Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Good morning, everyone. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), our study on Canada's response to the violence, religious persecution, and dislocation caused by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant will begin.

I want to welcome everyone here today. We have a couple of individuals joining us via teleconference. We have a member of the Iraqi Parliament, Vian Saeed, and we want to welcome you. Can you hear us on the line?

[Vian Saeed, Member of Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Joining us here from the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, we have Khalid Haider, who is the assistant to the president, and we have Omar Haider as well. Welcome, gentlemen. I understand you drove last night from Virginia, so thank you for making an effort to be here. We do appreciate it.

And we have Rabbi Reuven Bulka, who will be joining us on the call at nine o'clock. We'll try to do it with minimum disruption.

We're going to start with our member of the Iraqi Parliament. Ms. Saeed, if we could have your opening statement that would be great. Once all the opening statements have been made then we'll go around the room and ask questions back and forth over the next hour or two.

[Vian Saeed]

Good morning to you. In the beginning and on behalf of all, I want to thank you for giving me the chance to bring you the facts of what has happened to the Yazidis. I want to say that I'm sorry if my English is not so good.

On August 3, 2014, the so-called Islamic State invaded the Sinjar region, which is inhabited mostly by my fellow Yazidis. Perhaps you have heard and learned about the massacres, the displacement, and the kidnapping of women and children, but I think you have not learned about the details of what really happened. Unfortunately, I think I won't be able to take enough time to summarize the heinous cases even partially. Thousands of Yazidis have been killed: by ISIS directly or indirectly, by the forced march, their escape, the terrible conditions of the Sinjar Mountains.

The biggest tragedy took place in the village of Kocho. In Kocho, 700 people have been kidnapped, mostly women and children aged 12 years and younger, while the rest of the men, about 1,200, were murdered in cold blood, destroying the entire town.

The second tragedy is that the Yazidi girls who were kidnapped by ISIS in the area around Mosul have been sold at $150 per girl, many of them in Syria, and have been treated with unthinkable cruelty.

In addition to forced conversions and rape, over just a few short months while the attention of the war is turned away, more than 5,000 Yazidi women, children, and men have been kidnapped by ISIS. No one has yet been able to help them, find them, and bring them back home.

A small but ancient and proud culture and historic religious community of the Yazidi people may come to a complete and total end. Almost 90% of the Yazidi people of Iraq—400,000 people—are now refugees across the Kurdistan region. They fled their homes in August with absolutely nothing—no documents, no warm clothes, no bedding—in this cold weather. Without shelter, children and entire families are sleeping on the street or under makeshift tents that are not suitable for living in.

Without heat or electricity, fires flare up in the camp. Two weeks ago three children burned to death in a tent that was ignited by a candle, and there was no easy access to water to put the fire out. Even in the three camps provided by the UN—Shariya, Khanke, and Bajit Kandala—in the best of circumstances there is one toilet per 18 families, and for each 50 families one shower room.

I am deeply sad and upset that I must report that the refugee situation is getting worse day by day and hour by hour.

Of course, we are thankful for what we have received, but it is much too late and too little, and our people live in constant fear and in danger from both nature and ISIS.

I am grateful to you for giving me this opportunity to address the Canadian people and ask your government to help my people, the Yazidi people.

Those who have not been killed by ISIS will die trying to survive as refugees in the cold without basic needs, without food, without support. This is a tragedy. It must be stopped before the genocide of an entire nation is on the world's conscience.

We need the Canadian people to hear our plea and help us, shelter us, feed us, and care for our refugees, so they may go home again. We need this now before it is too late.

We need the Canadian people to hear our plea, and help us find and free our enslaved people. All captured prisoners need to be released. We need this now before it is too late.

We need the Canadian people to hear our plea and help us to receive international protection for our people. We need this now before it is too late.

I would like to thank each one of you in advance for giving me this chance to be here on behalf of an entire people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to continue with our witnesses and then we'll come back to questions.

