Foreign Affairs Committee on May 31st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Beer.

Mr. Van Loan.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

The question I keep asking people is this, and if you want to comment on it, either of you, I invite you to do that. In looking at the several interventions by Canada, what have we done wrong or poorly over time? Obviously we have not yet met with positive results, and we're trying to examine, through our exercise, whether those interventions are of value.

I think we just heard something from you, Superintendent Beer, on that.

In your report, Ms. Laporte, you say: “CIDA has gradually had to withdraw from these initiatives”--these were the 1994-2002 ones--“owing to the Haitian authorities' lack of political will to deal with the problem of reforming the security sector. Politicization and increasing corruption caused CIDA to terminate its bilateral programming in the justice sector in 1999 and the police sector in 2001”.

What we keep hearing from people is that the biggest thing we've done wrong has been disengaging in the past, that we have to stay in for the long term. Is this an example of that? Was it a mistake to disengage when there was a lack of political will in 1999 and in 2001? Was it a mistake then? If it wasn't, what do we do if we face the same kinds of problems of politicization, interference, or lack of political will to move with reforms in the future? How should we respond?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll start with Ms. Laporte or Mr. Beer, either way.

[Suzanne Laporte]

Okay, I'll go first.

There are judgment calls and very difficult choices to make. I think we have to balance the notion of continuity, ensuring that we're not in a stop-and-go mode with the notion of accountability and the showing of probity in the management of the resources given to a government.

When CIDA withdrew in 2001, there were four basic conditions that pushed the agency in that direction. First of all, it was clearly evident that there was no political will on the part of the President at the time. For example, he named his driver the chief of the police force. The chief of palace security is now in prison in the United States.

Secondly, there was no budget line for the police force. How was this financed? There were examples of obvious corruption. Could we continue using Canadian taxpayers' money under these conditions? I think the judgment at the time was an appropriate one.

So we need some basic elements. We are observing today that some of these elements are there. We hope they will continue, and it is clearly something we have to monitor.

The current director general of the police force is a highly professional individual. Commissioner Muir, who replaced Commissioner Beer, has indicated so himself, and that director general is actually surrounded by bodyguards because his life is in constant danger from some of the actions he has taken to reduce corruption and imprison some very senior police officials. Indeed, we are more confident that these measures are there at this point.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

And in the future?

[Suzanne Laporte]

In the future, in terms of....?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

If you start seeing the same kind of...I'll call it backsliding—

[Suzanne Laporte]

We constantly monitor the progress and actions of the police force. With the renewal of the MINUSTAH mandate, we are going to work with our partners, and we share information to ensure that before we move ahead on our new programming, the conditions of success and probity are there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Beer.

[C/Supt David Beer]

I think the issues today make the challenge of developing the police more onerous than the first time—albeit Haiti had never previously had a civilian police. We now have a situation in which we essentially have to clean out the wound before it's going to heal. So there has to be a very significant vetting process. There is a number of fairly high-ranking people who have to be vetted from the organization.

We need a stronger organization within the inspector general's office, and in fact this has been identified in current planning. The vetting of some of these people will be a test of the government's will to make substantive change. I echo Madame Laporte's assessment of the current director general of police, Mr. Mario Andresol. To give emphasis to a CIDA program that was run in the 1990s, he is a graduate of our middle and senior management program, which was designed through CIDA. In fact, it's a program that the Haitian national police have asked to be reinstated.

But the challenge will be to clean out the organization before it can be healed, in order to ensure that from a fiscal perspective, the government is prepared to sustain what we can develop—albeit I think a previous witness talked about a future of 8,000 police officers. That doesn't include a border guard customs service, which will be part of the federal police organization, increasing significantly the resources for the inspector general's office—plus the personal security for government officials. So it may well be that we are talking 10,000 to 12,000 people being necessarily to do all of the related security functions within a country that hopes to have all these pillars under one umbrella.

