Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We are the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Today, May 5, 2009, we are having meeting number 16. We continue with our hearings regarding human rights in Iran.

We have two witnesses with us today. In the room is Gregory Stanton, who is the president of Genocide Watch and is up from the United States. By video conference from Brussels, we have Emanuele Ottolenghi, the executive director of the Transatlantic Institute.

I'm going to suggest that we start with spoken submissions from our two witnesses. I'll ask Professor Stanton to begin, and when you're finished, we'll go to Dr. Ottolenghi. After that we'll take questions from our panel members.

Please begin.

[Professor Gregory Stanton, President, Genocide Watch]

Thank you. It's a great honour to be here in this wonderful country, a country that has brought so much to the world, especially in the field of international human rights law. It's also a special pleasure for me to be here with my dear friend Irwin Cotler, with whom I've worked for so many years.

Today I want to talk to you about taking Iran's incitement to genocide seriously. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first world leader to recognize the connection between Iran's uranium enrichment, its testing of long-distance missiles, and the genocidal statements of its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A day after declaring that Israel should be “wiped off the map”, on October 25, 2005, he incited students to scream “Death to Israel” at a government-sponsored conference called “The World Without Zionism”.

Chancellor Merkel declared, “A president that questions Israel's right to exist and denies the Holocaust cannot expect to receive any tolerance from Germany. We have learned our history.” Will Chancellor Merkel's warnings of the parallels between Iran's actions today and Nazi Germany's first steps towards genocide in the 1930s prod the world into effective deterrent action?

On October 28, 2005, the UN Security Council condemned the words of the Iranian President. While the Security Council only issued a press statement, the weakest form of expression, it was still a diplomatic defeat for Iran. Despite numerous UN resolutions since, Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons, and its leadership has not changed its apocalyptic views.

On February 1, 2006, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, of which I am president, passed a resolution—and it's in the appendix—noting that Iran's actions, including Ahmadinejad's statements, are early warning signs of genocide. Genocide scholars have studied the early warning signs of genocide. Genocide is not a mystery. It does not just come out of nowhere. So we can see it coming, just as we can see a hurricane coming. These signs include open expressions of an exclusionary ideology characterized by hate speech. We saw that in Ahmadinejad's statements about Jews as animals, barbarians, and mass murders.

Another early warning sign is an authoritarian government that represses dissent. That, of course, is a perfect characterization of the Iranian regime, a regime in which more than 100,000 people have been executed since the time of the Iranian revolution.

We also see it in the organization of fanatical militia, such as the Revolutionary Guards, and its sustained record of support for terror attacks against Jews around the world, especially through Hamas and Hezbollah, both of whom have in their charters genocidal statements advocating the destruction of Israel and of Jews everywhere.

In December 2005, President Ahmadinejad added to this another early warning sign, namely the denial of a past genocide, the Holocaust. The UN Security Council and Secretary General condemned his statements. Indifference to incitement and inaction by the outside world, most notably by the United Nations itself, is another early warning sign, as we have seen in the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Darfur, and elsewhere.

The development of the capacity to commit genocide—for example, Hitler's arming of Germany before World War II—is another early warning sign. We see that today in the development of a covert nuclear weapons program and long-range missiles by a state whose leader declares genocidal intent and states the case for urgent deterrent actions.

As we address the Iranian threat, it's helpful to recall that genocide was the most deadly crime against humanity in the 20th century, resulting in some 250 million preventable deaths, more than from all wars combined.

I now want to talk a little bit about the genocidal process, because I'm a cultural anthropologist as well as an international lawyer, and I see things like genocide in terms of processes.

Genocide is not an accident. It develops following a predictable process. I have analyzed most of the genocides in recent history and have discovered a predictable pattern. I call the process the eight stages of genocide. I can, in our question period perhaps, go through those stages with you and show how each of those stages has in fact been realized in Iran. At this point, every one of the first six stages has already happened in Iran. The next stage, stage seven, is genocide itself.

Historians have established that governmental incitement and use of hate language is a recognized predictor, initiator, promoter, and catalyst of genocide. The direct and public incitements to genocide by Iran's President are not only openly stated declarations of aggressive intent, but are in violation of article 2(4) of the UN Charter, of the genocide convention, and of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, articles 6 and 25(3)(e).

