By Angelica Quesada and Micheál Ó Tuathail for MINGAS-FTA

At this point of the ratification process of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, there are at least two indisputable facts, regardless of one’s position on the deal.

1. Canada’s policy of ‘re-engagement’ with Latin America has traced a new path for Canada’s international policy since 2007, and Canada has all the economic and political recognition required to be a mayor player in the region.

However, the definition of ‘re-engagement’ has not been made clear to the Canadian public. Since 2007, Mr. Harper’s government has outlined re-engagement as the negotiation of 'free trade agreements' with several countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

From a purely economistic perspective, Canada has deepened its relations with Latin America; but is this model of ‘free trade’ the only way? Are there not other possibilities for Canadian engagement, ways beyond satisfying the needs of the Canadian and Latin American business elite alone?

2. But the displacement and systematic violence inflicted against workers, Indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, human rights activists, and any other expression of organized civil society are everyday realities in Colombia.

The national army and politicians, most of whom are close to the government, have been implicated in the systematic violation of human rights and the creation of alliances with illegal armed groups that violate human rights.

The marriage of paramilitary death squads to the Uribe government is a fact of Colombia’s current political reality. The violation of human rights by the government and its allies have gotten worse, even as the country is scrutinized during the FTA negotiation processes.

Even though the above statements are well understood by any informed observer of Canadian foreign policy and of Colombia's recent history, divergent conceptions of the way they interrelate seem to be at the core of the kinds of misunderstandings and fallacies that are evidently pervading the halls of Canada's House of Commons, particularly in the Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet meetings and even in the opposition Liberal Party Caucus meetings.

The Prime Minister’s Office has stated, with neither substantiated evidence nor widely recognized precedent, that 'free trade' will give leverage to the Canadian Government in urging the Colombian Government to change its attitude towards addressing the country’s human rights situation.

Like dealing with an unruly child, the Canadian government claims to be using the FTA as a carrot, a reward to the Colombian government, giving it economic incentives for good behavior. The assumption is that a stick will replace the carrot should the Colombian government step out of line and further worsen its attacks on its own people.

Let's follow the myth further. Through a ‘free trade agreement,’ the Canadian Government and its multinationals also claim to bring 'modern' economic ‘development’ and jobs. They also claim that this will have a direct positive impact in the human rights situation.

If the FTA is not approved, the only option Harper’s office sees to make a positive impact in Colombia country is to isolate it. Engaging or isolating is presented as the key dichotomy.

One can accept all the above claims as true only if one disregards Canada’s refusal to criticize, much less isolate, the Colombian regime, even when the human rights situation has been impossible to ignore.

Regardless of the factual and evidential problems associated with Canada’s ‘Colombia myths,’ let us explore the reality of the assumptions, accepting for a moment the dichotomy presented in Ottawa and putting aside the egregious assumptions in which it is rooted.

• It has been claimed that the presence of multinational companies is related to economic development and job creation. The environment for foreign direct investment in Colombia has been notoriously tied to ‘security concerns’ and the systematic displacement of people from land for megaprojects. This is what the conflict is for. Granted, there are examples where Canadian companies have not hired paramilitaries to clear the land of people, but have these led to any sort of economic security for the communities most affected?

  Colombia Goldfields, a Canadian mining company, through its subsidiary, Compañía Mineras de Caldas, has sought to extract gold from roughly 32,000 hectares of land in Marmato, a small Colombian town. Marmato, declared a historical site in 1982, was sold in bits and pieces to the mining company between 2006 and 2008. The families that lived in the 350 houses that made up the town are being unwillingly ‘relocated’ (that is, forcibly displaced) outside the area.

  The assumption was that the open-pit mining project would provide ‘legitimate’ employment for the miners who were now unemployed because of the project. However, citing the ‘economic downturn,’ the company has abandoned Marmato, leaving its mills unoperable, the small mines shut down. This is what is to come.

  Marmato is a ghost town, a town without people. There has been no accountability for the failed project, and the government has been unwilling to help the community recover from the disaster created by Canadian economic development and job creation.

• It is also claimed that increased foreign investment from multinational firms will improve human rights conditions.If economic development under the free trade model has not created jobs, it is difficult to understand how it might improve respect for human rights in a country suffering from systematic human rights violations. This logic has been proven wrong in Colombia time and time again.

  Clear examples are the cases of Chiquita Banana and Dole, two major multinational involved in the global banana industry. Chiquita Banana was proven guilty of financing paramilitary death squads in Colombia, a guns for bananas scandal with deadly consequences.

  The penalty was a $25 million fine paid to the US government, nothing to the victims and their families, nothing but the acceptance that their loved ones were murdered in the interest of cheap bananas grown, processed and transported in clave conditions and under the threat of a gun. Today, Dole faces similar allegations in US courts. While the multinational banana industry has created jobs in Colombia, it has done so through violence and with horrific labor conditions.

  The connection between such models of economic development implemented in Colombia with the promotion and protection of human rights is unclear. The FTAs are concerned only with the right to profit.

• Canada's 'engagement' with Latin America, and especially with respect to Colombia, as some kind of alternative for the hemisphere is misleading. There is a need to rethink the meaning of engagement with other countries. Being aware of the Canadian economic and political advantages in the international arena will help to establish fair and responsible relations with its neighbors.

  International pressure can help to force the Colombian government and other political actors to engage in respecting the right to life, organization, free speech, among other rights that are frequently violated in the South American country.

  However, this pressure must be based in empowering Colombians and their communities and civil society organizations, those who know their situation best and are in the best position to prescribe solutions to the problems they face.

  To date, there is not a free trade agreement on the planet that has significantly and permanently empowered the marginalized, displaced, and exploited. Rather, the FTAs have locked in such unfair relations of power.

This is not the time to sign an FTA with Colombia

Under the grip of Uribismo, the government of Colombia cannot guarantee the regulation of multinational corporations to respect human rights when that same government has been involved in some of the most horrific crimes experienced in the country, all to ‘cleanse’ the country of opposition to the model imposed by the FTA.

Applying in Colombia the model of the free trade agreements, in which rights are given to multinationals and regulation is placed on the government’s ability to improve the lot of average citizens, will only make a bad situation worse, turning more and more of the country over to the private sector and leaving less and less for the people who live on and from the land.

Aware of this situation, it is the Canadian government that will be held responsible and complicit in the consequences should it ratify this agreement with Colombia. From those who know Colombia well, Canada would be well advised not to follow this path and support the current Colombian government. To the contrary, it should condemn the regime and roll back the red carpet.