Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 21st, 2017

[Glen Pearson]

When I got elected, I thought politics here were bad, but in South Sudan, they're something else. It really is true. We even feel it in our area. The bureaucracy is huge. I would say that there is a lot of corruption mixed within that as well. If you want to land at this airstrip, they ask you to pay, and you're coming in with supplies to help. It's everywhere. It's at every level. If we're going to talk about the way to solve that, it really has to come from the governments that are supporting it. It has to come from groups like IGAD.

We met with the foreign affairs minister in February, Mr. Dion. I realize he's not there anymore, but we said that there is this thing called IGAD-plus that has the United States, China, France, all these other.... We need to put leverage on these folks in order for us to be able to gain access.

If this were in Syria, we would be talking about humanitarian corridors, right? But in South Sudan, because it's endemic and because it's everywhere, every NGO has that problem. If we have that problem, I don't know how UNICEF does it because it's everywhere and it does so much great work. This is a major function. It will not be handled on the ground. It cannot be solved on the ground. It can only be solved with these international pressures that can happen. The government of Sudan is not going to get the support it needs unless it simplifies that.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I suppose this is the last question, and I would like to end on a hopeful note. I know there is all sorts of potential for South Sudan, particularly in agriculture. The Equatoria region is particularly mentioned as a region where there is a great deal of rich farmland, and all of the benefits that could come from that could certainly do much for the population.

Could you speak about Sudan's potential, not only in agriculture? I'd like you to highlight it if you could, but I'm referring to potential in general. I think it's important to have some hope in the midst of the catastrophe that is taking shape there.

[Glen Pearson]

Before the oil came along.... When we first started going, there wasn't oil. Everybody was talking about fish. They were talking about minerals, and they were talking about how it could be the breadbasket of Africa. Then oil came along and just sucked all the air out of the room.

Yes, the potential is there, and it's huge. There's even a London group called CEDASS that goes in around Juba and does farming operations. These kinds of things do have an effect. What you're seeing here now is that it's not just a famine or climate change moving into.... The seasons are different than when we first started going there. The rains arrive later. There are all these difficulties.

It's true that people can't afford farming implements in the markets. Inflation has gone up and everything else. Even though they could farm, they can't because they can't get the right stuff to do it with. Once again, it is a development issue. It's not just an economic issue. People are ready to go and they're ready to work—that has been their history—but they can't get there because they don't have the tools.

[Jane Roy]

With the ongoing conflict, people are definitely going to flee regardless of whether there are great agricultural lands or not. It doesn't matter. They can't stay and they can't grow their crops, which is why this, in essence, becomes really a man-made famine. The conflict itself becomes really important to solve, particularly in Equatoria and the Upper Nile as well.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Before we go to MP Hardcastle, I'll just make mention that we do have somebody from UNICEF who's either in the room or listening who will follow up on any questions that are asked if we can't get them through to our speaker on the phone. If there are questions, ask them, and we can get a written response.

MP Hardcastle.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests, as well. I won't waste too much time with the thank yous and all that kind of stuff.

I wanted to hear Mr. Hopkins expand a little bit. Maybe our guests here in person can help us because it actually was extremely difficult to hear Mr. Hopkins. I wanted to hear about the access challenge and also the difficulty in getting the documentation for checkpoints. Are those related? Do you see that there is something that we could be doing to improve that system? I'll ask you that first.

I don't know who wants to answer. Like I said, if Mr. Hopkins answers, we may need somebody in the room to repeat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Mr. Hopkins, did you hear the question?

[Jeremy Hopkins]

[Technical difficulty—Editor]. I got that last bit about access and I think I got the inflation part of it. [Technical difficulty—Editor] switch mikes or...?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I think he wants me to repeat.

You said that access was a challenge, and then you also talked about the difficulty of getting documentation for checkpoints. Are they the same thing? Are they related, or in one case are you talking about for children and in another case for diplomats or for people who are coming in to give foreign aid?

[Jeremy Hopkins]

Okay. That's much clearer. Thank you.

They are related [Technical difficulty—Editor]. Now part of the problem is that the government [Technical difficulty—Editor]. So you can't go there. [Technical difficulty—Editor] and just decide to go anywhere, although sometimes I wonder who watches. But of course [Technical difficulty—Editor].

I've been on both sides of the [Technical difficulty—Editor]. Yesterday we were told we could not [Technical difficulty—Editor] between Juba and [Technical difficulty—Editor]...outside of Juba and we were asked for our documents [Technical difficulty—Editor]—

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Mr. Hopkins.

