Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming.
Mr. Broadbent, in 1999, the UN Commission on Human Rights, now the Human Rights Council, passed a resolution on the promotion of the right to democracy. In 2000, as you know, the UN at the Millennium Summit declared that we should spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law.
I have generally been supportive of projects that CIDA has done, and I'll give you an example that I'd like you to comment on.
To promote democracy I believe the best way to do it is from the ground up, and obviously at the village level, particularly in places such as Asia, such as Cambodia. We were very much involved, as you know, in the commune elections. What has happened, however, is that it appears to be a scattered approach, because we were there and we supported them, but the attention has drifted away. What is happening now is we see a government in Cambodia, Hun Sen's government, that has basically stifled both public dissent and human rights.
Do you have any advice for this committee in terms of how we could be in for the long haul? What kinds of approaches should we be looking at for monitoring sustained development of human rights in countries where we're going to spend the dollars to do that?
I think you eloquently pointed out that in Iraq, a top-down approach does not work. I'd be interested in your comments.