Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 5th, 2013

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'm going to throw two questions at you and leave the rest of my time with you.

I'm not sure if you had touched on the extractive industry, because we know that one of the economic drivers of Sri Lanka is the gem and mining industry and the lands that have been taken from the Tamils are being developed by the extractive industries that are controlled or owned by the government or some brother.

The second part of my question is also another tangent. Could you touch a little bit more on the number of widows, war widows, who have been created. The last number I heard is there are over 90,000 war widows who have been created, and so could you touch on what you witnessed on the ground of the reality of life for women-led families and households please.

[Hugh Segal]

Certainly on the extractive industry side we did see evidence of large marble and other extractive locations, mining locations, being operated by members of the Rajapaksa family. The notion that this was an open process where there could be competing bids and all that sort of stuff didn't strike us as very likely under the circumstance.

We did receive testimony about the way in which some security forces were dealing with the many widows who continue to live in the north. While they take the public position that they are there to protect everybody, there are, sadly, incidents reported of members of various organizations knocking on widows' doors in the middle of the night with intentions that none of us around this table would view as necessarily honourable.

That mix of intimidation, and lack of any compassion with respect to their need for clarity about what happened to their husbands or children, combined produces a significant level of oppression. You will have seen, as we all have seen, those who gathered in great numbers around the British Prime Minister when he was in that part of the world holding up pictures of their loved ones and beseeching him to somehow be helpful in coming to terms with this terrible gap in their lives.

So that struck us from various briefings we received from people on the ground, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as a very serious problem. Many of the displaced persons with whom we met were in fact these various widows who were living in a circumstance that was completely unmanageable. They were very brave about it and very determined, but their circumstance was in fact quite desperate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Senator, we're going to have to ask you to hold off in answering the second question regarding extractive industries because Ms. Sitsabaiesan's time has been used up. We've gone quite a bit over it.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

He has actually answered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay, all right.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you so much, Senator, or thank you through the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We do have enough time, however, to go back to you, Mr. Sweet, if you have any further questions.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Did you have a chance to review Frances Harrison's testimony before you came here today?

[Hugh Segal]

Yes.

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

She mentioned that she had evidence of 60 cases documented in regard to sexual assault. My concern is that she's only one person. That's all she's seen so far. Was there any evidence there that rape was being used as a form of intimidation when you spoke to them?

[Hugh Segal]

Mr. Sweet, I was told when I was there that a part of what happened when people were white-vanned—and this was with respect to both males and females—was that of the various indignities they had to face, rape was an ongoing process and it wasn't just an ongoing process for the women. It was a process involving both women and men as victims. It was an ongoing part of what the white-vanning process meant. We're talking about events that took place in the last 12 months, not four and a half years ago.

I think that there is a continuing investigation being done by various news organizations, channel 4 and others, trying to gather where they can legitimate, corroborative evidence of this activity so as to encourage some measure of attack on the impunity question that was raised by your colleague, Mr. Cotler.

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

Thank you very much, Senator.

Chair, could we just make sure that there's a correlation in our report to the evidence of those witnesses who referred to that. I'm just saying this for the researchers. The occurrence of it is consistent and I think we need to highlight that in our report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That's duly noted.

[Hugh Segal]

If I may add this, one of the phenomena we were briefed on was that young men 15 or 16 years of age who wanted to protect their mothers could not, and thus developed a sense of rage, anger, and impotence.

Normally, national security measures are employed for the purpose of keeping uprisings that are violent or unlawful from happening. I think some of the activity upon which we were briefed by locals indicates that this may be in fact producing the opposite effect and building up a measure of anger and frustration amongst young and largely unemployed men, who are unable to protect the female part of their community from these indignities, leading to what could be deep, deep problems in the future.

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

Thank you, Senator.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Sweet, and thank you for letting Ms. Sitsabaiesan go ahead of you. That was very generous.

Senator Segal, that wraps up our hearings. I'll very briefly ask with regard to your testimony that if you have anything further you would like to submit to us that comes to your attention, remember that we'll be happy to take anything you give us in writing after the fact. We'll get it translated and have it given out to all of our members.

[Hugh Segal]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your courtesy in inviting me here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

We're adjourned—

I misspoke. We're not quite adjourned yet.

Mr. Cotler?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I'll take less than a minute. I recently received, as did some colleagues here, I think, some very disturbing information about what is happening and the danger in Camp Ashraf. Later today I'm going to give notice of a motion to be presented: that after we conclude on Sri Lanka, the first issue on our agenda should be the urgency of this situation in Camp Ashraf.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

We really are adjourned this time.