Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue No. 26 - Evidence - Meeting of May 31, 2017
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 31, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 4:17 p.m. to study foreign relations and international trade generally (topic: recent developments in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela)..
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is meeting today to examine such issues as may arise from time to time related to foreign relations and international trade generally. Under this mandate, the committee will hear testimony today on the situation in Venezuela.
We were looking forward to having department officials with us, but they are travelling with the minister and are seized with the issue of Venezuela this week. We're hoping to get a full debriefing next week from department officials.
The committee heard from witnesses in 2016 about the political situation and the growing economic crisis in Venezuela, and a short report was published in June 2016. The committee had mentioned it would continue to welcome opportunities to keep apprised of the developments in Venezuela, the challenges facing the Venezuelan people, and the implications for the region. Today we are pursuing our interest in and concern for Venezuela.
To begin our hearing today, we are very pleased to welcome Mr. Eric Farnsworth, Vice President of the Council of the Americas/Americas Society, appearing by video conference from Washington.
We have circulated the material, so there will be no further introduction about your qualifications. We are pleased that you were able to accept our invitation to come before us. I'm sure you've testified before. We welcome your opening statement and remarks and then senators will have questions.
Eric Farnsworth, Vice President, Council of the Americas/Americas Society: Thank you very much for your gracious invitation to appear before you. Yes, I have had the pleasure to testify before the Canadian Senate and also the U.S. House and Senate several times. It is good to be back and have the opportunity to testify.
Let me personally thank you and the committee for your leadership on Venezuela. It's a very difficult time, but your continued attention to these issues is relevant and important, as well as to thank the Government of Canada for the leadership that it's showing even right now in Washington as the Organization of American Statesdebates these very difficult issues. Thank you for that leadership as well.
In the time since your report was issued just one year ago, the situation in Venezuela, if you can believe it, has actually gotten much worse. It is deteriorating rapidly.
Venezuela used to be the wealthiest country in Latin America, but that seems so long ago these days. In fact, in the 1970s, there were advertisements touting Caracas as a great destination for the Concorde flying from Paris. You don't see those advertisements now, nor would you if the Concorde was still flying.
But the downward spiral in Venezuela is real. The economy is in a depression. It really depends on who you talk to, based on statistics which are difficult to verify, but a year-on-year contraction of the economy of 10 per cent, 10 per cent, 7 per cent, something like that, over the last several years has begun to really affect the economy.
Inflation is difficult to put a precise number on, but some estimates are as high as 700 per cent or even higher.
The health care system is literally breaking down. Common medicines like penicillin or a saline solution for childbirth are very difficult even to come by, leading to a wave of voluntary sterilizations. It's really a tragic situation in Venezuela along the health care front.
Food is difficult to find, in some cases. Many people, it's reported, have actually lost weight in Venezuela, not intentionally but because it's difficult to find basic food.
I could go on. The statistics are really quite daunting.
The Venezuelan people have gone to the streets to protest their deteriorating conditions. Much of that is their deteriorating living conditions, but a lot of it is also related to the government's very direct assault on democratic institutions, which has been ongoing for some time. But the most recent reason why people have gone to the streets in Caracas and throughout Venezuela is because of an effort in late March by the government, through the Supreme Court, to completely remove any last power and ability to function of the national legislature, which is democratically elected.
The people decided that was a step too far. The government walked that back, but the people stayed in the streets. In fact, we've had, since late March, daily demonstrations. Over 60 people, tragically, have lost their lives in these demonstrations, and there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to think that the situation is going to improve anytime soon.
Meanwhile, instead of listening to the requests of the people and the folks who are protesting, the government of Nicolás Maduro has actually become more authoritarian. It has actually become more oppressive, and it's trying to put down some of the protests by force: tear gassing peaceful protesters, et cetera.
We can talk more about that, but the immediate concern now for many people is the fact that the government has called a constitutional convention for July that would seek to rewrite the Venezuelan Constitution, a constitution which, in fact, has been in place since 1999 and was put in place by the founder of the revolution, Hugo Chávez. The idea is that this constitution, if in fact it goes forward, would be written in a way that would turn Venezuela legally into a one-party state and really give the opposition no firm way to return to power, turning Venezuela into a full dictatorship. That's the fear, and that's why a number of people continue to say that this is the gravest crisis that Venezuela has faced, and that the next several weeks are going to prove very important going forward to see what the government does.
So it's not just protesting the deteriorating conditions and the tragic circumstances but also the full-scale assault on democracy that the government is currently undertaking.
Finally, I will offer some ideas in terms of the path ahead. These issues are not easy. The government has made very clear it's not going to share power, not voluntarily anyway.
The international community is struggling to find a peaceful path forward that would return Venezuela to democracy. There are some ideas, but none of them necessarily have a high percentage of success. Nonetheless, what continues to be of importance is that the excesses of Chavismo be exposed for the Venezuelan people themselves; in other words, that the gross corruption that regime officials have engaged in, the allegations of drug trafficking that have been credibly levelled, the way that the government has conducted its affairs, that this information be exposed and shown to the Venezuelan people. Many of them, because the press is not free and fair anymore, don't have access necessarily to all of that relevant information.
The United States, as you know, has levied a small number of sanctions against regime officials. It's possible that additional sanctions would come forward against individuals. It would be something to consider if additional sanctions, to the extent they are put forward and advanced — and I don't speak for the administration; that's not where I'm coming from — if they were done in a coordinated way with other governments and other countries, I think that would have an even greater impact going forward.
The continued call for the release of political prisoners in Venezuela is fundamental. Natural leaders of the opposition have been jailed on charges that are completely laughable, simply to make sure that people like Leopoldo López or Antonio Ledezma are not able to function in that role. They need to be released.
