International Trade Committee on Nov. 24th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Welcome to the 38th meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade. We're continuing our discussion of Canada-South America trade relations, with particular reference to Canada and Colombia.

Today we're pleased to have as a witness, from the Proceso de Comunidades Negras, Carlos Rosero, who is a member of their national coordination team. We also have, from the University of the Andes in Bogota, Faculty of Economics, Professor and Researcher Daniel Mejía.

Thank you both for coming. I think this will be an interesting session. As we continue our review of Canada-Colombia relations, much of the discussion has centred on a potential free trade agreement with Colombia. We will begin right away. We're going to ask each of our witnesses to give an opening statement of ten minutes or less.

It's my understanding that Mr. Rosero will be presenting in Spanish, so let's get our earphones on and go to channel 3.

Mr. Rosero.

[Carlos Rosero, Member, National Coordination Team, Proceso de Comunidades Negras]

[Translation from Spanish]

Good day. Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to describe the reality in which our communities in Colombia exist.

Our organization has been working for the rights of Afro-Colombians for over 15 years. Therefore, we are delighted to talk about the results of our efforts and about our relationship with indigenous peoples, with whom we share certain territories.

In Colombia, the rights of Afro-Colombians have been recognized by the national constitution since 1991, under Law 70 of 1993, and under ILO Convention 169, ratified in Colombia in 1991 by Law 21. Generally speaking, our rights are in regard to land, identity, political participation, and development, and they are supposed to guarantee free, prior, and informed consultation and consent of communities pursuant to articles 6, 7, and 15 of ILO Convention 169.

Our experience shows that in the process that is currently being implemented by the Canada Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the right to prior consultation of our communities, which, as I have said, is guaranteed under ILO Convention 169, is neither considered nor respected.

In addition, in 2001 the process of amending the Colombian mining code was completed, and it culminated in the adoption of a law that is still being enforced. The amendment was made with economic and, we believe, technical support from the Canadian International Development Agency. Under this law, which was amended and has been in force since 2001, in a region such as northern Cauca, where we have worked and where mostly black and indigenous populations are living, 30 mineral titles were recently granted. All of these titles were granted without free, prior, and informed consultation and without the consent of our communities. I am talking about the municipalities of Suárez, Morales, and Buenos Aires, which are located southwest of Bogota, Colombia’s capital.

On October 22, 2009, the new generation of the Black Eagles sent a document to the Unified Workers Confederation of Valle del Cauca in which they threaten a number of organizations and prominent figures in the northern Cauca region. They justify their warnings as follows: first, they are against policies proposed by the president of the republic; second, they oppose the movement of companies into the northern Cauca region.

On November 13, 2009, that is, two weeks after the threats were made, the body of a murdered indigenous person and several injured members of the municipal council of Cerro Tijeras were discovered on a road in the municipalities of Morales and Suárez. The victim had been the target of threats, as I mentioned earlier. The indigenous person lived in the Damián sector. Cerro Damián is one of the places that, according to local settlers, falls under the mining title granted to Cosigo, a Canadian company. This is proof that threats made by the paramilitary group may be carried out, resulting not only in death but also in the displacement of our communities.

With regard to forced displacements, since indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians are granted special rights and have also had more internal armed conflicts than any other ethnic group, in 2009, the constitutional court provided the government with a set of orders for protecting the rights of Afro-Colombians. The orders are related to plans for protecting collective territories, to management plans for helping displaced populations, and to the creation of an ethnic structure for protecting the territorial and heritage property of Afro-Colombians. They are also related to the plan for qualifying the situation of various territories belonging to our population, regardless of these territories’ legal status.

For the first time ever in Colombia, Order 005 has enabled us to realize that the implementation of agro-industrial and mining projects is one of the reasons for the displacement of communities within the country.

Until now, the Colombian government has not respected the recommendations or the decisions of the constitutional court regarding the issue at hand.

We know that thus far our rights are not sufficiently guaranteed in the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, in particular because the right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent of communities has not been properly exercised.

Consequently, since our talks with Canada are said to be extremely successful and have produced a set of recommendations, of which a number seem innovative, we are asking you to suspend the process of approving and implementing the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until the recommendations made by Canada are carried out, especially with regard to the assessment and the implementation of the findings of an impact study on human rights.