Mr. Khalid Haider.

[Khalid Haider, Assistant to the Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International]

First and foremost, I appreciate the great opportunity to speak the truth, especially about what we have witnessed, my colleagues and I, as well as everybody you've had here.

I would like to start by going back to what happened a little earlier, back in August of 2007, when a semi-genocide took place against my people in two of the Yazidi complexes, a Jazeera complex and a Kahtaniya complex. This was due to the withdrawal of the Kurdish security forces five minutes before these two villages were going to get attacked by four huge trucks filled with C-4 and other explosive items, which led to the deaths of more than 700 people.

This in fact is not the first time in history Kurds have betrayed Yazidis. Just because we are not Muslim, that doesn't mean we don't have the right to live on the ground that belonged to our ancestors.

In 2014, seven years after the first genocide took place, here it is: the Kurdish government has withdrawn from the Sinjar area, handing the keys of the golden gates to ISIS, one of the most brutal terrorist organizations ever to have appeared or ever to have existed in human history.

It wasn't enough for the terrorists to force Christians and other minorities to leave their hometowns. In some places, they stripped them to nothing but the clothes they were wearing. They kicked them and dragged them outside their houses. But that wasn't enough. In order for the Kurdish government to make their points with the central government, they had to sacrifice Yazidis. Because of a dispute, the central government would not give a budget to the Kurdish regional governments, so they had to come up with an idea to make turmoil—namely, by bringing the psychological war that is ISIS into Iraq, driving it into the Sinjar area, and disturbing peaceful minorities such as Yazidis and Christians. This is what happened.

It's just like the allegory of the cave. No matter how much we shout or how much we call, “It's us, this is what's happening, this is what has been done to us”, nobody can translate internally what is going on with this peaceful minority. It is one of the most ancient beliefs in human history. Yazidis have faced genocide time after time. This is the 74th genocide that has taken place against us. Throughout the years we have lost 23 million Yazidis, and yet, until today, all you have heard about is the Turkish genocide against the Armenians.

The Kurds are playing this psychological war against Yazidis. Of the money that has been sent from the United States—$280 million—for refugees in these camps, only $12 million has been spent. All this money you've sent to the Kurdish government is going to their own benefit, not to benefit the refugees who are living in tents. When it rains, some camps are flooded with water, and tents are all we have. People are living outside the tents rather than inside due to the floods taking place. Kids are dying of pneumonia. People are dying from expired food. Food has been sent from the United Nations and other countries to the Kurdish regional government. They replace it with expired food.

Another prime example is that at Sinjar Mountain today there are 7,000 to 10,000 men, women, and children—not to mention the fighters. The Kurdish government sends supplies and they keep them. Whoever says “We belong to you” are given them. Flour and salt are essential items. They will not give them to anybody unless they say, “Yes, we are PDK”.

Enough is enough. Today people are dying and suffering. I just want to ask a question: is a human life that cheap? In some countries they do a lot to save the lives of people and even animals. They put too much time into an animal to risk the life of that animal. Yet today there's an entire society—or a nation per se—and an ancient belief that is facing certain death, and nobody even cares about what's happening.

All you hear is that the Kurdish government is doing its best for these refugees, yet most of the time they're not doing even 10% of what you hear. There's a huge difference between hearing and seeing. You hear they are doing this. You might send an envoy to Kurdistan region, but that envoy will be sent to one of the nice camps they've set up for some people who are close to them.

In fact, in over 95% of these camps people live miserable lives: no food and no sanitation. As Miss Vian Saeed said, some of these tents caught fire and people died. Some of these camps were set up for the refugees who came from Syria and were handed to the Yazidis after what happened on Sinjar. It's going to be one of the most horrific tragedies that history will ever mention, because human rights don't.... This is turning a blind eye to the Yazidis. Next to me here today is my colleague, who lost his entire family. They were close, in an area where they could have been rescued, but nobody wanted to make any effort to rescue them. Out of an entire family of 40-some people, he's the only one who survived, and that was because he was in the United States, or he would not be here now.