Humanitarian assistance is absolutely necessary. The government will not allow it because the government says there's no need for humanitarian assistance; the revolution is doing just fine, thank you. But it's clear by the thousands of people who are coming across the border each day into Colombia and Brazil and into the islands of the Caribbean, like Curacao and Aruba, that there are real problems that need to be met in a humanitarian way. I think that's a fruitful area for dialogue in terms of international cooperation.
The final thing I would say is: What is the end game in Venezuela? Nobody know really knows, but I think we all have to watch carefully what the security forces do if they decide that it's gone too far and they want to force a change in government. I don't know if it would happen or not, but I think it's a scenario that is increasingly possible as divisions in Chavismo become more readily apparent. I'm not making a prediction there; I'm simply saying that because of the severity of the crisis, this is something all of us who are concerned about Venezuela will have to watch carefully.
Perhaps I can leave it there with those initial comments and with thanks again for the opportunity to testify and to receive any questions that you might have. I'll do my very best to answer.
The Chair: Thank you.
You're saying, from your analysis to this point, that the military is supporting the government?
Mr. Farnsworth: At this point, yes. I think it's pretty clear that the military is supporting the government.
The Chair: The Minister of Health released a lot of good information, and I believe she was let go. Is that happening, that anyone who speaks up for the people within the administration is dismissed or sidelined in one way or another?
Mr. Farnsworth: That is a really important question, and I appreciate your raising it.
It seems as if the regime was not upset about what the statistics indicated, in other words, a health care crisis in Venezuela, but the regime was upset that the minister released the statistics to expose what was really going on. So yes, indeed, she was let go. But it is encouraging, from my way of thinking, that she and others have taken difficult public positions to show the reality of what's happening in Venezuela.
Another person who has taken a courageous stand and has not been released yet from her duties is the Attorney General, who has said things that clearly indicate she is uncomfortable with the direction of the country in terms of the constitutionality of some of the actions of the government.
I think what we're going to see is increasingly individuals will begin to pull away or pull back from the government to the extent they continue to see it as overly oppressive. It's not yet a trend, but I think we will see more and more of that as the days go by.
The Chair: We have some background noise there.
I have one further question.
Mr. Farnsworth: It's a motorcade, Madam Chair, from the president.
The Chair: One other question. The U.S. has put on sanctions, but the oil continues to flow out of Venezuela. I know there is always a debate: Who do you hurt if you stop the purchase of Venezuelan oil? Of course, the old contributor, Russia, is not there in the same way, although their hand is in there. We know Cuba isn't able to, as it used to, but Russia apparently has moved in, in some ways, and I'd like some elaboration on that.
Mr. Farnsworth: Absolutely.
Venezuela is a one-dimensional economy. It's petroleum, as you know. Virtually all of their foreign currency earnings are because of oil.
The production of oil in Venezuela has decreased. Now it's under 2 million barrels a day, because of a lack of investment, a lack of human capability and gross corruption which has misallocated resources. So production levels are down. The price, obviously, is down too, although we have to remember that the price today is approximately three times higher than it was when Chávez came into power in 1999. It depends on what baseline you're using in terms of what the decline in the price of oil has done for Venezuela. But clearly with reduced production and a lower price than it was several years ago, the country is clearly hurting, even in the best of circumstances, which they don't have.
The interesting thing — and you're exactly right — is that the U.S. has levied sanctions against individuals but has not done anything on the energy side. The largest and best customer of Venezuelan crude is actually the United States. There's irony here because the energy sector in Venezuela is fully integrated into the United States because we are one of the only countries with the refining capacity to refine the heavy Venezuelan crude. It does have some characteristics with the oil sands Canadian crude that can also be refined in the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Because of economic considerations in the United States and also the idea that nobody in a previous U.S. government, whether it's the Bush administration or Obama or now the Trump administration, wants to be seen as cutting off the economic lifeline for Venezuela that would then turn the country into a true humanitarian disaster, people have essentially said, "Yes, that would bring Venezuela to its knees, but we don't want to be the responsible parties for turning a bad situation into a horrible situation.'' So at this point it has not attracted attention in the context of sanctions.
There are other sources of income for Venezuela. You mentioned Russia. Russia is involved in terms of Venezuela's energy sector. Venezuela has put CITGO up as collateral against loans that Russia has taken, and if CITGO defaults, then Rosneft would find itself in control of a lot assets in the United States.
That's complicated. The U.S. Treasury Department will look at that in terms of our CFIUS process, but it's basically an investment review process.
The other country that I think we have to enter into the conversation is China. China has extended, some would say, up to $60 billion of loans to Venezuela, which are secured against future deliveries of oil. As the price of oil goes down, the amount that Venezuela has to deliver of its overall production to China actually increases because it's not a percentage delivery; it's an amount based against the loans they've taken.
There has to be, in my view, Chinese participation in the discussion in terms of how to move forward on Venezuela. This is a departure because in historic terms there has been no role for China, particularly in strategic or political issues in the western hemisphere. So a lot of changes are going on here.
The last thing I would say is that we are beginning to hear, in Washington, calls for investigation of the U.S. energy relationship with Venezuela. That's coming on a bipartisan and a bicameral basis. The U.S. legislature, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, have introduced legislation. It has not passed yet, but they have introduced legislation to do several things on Venezuela, one of which is to take a renewed look at the energy relationship going forward.
If indeed we decide to do something to intentionally reduce the imports of Venezuelan crude into the United States, the logical replacement for that is Canadian crude. It's nothing simple, but it's a fairly obvious path forward to the extent the United States would want to go that direction.