In addition, we believe the process should be suspended until the Canadian Parliament and government have made sure that, first, Colombia is respecting rights, and second, our right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent is duly protected . When I say “our right”, I mean that of black communities’ indigenous peoples. Measures must also be taken to protect the economic, social, political, and cultural rights of our population.

In conclusion, I believe this committee could invite other representatives of indigenous and rural Afro-Colombian communities, as well as union leaders, to come here and voice, in their own words, all of their concerns and describe the reality of their situation. They could also explain how they would be affected by the completion and the implementation of an agreement such as the one currently under review.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Rosero.

Now we will turn to Professor Mejía.

[Professor Daniel Mejía, Professor and Researcher, Faculty of Economics, Los Andes University, Bogota, Colombia, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the committee for the invitation to share with you the results of the research project that I've been involved with over this past year.

Basically, what we want to do through this project is to bring the numbers and to take them seriously. I have to say that all of the numbers I will be referring to are the numbers from the unions' NGO. In a sense, this bulletproofs the paper against any criticism of the source that we used to derive all of our results.

The debate about violence against union members, as you know, has been at the centre of a debate for the last few years.

Let me read a quote from a U.S. NGO:

Most of the violence against trade unionists is a result of the victims' normal union activities. While the Colombian government claims that most of the violence against trade unions is a byproduct of the armed conflict, the Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS), a respected NGO that provides training and support to the Colombian labor movement, says that the majority of the anti-union violence that takes place in Colombia is in response to the victims’ normal union activities....

These are claims that we are going to test, using the evidence from the unions' NGO, the Escuela Nacional Sindical. Basically, in my view, the evidence has not been studied systematically to assess whether or not there has been progress in solving this issue.

There are some precise questions that we want to answer with this project.

First, what are the specific indicators of violence against union members?

The second question is a policy question: has there been any progress in solving this issue?

The third and fourth questions are going to be addressed using an empirical exercise. Can the killings of union members in Colombia be explained by their involvement in union activities, or is it really as a result of the armed conflict in Colombia that unfortunately they did not escape? As well, what are the main determinants of violence against union members in Colombia?

Basically, the research project is divided into two parts. The first part puts the figures in a few graphs and tries to answer the first two questions--namely, the evolution over time of the indicators of violence against union members and the different indicators of violence against union members, using always, or for most of the paper, data from the unions' NGO.

I will describe in a few words the empirical exercise. It's a little bit more technical and academic, but I'll tell you the main findings.

Independently of the data source used--from the unions' NGO, from the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, which is a major workers federation in Colombia, or from the government--violence against union members in Colombia has steadily declined over the last seven or eight years. I can show you the figures.

Violence against union members has decreased at a steeper rate than violence against the general population. In fact, it has decreased 70% faster than violence against the total population. It has decreased faster than violence against other so-called vulnerable groups, which comprise teachers, NGO members, councilmen and former councilmen, and other groups.

The amount of government resources allocated to the protection of union members has increased steadily, and the number of union members protected has also increased steadily.

Finally, using different estimation strategies, time periods, and sources of information, we find no statistical evidence in support of the claim that violence against union members is caused by the involvement of union members in union activities. I will describe that in more detail.

Before I go through the stylized facts about violence against union members, let me tell you about the two figures that are most of the time brought up by people who oppose the free trade agreement.

The first piece they always bring up is that the number of killings of union members during the Uribe administration has been, I don't know, 1,700.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you have a country that has an inflation rate in 2000 of 30%, and by 2008 it has an inflation rate of 4%. You add up the inflation rates from 2000 to 2008 and you come up with a figure of 70%. You claim that this country has a hyperinflation problem, because over the last eight years it has had an inflation rate of 80%. You miss the trend if you take that number seriously. You should look at the yearly, monthly, or trimester indicators to gather information about the evolution over time of these figures. That's what I'm going to do when taking a look at violence against union members in Colombia.

The second piece of information given is that Colombia has 70% of the killings of union members in the world. The question that should be asked is who in the world reports the number of killings of union members. You start looking, and you see in the sample Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Canada, the U.S., Colombia, and other countries. But the only country in the world that is a developing country with a serious problem of violence that consistently reports to the ILO and other organizations the number of killings of union members is Colombia.