President Ahmadinejad, since he made these statements in 2005, has attempted to “clarify” that he merely advocates the “transfer” of Jews in Israel to German and Austrian provinces. That, folks, is also a crime against humanity, because it's forced deportation or ethnic cleansing. It is also contradicted by his own actions and his long-term Iranian policy, which has included terror attacks on Jews outside Israel, such as the bombing of a synagogue in Buenos Aires; the arming of Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which, as I have said, have genocidal ideologies; and advocating the murder of Jews everywhere by Iranian-financed media such as Palestinian television. In 2005, Palestinian Authority television carried a Friday sermon calling for the butchering of all Jews everywhere. Since that time, the propaganda calling for the killing of Jews has gotten even worse.

Iran could soon be an independent nuclear power, possessing advanced missile delivery systems. Iran has never renounced its aggressive and genocidal aims against the Jews of the state of Israel and elsewhere, which are long-standing policy. In 2000, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Muslim worshippers in Tehran, referring to Israel: “We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumour of a state should be removed from the region.”

So when people tell you, “Oh, don't worry about Ahmadinejad--he's not the real power in Iran. Khamenei is,” just think about that statement made by the ultimate leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei.

The unprecedented threat of nuclear genocide necessitates an urgent response because, aside from the clear warning signs we have indicated, an actual apocalyptic nuclear attack could occur without further warning sufficient to engage in preventative action. Israel is a small country that can be reached within minutes by Iranian ballistic missiles. It is densely populated and home to the largest number of Holocaust survivors in the world. Time is of the essence, and delay could be catastrophic. In fact, President Ahmadinejad says it's a really good thing that so many Jews have concentrated themselves in the state of Israel, because it will make wiping them out easier.

I now want to turn briefly to the responsibility to protect.

The ethical principle that needs to guide international action to prevent genocidal threats is that human life is the most fundamental human right, because without life there is no other right. Canada has been the most important leader in creating a newly emerging norm of international law. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, sponsored by the Canadian government, defined what is now called “the responsibility to protect,” which was affirmed in the Millennium Summit outcome document of 2005. It is based on the principle that the international obligation to protect human life and well-being overrides the sovereignty claims of any government whose actions demonstrate genocidal intent.

Now I want to turn to another basic principle of genocide prevention, the precautionary principle. Because the dangers of inaction could be catastrophic, we repeat the calls of Genocide Watch, the Hebrew University genocide and violence prevention program's petition, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars' call for the application of the precautionary principle, which is a powerful tool for decision-making in public health for prevention of this and all other genocidal threats. The principle states simply that when there is uncertainty concerning the risk from a situation with potentially catastrophic effects upon human health and safety, the risks of inaction far outweigh those of preventive action.

The precautionary principle, which British foreign minister Jack Straw already applied in this case, shifts the burden of proof from those warning of a risk of a catastrophic event to those denying the risk. Preventive action, of course, means the obligatory imposition of effective sanctions to prevent Iranian development of nuclear weapons and includes immediate and continuous IAEA inspections of all Iranian nuclear facilities as well as confiscation of all technology, equipment, and nuclear material that could be used by Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons. Because the obligation to protect life and safety overrides state sovereignty, Iran's genocidal declarations and actions undermine its very claims to responsibly utilize its nuclear material for peaceful means.

But this is all insufficient. Historians have recognized that genocide results from the conscious choices of elites and occurs when there is indifference of outsiders to early warning signs, particularly hate language that serves to catalyze genocidal actions. Accordingly, the UN Security Council should follow the landmark precedent of its referral of Sudanese leaders to the International Criminal Court and refer Mr. Ahmadinejad to the ICC for indictment for incitement to commit genocide, which itself is a crime. In addition to that, and even if the UN Security Council won't do it, Canada as a state party to the genocide convention should also take a case against Iran to the International Court of Justice for violation of the genocide convention because of this incitement.

Those convicted of incitement to commit genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced to prison terms up to life imprisonment included Rwanda's former prime minister, a historian, a newspaper editor, a minister of information, and a journalist. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are the heads of state, and other specific perpetrators must also be stopped. Economic sanctions that would target the Iranian people collectively should be rejected. Iran has a glorious past and future, which this president definitely does not represent.