Senator Eaton: To continue with the question the chair was asking you, do you see a point of no return for Venezuela in the sense that people will absolutely rise up or they will close the country down, basically, and it will become a very closed dictatorship? Do you see any possible change?
Mr. Farnsworth: It's always difficult to make that type of call, but I would say that the next six weeks is a very important period of time. If the government is successful in calling the constitutional assembly and if the assembly meets and rewrites the constitution, which is as bad as many people fear, this would give the government the power to pursue a full dictatorship, a full authoritarian government. At that point I think it really is a point of no return, at least in terms of, with the current people in power, there being no visible path to return to democracy.
One of the keys to making sure that doesn't happen is for continued pressure from the Venezuelan people in the streets, but one has to ask how much longer they can do that from an economic perspective and also from a security perspective. The more people die, how high is the tolerance to be able to absorb that sort of pain?
Senator Eaton: People who would make up the constitutional assembly are all in on the game; they've been bought a long time ago? There's no fear of rebellion and people saying, "No, we're not going to.''
Mr. Farnsworth: According to Venezuela's current constitution, the government has to have a public referendum that allows it to call a constituent assembly for a new constitution. It has not done that referendum. The opposition and legal experts in Venezuela say that the effort to write a new constitution is itself unconstitutional, but the government chooses not to abide by that. Let's put that aside.
The people that they are looking to include in the assembly are by definition regime supporters. They have gamed the system in terms of who might be one of the 512 or 513 candidates, and would be drawn primarily from the base of Chávista supporters and dictated to and then they would agree.
I hate to use these terms because it takes us in a direction we don't want to go, but it's almost like the way the Soviet Union used to conduct its affairs. You had people who were rubber stamps of the government. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, because we do not know, but the trend line is definitely there.
Senator Eaton: Has Colombia closed its borders with Venezuela?
Mr. Farnsworth: No, Colombia has not closed its borders. Its border is in fact one of the lifelines for Venezuela because you have disaffected people crossing the border all the time looking for food and medicine. Colombia has not been as active or public in trying to promote a solution in Venezuela because of its own purposes. It needs Venezuela in the context of implementation of the Colombian peace accords that were signed with the FARC. Many of the FARC still reside in Venezuela. Venezuela was a guarantor of the accords. Colombia has its own national purposes. But that border between Colombia and Venezuela is very much a fluid, dynamic space. It has been closed in the past, but by the Venezuelans, not by the Colombians.
Senator Dawson: We were visited in the last few days by the President of the IPU. They're hearing about political prisoners, a certain number of the parliamentarians being arrested and put in jail. I guess one of the mandates of the IPU is to try to inspect what's happening. Would you have any comments on the parliamentarian issue and how they're being treated?
Mr. Farnsworth: Well, I think they're being treated terribly. I'm not aware of parliamentarians actually being held as political prisoners, although there may be some. I'm not aware of that aspect, but I have seen photographs and video of parliamentarians and others in the street protests who have been roughed up, tear gassed, beaten up, et cetera. It doesn't appear as if there is any particular respect or zone of authority being given to parliamentarians, but that's just on the protest side and on the side of how they're being treated when they're in the streets.
I think an even bigger scandal is how parliamentarians are being treated in Parliament. They're not being allowed to do the job they were elected to do. Their budgets have been taken away. Their prerogatives have been taken away. The Supreme Court is owned by the government — let's put it that way — and has declared pre-emptively that any legislation that the Parliament in Venezuela passes is unconstitutional. It's just a bizarre situation where the legislature itself has really had its knees cut out from under it and is not able to function as an actual elected legislature the way it should.
Senator Cordy: We've all been hearing about what's happening in Venezuela, but you certainly painted a very grim picture, that it's far worse than people even realize.
I believe you said that the opposition leaders have been jailed. Are the opposition leaders actually coming together, uniting in trying to make changes, or are their hands tied? You spoke about them going into protests and being beaten up and abused, but are they making any progress at all?
You also spoke about the media, which is really not free media. So is there any way for people to get the message out? How are people finding out? Is it through social media? How are they coalescing?
Mr. Farnsworth: Let me react to the second question first.
The use of social media in Venezuela is very intensive. In fact, that's how protests are organized. That's how most information is shared. The government is doing a very good job of restricting the information that's available to its own people, but it has not yet shut down social media. So that really is the information lifeline for many people in Venezuela.
In the context of political prisoners and opposition leaders, yes, somebody like Leopoldo López would be a natural leader of the opposition if he weren't in jail serving a trumped up 14-year charge for — this is absolutely true; it's bizarre to even say — subliminally exercising thoughts that would turn the population violent against the government. I'm not putting it in the technical terms, but you get into some very strange things here. So they put him in jail, and he's a cause célèbre and should be released. There are other political prisoners who are not necessarily leaders of the opposition.
The broader point is very important, and the opposition has not yet coalesced around one individual. There are a number of people who could fill that role and a number of people who want to fill that role in Venezuela, to be the "Leader of the Opposition.'' At this point, the opposition has leaders; it does not have a leader.
For example, in South Africa, Nelson Mandela was the natural leader. There were leaders outside of jail, but everyone knew that if and when Nelson Mandela was released, he was the natural heir to leadership in South Africa.
That has not occurred in Venezuela, and one of the things that observers continue to nudge the opposition toward is, "Find the one person that you are most comfortable following and move forward.'' In part, their hands have been tied because just as you get to a situation where the opposition has leaders who are getting to that level of support, the government comes and grabs them off the street and throws them in jail. So the government has been very effective at eliminating those, as it would see, threats before popular opinion can coalesce around leaders.
