Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on March 1st, 2011

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome our two guests here today.

I'm pleased to have this perspective. We've listened to a number of people before our committee. I was struck by the reports of people carrying around their constitutions and actually talking about them. There was a kind of engagement, and I would suggest that it was those people who ultimately gained the most, the ones who were living in poverty and gained access to health care. But they were talking about the value of that discussion.

I'm not so sure whether they don't see the corruption or are not directly affected by it, but they were certainly speaking highly of the change. I'd like to look at the context of their lives in that country before Chavez, and I'd like a comment on the initial euphoric change that they saw.

[Lesley Burns]

Yes, people do carry around their constitutions and people regularly refer to their constitutional rights. It's quite impressive. People seem to be well informed about those rights, and I agree that a number of people who were living in poverty now have greater access. They have greater access to education. There have been a number of government programs to give basic literacy all the way up to university education to people who did not previously have that access.

There's great value in educating a population and giving them their rights. I have seen less often situations where individuals who have tried to express these rights in disagreement with the government come out having their rights given to them, unfortunately. That's not to say it never happens. It's just to say that it doesn't happen as often as we would like to see as analysts.

It's true as well that many of these people living in poverty prior to the Chavez era did not have access to many of the political rights that they now enjoy. In fact, I think 15, 20, 50, 100 years down the road, people will still be referring to the changes that came about in Venezuela in the Chavez era. However, the cautionary note is that if a government is not speaking to the vast majority of the population, if it is not including the perspectives and coming to a compromise in light of what the population wants, you end up having a pendulum government.

So the next government that comes to power is at risk of eliminating all the institutions that were put in place. That is the good and the bad. That is why when Chavez came to power and sought to promote judicial reform in a system where there was not previously peer judicial independence, he had great support. There was support for change, but he lost that pivotal moment. When he was first elected in 1998, people really wanted this change. They backed this constitution. Now there are a lot of people who still think that the word of the constitution is good but that it's not being implemented the way it was intended to be.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to just speak to the dark side that you were referring to, Mr. Graham, if I may. Police corruption in this country is not a new thing. The relationships were there, the dysfunction in governmental lines--all of that was there, and horrifically.

I guess, if anything, I may agree with Ms. Burns that we've missed an opportunity that could have been glorious compared with where it is today.

I understood your message, to just sit and wait and there'll be further change. But that begs the question, who is the heir apparent; which organization?

We talk about that pendulum swing. Do we have hope that there is a democratically directed group that's prepared to step in when Chavez does move off? I'm very concerned about that, because the changes that are there originally were quite good until they started limiting them.

I question, too, on the corruption of the police, if anybody could control that, at least in the short term.

[John Graham]

The corruption of the police and the levels of corruption in Venezuela reveal a lack of discipline at the top. Other countries in the region, other countries with far fewer resources than Venezuela, have managed to have less corrupt police forces.

An interesting example is Nicaragua. Nicaragua has a government that is ideologically on the same wavelength as Venezuela, but one of its great virtues is that it has an apolitical, relatively independent armed forces and a relatively independent, apolitical police force. They function reasonably well. The American DEA, for example, cooperates extremely well with Nicaraguan police; they don't cooperate at other levels, though.

I think that's a fault that can be laid at the Chavez door. And something else very often happens. It happened with Cuba, and it certainly happens with Chavez. He has painted his changes, the changes to Venezuelan life under his administration, and contrasted them with what life was like before. I was there before, and he paints these changes in too-bright colours. There was a lot wrong, but it was not as desperately dark and wrong as he is describing it. There was a much more balanced economy. The court system worked not exceedingly well--there was corruption--but it worked a lot better than it does now.

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

Again, in the testimony here regarding the military, the people were saying how close they felt to their military. I think the inference--what you were saying--is that Chavez and the military are very close, as opposed to Chavez and the police forces and that. They indicated here that the police force corruption was a separate thing from the Chavez government.

Would you agree with that?

[John Graham]

I don't see how you can.... In an increasingly centralized government, where the power resides in the presidential palace, I think that's difficult to argue.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

I will turn now to Mr. Sweet, who is dividing his time with Mr. Hiebert.

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

Mr. Chair, I only have the opening question, and then my colleague Mr. Hiebert will take the rest of the time.

I'm very grateful to Mr. Graham and Madam Burns for being here and for their testimony.

I have to admit--and Mr. Marston referred to some of the testimony--that we had an organization called Hands Off Venezuela. I understand that there are 30 chapters around the world.

You used the term “painting” a portrait of what the reality is today. It seems to me....

This is a question; I don't want to put words in your mouth.

