Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 16th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Good afternoon.

Before we begin this afternoon, I just have a note to committee members. Because we've managed to get our guests here for the start of the committee, we are going to postpone the review of our study. I ask you to prepare any changes, suggestions, or edits, and have them ready for the next meeting. That would be great.

Before we begin, I want to explain that we're undertaking the third meeting of the subcommittee on the deteriorating situation in Venezuela.

We recently heard about the Venezuelan government's attempts to circumvent the national assembly, to undermine judicial independence, and to silence dissent by imprisoning government critics. The prolonged protests over the past month and the extreme violence and intimidation that have met protestors are especially troubling, particularly the 40 Venezuelans who have died during these protests, including minors.

The subcommittee has also heard that rampant corruption has led to the bankrupting of a resource-rich country, precipitating an acute economic, social, and humanitarian crisis that has affected the lives of over 30 million Venezuelans. In September 2015, Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López was sentenced to almost 14 years on politically motivated charges, and has been held in a military prison in solitary confinement for almost 700 of his 1,100 days of detention so far.

In this context, I would like to welcome here today Lilian Tintori, Venezuelan democracy activist and the wife of imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo López; Antonieta Mendoza de López, Mr. López's mother; Jared Genser, Mr. López's international counsel; and, of course, Irwin Cotler, an honoured member of this subcommittee in many years past and a frequent visitor here.

With that, Ms. Tintori, I would like to welcome you to make your remarks, and then we'll move to questions from members of the committee.

Thank you very much.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Chair, just before she begins, because I think there's a possibility that some people in the audience may innocently break the rules, I remind them that there are no photos.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Yes. Further to the rules of this committee, there will be no photography or video while we are in session, please.

Thank you.

Please, Ms. Tintori, you have the floor.

[Lilian Tintori, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Chairman Levitt, distinguished members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you, Irwin Cotler, and thank you, Jared Genser.

My name is Lilian Tintori. I am honoured to be able to testify today.

As I join you here, at this very moment, hundreds of thousands of people in my country of Venezuela are protesting peacefully in the streets. As of today, there have been 46 days of protests in the streets. They are exercising their constitutional rights to challenge a repressive dictatorship and to protest the lack of food and medicine, the high rates of violence, and government persecution.

Our demands should be simple for any democracy to meet: the unconditional release of all political prisoners, the holding of general elections, the opening of the UN-run humanitarian channels, and respect for the national assembly. But we do not live in a democracy, and the Maduro regime is so afraid of its own citizens that it seeks to violently repress us.

For the past five weeks, I have been in the streets with these protestors and have experienced this repression first-hand. As we peacefully assemble, the government sends soldiers, military tanks, and helicopters to suffocate us with tear gas. The other day, when trying to stop our march for justice, the government tear-gassed an elementary school filled with schoolchildren, which ended up killing an elderly woman.

To further intimidate us, the government cowardly sends its armed gangs called colectivos, civil groups with arms, to shoot at us. Since the start of the protests on April 1, over 2,000 people have been arrested. More than 1,700 people have been wounded and, right now, over 40 people have died: today in the morning, one, and yesterday in the afternoon, two more.

There are currently over 180 political prisoners in Venezuela. As many of you may know, one of them is my husband, Leopoldo López, a leader of the opposition who has been wrongly detained for the past three years for calling for a change in our current government through peaceful democratic and constitutional means. He is serving 14 years in prison after a sham trial, which even the lead prosecutor admits was a farce.

Leopoldo is a prisoner of conscience. Though a civilian, Leopoldo is being kept in a military prison where he is routinely denied his legal right to see his family and lawyers. Just recently, he was held incommunicado for over a month: no phone, no newspaper, no communication.

When a prominent journalist tweeted a rumour that Leopoldo was poisoned and possibly dead, we could not confirm that because the military leaders who run the prison and the hospital refused to allow us entry.

I finally got to see Leopoldo last week and, thank God, he's all right. But we fear for his emotional and physical well-being.