I was at a meeting one month ago of the ILO, and ILO staff recognized that Venezuelan workers and entrepreneurs were there. They reported that there were 152 killings of union members in Venezuela in 2008. If you put Venezuela into that sample of countries reporting the number of killings of union members, Colombia goes from having 70% of the killings of union members to having less than 12%. If you add Venezuela to the sample, Colombia decreases pretty quickly. If you're going to take the number seriously, every country should be reporting the number of killings of union members.

Let me go through the stylized facts now. You have the figures there. That is basically all data from the unions' NGO. There was a peak in 1996 in the number of union members killed. It decreased quickly until 1999 and increased again between 1999 and 2001. We reached another peak of 200 union members killed in 2001. Since then, the number of killings of union members has decreased steadily. The last year reported is 2008, when there were 48 killings of union members, according to the unions' NGO.

The natural question that follows is what the big thing of having that figure is if violence in Colombia has decreased in general. We divide the total number of union members killed by the total number of killings in Colombia, and we see that although both have declined, the number of union members killed has decreased 70% faster than the number of people in the total population killed.

The second piece of evidence, which is the standard way academic economists and criminologists measure violence, is the homicide rate. Basically, it is the number of homicides per 100,000 individuals. That's to take out the scale effect that is normally in these figures. In the stylized facts, we show that the homicide rate in Colombia for the total population was 70 in 2001, and last year it was 36. We construct the homicide rate for union members. That's the number of killings of union members per 100,000 union members. The homicide rate of union members in 2001 was almost 23, and by 2008 it was six. That homicide rate of six for union members is the same as the homicide rate in countries like Uruguay and the U.S. for 2008. So while the homicide rate in Colombia in 2008 was 36, for union members it was six. That's one-sixth of the total homicide rate in Colombia. Again, the homicide rate for union members decreases much faster than the homicide rate in Colombia.

Then, to my surprise, I have to say, if you compare the data from the unions' NGO, the Escuela Nacional Sindical, with the data reported by the government, the advances reached, using the unions' NGO data, are stronger than the advances reached using the government's data. In other words, the decrease in violence against union members is larger when you take the data from the unions' NGO than if you take the figures from the vice-president's office, which is the human rights office of authority in the government.

The human rights office of authority of the office of the vice-president also reports data on the number of killings of other vulnerable groups, which are journalists, NGO members, councilmen and former councilmen, and union members.

Basically what we see is that the number of homicides of union members has decreased faster than the number of homicides of these other so-called vulnerable groups.

The fifth piece of evidence is reported not by the unions' NGO or the government. It is directly reported by the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, which is the largest Colombian confederation of workers. They basically report, case by case, the killings of union members, and they group the killings into union activists, union leaders, and unionized workers. So we basically take union activists and union leaders as a group of union leaders, in figure 5, or in stylized facts (V), and we show the evolution over time of the number of killings of union leaders in Colombia. In 2006 and 2007 there were no killings of union leaders reported by the CUT, but unfortunately, in 2008, there was a spike and they reported 11 killings of union leaders in Colombia.

The last piece of evidence is basically the amount of resources spent by the government in the protection of union members in Colombia and the number of union members protected in Colombia. Basically what we see is that in real 2009 Colombian pesos, the government was spending, in 2000, $5 per union member in protection schemes, and by 2008 the government was spending 100,000 pesos, which is about $50--$50 per union member in 2008 and $5 per union member in 2000. So there was a tenfold increase in the amount in real pesos. It takes care of the inflation rate and everything.

So basically there was a tenfold increase in the amount of resources spent by the government in the protection of union members during the last seven or eight years.

The natural question is, what is this money being used for? To protect the same number of union members, or is it that the government is also protecting more union members? That's answered by the last graph, which says that in 1999 and 2000 there were about 80 union members protected. This figure is hard to interpret because it's per 100,000 union members. Let me give you just the absolute figures.

In 1999-2000 there were between 50 and 80 union members protected, and last year there were 2,000 union members protected. That is 2,000 union members or leaders with protection schemes from the government, which consist basically of bulletproof cars in many cases—not in all cases—and bodyguards and security services for the person. And if it's a leader, he has protection with his family and all the things.

Those are the stylized facts about the evolution over time of the killings of union members in Colombia. Those are different indicators, different data sources, different comparable groups, etc.

Now for the second part of the paper, and I'm going to be brief on this. It's more empirical, more academic, and more technical, but let me tell you what we do.

