Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's a question maybe better addressed to the UN. Unfortunately, that investigation team has now ended its mandate. It has finished its work. There is, though, a pre-existing presence in Burundi of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, so there is a UN human rights presence.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you so much for the opportunity and for your support.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Of course it wouldn't deliver justice itself, because it would be simply a commission of inquiry. It wouldn't have prosecutorial powers, and it wouldn't be a court. I don't want to pretend that it's the magic formula that is going to solve all Burundian problems, absolutely not.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That may be one area where Canada can also make an important contribution. You talk about displacement camps. I would talk more about the refugee camps, because there aren't really...or maybe that's what you meant. Human Rights Watch did some research in the refugee camps in Tanzania, which is a country that is hosting the largest number of Burundians.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's an ongoing problem, the deployment of these African Union observers. Some of them have been deployed since last year. I don't remember the exact number, but it's less than half the 100 you mentioned. There are some human rights observers and some military observers there, who are monitoring the situation.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I wouldn't say they're headquartering in Congo. I wouldn't really say they're headquartering anywhere, but if they are, the most likely place is probably Rwanda. The opposition, I'm talking about armed opposition now, is fragmented, quite divided internally, and apparently disorganized as evidenced by the failed coup attempt last May.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I couldn't comment on the details because it's obviously confidential, and I genuinely don't know how much progress they've made. It's not an investigation as such, so they're not going in-depth, looking for witnesses, and so on, at this stage. There's a lot of information, of course, that's already out there in the public domain, including information published by the UN, by groups like Human Rights Watch, and by many Burundian activists, but for sure, gathering information in Burundi right now is a big challenge.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, it wouldn't be a prosecuting body or court as such, but certainly information it would gather could contribute to the work of the International Criminal Court. We see it very much as not something that would duplicate initiatives that have already been undertaken, whether it's the ICC or indeed the UN investigation that's already happened, but something that would build on that and be complementary to it.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The youth are victims and are manipulated by both sides. On the government side, you have youth who are part of the official youth league of the ruling party. Those are the ones I talked about before. On the opposition side, there are many young men, as well as women, but particularly men, who joined the opposition.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly, because of the very high rates of unemployment, it's easy for anyone who may want to do so to just pay young people to go out and do whatever they want them to do. That is definitely going on. This is in the context of a disastrous economic situation. I didn't mention that in my presentation, but it's a very important aspect.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It was fairly limited. Even the mining sector is not hugely developed. The main mineral there is not so much coltan actually, but nickel, but even that has not been fully exploited yet. I believe there were some companies that were starting to look at that. The other industry is coffee.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It was an election to some extent I suppose we could say, but by the time the elections took place, almost all the opposition leaders had fled, so there was practically no competition. There are a number of parties that we could describe almost as satellite parties to the ruling party.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Of course, and I'm not implying that it was your case, but it's maybe worth saying a word about that. In terms of the current crisis in Burundi, I see it primarily as a political crisis rather than an ethnic crisis, unlike the situation that prevailed in Burundi in the 1990s, as you will recall, when there were horrific massacres.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In view of the gravity of the situation in Burundi, I would say that even governments like Canada's, which may not be major players in that region, still have a role to play in supporting and strengthening mechanisms, which could ultimately deliver justice, and in supporting initiatives at the United Nations level, for example.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, we do. I work on Rwanda as well as Burundi, so I'm sensitive to that, as we all are. It's a complicated situation. Many of the Burundians who fled last year ended up in Rwanda. It's one of the closest and easiest places to go, not so much now, because they're actually trying to stop people from fleeing, but in the beginning, it was where many went, especially the opposition figures.