EXPORT LAW ALLOWS SALE OF ARMS TO COLOMBIA:

Human Rights Groups Call On Government To Change Legislation

OTTAWA, Canada -- The federal government should close a loophole in its
export law that allowed 33 surplus Canadian Forces helicopters to be sold
to the Colombian military, human-rights groups said yesterday.

The choppers were sold for $20 million to the U.S. State Department, but
were refurbished with new weapons and passed on for use in the "Plan
Colombia" drug-interdiction effort.

Colombia's military has been repeatedly denounced for its abysmal record on
human rights and its tacit participation in the massacre of civilians by
paramilitary groups. An estimated 20,000 civilians have been killed in the
fighting.

The Bell CH135 helicopters were originally manufactured in Fort Worth,
Tex., and sold to the Canadian government. The choppers are similar to the
Bell 212 "Huey," the workhouse of the U.S. army in the Vietnam War.

The choppers were rendered surplus after about 20 years of service, then
sold to the State Department between 1998 and 2000. The deal was brokered
by Lancaster Aviation, a private aircraft reseller.

An export permit was not required because the helicopters were originally
sold to the U.S.

According to a report by the Inter-Church Committee of Human Rights in
Latin America, the twin-engine helicopters were retrofitted with machine
guns in the U.S. and sent to Colombian counter-narcotics battalions.

"Canadian military helicopters are now in hands of a military with a
well-established record of gross human-rights violations," said Keith
Rimstead of Amnesty International, one of the groups that came together to
denounce the deal.

He called on Ottawa to extend export controls to the final end-user of
military equipment, so that intermediaries in the U.S. cannot resell
weapons to countries with dubious human-rights records.

New Democratic MP Svend Robinson said yesterday that Canadians would be
"appalled" to learn that the Canadian government was complicit in supplying
helicopters to Plan Colombia.

"At the very least, the Canadian government was guilty of willful
blindness," he said.

"The obvious question is 'Why on Earth didn't the government ask the State
Department if they would be used in the military component of Plan Colombia?' "

He said the new revelations about the deal contradict the position of David
Kilgour, our secretary of state for Latin America, who told the Commons
last month, "Canada will not be providing any military equipment, as we
would be violating our non-involvement in the war in Colombia."

Kilgour said yesterday Canada could not control what the U.S. did with the
helicopters once the deal was completed. "When you sell something to
somebody, it's a definition of a sale that you lose the right to control
what is done to it," he said.

The human-rights groups also criticized the government for allowing
Newfoundland-based Vector Aerospace to sign a $6.5-million helicopter
servicing contract with the Colombian military.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
said the Vector deal did not require an export permit, because the
government was satisfied that no military equipment was involved.

Former Ontario premier David Peterson, a member of the Vector board of
directors, said this week that it was up to the federal government to vet
the deal. "They passed judgment on this.

"Everything was done according to the rules."