It's time for the UN to go from commemorating past genocides, such as the Holocaust and Rwanda, to stopping current genocides, such as that now raging in Darfur in Sudan, and deterring and preventing future ones.

Indicting President Ahmadinejad for incitement to commit genocide would send a clear non-violent message to Iran's authoritarian leaders to back down from pursuing a genocidal ideology. It would be a major step towards deterring others planning future Bosnias, Kosovos, Rwandas, and Darfurs. Chancellor Merkel has reminded us of the consequences of the world's ineffectual response to Hitler in the 1930s. When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, nobody believed he would do it, but he did.

The world now has to choose between indifference and deterrence, not only to save Israel but to save itself. Consider these two chilling facts.

First, Iran is the only country since Nazi Germany that has openly expressed its genocidal intent to wipe another nation off the map while pursuing a program to develop nuclear weapons. Few believed that Hitler was serious about his genocidal intentions until Nazis carried out the Holocaust. The Iranian President denies that the Holocaust even happened.

Second, the country most likely to be blackmailed by an Iran with nuclear weapons is Israel. Suppose Iran demands that Israel pull back to its 1967 borders and allow all Palestinians to return to their pre-1948 homes? Israel replies, “Nuts.” Iran then repeats its threat to wipe Israel off the map, arms its missiles, and supports Hezbollah terrorist infiltration into Israel. Would Israel launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, knowing that Iran’s nuclear retaliation would result in Israel’s self-destruction?

Iran’s nuclear weapons program must be stopped. I'm convinced that the only way to really deter Iran is for NATO itself to explicitly invoke its own nuclear shield to protect Israel. Canada should use its full legal and diplomatic force to prevent this genocide in the making.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Professor Stanton.

We turn now to our second witness. We will go to Dr. Ottolenghi, please.

[Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, Executive Director, Transatlantic Institute]

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon from Brussels, and thank you for the opportunity to address this most distinguished forum.

I am also very pleased and honoured to speak before you, in particular Mr. Irwin Cotler, a man I strongly admire for his work and his advocacy on human rights issues.

I would like to draw your attention to a number of issues the preceding speaker mentioned, and I would like to expand on them.

On June 12, 2009, Iran will go to the polls to elect a new President. There is a sense of anticipation among many policy-makers, especially here in Brussels and indeed across western Europe, that the election of a new President in Iran, and the hope that the present President may be ousted and replaced with a more moderate figure at the helm of Iran's executive power is something to count on as a promise for turning the page in the relations between the international community and Iran on a number of critical files, including, but not only, the concern we all share about Iran's nuclear program.

It's extremely important to emphasize the significance of these elections and the meaning of a possible change of the Iranian President. The leading candidates running for the presidency today alongside the incumbent, Mr. Ahmadinejad, are all in one way or another linked to the early revolutionary days of the Islamic republic, and they all have an attachment or a link to the Revolutionary Guards. Their power is very much like my own power in my organization. The President is not the supreme holder of power in Iran, as was mentioned. He's more like the executive director, somebody who has some influence and role in formulating policy, but by no means the last word.

While we pin so much hope on change in that province, we should open our eyes to the fact that Iran, despite the thin veneer of democracy provided by an electoral process for the choice and selection of some officials, remains at heart a political structure and a regime that is profoundly illiberal and very remote from the practice and observance of fundamental democratic values, which must include the respect of basic human rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms.

Iran is ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, by Freedom House when it comes to civil liberties and political freedom, very much in the same category as countries such as Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. So we should not hold any illusions about the possibility that a politician who may be slightly more polished in his speeches and more educated in the way he confronts and deals with western diplomats will hold the promise of change. Polite conversation and successful diplomacy are two very different things. And we should realize what at heart Iran remains--namely, a revolutionary power intent on asserting its role in the region on the basis of an ideology, and a power driven by the desire to expand its hegemony regionally and beyond in the name of that ideology.