Thank you very much.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Pearson, maybe you can continue from the little bits of what you caught there?

[Jane Roy]

Yes. A few of the difficulties that happen with, for instance, NGO workers are that now they've changed the visa requirements so that any NGO worker within South Sudan has to go back for a visa. You're only allowed to stay a month and you're constantly flying back and forth between Juba and Nairobi, so they make it very difficult to stay.

Regarding humanitarian access, when Operation Lifeline Sudan and UNICEF used to fly, they used to fly all of their Hercules from Loki, and there used to be 20 Hercules a day that would fly over South Sudan and drop food. That doesn't exist now. You basically take the food in via road from Uganda, or from Kenya, or from wherever, so what tends to happen is that these UN convoys are attacked. Also when you talk about particular checkpoints, depending on where you're driving, you may actually hit different checkpoints that now have different requirements, so it changes all the time.

The South Sudanese government has changed requirements for years, so all of a sudden what you thought was happening a month ago isn't necessarily happening anymore. It is very difficult.

Does that help?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes. It does because those sound like some really tangible things that we can incorporate into our recommendations.

Mr. Pearson, you had spoken earlier about things that have been discontinued, things that we know were a success and we need to continue. I wanted to ask you to continue from some of my colleague's comments about the child soldiers. There was a program that was discontinued for the child soldiers, the Children, Not Soldiers campaign. I'm trying to find some more substantive examples that you think could be continued, or reintroduced, or something that we can commit our aid to again.

Can you talk about that and anything else that you think has merit for us to redevelop, or relaunch, or reaffirm in our recommendations?

[Glen Pearson]

Yes. That's a great question.

I think that Mr. Dallaire has many things. He was in South Sudan recently and came back with recommendations.

What I was trying to say is that it's a very sophisticated mechanism, a cycle, what Senator Dallaire called an assembly line in terms of how they handle the whole child soldier thing. It's a whole ecosystem. What I was trying to say is, don't let them get into it in the first place.

If they are seized and they are grabbed, as happened a lot during the war, that can be a very difficult thing, but if girls are going because their parents can no longer feed them, or whatever it is, and they are hanging around the soldiers, the soldiers will use them for sex. They'll use them for cooking. They won't usually put a gun in their hand and get them to do it, but it becomes this whole support mechanism for the army.

There are many reasons why all that happened, but one of the main ones we're talking about is that development failed them. Because of the war or people moving on, they were no longer able to be fed in their own houses, go to school, or find medicines. The army has all that stuff, so they end up going with the army.

I talked about young men as well, a real problem there. There are no jobs for them and no real training for them. In a lot of areas there are no high schools. It's very difficult for them, so they hang around in gangs, mobilize, and move around. If the army comes by, they join up. Again, it doesn't mean that they'll become aggressive combatants, but it does mean they might clean the guns, get the ammo, do the cooking, or whatever.

I'm trying to encourage people to look at development as a way of minimizing the recruitment of child soldiers. It's not just that people go out there, grab them, and pull them in. These kids gather all around the military and the military just incorporates them as a result.

Development would stop a lot of that, if we gave it opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you, Mr. Pearson.

I'm going to give MP Tabbara about a minute and a half. I know he has a question he wants to ask.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I had more questions but I'll just wrap up.

What type of successful initiatives can Canada continue to take, in the short term and the long term, so that we can see successful results in South Sudan? I know that opportunities in development were a very big theme in your testimony. Could you just elaborate on that?

[Glen Pearson]

I think there are a lot. On the basis of human rights and the real emergencies that are there, I think Canada has the ability to assemble teams, rapid deployment forces and others, to move into these areas and see what the development needs are, and then to bring in partners and talk about it.

But instead—and it's very important we do this—we've become part of these larger coalitions that are working up here on things that really matter. Canada really has strengths, especially in women's issues and environmental issues on the ground.

It would be more a matter of going into these areas where there has been success, and if you think a school is going to close or a clinic is going to fail, it would be a matter of moving in there, and then mobilizing our partners throughout the world. We need to be able to say, “Let's keep these things going, or else that will become an human rights basket case itself because we are no longer able to provide.”

I think that for Canada, it's not just about funding or NGOs. It's about showing leadership in a government position, and bringing people over and saying “In this area it has really worked. What can we do to strengthen it?”

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Sustain and develop further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

With that, our time is up.

I want to thank both our witness on the phone, Mr. Hopkins, and of course the Pearsons, here with us today, for providing really important testimony before this committee on what is an absolutely critical subject.

Thank you very much.

We're adjourned.