It seems to me there was some initial movement on social programs and on health care. It was short-lived, and now what the people are paying for that, at least from your description, is a complete erosion as far as any type of separation between the judiciary and the executive. There's a complete erosion as far as any type of independence for municipal authorities. The mayor of Caracas losing 95% of his budget is, I would say, a gross manipulation.

So is this the case, that you have a government here who's trying to paint a picture that they're moving forward but in fact, as you said, they have a real issue with incompetence; and that the only notion to them, in this Bolivian democracy, of being democratic is simply for those people who support the regime?

[Lesley Burns]

There is no reason that social programs cannot be promoted alongside changes within the governance system to solidify governance. In fact, if that process is not undertaken, I don't think many of the social programs will be sustained. It could be that a government that comes into power following Chavez sees the benefit of these programs, because I do think many of these programs have benefited the people.

I don't see any value in focusing exclusively on that as a trade-off to strengthening governance institutions. I think that too often when people are focusing on the benefits that Chavez has brought, they look at that and perhaps have a tendency to believe the short-term sacrifices are worth the long-term gain.

Of course, we can't see into the future, so we don't know if at this time fifty years down the road, or five years down the road, we're going to have a perfect model, or if we'll be able to say that some of the process of change that people questioned could have been worthwhile. I tend to err on the side of believing that unless you are making change based on inclusion, based on consultation, and based on dialogue, you are probably not going to end up with a system that is sustainable for all people.

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

Thank you.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you. That was very interesting.

Based on the testimony we've heard, it sounds as if there's a trade-off. You can have health care, education, and reduced poverty or you can have the rule of law, judicial independence, democracy, integrity in government and the police, human rights, a competent government, or a stable economy.

I don't think there has to be that trade-off. I think it's reasonable to expect that you could have everything that's on the table on both sides of those columns. On one side, we're certainly getting a picture that it is lacking in large quantities.

You've both made the case that...and you've used certain phrases: keep your powder dry; we don't have a lot of influence; we have limited leverage. You're not giving us a lot of angles in terms of what we can do.

You did make the comment that we should shine the spotlight on abuses without burning bridges. And maybe that's what we're trying to do here.

Can you elaborate on that? How do we encourage change and dialogue without burning bridges?

[John Graham]

It's difficult.

One route, one of the organizations I work with, is the Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which was set up about seven years ago by President Jimmy Carter. Most of the people who belong to this are a good deal more exalted than I am. There are several Canadians, including Mr. Manley, Mr. Clark, and Barbara McDougall.

One of the ideas they are looking at is trying to establish, ideally within the inter-American system, something like a special rapporteur on democracy and democratic governance. If you went to the Permanent Council, the legislative body of the OAS, and put this in front of them, Venezuela and its allies would say, “Nothing doing”. And as the Permanent Council runs by consensus, it would get nowhere.

However, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which we've been referring to this afternoon, doesn't operate in quite the same way, and it in fact has folded under its umbrella a number of special rapporteurs since it was established to do human rights. It has labour, status of women, freedom of information. So maybe there's a possibility of fitting in another rapporteur, a small unit that would focus on democracy. Its mandate would have to be hemisphere-wide. It would not be just Venezuela. It would look at what's going on in Guatemala, what's going in Nicaragua, what's going on in other countries, and the reports would be made and circulated.

Now, that would have the effect of giving greater public attention to these issues. Such a body would not have any sanctions to apply, but making more people--not just decision-makers, but a wider spectrum of opinion in the Americas--aware of these issues and aware of the unnecessary abuses that are taking place would be desirable.

So that's perhaps one route to take, but I'm not exaggerating when I say it's not easy to find a clear path to addressing the problems that all of you have been addressing now for several months.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Ms. Burns, would you add anything to that? You had made a comment about promoting civil society and debate. How would you do that?

[Lesley Burns]

To add very briefly to John's suggestions, I think there is a vibrant civil society within Venezuela and within the entire hemisphere. FOCAL works with a network of different organizations, including some Venezuelan organizations, but these are the issues we deal with on a daily basis, in all of the countries, not just in Venezuela.

I think sharing information between these organizations, building a dialogue, leads to these organizations being better informed and being in a position in which they can make proposals to their own domestic governments. I think that's important, as is, above all, opening space for dialogue. Canada is a country that has both a social network and a market economy. This can be a model in some instances for Venezuela and for people who say that it has to be one or the other. I can't stress enough that it does not have to be social programs or a rule of law. You can have both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. That uses up all the available time.

I thank all the members for allowing us to go a little bit over our normal time.

I thank our witnesses for coming here and providing very informative testimony.

With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.