The founder of the Islamic republic, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, in many of his speeches during his exile in Iraq and later on in Paris, always emphasized the unjust nature of the monarchical political structure that ruled his country before the revolution. His challenge was rooted in a revolutionary interpretation of Shia theology that not only assumed that in the thousand-year-long split between Shia and Sunni, the Shia had been deprived of political authority in the world of Islam, and that was something to regret, but he actually hoped for an instrument of power that would change that balance between Sunni and Shia. His attack on the monarchical order of the shah was couched in theological terms and meant to target also the monarchical rule across the Sunni countries of the region.

It would be a mistake, though, to consider the Iranian revolution as simply a reverse image of the Sunni-Salafi hatred for Shiism. The Iranian revolution and its religious language always sought to overcome and transcend that division and speak ecumenically, trying to reach across the Sunni-Shia divide in the name of a unified Islam that would reassert its power and challenge the unjust order that, according to the revolutionary ideologies and founders of the Islamic republic, dominated the region. It also sought to transcend the division between Islam and the rest of the world in the name of a revolutionary ideology that, while speaking the language of Islam, was also deeply rooted in Marxist revolutionary theories. We have to understand the revolutionary republic of Iran as a combination of the subversive and the divine.

Therefore, when we look at Iran today and we see Iran pursuing nuclear weapons, we must understand this pursuit in this context--namely, a country that has survived a challenge to its rule and its internal order through a very long and traumatic war, that has slowly reasserted itself and its power in the region, that has slowly rebuilt its economy, and that now wants to flex its muscles and export its ideology and its influence across the Middle East.

Some people say that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons because it aims to actually make true its threats of annihilation of the state of Israel. I do not think we should discount the rhetoric that comes out of Tehran when it comes to Israel. But we should also not delude ourselves that if Iran doesn't mean that rhetoric, the danger is gone. Let me explain. Even if the Iranian leadership uses the rhetoric only as a tool for propaganda and in truth wants nuclear weapons just to somehow strengthen its power and protect itself and its survival, the meaning of that acquisition is that Iran, in the combination of nuclear weapons and its ideology, will destabilize the region for decades to come and will make it impossible for the forces in the region that seek reconciliation among peoples, resolution of armed conflicts, the defeat of radical ideologies, and the assertion of human rights across the Middle East to actually triumph.

Many people draw comparison between the current standoff with Iran on the nuclear file and the time of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union had a nuclear arsenal. They point out the fact that the Soviet Union, despite its communist revolutionary ideology, could be deterred, and we could strike a balance--perhaps one that was fragile, but one that held water for almost 50 years, ensuring peace despite the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Now, if you live in Canada or in the United States or indeed in western Europe, your memory may tell you that indeed that was a time of peace. But if you were an eastern European, you know that the price for that fragile balance was totalitarian communist oppression for nearly half a century. You should also know, if you come from different regions of the world, that the price of peace, or stability rather, and the avoidance of a nuclear confrontation during the Cold War meant the freezing of conflicts and the creation of areas of influence across the world where the two ideological opponents fought each other by proxy.

If Iran achieved nuclear weapons, even in the eventuality that it did not wish to use them, in order to make true its threats of annihilation against Israel, the most likely consequence for the region is that we would have to acquiesce to some sort of Middle East Yalta, where Iran would wish its areas of influence to be recognized. Our ability therefore to address the challenges in those areas, including the current ongoing conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, and crises in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq, would be unsolvable, or at least would become solvable only at the price of compromises that would fundamentally contradict the interests of the free world.

Most important of all, through the freezing of crises, the emboldening of radicals, and the possibility of using nuclear weapons as an instrument for power projection, Iran would destabilize countries in the region. It would assert its hegemony and push out of the region the presence, influence, and role played by western powers--first and foremost by the United States. As a result, the hope of spreading human rights and asserting basic freedoms in Iran and elsewhere would be lost for decades to come. We could only count on the internal forces of opposition to the regime--and that is a meagre hope--to bring about change.

As we look at the upcoming elections and the two main contestants for the presidency--the incumbent, and Mir Hossein Mousavi--one is a more polite version and the other is a less polite version of a very radical ideology that has consistently and systematically oppressed religious minorities across different presidencies and times of Iranian political history over the last 30 years.