The other thing I would say is that you hear frequent criticism, whether it's from supporters of the government or other people for their own reasons, that the leadership is divided and they're hostile to democracy. I think we have to understand that the leadership, yes, does have to coalesce around an individual leader, but being divided is not a moral failing. It doesn't put them on par with the government that, through elections, it is trying to unseat. It's a political problem. It's not a moral problem or some sort of anti-democratic problem that puts them on the same plane as the government. That is something I hear sometimes in some of the analytic community.
Senator Cordy: I want to go back to your comments earlier about Venezuela's oil and the United States is taking it because what of would happen to the people of Venezuela. What sanctions are countries able to bring to Venezuela or instill in Venezuela that would hurt the government but not the people? That's the challenge. You itemized at the beginning of your comments how things are deteriorating so quickly within the country. The United States, from that point of view, is really in a quandary: Do you stop the oil and let it get even worse, or do you take the oil and encourage the corrupt government to continue what they're doing?
Are there sanctions that governments can impose or things that other governments, including Canada and the United States, can do to try to make a difference at all, or is it out of our hands?
Mr. Farnsworth: That's really the key question, in my view.
Oil, for any number of reasons, is a really difficult topic, not the least of which is because of our own energy security. That's not necessarily the issue any more, but there is still a deep strain in the United States going back to the oil embargoes of the 1970s. People are very reluctant to try to voluntarily restrict imports of foreign energy into the United States. So oil markets, energy markets, have changed, but, politically, that's where the mind still is of many American citizens.
Any time you start talking about restricting or embargoing things like Venezuelan crude, immediately people flash back to the early 1960s and the embargo the United States put on Cuba. They say, "Well, that didn't work,'' and all of these things. Without mixing the Cuba and Venezuela stories, there are fundamental differences there, but the point is that, politically, this sort of thing is really difficult to move forward on for all the reasons that you know really well. So there are some issues there.
But if you want to bring the government to its knees, you have to cut the funding sources, and there are really three funding sources. One is the purchasing of Venezuelan crude by the United States at market rates. Two is Chinese loans to the government, which are guaranteed by deliveries of oil. Third, we just saw an example of this a couple of days ago in terms of Wall Street purchasing Venezuelan bonds, which continue to provide disposable income to the government. All of that money goes to the government or individuals in the government. The question is: What do they do with it?
So the problem with where the government has taken the economy is that the private sector has been completely emasculated. In a normally functioning economy, the private sector would get foreign currency. They would import food. They would import medicine, whatever. The government has so thoroughly restricted the access to foreign currency, so thoroughly manipulated exchange rates and so thoroughly dominated the means of production in Venezuela that there is no private sector, essentially. So everything that is done now, just like in the Soviet Bloc, is done by the central government. Imports of food go through the government. If you cut the funding source to the government, the government has no money to import food for the people. So you get this situation where everything we might do for all the right reasonings has all the wrong impact.
Then the question is: What can you do? It's a really important question, and that's why the United States — and we're not the only ones — has tried to seek sanctions against individuals that would indicate, first of all, that these folks are doing bad things, but second, would restrict their individual activities and perhaps ability to gain from their positions, whether it's asset identification and seizure, indictments or taking away the visas, et cetera.
That doesn't change the leadership structure in Venezuela. Some guy working under indictment can still be the interior minister of Venezuela. The vice-president of Venezuela has now been identified by the United States as a narcotics kingpin, but he's still the vice-president. He's not going anywhere.
There are some things we can do that might make us feel better and that might be a signal to people that if they go down that course, they will be subject to those sanctions as well, but they won't fundamentally change the situation on the ground in Venezuela. That's where the challenge is. We're trying to encourage — I don't know if that's the right word — the government of the Venezuela to change course, to have the elections that the Secretary-General of the OAS has called for, to respond to the street protests, and to change the economic model to bring back food and medicine, et cetera, but the government has made clear it is not willing to do that because it has a different ideological perspective.
We are at a place, and I think it's getting worse, where the traditional tools of diplomacy are just not having a lot of impact. The question then is: How much further are you willing to go and really turn this into a situation that is going to have unknown consequences?
It's an unsatisfying answer, but I think that's where all of our heads are.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much.
Senator Gold: Sadly, I think my questions have been asked and answered.
What leverage, if any, does a country like Canada have, either alone — I think we know the answer to that — or with like-minded countries? What influence might we have, at the very least, to provide support to those citizens in Venezuela who are trying to resist the slide toward a one-state, one-party authoritarian regime? What would you recommend that we recommend to our government?
Mr. Farnsworth: Thank you for the question. As a non-Canadian citizen, I feel a little awkward suggesting things you might recommend to your government, but thank you for the opportunity.
There are two things that occur to me right away. The first is your voice. You have a voice of moral authority, particularly today, that people listen to. When the Government of Canada is speaking out on behalf of democracy, principles and standards, people listen. Will it change behaviour? That's a separate question. But unless lots of people are talking about these issues and what the expectations are under the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and under the standards that Canada and the other countries of the western hemisphere have signed on to, there won't be any reason for the government of Venezuela to change course. Point number 1: Using the voice of a very well respected and highly regarded nation.
Second, and this is something that might not be immediately apparent, but because of Canada's deep history and engagement in the Caribbean, I would think that the Government of Canada would have a very important role to play in working with the Caribbean countries to get them on board as supporters of a different approach toward Venezuela.