We take a panel data set that contains data, per state and year, from 2000 to 2008, on the number of killings of union members, and we have data on union activities. We have a large variety of indicators of union activity, which we divide into two groups, or we put them together in some robustness checks.

Basically we call type 1 union activity formal types of union activity; that is, negotiations between the firms and workers about wage agreements and wage negotiations. We call that formal union activity. The informal or less formal union activity is what we call active acts of protest, which are street marches, strikes, hunger strikes, marches in the streets, etc., as active acts of protest by the unions.

In order to control for scale effects, we construct a measure of the intensity of union activity, which is the number, for instance, of strikes per union member in each state and each year from 2000 to 2008. So we have a relatively large data set in order to test the claim—and that's what we precisely want to do—that more union activity leads to more violence against union members. That's a statistical way of testing whether union activity is a dangerous activity in Colombia or not.

We also want to test what is causing violence against union members. We controlled for the level of economic development, that is the GDP per capita in each state and each year. We controlled for the general level of violence as captured by the total homicide rate for the general population. We controlled for a state presence, which is the number of police arrests per capita—it's a standard measure used in the literature to control for a state presence. We also controlled for the guerrilla and paramilitary presence—the number of attacks of guerillas and paramilitaries per capita.

Basically the claim we want to test is that the greater intensity of union activity has a causal impact on violence against union members. In the words of the U.S. NGO, “Most of the violence against trade unionists is a result of the victims' normal union activities”, or “...the majority of the anti-union violence that takes place in Colombia is in response to the victims' normal union activities....” If this claim is true, we should find a statistically positive effect of union activity on violence against union members.

The technical notes, all the details, all the data, and all the programs and codes we use are available for any verification anyone wants to do of the things we did.

The main findings are that we don't find any statistical evidence supporting the claim that violence against union members is caused by the activities of unions in Colombia.

What we do find, and I think this is crucial for the study of the free trade agreement, is that it is indeed true that in those states where there is less economic development and a lower level of GDP per capita, there is more violence against union members. In those states where there is more violence against the general population, there is also more violence against union members, unfortunately. In other words, union members do not escape the violence in Colombia, unfortunately. They are also victims of violence in Colombia.

Why do I say this is crucial for the discussion of the free trade agreement? All the details are in the paper, but using different estimation strategies, data sets, data sources, and time periods, we ran a large battery of robustness checks to be sure what we are saying is true throughout the exercises we've run. It is true that lower levels of economic development do indeed cause more violence against union members.

How can an FTA help? It can help basically by increasing the level of economic development in Colombia by bringing work and increasing the number of jobs in Colombia, increasing the economic development, increasing technological transfers through intermediate inputs that are traded in free trade agreements, etc.

This is the best thing, I think, that can be done to improve not only violence against union members, but in a discussion like this, people should also care about violence against everyone in Colombia and not just union members, not just union activists, and not just policemen. The best way to improve security in Colombia is by bringing opportunities for poor people to engage in work in formal working activities, bringing in more education, facilitating technological transfer, and promoting economic growth in general in Colombia.

To conclude, what we do in this paper is study the evolution and determinants of violence against union members. As I said, there are two main findings.

First, any indicators we used from the unions' NGO say very clearly that there has been a dramatic improvement in the security of union members in Colombia over the last seven or eight years.

Second, in this empirical exercise we didn't find any statistical evidence supporting the claim that in general violence against union members is caused by the involvement of the victims in normal union activities. I have to say very clearly that this does not neglect the fact that there might be cases of targeted violence against union members or NGO activists, etc. Although every rule has an exception, and exceptions are always brought up, I think it's also very handy to note the rule and understand the rule, and the rule in Colombia, according to recent statistical evidence, is that violence against union members is not caused by a greater intensity of union activity.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Professor Mejía and Mr. Rosero. Those were excellent presentations that I'm sure will provoke some great questions.

We'll start our round of questioning. We'll try to get in as many questions as we can. We'll stick to our normal practice of seven minutes for questions and answers in the first round, followed by a second round if we have time. These are five-minute rounds with five minutes for the question and answer. Members can direct their question to either or both witnesses today.

We'll begin our questioning with Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I believe I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, Scott Brison.

