Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In 2010, President Michael D. Higgins, then a Deputy, made a powerful intervention about the economic partnership agreements with African countries because they were threatening the lives of millions of African people, and we something similar here today with what is being proposed.

Over the past four to six years, individually and through the foreign affairs committee, I have met Colombian farmers, trade unionists and women community leaders, many linked to the Patriotic March. We met Judge Vargas, who is Vice President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, and Dr. Lozano, and the concerns were all the same, namely, the forced displacement, the evictions, the imprisonment, the torture, the assassinations and the murder. This FTA will exacerbate that further.

We have the figures. We know that Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. We know the numbers of trade unionists, farmers and community leaders who are in jail, including Huber Ballesteros. Their crime was speaking out on behalf of their communities for violations of the human rights of those communities. Those rights are the right to cultivate land, the right to look for better conditions, better money for their crops, and the right to meet and protest. We will have a pathetic one hour and 15 minute debate on this FTA, an agreement that should not be ratified because it is not protecting the workers, the poor and the rural Colombian and Peruvian communities.

I will give the House some examples. There has been massive expansion in the port of Buenaventura but tens of thousands of farmers were forced off their land outside the city to make way for the corporations. The port has been described as a place of misery and fear for mainly Afro-Colombian workers. There has been massive destruction of farmland for oil exploration in Putumayo and the protesting farmers and trade unions have been abducted, tortured and shot. The farmer protests in Catatumbo claimed many lives. In the hamlets of San Luis Arriba and Corinto, the peasants mobilised against plans to build a new military base on their land. The farming community in Pitalito, which has fertile land and water, were displaced, brought back and displaced again, all with the support of the Colombian army. That was done because the land was needed by a few major farmers in the area to cultivate palm trees for biofuels. This continues in spite of the land restitution law and the victims law. Last September was called Black September in Colombia when there were over 150 death threats against human rights, farmers, journalists, etc.

When the Colombian women I met were forced off their land, they made the point that on the land they had the ability to grow food for themselves and their communities. They were forced off the land into shanties in the towns and cities where they had to try to get money to buy food, which they had been producing. We know that it is through land, particularly smallholder agriculture, that the best hope for the future lies in terms of reducing poverty within those communities.

That has been pointed out by many people. This free trade agreement will further the process of land-grabbing by multinational companies. It will also destroy the environment through pollution. We know that Colombia has one of the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems. I accept that the peace process is very positive, but there should be no trade-off for concessions in the free trade agreement that benefit corporations and big businesses. More than 400 organisations and individuals in the US urged opposition to the ratification of the US-Colombia free trade agreement because it failed to recognise labour rights, human rights and the indigenous groups in Colombia. Since that agreement was enacted, Colombia's exports to the US have fallen by 15% and imports into Colombia from the US have increased by 15%. We know there is such depth and strength of opposition to this agreement on the part of farmers, women, workers, trade unionists, journalists and human rights defenders because it will increase poverty. How can Ireland ratify it? We know it is going to do so. If we were to slow or to delay the process, we would send a signal that we are serious about human rights positions. Ireland is a member of the UN Human Rights Council and has raised issues relating to Colombia at that forum. The Minister can ensure Irish companies working in Colombia are not guilty of human rights abuses of their workers.

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