I believe I referred to the situation in Mexico in my presentation. Human Rights Watch is saying there is a human rights crisis in Mexico. The drug trade and the drug traffickers have taken over huge swaths of the country. Massacres are an almost daily occurrence—17 bodies found in one place, 16 in another. So there is a human rights crisis, related to the drug trade, going on in Mexico right now. That crisis is extending all the way down through Central America.
As most of you know, this committee deliberated long and hard over the human rights situation in Colombia. I can tell you that after a year and a half of the free trade agreement with Colombia, the situation has not improved. Labour rights in Colombia continue to face major violations. Colombia continues to be the worst perpetrator of murders and violations against trade unionists in the world. The body count is down slightly, but the disappearances and the threats have increased.
President Obama signed an agreement with President Santos of Colombia two years ago in order to pave the way for the U.S. to open its free trade agreement. It put into place a number of processes that would monitor labour rights facilitation, bringing to justice the perpetrators of the violence against trade unionists. It's the two-year anniversary right now of that action plan. Labour and civil society, monitors of these issues, are saying that the situation is as bad, if not worse, than it was two years ago.
Peru has its own human rights challenges, and Chile also has its human rights challenges, which we obviously don't have time to go into.