Evidence of meeting #35 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was donors.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Philip Baker  Acting Regional Director General, Southern and Eastern Africa, Canadian International Development Agency
Leslie Lefkow  Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

4:45 p.m.

NDP

Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC

Also in January of this year, CIDA announced that it would investigate the use of aid money in Ethiopia after news broke about the Ethiopian government forcing 70,000 indigenous people off their land in western Gambella—indigenous people, not backward tribes, as suggested earlier today.

A recent BBC report stated that "...Saudi Arabia and China planned to acquire large tracts of land, particularly in Gambella, to grow more than one million tonnes of rice to take back to their own countries." Do you know of any other nations or specific companies that are planning to do the same? Do you know if any of these nations are looking at different activities like mining, oil and gas exploration, or development?

4:45 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Paul Dewar

Could you make your comments very quick? Thank you.

4:45 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

There's been a variety of mining and other interests also in the Somali region, some Malaysian companies and others. As I said earlier, I think the big issue here for Human Rights Watch is the need for monitoring and investigation. This is where we are not seeing any real improvements so far, particularly when it comes to donor involvement in some of these programs.

4:45 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Paul Dewar

We'll go over to the government side.

Mr. Dechert, you have seven minutes.

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lefkow, for appearing here today and giving us the benefit of your views on the situation in Ethiopia. We've been hearing earlier today some major concerns regarding the human rights record of the Ethiopian government. Our government has been quite critical of the Ethiopian government. We've been pressing the Ethiopian government both directly and through international forums, such as the United Nations and other forums, to improve that record.

You mentioned that you had some specific concerns about the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. Can you detail those concerns for us?

4:50 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

There is now a wide consensus on some of the criteria that make a national human rights institution effective. There are a number of actors, including Human Rights Watch, who have done evaluations of commissions across the continent and across the globe. We also have the Paris principles of the UN, to which national human rights institutions in various countries ascribe. There is an accreditation mechanism for national human rights institutions by which they can apply to become accredited if they're in line with core principles. Prime among them is independence. This is considered to be essential for the effective functioning of any national human rights institution. When I say that in our judgment at Human Rights Watch the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission does not measure up to these principles, I am not referring to Human Rights Watch's own criteria; these are generally accepted criteria.

I should add that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, as far as I know, has still not applied for accreditation as a national human rights institution, which may reflect the fact that it has yet to meet many of these standards.

Independence, as I said, is a core principle. The ability to interact with civil society is a core principle. There are issues around the kind of mandate it needs to have. There is financial independence, and a whole set of things.

Basically, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, when you look at its performance over the last few years, measures up to none of these standards. For example, when you look at these two repressive laws—the civil society law and the anti-terrorism law—any serious national human rights institution faced with these pieces of legislation would have spoken out and said something about the concerns that these pieces of legislation present: violations of freedom of expression and association and assembly. But the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has been silent.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON

In your view, would donor countries be well advised to try to make sure that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission acts independently of the government and becomes appropriately accredited according to international standards?

4:50 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

The first step should be for donors to push to reverse the civil society law and to bring the general human rights environment back to the limited freedoms that were available a couple of years ago. We're at a point today where it is extraordinarily difficult for any independent organization to function in Ethiopia, be it a national institution or a non-governmental institution. Putting more money into an institution without the preconditions for a civil society, with independent voices able to function in Ethiopia, is just putting money into...I don't know where. It's not going in the right direction.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON

Let me see if I can understand this. You've got the CSO law, as you call it. You've said, I think, that it criminalizes much of the human rights work that was being done by some of those NGOs, especially with respect to women's rights. So you have that law, which would prevent other organizations, international organizations, from helping to protect human rights in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government is not responding to international requests by countries like Canada, through the United Nations and other international fora, to improve its human rights record.

So if we can't work with the Human Rights Commission in Ethiopia and we can't work with other civil society organizations because their actions are against the law of Ethiopia, what do we do? How do we improve the human rights record there?

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

You have to bolster your efforts to get the government to amend this law, which violates its own constitution as well as international standards. That is the precondition, that and the anti-terrorism law, which they're using to imprison journalists for printing material that is completely within the remit of freedom of expression.

