Foreign Affairs Committee on March 25th, 2009

[David Poopalapillai]

There are 22 elected Tamil representatives in Sri Lanka. They are from the Tamil areas. They have been elected democratically. They can be used as a vital tool to establish peace in Sri Lanka.

I have two young kids. So many Tamil families in Canada have younger kids. Please listen to this very carefully, honourable members. When they see the TV, when they see the images, they are asking, why is my country not playing any role in this conflict? Why is Canada playing a role in other countries and bringing peace in Northern Ireland and Nepal, but not in Sri Lanka?

It's very hard for us parents, as Canadians, to answer this question of our kids.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I was just going to ask Jonathan a question.

The witnesses we heard on Monday testified how embedded the military is within the culture. And the comment made was along the lines that even if we had a ceasefire tomorrow, there's such a dependence on the military for the economy that.... One of their ideas was the importance of demobilization, to give alternatives to conflict and the military.

Has your organization done some of this work, taking people out of that kind of vocation, if you will, particularly young people, and demobilizing them and providing alternatives to conflict?

[Jonathan Papoulidis]

Thank you.

We don't play a part in demobilization as a formal process. However, we do offer livelihood generation and we support the space for markets. So people looking for jobs, especially youth, are targeted within the regions we work. We currently have 31 area development programs in the country and we do provide services to all of the seven districts within the affected region.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I'll ask a difficult question, but not in an antagonistic way.

You know of my experiences in the negotiations and from visiting the country on many, many occasions. Every neutral observer of the conflict and every major NGO that has taken part in attempting to assess the conflict—most recently the International Crisis Group as well as Human Rights Watch—places at least part of the responsibility for the violence and the mistreatment of civilians and the very brutal circumstances now facing the country on the shoulders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Does the congress have a view on this?

[David Poopalapillai]

We understand this concern. We're asking for international players to visit those areas first-hand. I'm asking our honourable members to send a parliamentary delegation to Jaffna, Vavuniya, and these war zones to report first-hand. We want our honourable members in the free media to go. When I say “free media”, I mean international journalists such as CNN and CBC. The respected and reputable organizations should go and report first-hand. When people go there, the truth will definitely come out.

Yes, we have concerns about that.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you for the answer. I'm sure that we would all welcome an opportunity to go. Of course, the difficulty is having access to the places and the times at which we need to go.

One of the questions I have for you very directly is this. Do you see us being able to do more with both the Commonwealth and the UN? We all share this frustration. I can tell you very personally that I do and I'm sure others do. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the hell else I can do. We've tried. We've moved our government over; they've taken a stronger stand. We've had other governments take a stronger stand. But we still don't seem to be able to effect any change that would actually improve the truly horrific conditions that pertain to the north and east.

What more can you suggest we should do?

[David Poopalapillai]

We can do a lot. I want to bring up the example of South Africa. When the apartheid regime was raging in full force, who thought it would be broken one day? Our country of Canada played a huge role and we have been respected for that role ever since.

We want the same role to be played here. We want to increase our role. Yes, take it to the UN and take it to the Commonwealth. It's how we broke the apartheid regime back in the 1970s. We want the same role here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Rae.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There was a discussion a few minutes ago about upcoming elections. Who would be involved in monitoring the elections? Would it be Commonwealth parliamentarians or the OSCE from Europe? Who would normally be engaged in that? I would imagine it's a very important thing to do. There are obviously many other steps that have to be taken too on developing or looking at the human rights issues of the reporting, as well as looking at what democratic institutions can be improved and reformed.

We've had submissions for the last couple of days, primarily from the Tamil community. When listening to the previous presenter who was discussing the murders or killings of reporters, it seemed to me that it was kind of a two-way street. Various people from the Tamils and from the other parties were getting murdered too. With your organizations representing mostly Tamils, we're really getting input here from about 10% or 20% of those who have been engaged in this. This is kind of a rhetorical question, but how do we get this other input in order to have a fair balance of ideas?

Perhaps we could be on a first-name basis here, because of the difficulty with some of the last names.