Iran is a country that asserts itself as the representative of Islam in the world, yet if you go to Tehran you cannot find or build a Sunni mosque. So the repression of religious minorities, in the case of the Bahá'ís, has turned into systematic persecution. There is the oppression of journalists. You are all painfully aware of the plight of Roxana Saberi in the Evin prison in Tehran, which has come to the attention of the media in recent weeks. There is the systematic abuse and arbitrary use of punishment, including the death penalty, through trials that make a mockery of the very concept of justice. All these things will continue to be the trademark of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The achievement of nuclear weapons for that country will mean profound instability in the region and terrible damage to our interests and hopes of bringing more stability, freedom, and peace in the Middle East. It will result in a terrible and perhaps insufferable price for millions of individuals across the Middle East who hope, as humans, to be treated with more dignity and respect by their governments.

So I think it is imperative for us and for the free nations of the world to realize that human rights are one of the most important antidotes to counter countries like Iran that combine the subversive ideology that drives the regime with the ruthless aspiration to impose their own world view onto others through the achievement of such deadly instruments.

We must, as western nations, improve, increase, strengthen, and intensify our support for internal dissident groups. We must strengthen our ties with Iranian civil society. We must mandate our diplomats who serve in Iran to continue to speak to and increase their contacts with dissidents and shun the regime, while talking to those in Iran who stand for freedom. We must improve the understanding of the true nature of the regime and the potential threat it poses to the region and to its own people among our public opinions through a number of measures.

Last but not least, once we know both the nature of the regime and the goals it seeks to achieve through the pursuit of a nuclear program, we must strengthen and double our resolve to prevent Iran from achieving its goals. We must do this, first and foremost, by denying Iran and its emissaries the ability, through subterfuge, to access or come into our own societies and use the tools offered by our free and open societies to procure the kind of technology they need to advance their goal.

I would be very happy in the Q and A to offer you a number of examples where societies and companies created by Iran, ostensibly through legal means, exist across the western world, whether in Europe or North America, Canada included, through which Iran actually goes around sanctions and measures and procures the kind of technology that will enable Iran to achieve its goal.

It is imperative for us, I think, to realize the kind of price we will pay if the finish line is crossed by the regime in the intervening months, the cost that will be paid by millions of individuals for the denial of their most basic rights, the instability that will stem from that achievement by the regime, and the inability to solve crises for decades to come in the region. We have the tools and the means to advance such goals and to prevent Iran from advancing its own goals. We have an instrument, which is the assertion, through policies—not just words—of the values for which the free nations of the world stand, and I think it's imperative for us to seek all the means at our disposal to prevent Iran from achieving the goals of domination, which such weapons would give the regime, and the terrible damage to the region and the values of freedom we hold so dear.

I thank you very much for listening to me today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much, Dr. Ottolenghi.

Before we move to the questions, I'll just mention to members of the subcommittee that

the appendices to Professor Stanton's presentation are not currently available in French. A version in both official languages will be available at our next committee meeting.

What we'll do, as is our usual practice, is go to a seven-minute round of questions, one from each party, followed by two five-minute questions from the Liberals first, and then the Conservatives.

Professor Cotler, would you like to begin?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank both our witnesses, Professors Stanton and Ottolenghi. I think they had excellent sets of testimony.

Let me begin with Professor Stanton. Sir, you have identified some seven early warning signs of genocide in Iran. As a cultural anthropologist and law professor, you've also developed a paradigm or model of eight stages of genocide, as part of your analysis of recent genocides. And you have indicated that every one of the first six stages has already happened in Iran.

I have a twofold question. What is the relationship between the early warning signs framework of analysis and the eight stages of genocide model? Second, can you describe how Iran has already proceeded through the first six stages?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

Thank you.

The relationship between the risk factors I listed, which have been developed by Barbara Harff and a number of other political scientists and which I went through in my paper, and the process analysis, which I also alluded to but didn't go through in any detail, is the following.

The risk factors are essentially statistical probabilities. We have actually taken computers and developed variables that can be correlated with genocides of the past, and the risk factors that stand out the most strongly are the ones I have listed. First is an exclusionary ideology—in other words, an ideology that excludes whole groups of people from being considered fully people—and we have that here with Jews, for instance. Second is a denial of past genocides, which we have in the denial of the Holocaust. Third is authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Each of these factors is essentially a probability prediction, a statistical risk factor.