Venezuela has been very strategic in the way it's used its petroleum resources as petro-diplomacy. Through a program called PetroCaribe, which has been functioning for several years, they essentially give petroleum to small Caribbean countries and some Central American countries at cut rates. They don't ask anything for it except for some payment back down the road. But the reality is that the real payment they're looking for is diplomatic support in the international community. It has been the Caribbean countries which in previous years stood up for democracy and, as proud heirs of democratic traditions, they had been strong voices much larger than the relative size of their economies in the inter-American system. They stood up in support of democratic principles.
In recent years, a number of Caribbean countries really have taken a different approach. They have become supportive of Venezuela, because they say that Venezuela has remembered them in their time of economic difficulties. I think that's true, but it sacrifices principles for economic cost.
We see this in a very consequential way at the Organization of American States, because at the OAS, every country that is a member has one vote. Until you can get a certain percentage of votes, which you can't get without the Caribbean participation, you're limited in terms of what the OAS can do as an institution or as hemispheric body. So it's about working with the Caribbean states.
No one is asking them the take actions against Venezuela but to simply recognize that their democratic history and traditions would argue for a different course and a different path, particularly at the Organization of American States. That would be a tremendously important contribution. Frankly, it's one that the United States has not done a good job with. Despite a lot of lip service, we should have and could have done a lot more. Had we had this vision several years ago, we might have had a different circumstance in the international community today. That's all speculation; we obviously cannot know that. But those would be a couple of things that could be considered.
Then there is the extent to which the government is willing to coordinate and synchronize sanctions against individuals of the Government of Venezuela with the United States and others in the international community. That could also be considered.
Senator Bovey: I want to thank you very much. This is sadly interesting and a conundrum.
You mentioned the OAS. I wonder if you can conjecture what might be the outcome of today's meeting with foreign ministers and members of the OAS. What might you be looking for as an outcome to these discussions?
Mr. Farnsworth: We've been disappointed in the past, so I don't have hugely high expectations, but I remain hopeful. I'm hopeful because circumstances on the ground in Venezuela have become so difficult for so many that it seems as if the hemispheric nations are beginning to coalesce around the idea that something has to be done. I am not just talking about Canada or the United States, but countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru — countries that didn't have much to say because of Latin American solidarity, sovereignty issues and all the traditional approaches they took. But we're starting to see some difference.
In the context of what might come out of the specific conversations today, I would like to see at a minimum the establishment of a contact group of countries — essentially a group of like-minded countries that are empowered by the OAS to engage with the Venezuelan government as a means to nudge or urge the government onto a new path. It's obviously not going to guarantee success, but we've had this type of approach in the Latin America in the past, whether during the Contadora process in Central America or democratic transitions elsewhere. The idea of countries that can spend a lot of time on these issues, focused on the country and have a common view about how to get forward would be a helpful contribution.
More importantly, it would be a helpful contribution if you got more than two thirds of the countries on board so that you had enough votes to be able to do something meaningful with Venezuela. To the extent that you don't have the "right number of votes,'' Venezuela is very adept at using this as a propaganda victory, which they do time and time again. They say the OAS does not want to do anything and they can't agree among themselves, and it just continues to string it out further, giving the Government of Venezuela further political space and time to consolidate its rule further.
It's hard for me to suggest what the specific outcomes should be. My hope is that there is a specific outcome with some consensus behind it, with some urgency to it and with the idea that this is not a meeting where they say, "We've talked about it, so now we're all going to go back to capitals and do what we do.'' My hope is that this is the real beginning of a sustained process to either work with the Government of Venezuela for a peaceful transition or to determine that if the government is not willing to make the necessary changes, then together as the international community, we need to decide the next appropriate steps for us to take either in the OAS context or the UN context or in some other context that will put us on the right side of history.
The Chair: Just as a postscript to that, is the Vatican initiative completely dead?
Mr. Farnsworth: I would not say it's dead. I would say that it has been in abeyance for a long time, the reason being that when it was tried last year, the allegation was the Government of Venezuela was using it to buy time and postpone the need for a recall referendum. I could get into the specifics of all that, but suffice it to say, by pushing any sort of political decision into this calendar year, 2017, the government does not face a recall referendum. The opposition was saying that the dialogue process facilitated by the Vatican actually empowered the government to take that course.
Having said that, the opposition therefore is quite skeptical that the Vatican's role is going to be one that they would support. But I don't think it's dead. I think the Pope has made clear that if the parties want to sit down and talk and come to a meaningful conclusion, he's willing to help facilitate that.
The Chair: Mr. Farnsworth, you've been generous with your time. We've gone over. We appreciate it. We've covered a lot of ground, and it has been very useful and helpful. We share with you the conundrum of how to help the people of Venezuela with our limited means, but I think you've said that our voices need to be heard. So thank you for giving your voice to us today with all the information.
We are now very pleased to have before us Ms. Maria Margarita Torres, an Honorary Member of the Canadian- Venezuelan Engagement Foundation. She was born in Venezuela, and she is a Montreal West Town Councillor.
Ms. Torres is accompanied by Mr. Orlando Viera-Blanco, President of the Canadian-Venezuelan Engagement Foundation and External Adviser to the Permanent Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly of Venezuela.
Welcome to our witnesses. I understand, Ms. Torres, you are going to speak first, and then we'll hear from Mr. Viera-Blanco.
Maria Margarita Torres, Honorary Member, Canadian-Venezuelan Engagement Foundation: I do believe it's a Portuguese last name, isn't it?
Orlando Viera-Blanco, President, Canadian-Venezuelan Engagement Foundation: It's Spanish. Portuguese people who moved to Spain.
The Chair: Welcome to the committee. The floor is yours.
Ms. Torres: Thank you so much, honourable senator and other members of this committee. Thank you so much for inviting us today to present our views on the situation in Venezuela.