It will take a significant amount of time and a significant amount of money. We need to have the donors committed in terms of staying the course, working collaboratively, because no one donor--and certainly Canada, and I include the United States, with its deep pockets, in this--is prepared to take this on as a singular project. We have to do it collaboratively.

Our contributions have to be well timed and well coordinated. We have to put accountability mechanisms into place and, frankly, hold the Haitian government's feet to the fire on some of these issues. They must lead, they must be partners, but in any partnership, in any partner arrangement, there are obligations on both sides of the fence, and we have to see those carried through.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Superintendent.

Madame McDonough.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the opportunity today to hear from you as witnesses. There are so many questions that could be asked. I guess I'd like to start by raising a question with Superintendent Beer.

It appears, from time to time--and I think it goes like this--that MINUSTAH and CivPol have been in Haiti for some time now, and it seems to be very widely acknowledged, and the evidence is all there, that there is horrendous corruption with the Haitian National Police. There have been many criticisms directed at MINUSTAH and at CivPol for complicity--and I say that in parenthesis--suggesting that the sins and omissions and unacceptable actions of the Haitian National Police have been sort of tolerated, or overlooked, or whatever.

What is the structural relationship between MINUSTAH, CivPol, and the Haitian National Police? In the instance of abuses under use of force, the allegations seem very severe, all the way to very targeted killings of political adversaries, and so on. What is the accountability structure? What is the capacity to actually deal with those kinds of situations that arise? If there is insufficiency in the mandate, or the reach, or the oversight of the Haitian National Police, then how can we be certain that we're discharging our responsibilities in a way that is consistent with the rule of law with our objectives? That's the drift of my question.

The second thing is around the disarmament process. It's quite alarming to imagine, when you think of 170,000 small arms at large, in people's hands, that there would have been very little interest in this process by the provisional government. What indication is there at this point, and what needs to be done to try to increase or intensify the commitment and the mandate to be able to move forward in a really effective way with disarmament? It seems pretty obvious that, if that doesn't happen, it's going to be awfully difficult to see anything but continuing lawlessness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Beer.

[C/Supt David Beer]

Those are two very valid questions. Perhaps I could address the second first.

I've spent over three years serving in Haiti, and during that time—and I don't want to understate what I think is perhaps a problem—I've always questioned the figures about the extent of arms in Haiti. During the 1990s, when there was a large, significant multinational force, and in 2004 when there was a large multinational force, during all the time I spent there, there was never once a seizure of a large cache of weapons. I don't think there were ever any more than a dozen weapons, at any one time in any investigation or any military or police action, ever seized. I question exactly how many weapons are there. But that's an aside.

Secondly, I don't want to downplay the notion of disarmament, but I truly feel that the Haitian government will ignore it, to a certain degree. They will go through the motions, as we want to go through the motions, but I'm not sure it's the first thing on the list of priorities that we need to address. So many of these things, within the context of Haitian law, are in the hands of security companies, etc., which from one day to the next could be illegal, or could be gang members who the next day come to work and are part of a private security force.

I don't know how we can do the disarmament. I'm leading into a response to the first question.

The security situation, as difficult as it was in the most recent year I spent there and in this past year, has basically been focused within an area of about six square kilometres in downtown Port-au-Prince. This includes the roads to and from the airport from the downtown core, the port area, and from the ocean towards the central core of Port-au-Prince, perhaps two kilometres. This is the main corridor for the economy of the country. It's where the vast majority of the banditry is going on, where the vast majority of the kidnappings are going on. It's the area surrounding Cité Soleil and areas such as Fort National that are also tangent to bidonvilles or slum areas in that area that have historically been controlled by the gangs.

By and large, the security situation in the country has not been problematic, but because that area of Port-au-Prince is the economic pump, if you will, of the country, everything that went on in that particular area was accentuated and put under a microscope. As surprising as it is, one kidnapping of a key individual would bring the city to a halt. There would be general strikes. The media would use the opportunity to criticize the presence of MINUSTAH, criticize the effectiveness of the interim government.