The way in which that relates to the eight stages of genocide model I have developed is that the eight stages model was really developed as a guide to policy-makers to see genocide coming as it developed. Instead of just looking at risk factors, it actually sees there is a logic to the process. The eight stages are, in a nutshell, as follows.

The first is classification. Every culture has to distinguish people into us versus them, and in this case the us versus them is Iranians versus Jews and other groups. In fact, even within Iranian society certain people are considered to be “them”—the Bahá'í, for instance, the Azeris, and a lot of other groups that are outside the normal political rights of the society. In the case of Jews, for example, Ahmadinejad has said that Jews, these “fabricated” people, cannot continue to exist. I mean, that's otherness; that is a declaration that they have no rights. He has said, for instance, that Jews have no roots in Palestine.

The second stage, symbolization, is the one in which we give names to these classifications in which symbols may even, in fact, be placed upon the people who represent the classification. The most famous, of course, is the yellow star used by the Nazis. This was also done, by the way, in Cambodia. Ben Kiernan and I discovered that blue and white checked scarves were used to mark the people in the eastern zone before they were forced and deported out of the eastern zone to their deaths.

In this case the main symbols are, of course, the names—Jews, Zionists, and so forth—but they are coupled with the third stage, namely dehumanization. In this, the rhetoric of Ahmadinejad is absolutely replete. He has called Israel a blot, a stain, a cancer, filthy bacteria, a wild beast. He says that Jews are animals, barbarians, mass murderers. He has picked up on the language in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for instance. This sort of dehumanization is characteristic of genocidal regimes. For instance, Tutsis in Rwanda were characterized as cockroaches, or Jews were characterized as vermin during the Holocaust.

The fourth stage, organization, is one in which you develop the organizations to carry out the genocide. In this case I particularly want to stress agreement with my fellow professor here on the point that even if the nuclear weapons of Iran are only used as a shield, they nevertheless would provide a shield for organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorists with genocidal ideologies to organize killings and to continue to terrorize Israel.

The fifth stage, polarization, is one in which the extremists drive the groups apart. We see this in some of the statements by the regime, such as those to the effect that the Zionist regime cannot continue to exist. This is a statement by Ahmadinejad.

The sixth stage, preparation, is one in which the victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. In this case it's Israel, or the Zionists, as he likes to call them. Then they're attacked by terrorist organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah or, as in this case, there is an overall pattern of attack that is sponsored and paid for by the Iranian state.

The seventh stage, extermination, is genocide itself. It's the commencement of the actual mass killing. Genocide is not an all-or-none thing. It can be slow; it can be done very gradually, as we have seen in Sudan, for example. I believe that is the ultimate long-range proposal that Iran has for Israel--to wipe them out slowly--but if they don't do that, they will have the nuclear weapons to do it all at once.

Finally, denial is the eighth and final stage of every genocide. Every genocide is denied by the people who are committing it, and that stage actually begins right from the start. The people who are going to commit the genocide will deny that they're about to commit it, they will deny it while they're committing it, and then they'll deny it after they have committed it. We've seen all of that in Iran.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Madame Thi Lac, s'il vous plaît.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton.

Actually, you've just answered the first question I wanted to put to you. You discussed the eight stages to genocide and specified that the seventh was actually taking action, or engaging in genocide. I was going to ask you what the eighth stage was, but you told us. It involves denying one's involvement in the genocide in question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Stanton, just for your information, if you turn to channel 3, you can hear Madame Thi Lac in French, but with the volume up a bit.

Excusez-moi, Madame Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

You referred to a possible nuclear genocide and the fact that it was a very real threat. You seemed to imply it was possible Iran would take action. I would like you to further discuss this possibility.

You have also discussed indicting the president through the International Court. If Canada were to take this type of legal action before the International Court, what would need to be done for these steps to be truly effective?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

I will attempt to answer in French, but I should start with an apology. I once was hitchhiking near the Sahara Desert. When I arrived in Paris, the lady behind the counter at the Eiffel Tower asked me where I had learned my pidgin French. I answered: Africa. I was a Peace Corps volunteer on the Ivory Coast. My French is a bit laboured, but I will try anyway.