The Kurdish government receives a lot of supplies. The tragedy happened to us, not the Kurds. We want you, as a nation, to be in direct touch with the Yazidis, who have been hurt and have been driven out of their houses and hometowns. We want you to go witness and see how much tragedy they are going through day after day, because most of this aid—over 85%—will not go to these refugees.

Another example is the aid they sent to the mountain from Qatar and from the Emirates, who went to their markets and switched with old and rotten clothes.... There are a lot of pictures that I can forward to you. You couldn't even use these clothes to wipe your car. No human can wear them, especially on that mountain. It gets so cold, just like Ottawa, to a point where people cannot resist low temperatures. This is a fact.

All people hear is that the Kurds are helping. To be honest with you, the Kurds started all of this, and that was due to the dispute they've had with the central government in Iraq. That's why former Prime Minister al-Maliki stepped down after they handed the Mosul Dam to ISIS. So what happened is that they gained power at our expense. Yet every other nation in this world wanted to invade Iraq because they were saying Saddam Hussein was creating mass graves out of his people. Today political sides are creating far worse than what he was doing.

In ending, I'd like to thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, for giving me the opportunity to speak and say what I've seen. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Haider.

We now have joining us via teleconference Rabbi Reuven Bulka.

Rabbi, I'm going to turn it over to you for your opening statement, sir.

[Rabbi Reuven Bulka, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I was quite moved by the statements of the previous speaker. In a way, he is pointing to the challenges we all face when there is a looming disaster somewhere in the world. The question we have to continue to ask ourselves is whether, more than just in words, we have learned the lessons of the past: Rwanda, the Holocaust, so many situations in which vulnerable people are almost decimated. As much as we would do whatever we can, we'd like to do something to help prevent it. Are we equipped? In other words, is the world in general equipped when something like this happens, to step in and prevent mass disasters, catastrophes, and tragedies like this?

Unfortunately, from what we have seen, the answer is certainly not yes, and more likely is leaning toward a no. That leads to the question: have we put in enough energy to develop an international strategy, even let's say, an international army that steps in to prevent things like this from happening? This is a major challenge.

I know that the government and the Canadian people in general are horrified by what is happening to the Yazidis, but sympathy cards don't save lives. We have to ask ourselves the very serious question, is there more we can do? This is an emergency. As we speak people are dying, and the question is whether there is something we can do to be more responsive. It is a critical question.

I don't question the desire of the government to save lives. I don't question the commitment to human rights. That is beyond question, but the real issue is can we mobilize the world community that cares to make sure that the despots and the killers of the world are not given a free rein. That's the issue we need to address. I leave it to the rest.

This is more or less my opening comment. I know that the issues before us are not only in addressing the danger on the other side of the ocean, but also the question of that danger being exported to Canada. Another challenge we have here in Canada is do we have the wherewithal? We do have the wherewithal, but are we doing as much as we can to make sure that the Canada of the next generation will be one in which terrorism will not dare to raise its ugly head because it just won't be given the chance.

We're horrified when horrible things happen like what happened about a month ago, but the prevention of it down the road involves a heavy investment in community building and in community alert and prevention strategies, which go all the way from being alert to dangers when you see them to building communities that are solid, in which everyone feels included rather than excluded. These are very large agendas, I don't doubt, and I'm not suggesting they are easy. Thank God we have a country like Canada that takes this seriously, and hopefully with that seriousness and the energy, people like you will be able to address it and come up with strategies that will save lives because this is what it's all about.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Rabbi Bulka.

Witnesses, we're going to have multiple rounds of questions. We're going to start with the opposition, then go to the government, and move around. The first round will be seven minutes, then other rounds will be five minutes, and that will give all the members a chance to ask questions.