Unless we see an improvement, an amendment of these laws, it's difficult to see how donors can actively and usefully fund government institutions, which, at the end of day, are simply an arm of the executive. All you're doing is putting money into an institution that is in no way going to say or do anything that goes against the ruling party agenda.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON

Presumably you're working with those organizations. You're there in the tent with them and telling them every day that they've got to improve their record, as opposed to pulling out and saying that from outside the country.

You've got here a government that has committed serious human rights abuses against its own population. They're not responding to international pressure. If you can't work with the human rights commission and be there every day and say that you're going to help them build capacity to do a better job of protecting the human rights of the people of Ethiopia and to speak out about abuses when you see them, aren't we just spinning our wheels if we just pull back and do nothing? Are you suggesting other kinds of sanctions against the Ethiopian government? If so, what would they be?

4:55 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Paul Dewar

Please make it a very short response.

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

If I may just say, I don't think it's a question of capacity. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has received, from my reading, several million dollars basically for technical support, computers, etc. What you need here is political will to allow these institutions to function. If you don't have political will, then you can put as much money as you like into these institutions but you're not going to see the results you want to see.

4:55 p.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Paul Dewar

Thank you.

Now we will go to Mr. Eyking for seven minutes.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

Thank you, Chair.

Leslie, thanks for coming today.

I have quite a few questions. My first question is, can you give me a sense of Ethiopia? Was it always a bit of a lawless land or is what's happening lately more due to the regime in power? Did the many droughts and famines they had create this sort of environment? How come the country is where it is, or was it always like this?

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

Ethiopia is far from being a lawless land. It's one of the most highly controlled and hierarchical societies and governments in the region. It's very hard to imagine any government policy being put in place that is not sanctioned at the highest levels. That includes to a large extent the actions of the Ethiopian military. This is not an undisciplined armed force, which is what makes many of the crimes that we've documented even more alarming, because you're not talking about a few bad apples or people who have not received any training. This is, in general, a very highly disciplined force and, as I said, a very hierarchical set of institutions, which again brings me to the point I just made. It's not about building capacity, although, of course, there's always room for more training and resources. But the real issue here, when we talk about the human rights environment in Ethiopia, is the political choices that are being made by the government to control society and to control any independent criticism or any independent voices.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

In your report on March 28, you mentioned the executions in a couple of towns. Are there certain hot spots that are worse than other places in the country?

5 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

Yes. There are definitely groups or categories of people that are most at risk of being attacked or targeted, for everything from intimidation to torture and detention. Those groups include political opposition members or supporters, or sometimes even people who are perceived to be supporters and may not actually support opposition groups. It includes people who are perceived to be linked to insurgent groups. There are two areas of the country—

5 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

Excuse me.

On that, Leslie, when you mention the repression of opposition groups, do you think the government uses aid funds to do that? Apparently they must. They receive funds from countries such as Canada and they're using their funds to repress the opposition. Would that be the case?

5 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

This was the subject of one of the reports we published in 2010, which looked at the way that individuals perceived to be supporters of the opposition were denied access to some government services because they were perceived to support the opposition, and we documented this, particularly in the lead-up to the May 2010 elections.

5 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

For a country to so-called straighten itself out, it either happens internally or externally. We've seen what happened in South Africa years ago and the pressures of the world that were on it.

Do you see the UN or the African Union playing a bigger role in monitoring this country and what it's doing?

5 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

In a way, Ethiopia has quite a privileged position, because it is the host of the African Union. Of course, the African Union is located in Addis Ababa. Basically, I would say that the UN and the African Union have been extraordinarily weak in making any kind of criticism of the Ethiopian government's human rights record.

5 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

If those two groups are not really stepping up to the plate, who is left? Is the European Union doing anything? Is there anything more Canada can do?

5 p.m.

Deputy Director, Africa, Human Rights Watch

Leslie Lefkow

This is what I mentioned before about donors, particularly the large donors—the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, the World Bank and others—really needing to put their feet down, first, in terms of actually monitoring their own programs. As I mentioned, there are real deficiencies in the monitoring and investigation of allegations, and that's where donors should flex their muscles. They are pouring a lot of money into Ethiopia, and they should at least have the ability to monitor what is happening with that money.

To date, that has not happened at the level it should.

5 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS

Is your bank account still frozen? Is it true that your bank—