I would say the most effective way for Canada to proceed would be before the International Court of Justice. I say this because Canada is a state party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, without reservations, namely with respect to article IX. Canada may prosecute Iran before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There is nothing to prevent Canada from making the case before the International Court of Justice. Canada does not need the permission of another state to do so.

The other option would be to use article 8 of the United Nations Charter to warn the Security Council that there is a problem in Iran and that Iran is engaging in incitement to genocide. That is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. If you were to choose that avenue, the Security Council would have to consider a possible violation. The Security Council may choose not to do anything, but, at the very least, it would be on the agenda. Canada may also make a case before the UN Human Rights Council, referring to article 8 of the United Nations Charter. Both of these options are legally valid. The easiest route is to go directly to the International Court of Justice.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you very much. I just wanted to point out that your French is very respectable.

My second question is for Mr. Ottolenghi.

In your presentation, you stated that despite upcoming presidential elections, you have little faith that this will bring change, because at this point the candidates share the same values. I would like you to expand a little bit on this point, if you will.

[Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi]

Thank you for your question. I will try to speak in French.

The Iranian nuclear program was interrupted by the revolution in 1979, but it was decided to reinstate the program in 1984. At that time, the President of Iran was Mr. Khamenei, who is today the supreme leader of Iran. The Prime Minister, an institutional position that no longer exists today, was Mr. Mir-Hossein Moussavi. The program continued after the end of Mr. Khamenei's presidential term, under Mr. Khamenei's authority as supreme leader, during the presidency of Mr. Rafsanjani, considered a pragmatic conservative. Mr. Rafsanjani stepped down in 1997, and his successor was Mr. Khatami, a reformer who talked about a dialogue of civilizations with the world, but who was secretly building a nuclear bomb in Iran, as was discovered in 2002 and brought to light by the American secret service.

The reformer was replaced by Mr. Ahmadinejad. Mr. Khamenei, who was President in 1984, remained as the supreme leader. Mr. Ahmadinejad pursued the same nuclear policy. This means that concerning the nuclear issue, at least, there is no difference between the reformers, the conservatives, the radicals, the pragmatics, the supreme leaders and the officials elected by the people. This political stance taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran has remained the same for nearly 25 years.

There may be stylistic changes on this issue, but I cannot imagine the supreme leader of Iran deciding to abandon the nuclear program, unless he is forced to make a choice. He must choose between the bomb, a nuclear arsenal and political aspirations, which such an instrument of power can help Iran materialize or pursue, and the survival of the regime.

I believe that the policies of the western world, the international community and the free world on discussions around the nuclear question must force the supreme leader of Iran to make this choice. We must realize that as concerns the nuclear issue and the loyalty of the men who are in a position of power in Iran, throughout the history of revolutionary Iran, devotion to the ideals of the revolution, to its survival and that of the Islamic regime, is a political constant of all the men who have shared power and participated in the government administration of the Islamic Republic.

We can always hope for a change in the style of governance. It is true that there have been men, such as Mr. Larijani, who were much more agreeable, sophisticated, educated and polite in their conversations with the free world.

However, Iran's behaviour towards minorities, women, religious minorities and its neighbours, as well as its attempts to assassinate exiled dissidents in many countries, including countries that are friends of Iran, for example, in Europe, have always been the same throughout its history, regardless of the type of politicians and leaders in power.

You must understand that the changes will be cosmetic. They will primarily reflect the strategy of the supreme leader towards the international community and indicate his commitment to changing the direction of the regime around the nuclear issue and around the other questions that concern us today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Marston, please.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Both gentlemen, I want to thank you for your comprehensive testimony and for the fact that you're here today.

Mr. Stanton, your remarks surprised me just a little bit and caught me a little off guard. You proposed that NATO might respond to the situation. I presume that you mean militarily, which is when you go to NATO. Notwithstanding 9/11 and Mr. Bush's war on terror that followed, NATO was initiated to protect North America directly. Wouldn't you really see that if it did reach a point where decisions were being made, they should be decisions made internationally at the United Nations as opposed to NATO?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

I think that what I am proposing is not that there be a direct response by NATO of a pre-emptive sort of any kind. I would merely advocate the kind of thing Hillary Clinton said during her campaign for President, which was that if Israel were attacked, if it were subject to a nuclear attack, the response would in fact be by NATO. The reason I say that is because the United Nations does not have nuclear forces. The only deterrent force to a nuclear attack has to come from forces that have nuclear power, and the United Nations has no such power.