I'd like to echo Mr. Farnsworth's sentiments about thanking you for the leadership role that you have taken internationally in defence of our country. We need to do everything you can to help. We are in a desperate situation at the moment.
I was born in Venezuela but immigrated to Canada some 40 years ago. Still, during all this time, I have kept close ties to my country of birth. As a matter of fact, most of my family members still reside in Venezuela, including my mother, who is a 93-year-old woman and who, like many other elders, is greatly suffering the hardships of these difficult times.
Last month I had the opportunity to present to the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development a report undertaken by the Organization of American States, which outlined in great detail the crisis in Venezuela, specifically on the alteration of the constitutional and democratic order. At that time, I wanted to impress upon them the dire situation of our people, who are suffering day to day, and the dramatic changes that were about to occur. Since then, the situation has drastically deteriorated.
According to Article 350 of the Venezuelan Constitution:
The people of Venezuela, true to their republican tradition and their struggle for independence, peace and freedom, shall disown any regime, legislation or authority that violates democratic values, principles and guarantees or encroaches upon human rights.
Thus, Venezuelan people, exercising their constitutional right, have taken to the streets to protest against the Maduro government. For the last 61 days, hundreds of thousands of people all over the country have taken to the streets to protest against government abuses, continuous violations of human rights, violations of the democratic process and institutions, lack of justice, lack of personal safety, scarcity of food and medications, et cetera. The list is getting longer.
Up to today, on the sixtieth day of protest, 69 people have been killed during the protest, or in activities directly related to the protest, by state security organizations or by armed groups such as the so-called colectivos, wherein the government has armed civil people and allowed them to carry out this massacre.
Most of the protesters who died were young people. The Venezuelan penal forum reported yesterday afternoon that 3,000 protesters have been injured, about 2,800 have been arrested. Of those, 80 per cent are young people, 60 per cent of them students and 1,351 are still detained. I'd like to add, these are civilians, and they're not being processed by civil court but by military court.
Protesters are met with brutal repression, such as shootings and excessive use of tear gas. At times the tear gas canisters have been shot directly at the bodies of the protesters, with at least one person confirmed dead. Beatings, unlawful arrests and torture are some of the tactics being used by government forces. So many of our people are being senselessly killed or severely injured for their stance against the Maduro regime, for their hope of a better Venezuela and for the love of their country.
However, the protest has not ceased and, indeed, protesters are more united and decided to continue protesting more than ever. We cannot accept any longer a life where eating once or twice a day is acceptable, where malnutrition, especially for children, is on the rise. We cannot accept any longer that so many of our people are dying because there are no medications available or because of the unsanitary state of hospitals.
New statistics, as Mr. Farnsworth mentioned, were released recently, and the minister who released those grim statistics was fired two days after for simply doing her job. She announced, among other data, that in 2016 neonatal deaths rose 30 per cent compared to 2015. Mothers dying during childbirth rose by 60 per cent during the same time period.
We Venezuelans cannot accept that there are no jobs, and if there are, the meager salaries being paid cannot pay for food, let alone other necessities. Inflation was up to 800 per cent last year and is expected to rise in excess of 1,000 per cent in 2017.
There is no personal safety either. According to the Attorney General, there were 21,000 homicides in 2016. Only 4,000 of those were solved. During the last 18 years, some 300,000 homicides have been committed.
As I said before, Venezuela is in a dire situation. Our people are being killed. Students, political prisoners, are being terribly and systematically tortured and their families constantly humiliated. The atrocities committed by this government are indescribable.
Even though there is censorship, images and stories are everywhere, thanks to social media and the international press. You can ask anyone to see their Facebook or Instagram pages and you will find horrific photos and videos of the brutal repression committed by this criminal totalitarian regime against its people.
Today we find ourselves at a point of no return. But how do we move forward? Maduro and his government are tenaciously holding on to power. They have refused to call for presidential elections after a recall referendum was called for in accordance with the constitution, nor do they intend to hold municipal or state elections, which should have been called over a few months ago or even a year ago. They want to replace the democratically elected national assembly with a government-appointed constituent assembly. These are just political ploys to maintain and grab more power, further eroding democracy and freedom.
Different military organizations have deeply entrenched ties with this totalitarian regime. Furthermore, they have become the instrument of repression instead of an instrument of peacekeeping. By now we know some top members of the military, as well as many government officials, including the vice-president of Venezuela, are accused for their involvement in drug trafficking activities. Some of them have been sanctioned by the United States and might face prison. That itself makes it a very dangerous situation.
In addition, we have a very large presence of Cubans, Chinese, Russians and members of the FARC in Venezuela. We, the Venezuelan people, fear the role they might play when the Maduro government is toppled, which has to happen before more of us are killed and this totalitarian regime entrenches itself any deeper.
It is our hope that soon the moment will come when we, the Venezuelan people, will have the opportunity to reinstate our democratic institutions and to rise from the shambles in which we find ourselves after 18 years of a failed, corrupted revolution. We cannot do it alone. We need international support from institutions such as the Organization of American States and the United Nations, and we need the support of countries such as Canada.
I want to thank you, Canada, and all of you for all the support you have provided, including the opportunity to share our horrific story. Sincerely, many thanks.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Viera-Blanco: First, I would also like to thank this Parliament and the Senate for hearing the voice of the Venezuelan people through us today.
I have been in this Parliament many times in the last few years, and a resident in Canada since 2012, an adviser of the Venezuelan assembly for the foreign affairs committee and a professor of political science. I can tell you something. Just one month ago, I came here to the committee of human rights and tried to describe what's going on in Venezuela, what kind of regime we have in Venezuela, because in Canada in the last few years it has been part of the debate.
