Between 1994 and 2007, 53,202 individuals were violently displaced from their lands in the Sur de Bolivar region and 380 individuals died a violent death for political reasons. Despite that, the concession agreements for exploration have been granted by multinational corporations, some of which are registered in Canada, for a number of mines in the Sur de Bolivar region.
Our study concluded that such investments ran extremely high risks of benefiting armed groups that had used violence to acquire lands targeted by such investments; promoting the reorganization and reinforcement of previously demobilized paramilitary groups; and, finally, promoting human rights violations committed by such groups against locals and human rights advocates opposed to such investments.
It's important to note that in order to support our conclusions, we drew upon, in particular, reports written by the Colombian Human Rights Ombudsman, an institution that had obtained funding from the Canadian International Development Agency. These reports were developed under the preventive warning system framework or the Sistema de Alertas Tempranas. They are produced periodically to assess the conflict and the risks of serious human rights violations in specific regions. The ombudsman also issues recommendations to the Colombian executive branch in order to prevent future violations, which can include, for example, troop deployments or the allocation of resources to ensure the protection of human rights advocates.
In the Sur de Bolivar region, an association of artisan miners and farmers, FEDEAGROMISBOL, opposes mining investments by transnational corporations. Its directors have received death threats from remobilized paramilitary groups, and the association vice-president, Alejandro Uribe, was murdered, apparently by the Colombian army, in September 2006. The Human Rights Ombudsman currently considers members and directors of FEDEAGROMISBOL run an extremely high risk of selective homicide, massacre or forced displacement.
In order to prevent such things from happening, the ombudsman recommends giving in to the association's request that this area be declared a mining reserve. This would therefore eliminate the possibility of extractive investments in the region, simultaneously eliminating an additional motive for human rights violators.
The possibilities of forced displacement associated with extractive investments are not restricted to the Sur de Bolivar region and are well-documented. Colombia estimates that armed groups—the majority of which are paramilitary groups—have appropriated 6.8 million hectares through violence. For its part, the UN has revealed that paramilitary groups were appropriating lands in order to take advantage of investments in the oil and gas, mining or African palm sectors. This strategy is one of the reasons why the conflict has continued.
We would like to conclude on various elements that we believe are central to the committee's deliberations. The serious risks we identified in our study are, in large part, independent of the behaviour or policies of a specific company. So such risks cannot be mitigated by corporate social responsibility measures. To that extent, the work done by Canada and Colombia to promote corporate social responsibility does not apply, strictly speaking, to this problem and cannot help to resolve it. This is all the more true since as our study shows, the Canadian Embassy in Colombia does not have the mandate to assess the risks faced by Canadian investors requiring its assistance on human rights issues.
We also note that the agreement on workers' rights signed along with the free trade agreement applies only to cases with a trade impact.
In fact, the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement does not contain any mechanisms that specifically take into consideration the types of risks identified in our study. However, there is a real risk that the agreement will reduce the flexibility of Colombia to implement the kind of measures proposed by the Human Rights Ombudsman for the Sur de Bolivar region.
As things currently stand, if a Canadian company were to be stripped of the rights it acquired over a given territory in order to avoid egregious human rights violations or provide victims of a forced displacement with redress, then that might cause an investment dispute pursuant to the free trade agreement. For example, we are anxiously following the process launched by a Canadian mining company against El Salvador pursuant to the free trade agreement it signed with the United States.
The free trade agreement with Colombia might place Canada in a very uncomfortable position, where its economic interests would be pitted against its efforts to promote human rights and conflict resolution. In June 2008, this committee issued a report on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. In it, the committee recommended that a competent body conduct an independent, impartial and comprehensive assessment of the repercussions of a human rights accord, a study that would be subjected to scrutiny and validation. We believe that such a study should be conducted before any agreement is implemented. In order to ensure that Canada's policy with regard to Colombia is coherent.
Thank you.