The Maple: “Canadian Government Stonewalls Questions About Peru Arms Export Permit”

Published by Brent Patterson on

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The Maple reports:

The federal government is refusing to say whether or not it made the decision to green-light nearly $1 million in new military exports to Peru during a period of brutal crackdowns by the country’s government against Indigenous-led protesters.

Documents obtained by Amnesty International Canada through an access to information (ATIP) request and shared with The Maple show that Global Affairs Canada (GAC) authorized new exports of military goods to Peru valued at $960,000 for a three-year period starting on February 6 this year.

Kathy Price, a campaigner with Amnesty International Canada, explained: “There’s no post-shipment controls. There’s no post-shipment monitoring. There’s no on site verification to ensure that the Canadian exports were not used in the repression.”

As explained by arms monitoring expert Kelsey Gallagher in a previous interview with The Maple, Canada’s export control categories provide only broad strokes about the kinds of military goods being sold to foreign governments and their militaries.

That concern was also shared by Brent Patterson, director of Peace Brigades International – Canada.

“One of the many troublesome aspects of this, always, is the lack of transparency,” Patterson told The Maple. “I think we’re intentionally left in the dark in terms of trying to piece things together.”

“It’s just fundamentally inappropriate and wrong that we don’t have this information as a matter of public record.”

He added that it is concerning to see no sign of there having been a pause on military exports to review such sales to Peru in light of the brutal crackdowns.

Patterson agrees that GAC’s claims about the robustness of its vetting process are dubious.

“We’re assured that there’s this kind of robust assessment beforehand that we don’t see, that surely cannot be all that robust when we see the countries or the situations in terms of where Canadian-made weapons are sold,” he explained.

To read the full article by Alex Cosh, click here.


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