Jonathan, perhaps you could enlighten us on the very important question of the aid that is getting through. The suggestion was that it is really the government that is the inhibitor to the aid getting through. Is that really the circumstance, or is there a balance on both sides--or on four sides, as you say--that is preventing this? I think the most urgent situation we would want to address is getting that aid moving. What is the real impediment to getting that aid moving?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

[Jonathan Papoulidis]

I think the real impediment is the conflict itself and the fact that there are bullets being exchanged. There have been attempts at humanitarian corridors and there have been attempts at safe zones. I think the nature of the conflict itself among the parties is what is inhibiting aid from getting through.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

It's kind of a two-way street that is holding it up. Is it all the government's responsibility? Are they the ones who are not cooperating, or is it a shared responsibility with a lack of cooperation from several factors?

[Jonathan Papoulidis]

We are calling on all parties to operate within international humanitarian law and to provide for and protect civilians in this conflict.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

So it's not as simple as trying to move one initiative of the government itself into providing the corridors, if you like—which I think could be addressed. If it's a government of a Commonwealth country, it may be best to go to the Commonwealth of Nations to have this happen. But it sounds as though it's not as simple as that, that it's complicated by other factions that are continuing the problem in a way that doesn't allow that corridor to happen.

[Jonathan Papoulidis]

Yes, and it remains that the core protection objective is a ceasefire.

What we were trying to say in our comments is basically that within this conflict we always believe there are judgment calls that can be made and that there can be restraint in how one addresses civilian populations or the issues of the mixing of civilian and combatant populations. The deploying of a humanitarian envoy in a protection capacity—the ProCap team in the UN, which has protection experts, including three from Canada—can help generate scenarios and possible suggestions. Despite the fact that there's a core objective of a ceasefire, we also believe there can be micro-decisions and that micro-options can be made available. We were calling for those as well, because we believe that every possible effort should be taken to try to mitigate the effect on civilians.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Do you have an opinion on what the major issues are that are causing this to be a deeply growing problem? In the period of independence and before it, from what I am seeing, they certainly didn't have the deep, ingrained problems. What materially has happened since the period of independence—maybe you could enlighten us—that you feel has been at the root and core of the difficulties?

[Jonathan Papoulidis]

You've been hearing over the last couple of days that this is a very complex operating environment and that there are factions within factions and differences. I also think there is a complexity in the options and the tools that have been used for peace building and governance. It's complicated in terms of looking at root causes and also of looking at what has and has not worked in trial and error experience, with constructive recommendations having to do with peace building.

I think it's very important that a joint delegation go down and look at the operating situation as it is now and at some of the fundamental operating assumptions we're going in with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

With that, I think we'll pretty well close. I may make just one comment.

A couple of times today we've talked about the example of South Africa. It seems to me, although I may be wrong, that Canada played a very major role there. But that government, some would argue, was almost on its way out. The world was putting pressure on it, and Canada as well.

The difference may be that this government in Sri Lanka still remains fairly strong. Even if the election were held, we've heard today that they would probably sweep back into power. You may want to agree or disagree, but it seems to me that we need an idea that would almost move this government, which may politically be able to win this election. We still have to move them with other governments, not necessarily to shame them but to pressure them to recognize how the reputation of Sri Lanka and their government is at stake and that a ceasefire would unquestionably improve the whole reputation of the country amongst other governments, especially in the Commonwealth.

Again, we thank you for your comments. I think that as a committee we need to sit back and ask how, even if this government is going to win the election, we can move them to change. That's the challenge.

Thank you so much for your input.

Committee, in 15 seconds we're going to pass a steering committee report. I hope there's not a lot of difficulty with doing that in a rush. The bells are going to begin in just a moment or two.

You see before you the report from your subcommittee that met on Tuesday. The subcommittee has asked that we bring forward this draft report on the situation in Sri Lanka on Monday, April 27. I am told that our researchers will have a document that will be a report on that day, and that we will be able to move through the draft on April 27. Also, there are some suggestions for witnesses for our study on Africa. You see the third point there in regard to people we can meet in Washington.

Do we have a motion to pass this steering committee report?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you very much. The bells are ringing.

We are adjourned.