My question will be brief. Professor Mejía, in terms of data and how it's collected, it's always very important that the data that is presented is seen to be transparent and that it can in fact be verified and corroborated by other groups. I just want to know, for the assurance of this committee, first, on the definition of “unionist”, whether that has changed or not in terms of the original finding at the beginning of the first research until now. Secondly, has this information presented to us been corroborated by other NGOs, other human rights organizations? That would give it the weight that is necessary when you're presenting such important information.

[Prof. Daniel Mejía]

Thank you.

As I said, all the data we use is available from us, but more importantly, to answer your question directly, every single piece of information that we use in the paper has a complete cite to the unions' NGO document. It is all available on their website.

It's amazing the amount of information that the Escuela Nacional Sindical collects. They are very consistent in the reporting of the data. They explain very clearly if they make any changes to the collection of the data, etc. I have to say that the Escuela Nacional Sindical is very serious in collecting the data. It's consistent across documents. They don't change their reporting of data. So everything we use is cited in the references of the paper. What we did basically was to construct a large panel data set. Not only is that available, but all the cites and where we got this information from is available.

Regarding the second part of the question, if I understood correctly, were you asking whether our data has been shared by other organizations?

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

We have heard testimony from both NGOs and union leaders in relation to the killing of union members, and that's a very troubling concern we have. I want to know specifically whether in fact that information that you have presented has been shared with other union organizations or other NGOs, human rights communities in the field, and whether they in fact share the same viewpoint as you in terms of the statistical information presented.

[Prof. Daniel Mejía]

Most NGOs and all the unions in Colombia take the data from the ENS as the formal source, and that's what we do also. We could have taken the data from the government to do all the exercises, but then the question is, is the data reported by the government correctly? So in order to bullet-proof the paper, we take the data from the unions and test the claims and test the evolution, etc.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much, both of you, for your presentations.

The question of the narco-economy, the drug economy, in Colombia is an important one. How prevalent is the narco-economy in terms of its effect on violence against Colombian people, Colombian workers, union members, indigenous peoples? To what extent is the drug war or the drug wars leading to greater levels of violence in Colombia?

[Prof. Daniel Mejía]

Thank you for that question. If you look up my website, that's my research agenda, the war on drugs in Colombia. In that agenda I have to say I've been very critical of the government stance on the war on drugs in Colombia. My view on this is that most violence in Colombia is indeed explained by the war on drugs. Both paramilitary groups and guerrilla groups finance their terrorist activities today with the proceeds of the drug trade. Before 2000, before the start of Plan Colombia, FARC and the paramilitary groups didn't have a strong hold on the drug trade. Nowadays they are the two main drug producers in Colombia and they are also engaged in the initial stages of drug trafficking.

There has been progress in solving the security issues. Unfortunately, the war on drugs has only shown some results, some very small results, during the last year. But if you take 2000 to 2007, the results are negligible in terms of reducing the amount of cocaine reaching consumer countries. What you do find is an increase in violence.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Rosero.

[Carlos Rosero]

Additionally, I would like to say that drugs, or drug dealers, finance a lot of the illegal activities in Colombia and also some of the legal activities carried out in our country. We have to say that the war on drugs in Colombia is one of the current causes of displacements and serious violations of the rights of the indigenous peoples and the black communities in several parts of our country.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much.

Both of you have established that the drug wars in Colombia and the efforts to combat the narco-economy have in fact displaced a lot of Colombians and have led to violence against many Colombians, including union leaders in some cases and, in other cases, aboriginal indigenous peoples.

Does the growth of legitimate trade opportunity that is rules-based and guided by labour and environmental agreements that are very robust have the capacity to actually wean people away from this terribly violent and incredibly oppressive narco-economy that is perpetuating such violence against the Colombian people?

[Prof. Daniel Mejía]

Yes, if the programs are well designed. These are called alternative development programs, where basically the government, with foreign aid, reaches a coca-producing region. If it reaches the coca-producing region in the wrong way, it's wasting the money.

If it reaches the coca-producing region in the correct way, that is, by providing not only technical education for growing licit crops, but also the means by which to bring these legal crops into the market, and in an institution that works well, this works. But if you only bring technical assistance and leave the farmers alone, that's wasting the money.

