but I don't know whether I'm in a position to answer it or not.

One of the obvious repercussions of the sanctions imposed on Serbia several years ago is the phenomenal increase in smuggling between the various states in the region. To understand why eight of every ten cars in Tirana are Mercedes-Benz vehicles, one need look no further for explanations than drug trafficking, smuggling operations with Serbia and other more illicit activities.

Since we are talking about economic matters, I'd like to say a final word about what Canada should consider doing in the medium term. We are all focussed on political, military and security issues. I think it's time we turned our attention to economic realities.

Kosovo today is a consumer society in the very purest sense because it benefits from the local spinoffs of the 35,000 military, police and civilian personnel on site. It is a consumer society because the only commercial activities taking place are those involving money reinvested by the diaspora or by those who had held on to some funds for commercial purposes. It is a society that consumes international aid, but produces virtually nothing.

The only positive signs I've seen recently are fields that had been ploughed. This shows that an effort was made to distribute seed to farmers and to give them some opportunity to start their lives over again. Aside from that, however, production is still at a standstill in Kosovo. This can't continue. The situation has to change. Programs must be put in place, quite apart from macroeconomic structures such as banks and insurance companies which need to be rebuilt, to provide the province of Kosovo with the economic tools it requires to once again become an integral part of the economy of southern Europe.

The Chairman: I want to thank all of you for coming.

[English]

Thank you very much, Madam Gordon. We saw CARE Canada when we were in Bosnia a couple of years ago and met some of your colleagues in your camps. We also saw Médecins sans frontières in various camps we visited. We're very grateful to all of you for sharing your experience with us today. You've been very helpful.

Mr. Richard Denham: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Nancy Gordon: Thank you for inviting us.

The Chairman: We're adjourned until Thursday at nine o'clock.