I want to start with the NDP, Mr. Dewar, for seven minutes, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests here in Ottawa for coming all the way from the United States overnight. Obviously, that shows your commitment and determination to have a voice for people who have not had a voice in the last number of years. And of course to our friend in Erbil, I want to put my first question to you. But also to Rabbi Bulka, it's good to hear you.

I'm a little shocked at some of the testimony we've heard today. I'm also a little frustrated, because some of the testimony we've heard today is certainly what we heard when we went to Erbil just this past September. There was a call to have immediate action to help save lives and have robust humanitarian support. I also have to say that I'm a little depressed at the fact that I was in Erbil in 2007...and we actually had a conference both here in Ottawa and in Washington about the need to protect minorities. But that was back in 2008, 2009, 2010, where what was happening to Yazidis and to Christians was documented. Now ISIS has been unleashed and it's become worse. But let's be clear here, and I'm going to say it again, this was something we were warned about. No one predicted ISIS, but in terms of the persecution of Yazidis, of Christians, of Mandians, it was happening and Iraq was emptying out.

I want to talk to our friend in Erbil.

Ms. Dakhil, you recently gave a speech to the Iraq Parliament about the situation on Mount Sinjar, and you said, “Away from all political disputes, we want humanitarian solidarity”. My straightforward question to you is, how can Canada both provide the urgently needed humanitarian assistance and support the democratic and social development to help build, to use your words, “solidarity amongst all communities” within Iraq? If I may ask, could you focus particularly on the humanitarian support because of what the witnesses have underlined here today about the delivery of that support? We heard in testimony in our last meeting that while there were pledges made, items weren't being delivered, and now we're hearing more evidence about how things may be diverted. Could you help us with that, please?

[Vian Saeed]

Thank you very much for the question, but I think I need a translator. My friend near me, maybe she can translate for me. Okay, no problem?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Take your time.

[Vian Saeed]

First of all, we need humanitarian help as soon as possible, like getting shelter for all those people who are sleeping on the streets in this cold weather. We need food, clothing, and first aid. Children are dying from the bad health situation there, but we do not want to receive the help through the UN, because they are not spreading it fairly. All that comes, as I noted in my speech, was provided by the UN. Actually the UN are not concerned with the crisis that we are going through. The Kurdish region helps us as much as it can help, but it is not enough. We need international help from the humanitarians. On the other hand, on the defending aspect, we need the Canadian government to help us in this subject to help our fighters on the mountains and our kidnapped people, whose fate we don't know even now as we do not know where they are exactly.

Thank you.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I want to ask about you being a member of Parliament. As a Yazidi member of Parliament, are you being heard within the Iraqi Parliament? In other words, on what you're saying to us and when you're making your comments within the Parliament, are you being listened to by your fellow members within the Iraqi Parliament?

[Vian Saeed]

No. In the Parliament when I introduced my speech the first time, all the Iraqi members supported me. Until now all the Iraqi Parliament really supported me and helped me regarding the bad situation of the Yazidi people.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Just to be clear, they are now supporting you? They're listening to you now, after your speech?

[Vian Saeed]

Yes. Until now members of the Iraqi Parliament supported me, but you know the difference between the Parliament and the government. Now we need the government to do something for those refugees and for the kidnapped and for those people on the mountain. We need the fighters, the army, supported by the Iraqi government for this situation.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move over to Mr. Anderson for seven minutes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today.

Following up on Mr. Dewar's question, I would like to ask our friend who is a member of Parliament, what needs to happen politically and militarily for your people to be able to go home?

[Vian Saeed]

We need the Canadian government with the international governments to help our government here to fight ISIS. They can help us to go back home to our land that was taken from us.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Does the Iraqi army have the potential to lead in that fight?

[Vian Saeed]

The Iraqi army, the Kurd [Inaudible—Editor] army, and also our fighters, the Yazidi people who are fighting, are all ready to fight ISIS, but they need more help from you and the international community.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Are there things you need training and help with in that area?

[Vian Saeed]

Yes.