With two young children, I spend many sleepless nights worrying about what might happen to their father. Manuela, my daughter, is seven. Leopoldo Santiago, my son, is four years old.

These soldiers know they are violating our human rights, but they do so under direct orders from the government, from the dictatorship. To shut down the protest, the government seeks to intimidate us with violence or arbitrary detention, but we will not be intimidated. We have too much at stake, and our love for freedom is greater than our fear.

Since the last time I testified before this subcommittee, on November 25, 2014, the situation in Venezuela has worsened dramatically. The Maduro regime has been ruling by emergency decrees in order to bypass the opposition-led national assembly. The supreme court rubber-stamps any action of the executive branch and in March attempted to dissolve the national assembly. We don't have a parliament in Venezuela right now. They backtracked on this attempt in the face of protests, but now the government seeks to develop a parallel citizens assembly or constituyente as a way to undermine the people's electoral voice. They want to block elections. They want to block people's vote.

I am concerned that as my country slips into a repressive dictatorship, it is also becoming a narco state. There is complete and total impunity in Venezuela, 99% impunity, which makes it a haven for narco traffickers.

Top government officials including the vice-president are linked to the drugs trade and thus have an incentive for us to become a failed state.

This systematic violation of human rights compounds the dire humanitarian situation of my country. Inflation, which is expected to reach 2,000% this year, has caused several shortages of food and medicine. Half of Venezuelan children do not get three meals a day, and over a million students have dropped out of school because of hunger. The average Venezuelan has lost 19 pounds in the past year. As too many people go hungry, hospitals are unable to treat curable diseases. Infant and maternal mortality are skyrocketing as are malaria and Zika virus.

Doctors regularly turn patients away because there are no medicines to cure them.

Our desperation has led to over 115,000 people fleeing the country. Already the number of Venezuelan asylum seekers to Canada has doubled over the past year. As our condition worsens, we can expect an even bigger exodus.

On the international stage, Canada has become an international beacon for human rights. We are especially grateful for its work with other regional leaders, such as Mexico, Brazil, and the United States, to hold the Maduro regime to account in international forums such as the Organization of American States.

That said, now we need Canadian leadership to help ease my people's suffering. Maduro has expressed a willingness to allow the United Nations to administer its humanitarian aid in the country, and I believe that Canada can be the key player in ensuring that this humanitarian canal reaches those most vulnerable.

First, we need, and independence needs, a sentiment in the country, and then we need to develop a plan for delivery that ensures independence and efficacy. The sad truth is that in Venezuela we no longer have a government that serves the people. Instead, the government only increases our suffering. I fear the consequences of the implosion of the state for its 30 million people, and thus I ask for your help and for Canadian leadership.

Before you today, I represent the voice of the suffering Venezuelan. Please hear our call. We don't have time for democracy. We don't have time for a statement in one or two or three months. We need action. We need help. We are in an emergency. We are asking for an emergency debate. We are asking for a debate on the Venezuelan case as an emergency. Please help us. Strength and faith.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you very much for your impassioned testimony, Ms. Tintori. You've certainly created a vivid picture for this subcommittee.

We're going to go right to MP Sweet, who has the first question.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Ms. Tintori, the sympathies of all of our colleagues here, I'm certain, are with you and your family, with the suffering of Leopoldo López, particularly given his captors' continued intimidation of him in incarceration.

I'm certain Leopoldo would want us to see his life as a microcosm of everything that's happening in Venezuela. The reports that we hear are devastating—not only your testimony, but the reports we hear of physicians who can't treat patients. The numbers that you mentioned, of people losing 19 pounds in weight...it takes something like not being able to eat for 40 days during a year to lose that much weight. That is a crisis of tremendous proportions.

I want to ask—and it's possible that maybe Mr. Cotler or Mr. Genser might know this—whether our embassy on the ground is playing an observation role, so that we have Canadian officials who can give us some objective observation on what's happening there.