That, I think, the free trade agreement can promote. It can be promoting legal activities and promoting investment in infrastructure so that these farmers can bring their crops to the market, etc.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I have one more point, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

All right, quickly.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Rosero, I appreciated very much your testimony. In Canada, we have had, for a long time, tremendous challenges in our governance of indigenous people, land, and treaties. There are parts of our history that we're not proud of at all in terms of our actions or inaction in dealing with injustice. There is tremendous injustice and there are gaps in Canada between a lot of our minority communities and the rest of Canadians. There are tremendous injustices and a lack of economic opportunity for our aboriginal and indigenous people. It's a struggle that we in Canada are dealing with as well.

Thirty years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that today, in northern Canada and other parts of Canada, aboriginal and first nations bands are participating actively in the development of economic opportunities such as mining, for example. We're seeing an evolution of an entrepreneurial leadership within aboriginal and indigenous peoples in Canada.

With an increased level of economic engagement with Colombia, one of the things that I hope we can work on together is imparting some of that experience, that shared experience, for both of us to learn so that we can work together to develop real economic opportunity and real social progress for all our peoples. That's something that I hope we can work on together.

There has been progress in Canada, but there's a lot of work to be done, and a lot of action and investment need to be taken. But our experience here has been that economic growth and engagement have helped to better the lives of aboriginal and indigenous peoples in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Do you want to respond, Mr. Rosero?

[Carlos Rosero]

I think, in general, we agree, but as you've pointed out quite specifically, with the participation of the indigenous peoples...that is not happening in Colombia.

I have some figures that were too dense and I wasn't able to read, but there is a quote from our President. When talking about biofuels and agrofuels and the need for our communities to reach an agreement, he used words such as “Lock them up. Don't let them out until they actually reach an agreement.” These are not words that suggest a voluntary and participatory process. This is not what's contained in Convention 169 of the ILO.

If our peoples are openly and directly allowed to participate in these discussions, surely people will be able to set forth their points of view and then guarantee the rights so that the benefits of the trade agreements do have a reflection on our communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Monsieur Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day, gentlemen, madam. The views expressed by the union members are similar in both cases, in both presentations.

Mr. Rosero, you stated that 30 mining deeds had been granted without any consultation. How in fact does this process work? Afro-Colombians live on a given parcel of land or in a particular area and overnight, a deed is granted. Is that correct? How do investors take possession of the land?

[Carlos Rosero]

An investor informs the government that they're interested in working in a particular area and will ask the government to, in turn, inform the investor whether there are Afro-Colombian or indigenous peoples in the area. This will lead to the beginning of a prior consultation process.

According to legislation in Colombia, no measures such as the issuance of mining deeds can actually be brought about without informing the communities of the intention of investment. Also, there has to be a participation process that will allow the communities to learn about the environmental impact and about the benefits and the revenues that would ultimately favour these communities.

But it so happens that the provisions of the law are not actually respected in practice. This is not what has been done in Colombia. Not one of these 30 deeds—and we'll gladly share the information with you—has been submitted to prior consultations. Decisions are made in Bogota and people are never informed, including the companies.

This is the case of Cosigo, a Canadian company. They do not involve the community. The communities do not know the company; therefore, the rights that are contained in the constitution are violated. There's quite a considerable separation between the provisions of Convention 169 and the applicable law and what's actually practised in relation to the amended mining code—amended in 2001 with the cooperation of Canada.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

We are hearing repeatedly how people are literally being displaced, threatened and even killed on occasion. We've heard how people's lands have been seized by paramilitary or other groups and subsequently transferred in some manner to investors.

In your opinion, is this type of thing actually happening?

[Carlos Rosero]

Yes, this has happened in several areas of our country. One case is Jiguamiandó, in the northern area along the Pacific coast, involving people who were displaced in 1997. They returned in 2007, and their lands had actually been occupied by a company that deals in livestock breeding. Similar events have occurred with other communities, in banana-producing companies or palm oil companies in the northern coastal areas along the Pacific. And along the southern coast there are other communities that have been affected, for example, north of Calca. It's an area that has great mining interest for the communities. People are still there, they haven't been displaced, but they are under threat, the threat that we mentioned of November 28. The right that people have to be consulted prior to implementation of projects hasn't been respected. Consequently, they have also been threatened by the paramilitary groups. There haven't been formal displacements, but territorial rights have not been respected in relation to national resources, in this particular case mining resources, which have been protected for that community by these provisions that require prior consultations, specifically under Law 70 of 1993.