I'm not trying to downplay the security situation, because God knows, the people who worked for me in downtown Port-au-Prince came under fire every day I was there, for 365 days. I went to bed every night waking up thinking I might have lost somebody—every day. It was very difficult.

Dealing with that situation and being in an environment, first of all, where there is no justice system, where the police mission was what we would call a hybrid mission—we didn't have executive authority, weren't the police of jurisdiction, and had no justice system in which to operate—you find yourself working very close to what the military call “rules of engagement”, which is totally contrary to the way police operate in civil society.

We were there with a dual chapter 6, almost chapter 7 mandate of the UN charter, with, on the one hand, development responsibilities, where we were required to demonstrate, mentor and advise, and train the Haitian National Police on how to operate within a justice system, within a justice sector, to be part of that system, to be accountable to that system. On the other hand, over 50% of the people who were working under my responsibility as foreign police units were coming under fire and in fact were doing battle on many days in a very densely populated environment, where they were expected to essentially work under rules of engagement as opposed to the rule of law and to exercise a use of force policy, which is common within the civilian police. It was an extremely difficult situation for the people on the ground, for the management of MINUSTAH, on the one hand.

Secondly, we had the whole notion of very corrupt elements of the Haitian National Police. We could talk about that all day as being the largest organized gang within the country and responsible for the vast majority of kidnappings, etc.

If the truth be known, for the vast majority of the engagements, if you will, with gangs, with the criminal element, where human rights abuse would have been called into question, where we would have been under the microscope of human rights organizations, and correctly so, we couldn't get in to investigate. You would be under fire. You couldn't go and knock on doors and take statements like you would here, in a post-major event or a post-major crime investigation. You'd go back into the bidonville or the neighbourhood where you had that engagement and you would be under fire again in a guerilla war-like environment. There was no investigation to be done.

On the other side of the coin, there were certain situations where we pushed very diligently and actually started investigations, like the large prison escape in the spring of last year. We strongly suspected that was orchestrated by elements within the cocaine trafficking community and with the complicity of the corrections people at the prison and the police. An investigation was conducted, but because we were not the police of jurisdiction, you basically made your inquiries and you poked and you prodded and you took the police along with you in situations like that and in situations that were under investigation, where the police were considered to be responsible or were being accused of human rights abuse.

The long and the short of it is that we could get investigations so far and then we couldn't get them past the minister of justice. We couldn't get any more assistance from the inspector general's office. We were simply back to the whole notion that we'll just push it under the rug; we'll let it go.

The minister of justice whom we worked with--or at least whom I worked with when I was there--actually did nothing. He was not wilfully blind, but he was participating in the blocking, if you will, of the course of justice by simply doing nothing.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I'm just going to take a few--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No, no more questions. We're going to very quickly go to Mr. Patry. We were on new ground there, so I didn't want to interrupt him as he was going along.

Mr. Patry, one quick question.

[C/Supt David Beer]

I'm sorry, I used up the entire 12 minutes.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

It's a little along the same line as Ms. McDonough's question.

We know that MINUSTAH has been operating in Haiti since June 2004. In a sense, its presence has been problematic and sometimes divisive. Part of the problem, I really feel, is the weakness of the mandate. Security Council resolution 1542 now requires that MINUSTAH work alongside the HNP on all issues involving policing. That's a problem. Because of this, a number of questions that people talk to us about raise the neutrality of the MINUSTAH, as it has been seen to be in league with the HNP.

Knowing that MINUSTAH's mandate is coming up in August of this year, my question is the following. If the RCMP and Foreign Affairs--I don't know which department--made some representations with some other donor country--I don't know which UN representative--to, in a certain sense, modify the mandate of MINUSTAH to stop this, to separate MINUSTAH from the police, from the HNP, because it seems that the problem, the corruption you talk about.... Do you have any recommendations? Is there anything you would like to see to improve the mandate of MINUSTAH, in a sense?

