Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 2nd, 2009

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can't help but echo the sentiments of my colleagues. We're very grateful, Mr. Matas, not only for the work you've already done with Mr. Kilgour, but also the fact that I see your itinerary, sometimes, travelling around and continuing to press the point. I just want to express my personal thanks for your continued efforts in regard to the Falun Gong, and for reiterating the human rights infractions and atrocities in regard to the Baha'i in Iran as well.

We've had Mr. Genser here, who really began the conversation of the International Court of Justice, and Mr. Gordon as well. I posed a question to Mr. Gordon after those two rounds of testimony and he seemed to feel that there might be some legal precedent to follow.

Rather than just the approach of having a conviction that identifies Ahmadinejad and publicly shames him internationally—and particularly today, because you talked about sanctions through banks—is there some premise or a tort aspect that we could follow afterwards? Once there is that prosecution and hopefully conviction, because he's a representative of the state, could there actually be funds that could be seized through a tort action for punitive damages?

[David Matas]

That's a good question.

This of course gets us into the State Immunity Act. The State Immunity Act is an immunity for states and not individuals, but it's been interpreted to apply to individuals who are acting for the state. The courts have said that if you allow a lawsuit against a president or a foreign affairs minister or so on, it's in effect suing the state.

I, and others, have proposed exceptions to the State Immunity Act. There are some exceptions now, but they don't cover this sort of situation. I think there should be an exception for genocide, incitement to genocide, and torture. There's been a bill in the Senate to have an exception for terrorism. Actually, the Bloc at one time proposed an exception for torture, but it never went anywhere. I think it's something I would like to see. The State Immunity Act is too blanket right now.

The United States allows for lawsuits for international crimes for terrorist designated states, and they've designated Iran. In the United States these sorts of lawsuits are possible, but in Canada they're not. I don't see why they shouldn't be. I would encourage Parliament to look at opening up the State Immunity Act a bit to allow for these sorts of lawsuits.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I know there's a piece of legislation before the Senate, or there was in the last session, regarding the proceeds of terrorism, which may work with some amendments.

Going back to some testimony you had earlier about the treatment the state of Iran has imposed upon its own people--and when I say its own people, it goes across a broad area of ethnicity and religion, so really it is its own people in total--with the incitement of genocide statements being very public, it's not a stretch to think that their vociferous pursuit of nuclearization is for weaponization.

Just to be clear, I agree with you, but I also want to know the evidence you mentioned about smuggling into Iran. Were they smuggled items primarily for weaponization?

[David Matas]

As I say, you can't actually weaponize a nuclear capacity until you have a nuclear capacity. It's almost like a second stage. You can't get weapons-grade plutonium until you can make plutonium. The stuff that was being smuggled in was the stuff to develop the nuclear capacity. It would have been hard to tie it specifically to weapons at that point because they just weren't developed enough at that point for that distinction to be meaningful. It becomes more a trial of intention rather than looking at the goods on the ground. I mean, there was an attempt, I would say, to actually weaponize before they developed the capacity to do so, which is what stopped.

One also has to keep in mind the kind of bureaucratic structure of Iran. We've been talking about weaponization on the one hand and incitement to genocide on the other from Iran, but the reality is they come from two different parts of the Iranian government. It's the mullahs who control the nuclearization, very strangely, whereas Ahmadinejad is kind of a civilian branch of the government, although I would call him a stooge of the mullahs. What Ahmadinejad is saying is worrisome, of course, simply in terms of the content of what he says. It's even more worrisome because in my view it's a reflection of the views of the mullahs who are not as public on these points of view, but he's just repeating. It's the mullahs who at the end of the day run the nuclear threat.

This report involved what a particular branch of the government was going to do about weapons, and I think it was the defence department within Iran. The mullahs basically pulled the defence department out of this issue for the time being, but it didn't change their intent one iota, as far as I could tell.

There's one other point I wanted to make here because I've been dealing with governments on this issue. Some of them tried to work the issue the other way, and, rather than join them, kind of oppose them and say that they couldn't really deal with incitement to genocide because it would make it more difficult for them to deal with nuclearization or weaponization. They say if they want to negotiate with Iran on weaponization they have to lay off on incitement to genocide. They say if they start prosecuting the president, Iran is not going to talk to them at all on anything, basically.

I reject that analysis. In my view, I think you're going to be more effective in quelling the nuclear threat if you confront incitement to genocide directly. I think you basically have to stand up to the problem. You can't stand up to it by trading off one part against the other.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Unfortunately, Mr. Sweet, your time is up.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Chairman, if I could say something, I'll risk the fact that I would get unanimous consent on this.