I can tell you just 60 days ago, I would say that in Venezuela we have clear dictatorship, a new kind of dictatorship. Everything was false confirmation of such criteria because of the decision from the Supreme Court. But now if you ask me what kind of regime we have in Venezuela, I'm going to say we have a totalitarian regime, which is worse. That means we lost not just democracy, not just freedom; we lost the total personalization of the state. The people, the territory and the institutions had been clearly kidnapped by the criminal regime. I'm seeing something very new; I haven't seen something like this in the whole of Latin America.
Our challenge right now is not just about recovering democracy; it's not just about recovering freedom; it's about recovering the personality of the state, the institutions, our nation, our identity, our territory, which has been occupied by some kind of criminal organization.
What does totalitarianism mean nowadays? Totalitarian means "of the institution.'' It's not justice and it's not assembly, because they are not recognized by the government. It is not moral power because all the moral power like the ombudsman, like the Attorney General, who recently changed, all of them, the electoral branch, have been serving the state. It's social totalitarianism. Just those who express preference for the revolution receive benefits and some kind of privilege.
It's a political totalitarianism, because just one party thrives in Venezuela. The rest of the parties are trying to survive. It has been an exercise to survive as political parties.
It's a civil totalitarianism. It's not human rights. It's not civil rights. It's not pluralism. It's not election. Recently we tried to have an election in Venezuela, and it was manifestly denied by the electoral branch by a few criminal decisions from the criminal courts in Venezuela.
It's economic totalitarianism, because there has been a history of expropriation. Five million acres in Venezuela have been expropriated. It's not production; it's not industrial; it's not economy. It is controlled by the state.
It's institutional totalitarianism, as I told you, because there is no moral power.
In the end, it's even technological totalitarianism. All the mass media has been censored or is under the control of the government.
Venezuela has been taken by the regime. Just yesterday, the deputy, Henry Ramos Allup, who used to be the former president of the congress, described the situation in Venezuela as a terrorist state. It's a terrorist state. It's totalitarianism and a terrorism state.
Why terrorism? In Venezuela we have selective terrorism, selective detention of the people, criminalizing the opposition. It's a selective threat by summary execution. Young people were shot in the head.
It's terrorism because we see in the hospitals a military incursion without any kind of order or warrant. Even in the last three days, the military is ordered by the government to go into private domiciles without any kind of warrant, intimidating people and breaking everything, without any kind of justice.
Judges from criminal court are putting people in detention and making trials against civilian people. Military courts are processing civilian citizens. Prisoners are isolated, like Leopoldo López and other prisoners in Venezuela. Prisoners are tortured.
Communications and private conversations are intercepted by the government.
And legislator Gilber Caro and his fiancée are now in jail because they were found with weapons. There was an effort to incriminate them.
What can we do in this situation? That's the big question, and I have some suggestions.
I'm very concerned, for example, about what's going on in the United Nations, about the bureaucracy in the United Nations. All of you know about the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Recently, the United States asked the Security Council of the United Nations for intervention and consultations concerning what's going on in Venezuela. The message is that global justice should apply in Venezuela for this kind of repression. It is an important message in trying to achieve some kind of breakdown of the military forces. In global justice we have to be creative in how to overcome the bureaucracy of this procedure.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, I am sorry, but I don't hear this commissioner talking about what's going on in Venezuela. There are many videos, images and notorious proof about what's going on in Venezuela. More than 71 people have died now, young people, being shot in the head. There is too much repression; there's too much torture.
You're telling me that we have to wait, that the International Criminal Court in The Hague has a very long procedure in order to realize what's going on in Venezuela? From The Hague, we can get measures in order to even capture repressors. If The Hague has the political will — not political will. If it has the justice to advance the procedure, it's going to be maybe the first time in The Hague that we will see a rapid intervention of global justice in order to avoid or at least try to stop this mass terrorism in Venezuela.
That's why in Venezuela, as Maria Margarita has said, we have applied article 350 of the constitution, which allows the Venezuelan people, the civilians we call the legitimate rebellion, to not recognize the government. In my own opinion, this process in Venezuela is irreversible. The indignity, the humiliation, the aggression, the violence — the people in Venezuela are at a point of no return.
One more thing. The constituent assembly proposed by Maduro is totally illegal. It's not possible in the Venezuelan Constitution to have a president call for a constituent assembly. You can take the initiative, but the decisions of the constituents in Venezuela belong to the people by express disposition of our constitution.
Thank you very much for your attention.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentations and bringing us up to date with the material.
I think I can address both of you. In this committee, we often take on issues that we see are not being taken up. Venezuela was not on the radar of the past government or this government in a very significant way. While I think they were engaged diplomatically, it wasn't front and centre in Parliament or with people. So this committee did try to bring the attention of the public in Canada to the plight in Venezuela. It appears that the situation there has deteriorated and deteriorated.
We know that our government now is engaged with the OAS and hopefully there is some movement there, although not many people are optimistic. I know the Secretary-General has been on this file for a long time, but it's to get the members.
Do you follow the changes in South America? There were many supporters of Venezuela two years ago, and now there have been many elections. Argentina has become very strong on human rights issues and involving the OAS. There have been elections in other countries. I don't need to enumerate all of them.
Do you discern a more collective will to address the Venezuelan issue in a central South American context now?
Ms. Torres: Yes, absolutely. I do think so. We haven't addressed this issue for 15 years. From my point of view, as a Canadian living here, I go to Venezuela once a year, and I've seen the deterioration. It has been systematic from the beginning. The censorship, for example, the government destroying the private industry. Slowly but surely, they started expropriating or allowing invasions on properties.