[C/Supt David Beer]

There was discussion in the spring of 2005 when the MINUSTAH mandate was renewed. There was consideration given behind the scenes, if you will, to giving executive authority to MINUSTAH. I took the position then, and I take the position now, that executive authority must come within the context of the justice sector. You cannot have executive authority without a justice system that's up and running. Now, whether it's the Haitian one or an international one that's in place, the police cannot take action, go out and make an arrest, put someone in jail, knowing that person may never get to see legal counsel, may never get to see a judge, or answer their charge, because you've then committed a human rights violation by simply doing your job in that particular circumstance.

I would say, sir, that the same situation applies. There must be 5,000, 7,000, or 8,000 United Nations police officers there if we're going to have executive authority for the country. And there has to be a judicial system in place, whether it's a Haitian justice system or an international justice system in order to make that happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Goldring, and then Madame Bourgeois.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you for your submission today; it's been very enlightening.

Mr. Beer, just to carry on with this part of the discussion, it was mentioned when we had our discussions in Haiti that one of the difficulties with corruption in the police force was that many of them aren't paid, that wages and salaries are nonexistent or very sporadic, leading you to believe that part of the corruption is simply from people trying to put food on the table for their own family. Of course, the toughest law that you break in your lifetime is always the first one, and the next are easier and easier. Is there a certain element of truth to that or not?

Also, regarding the resources that you have, I note that you mentioned there are 65 Canadian police officers there, out of a commitment of 100. There were 70 or 75 when we were there, leading to a comment being made that it's continually understaffed and that there's an absence of full commitment. Of course that leads to the question, what about the other contributing partners to this issue? Are they also shortchanging their resources by one-third?

As you were saying, I would think it would be an untenable circumstance to not be able to carry out your total policing duties because of a lack of a firm and fully detailed mandate to do so. I guess I would repeat that it sounds as though that's absolutely essential to have established, even if goes to the extent of the judiciary, too, having some international component to be able to cope with that. Is this really not what's continuing the problem in Haiti? In other words, is this not the background to why there is the large Cité Soleil area that is held by others and the UN can't control? When you're talking about resources, if you had the exact setup that you wished to have in your police and judiciary, would Cité Soleil simply not be there?

Maybe you could help me on some of these.

[C/Supt David Beer]

We haven't spoken about the size of the military component. We could talk about that, but I would like to focus on the police resources. Today I think there are very nearly 2,000 additional formed police units that were added during the election period.

Understand that over 50% of the UN police resources on the ground are what are called formed police units; these are order maintenance units, essentially paramilitary police officers, who are there for an operational purpose—to provide security. They provide no capacity for development assistance. There are probably only a handful who speak French among the 1,000. They come from Jordan, they come from Pakistan, they come from China, they come from Nepal. They are formed police units, a paramilitary group that works closely on the streets of the urban areas to provide security. They offer no development capacity in terms of the UN.

Among the remaining 900 or 1,000, not all of them speak French. In fact probably only about 60% of the remaining 900 speak any French whatsoever—and this is a guess based on the reality when I was there, which I know hasn't improved significantly. A good portion come from countries who have very generously contributed these people to the UN mission, but frankly a lot of them don't have a whole lot more experience, training, or knowledge than the Haitians whom they are expected to assist.

That's the reality of the UN police mission in Haiti. Frankly, it's the reality of the UN mission in many places.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly, Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Would it be fair to characterize our shortfall of one-third as having a dramatic influence on it? Could it help considerably if we were up to a full commitment, because of the numbers of Canadians who speak French, if not Creole?

[C/Supt David Beer]

We're actually one of the few bilingual components, so we can speak both with the people...who are neither francophone nor anglophone.

It's important, and we in the RCMP have to work harder to get that commitment up. We are in a transition period right now. Historically in the past we have deployed to peace missions on a mission-by-mission basis and on a very ad hoc basis, which was an enormous strain on our domestic resources. We've now been working with government over the past year to find permanent funding for peacekeeping operations. That process is moving along very rapidly, but we are in a period of transition, and we have to pull up our socks and we have to make the commitment to get the people on the ground during this period of transition.