Among Mr. Genser, Mr. Gordon, and Mr. Matas, there's been some compelling testimony, all of which comes to the precipice of very hard evidence of weaponization and nuclearization in Iran. I would like to ask that we accept any written submissions as testimony in this regard for the Iranian study. There may be some people who would want to submit evidence to this committee in this regard under the cover of confidentiality. I would like us to be open to accept that as testimony considered for our final report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

If we're taking this in terms of a motion, it would be essentially that the committee, or I guess myself as chair, issue a call for papers or a call for written testimony and that it be presented to us to review in camera and then make decisions as to what is made public. Is that what you're suggesting?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I actually like that aspect of it better. Certainly it's hard to judge the validity of information without an author. If we're going to handle it in camera, the author would then have that cloak of assurance. I like that much better, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

This is a motion that hasn't had 48 hours' notice, so it can only be accepted if there's unanimous consent.

Is there unanimous consent to what Mr. Sweet has said and I've kind of refined?

I'm not hearing anybody say no, so I'll assume that means yes.

(Motion agreed to)

I will issue the appropriate invitation. I'll have to figure out a deadline that seems reasonable, but we'll discuss that in the in camera part of our meeting when we return to scheduling issues.

That being said, we turn now to our second round. We are running late enough that I'm going to have to ask the indulgence of the subcommittee to put an extra five minutes on so we can have one question each. We may not need the extra time.

Mr. Martin, do you have anything you'd like to ask?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Matas, thank you very much for defending the defenceless and giving voice to the voiceless. Like everybody at this table, I've been a huge admirer of your work and I've shamelessly used it.

I have a couple of questions. We know Mr. Ahmadinejad is an absolutely repugnant figure and his comments are noxious to all of us in this room. However, through the law of unintended consequences, the indictment against Mr. Al Bashir actually caused a larger problem in Darfur, as you know, and the indictment against Mr. Kony resulted in an upsurge of killings by the LRA in Uganda and the Congo. If our primary objective is to neutralize the extremist elements within Iran and bring Iran into the fold of the international community, could an indictment of Mr. Ahmadinejad increase the threat level to Israel and other countries? Is it going to compromise our primary goal, which is to neutralize these distasteful and horrible elements and bring Iran and the moderate majority of Iranians into the international community?

Second, in the Byzantine world of Iranian politics, what are the ways you'd recommend to actually support moderate groups in Iran to be able to marginalize the extremist elements within the complex Iranian power structure and enable a more moderate governance structure to take over in Iran?

Thank you.

[David Matas]

In terms of unintended consequences, I do not think the situations in Sudan or the Congo are comparable to the situation in Iran, because what you're dealing with in the Congo is a non-governmental force and in Sudan you're dealing with the head of state. Ahmadinejad is the president, but the ultimate power in Iran is the ayatollah, and we've seen in the past that if Ahmadinejad gets too far out of line, Ayatollah Khamenei reins him in. I don't think Ahmadinejad is saying in public anything different from what Khamenei is saying in private, but Khamenei is saying it in private and not in public.

It's possible to get the regime to distance itself from Ahmadinejad if he gets himself into too much trouble. Indeed, a lot of the speculation about the upcoming presidential election is the extent to which Khamenei will support Ahmadinejad. I think it is possible to get the regime to distance itself from Ahmadinejad and the incitement through this type of legal effort, but there's nothing like a Khamenei in Sudan. It's Bashir and Bashir and Bashir. I don't think you could apply that analysis to Sudan.

Also, this argument of unintended consequences can work different ways. Sure, you can see what happens as a result of what was done, but you don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been done. There's an argument that if this hadn't been done, things would be even worse than they are now because you would have had people committing crimes against humanity with impunity, and that, of course, causes problems, not just in the theatre where the crimes are committed, but worldwide. If we are going to come to grips with these crimes, I think we have to send out a message that there's no impunity.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I'm really trying to look at the least worst option. I think you understand exactly where I'm going in trying not to do something that makes matters a lot worse, actually increasing the security threat rather than decreasing it.

[David Matas]

Yes, absolutely.

In terms of moderates in Iran, I personally am not associated in any way with the People's Mojahedin of Iran or with the NCRI, but I know what they would say. They would say if you want to encourage the moderates in Iran, you'd deal with the PMOI or the NCRI.

Even leaving that aside, the democratic opposition of Iran is not in Iran because there is no democracy in Iran. The people who are called moderates within the government are all within a narrow range of views that the mullahs will accept. So if you're limiting yourself to asking which of this range of views that the mullahs will accept should we support, I think that's much too narrow a question. We have to think in a broader Iranian perspective, looking at the people who are not even in Iran, but who are Iranian and opposed to the regime and can't be in Iran because they're opposed to the regime. What we have to think about is encouraging change in Iran, and the best way to do that is to stand up forcefully and clearly to what they're doing wrong, through legal and political means.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We are actually out of time. Why don't you just finish up?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Matas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much, Mr. Matas. We really appreciate your coming by. As always, you were intelligent, well informed, and very helpful to all of us.

At this point the committee is going to go in camera. We'll suspend for a moment. I'll ask anybody who is not a staff member of somebody sitting on the committee right now to please leave the room. Under our rules I think we're also allowed to have one person from each whip's office.

[Proceedings continue in camera]