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.