The reason, also, that NATO is a more appropriate responder in this case is that it won't be hampered by the veto. Right now, the United Nations has a deterrent to genocide that, I'm afraid, has been proven again and again to not be effective. That's the reason I believe we should simply be clear. I think it should be, of course, definitely multilaterally agreed to by NATO countries that NATO would respond if Israel were attacked in a nuclear attack by Iran, and they should warn the Iranians.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Are you aware of any time when NATO has taken any such position publicly? I'm not aware of ever having heard that, not to belabour the point.

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

No, it has not. In effect, it would be extending the nuclear umbrella of NATO over Israel, and I think that is necessary.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

That's why I asked the question.

Mr. Ottolenghi, you made a comment in your remarks regarding companies around the world that are supporting the acquisition of the materials and the technology for Iran, and you said that there are Canadian companies. Would you like to expand on that and name those companies?

[Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi]

Indeed, I welcome your question and I thank you for the opportunity.

I mentioned many companies around western Europe and North America. I would like to draw your attention to the Canadian branch of an Iranian company called Kala Naft Canada Limited, based in Calgary. Kala Naft is currently being discussed by the European Union for designation as a front company of the Iranian regime because of its active involvement and implication in illegal procurement efforts across western Europe. Now, I do not have any concrete evidence of a specific case where the Canadian branch has sought to acquire technology and transfer it illegally to Iran; but it is clear, and there is evidence, that this company is involved in such activities across the four continents where it has branches. It is a company that's linked to the regime and it is a company that the European Union plans to designate and sanction because of its illegal activities.

In addition to that, I would like to highlight and bring to your attention, by way of example, the way Iran seeks to acquire technology it can use for the advancement of its nuclear program. By way of example, I want to refer to a deal that Iran struck in 2005 with a German company called WIRTH, a world leader in the production of earth-moving equipment. These are big machines that will be used to dig tunnels and deep holes underground for important civil infrastructure projects. This technology has been acquired by Iran, ostensibly in a legal fashion, for projects that are, again, ostensibly entirely civilian and legitimate. However, the clients of WIRTH in Iran are all directly linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

This is a way that the Iranian companies operate in their procurement efforts across the western world, including North America. They acquire technology that is ostensibly bought for entirely legitimate purposes. In the case of this German company, the machines were bought in order to build a water conveyance tunnel by the Tehran regional water authority. However, open sources demonstrate conclusively that this technology has been diverted to entities that are designated by the U.S. Department of Treasury and are sanctioned by the European Union or the United Nations, and that it's technology that will eventually end up being used for purposes not for which it was sold.

So I want to draw your attention to the fact that Iran uses all means and tools at its disposal, including creating front companies registered in foreign countries, to procure the kind of technology it needs to build and advance its nuclear program. In the case of the tunnel boring machines, obviously this is not something they will use directly in building a reprocessing plant for fuel, for example, but it is something they will use to dig deep underground and build clandestine facilities under their mountains.

Thank you.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Stanton, you've recommended in your presentation an indictment of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Are you aware of any other countries that are looking at doing things similar to that? Are they working through their own jurisprudence to do that? Would a parallel action be worth considering?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Stanton, we've actually reached the limit on this round. So I'll ask you to keep your response quite brief.

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

I'll be very quick.

The answer is yes. I know that Australia is considering this course of action.

There are two ways to bring about an indictment. The first is through a state that has universal jurisdiction under the genocide convention. In fact, Canada is one of them, but there are others as well. However, that is not particularly useful, because you basically have to get hold of Ahmadinejad and bring him into court.

The other is the International Criminal Court. Unfortunately, the only way to get him on that, since Iran is not a party to the ICC statute, is to have the UN Security Council refer the case to the ICC.

So an actual indictment against him as an individual, I think, is probably unlikely. That's why I recommended going to the International Court of Justice as a better and surer way to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

For our next round of questions, we'll start with Mr. Hiebert.