I call the meeting to order.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the 117th meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights.
Before we begin, I want to welcome back members from the summer recess and introduce our new Library of Parliament analyst, Brendan Naef.
As we begin today's hearing, I want to explain that we are undertaking the fourth meeting of this subcommittee on the continuously deteriorating situation in Venezuela. At every meeting since early 2016, we've heard about the horrendous human rights violations faced by Venezuelans. The Maduro regime engages in the arbitrary imprisonment, torture and murder of its opponents. It has undermined any semblance of democratic or constitutional order in Venezuela, including recent presidential elections, which were widely condemned as neither free nor fair.
This is coupled with an economy that has declined by almost 50% since 2013. With inflation estimated to reach 1,000,000% this year, 90% of Venezuelans no longer have enough money to buy food. It's horrifying to hear reports that Venezuelans lost an average of 24 pounds last year due to food shortages.
The UN estimates that this crisis has resulted in the largest displacement of people in Latin American history, at almost two million people. This is putting an increasing burden on Venezuela's regional neighbours.
To speak to us about this crisis, we have three honoured witnesses today.
Tamara Suju is a Venezuelan lawyer specializing in human rights and is the executive director of the Centre for Studies and Analysis for Latin America in Prague.
Antonio Ledezma is a lawyer and former mayor of Caracas who was detained by Maduro's intelligence service in 2015 and is currently living in exile after fleeing to Colombia in November 2017.
Diego Arria is the former permanent representative of Venezuela to the United Nations and a former president of the UN Security Council.
Thank you all for appearing today. We will give you each a chance to speak, and then we'll go to to the committee members for questions.
Ms. Suju, I believe you're starting.