Also, I've heard reports that there's now been manipulation in the media. Opposition members are being shown as armed in protests, when they're not; it's being used for propaganda. Is that the case?

My third question is: I've heard also that military courts are actually being used to try civilians. Is that the case in Venezuela? Could you answer those questions, please?

[Lilian Tintori]

Okay. Yes, right now in Venezuela we don't have the rule of law. We don't have autonomous powers. That's why in 2014 Leopoldo López, my husband, asked for an election and protests in the streets to change that to prevent the humanitarian crisis that we have right now.

Right now in Venezuela we don't have the rule of law, but they repress us with guns and tanks. In the last four weeks we have had more than 2,000 detentions, and they go to military courts because Luisa Ortega, the prosecutor of Venezuela, says no, this is an attempted coup against the state, and that he can do more of the same.

Things are happening in Venezuela. One of the powers says no, this is a dictatorship, and right now the army goes to the military courts. That's unconstitutional. It is a human rights violation, because civil goes to civil courts and the military goes to military courts. We have a military dictatorship and a repressive dictatorship, and that's why they are using the military to detain people and to put more people in jail.

They are trying to block the protests. They try to put fear in the streets, but the Venezuelan people are going to be in the streets as we rescue our democracy. We can't stop.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

After the attorney general then protested publicly, the civilian prosecutors followed suit, and you're saying that they're now moving this to the military courts, because civilian prosecutors refuse to deal with this. So the people of Venezuela are hearing their voices as well, then. Is that correct?

[Antonieta de López, As an Individual]

That's correct, yes.

[Irwin Cotler, Founding Chair, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights]

Just to your point on the Canadian embassy on the ground, just before coming to this meeting here today, we met with the two parliamentary secretaries to the foreign affairs minister, namely, Matt DeCourcey and Omar Alghabra.

They're saying that they're keeping a watching brief with respect to what is happening on the ground, and getting regular reports. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is equally engaged on the issue, and we met earlier with the Prime Minister on this matter. He was very responsive in appreciating what is happening now in Venezuela and in terms of what has to be done.

[Lilian Tintori]

Yes.

In Venezuela we have five powers. One of the powers is the—

[A Voice]

The attorney general.

[Lilian Tintori]

This one says no, it is a dictatorship. The moral power is lacking and so Tarek William Saab...and we're waiting for his voice, but his son of 26 years tweeted a video saying, “Father, stop. This is a dictatorship. Do your work. You are a human rights person in the government. What are you doing? They are killing young people in the streets and tomorrow it could be me.”

The son of the moral power.

Things are happening in Venezuela. Right now is a good time to push for change, to really block the dictatorship, and to try to rescue democracy.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

You asked for Canada's help as far as humanitarian aid is concerned, including leading a mission there for international partners for humanitarian aid. What else could Canada do?

[Antonieta de López]

I think a future trip to Venezuela by a group of parliamentarians to see the situation on the ground would be very helpful. It should be as soon as possible, because we are in an emergency now. Also, I think it's good to share that we asked the Prime Minister to work hard on the four issues that Lilian just mentioned—calling for a general election, the release of political prisoners, respect for the national assembly, and a humanitarian channel. He was very compelling on this, and I think that Canadian voices, from different groups and audiences, are very important nowadays, especially with what's happening at the OAS level. There's going to be a meeting on May 31 with all the foreign affairs ministers to analyze Venezuela as a case before the UN General Assembly.

Yesterday was an important day, because there was a group that abstained at the UN. They used to vote against the democratic nations. Now they're abstaining. What we need is a last push to have them vote with the democratic countries of the region.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move to MP Fragiskatos.

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

Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. The testimony is incredibly compelling, to put it lightly.

The Chávez regime, and indeed the Maduro regime, have leaned on the idea that they alone could advance the interests of the Venezuelan poor, that they alone had the ability to do that, and their legitimacy, or perceived legitimacy, was based on that notion, which, as it has turned out, is quite false indeed.