We have been bringing forth these issues for the longest time forth one way or the other. Internationally, we didn't get any recognition. We thought it's a rich country and that there were no issues there.
My youngest son went to school in Montreal and did a degree in — it's called "North and South.'' Literally, they compare the North American society with the South American society. My child would come and tell me, for example, that Chávez was the one who imposed free education, where I was educated under the free education.
There were a lot of things people didn't believe about Venezuela. We didn't have the support internationally. It doesn't matter how much we fought and wrote. We tried to teach people. It was only after 2014, I believe, that it has been turning a little bit, after Chávez died.
I don't think it's because he died. He left the country in shambles, in a bad economic situation, but his successor is not as charismatic. They don't have the money to convince people, and that includes the countries around us, of a system that works. It just failed and people have been realizing it.
A lot of the Caribbean islands were receiving a lot of oil or having other benefits from Venezuela. We cannot afford to do that anymore. So now they receive it from probably the U.S. or European countries. They are not supporting them.
For example, since we started bringing these issues with Mr. Almagro to the Organization of American States, and if you see the votes, at one point we have the vote of Colombia which up until recently was not supporting us or didn't have strong support. The same thing with Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.
Now you see a lot of them are supporting and a lot of them are abstaining for different reasons, where that was not seen before. So yes, Venezuela is being isolated. There is a shift of awareness in Venezuelan issues internationally.
Mr. Viera-Blanco: I totally agree. The correlation of power even now in the OAS is different. A year or two years ago in the OAS the maximum vote was maybe 15 or 14, and now almost 20 votes, and the count reflects what is going on in Venezuela.
Everything that has happened in the last few days is evidence that's what is going on in Venezuela is so delicate and so grave and so hard to try to keep supporting. At this point Bolivia, Nicaragua and some Caribbean islands are supporting. The rest of the region is aware that what we have in Venezuela is a total breakdown of human rights.
The Chair: Have either one of you presented or gone to the Human Rights Council? NGOs have a place there when the council's sessions are on. Have you considered doing that? Are you in any way coordinated?
It seems if we want to grab the attention of the United Nations and its organizations, we often do it through the NGOs and different voices than the government. The government puts its position out, but there is now a place for NGOs and a place for minorities to make their voices known.
Have you done any of that from Canada?
Mr. Viera-Blanco: At this point, one of our honorary members is coordinating in Czech Republic the documentation and putting more than 600 incidents before the ICC. We're in the process of launching a campaign asking what we call in Spanish [Witness spoke in Spanish.]
So we are in the process to trying to push hard with the High Commissioner of Human Rights in the United Nations, and that's the route. Yesterday, one of the deputies in Venezuela in his intervention approved to go that way. So I think that's going to be the right path in order to reach justice and achieve a decision about Venezuela, which, by the way, is not just about what has gone on in the last 60 days. What has gone on in Venezuela has been happening for a long time and we are waiting for justice. People need justice. Justice is the breath of the people saying [The witness spoke in Spanish].
The Chair: One final question: President Chavez came into power talking about supporting the people against what he called the elitists who controlled the land and resources, and he certainly delivered because he had the oil. Now there is no medicine, no food. They're having to go to Colombia, et cetera. Has the mood changed because the Chavez regime still had cachet even a year ago with certain people in Venezuela, saying, "We don't like the government, they're not helping us, but we don't like the alternative?'' Has the opposition been able to give a message that resonates with the people who were so disenchanted before?
Ms. Torres: I think so. That's one of the reasons we have so many people on the streets. Before, I would hear in Canada that the people going to protest were the middle class, to defend their own way of life or their own cause. What is happening right now is that the lower income people are in the worst condition ever. Their situation now is a lot worse than it was before Chavez came in and they have realized that. They realized it was not the United States. A lot of people complaining, the Chavez government keeps on complaining about the Americans, imperialism.
Now they realize it's mismanagement, corruption, criminal activities, you name it. They are on the streets right now and they want a change. Maybe they don't want to go back to what it was before Chavez arrived, so those are things that need to be spoken in the future, things we have to work on. There is no doubt about that. Pretty much their own people have switched.
Even within the government, three judges, I think, are beginning to speak against the government, something that was not heard of. One of them came up yesterday or this week saying something along the line that for many years their votes had been manipulated. So they're beginning to lose the fear.
Mrs. Ortega, the Attorney General, has come against their own government. The Chavistas are beginning to speak out and say, "This is not working, this is not constitutional; we cannot go where they want to take us.'' So, yes, I do believe that they are encountering opposition within their own supporters.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for coming.
Ms. Torres: May I add one more thing? Somebody asked about what Canada can do and what difference it makes right now. Mr. Farnsworth had two very good ideas.
Last month, Ms. Lilian Tintori said that in Venezuela these people are putting their life on the line. They feel isolated because they see the day-to-day struggles, whether to buy food, protest, go to work or feed the kids. It is a struggle every day. It invigorates them to know or at least gives them a little bit of peace to know that they have support and that other people are listening to their issues. When we as Canadians support them or raise our voices or go on TV or the news, they feel like they're not alone.
Thank you.
The Chair: Ms. Torres, thank you. That was a good note to end on. I think by having these hearings, we are expressing solidarity with the people of Venezuela. We wish that the situation changes. I think it's our responsibility to see that our government and our Parliament can do what we can to support the people in a very difficult time.
Thank you Ms. Torres and Mr. Viera-Blanco for coming to the committee.
Senators we will reconvene tomorrow. We will have one panel on the continuing issue of Venezuela and then we will go in camera on our report on Bill C-44.
(The committee adjourned.)