You mentioned in your presentation food and medical shortages. I wonder if you could speak about the shortages, particularly by focusing on how they have impacted Venezuela's poor. Then also touch on what the opposition is offering to the poor of Venezuela in terms of an economic alternative to the current regime, an economic alternative that gives them hope for the future, concrete ideas in terms of how their prospects can be improved.

[Lilian Tintori]

That's a very good question. We have been in this fight 18 years, but for our families, for me, I have been fighting for the release of my husband for the last three years. But I try to help the poor people in Venezuela. We started a campaign called Rescue Venezuela. We go around the world to 11 cities and get food and medicine for our country. When we start sending this food and medicine to our country, the military blocks the food and the medicine at the airport. The army controls the airport, too. It controls everything. So many things have gone to my home, and I've started to go to the hospitals and to different foundations to give people the medicine and food. And do you know what? Maduro asks people with arms to go to the hospitals and take our boxes. All last year I've been travelling around our country helping people, and then Maduro goes and says to kidnap the box of medicine and food. So it's difficult.

In the last donation, I gave 40 big boxes of medical supplies to a very important hospital in the capital, the biggest one, to Dr. Miller. I gave these to Dr. Miller and told him they were from Mexico, from California, from Colombia. Two hours later, armed civil paramilitaries, colectivos, went into the hospital and took Dr. Miller to jail. Dr. Miller is in jail just for receiving our donations.

So we try, but we have a dictatorship. The politicians can't do politics. We don't have debate; we don't have a parliament; we don't have anybody, so it's very difficult for us.

But we have the view, the [Inaudible—Editor] right, a lot of things to rescue the economy, to develop oil, and work in petroleum in Venezuela. This year we're going to publish a book on oil and how we're going to rescue our economy—and we're going to do it. The thing is that today we are in a dictatorship and we want to vote for a new president, a new government, and new mayors.

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

I don't mean to interrupt you, but I want to make sure this is on the record.

If I understand you correctly, the shortages that we hear of are not only impacting the middle class and the more affluent classes, but all Venezuelans. Also, I think, perhaps it's fair to assume, this is having a disproportionately negative impact on the poor because they're already in a difficult position to begin with.

[Lilian Tintori]

Yes.

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

That was my impression, since everything I have read leaned in that direction, but I wanted to make sure that was on the record.

[Lilian Tintori]

Seventy-three percent have lost weight. Seventy-three percent don't have three meals every day. The crisis goes to everybody. Right now, in Venezuela, Diego Arellano, 31 years, died. Another shot in protest today. One more. Fifty-one.

San Antonio de los Altos. All the kidnapped.... The last 15 died, while 51 with [Witness speaks in Spanish] ...guns, in [Witness speaks in Spanish] the head or chest.

[Irwin Cotler]

Just on the specifics of your question, it's important to appreciate that 80% of Venezuelans live in poverty at this point. A million students have had to drop out of school because of hunger. There are skyrocketing rates of infant and maternal mortality. I can go on, but you can see a real humanitarian crisis, a poverty crisis, and a country that is imploding because of their oppressive dictatorship.

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

Could you speak about paramilitaries? We hear and read about this now. How is the regime utilizing paramilitary organizations in its effort to maintain power?

[Lilian Tintori]

Yes, there are groups with long guns, and short guns, and with motorcycles. Maybe before, we had more. Now they are a minimum, but they are still there. Chávez gave guns to this group of people and started doing a politics of aggression.

We have a terrorist state. They [Witness speaks in Spanish].

They allow violence. It's the current state. They put guns in a lot of people's hands and in Venezuela, every 19 minutes a Venezuelan person dies of violence, kidnapping, or being shot for taking a bag of food or taking a pair of shoes. We have been in a very deep crisis of insecurity and that's why Maduro is now alone. He's alone around the world and alone in his dictatorship and not only has he put the army in the street to shut us up, but the colectivos or paramilitaries go around the protests and shoot. We have the videos. We have the pictures and we have everything that we have testified that is true.