Canadian military hardware good for Colombia: Envoy

The federal government's plan to sell military hardware to Colombia will further stabilize the country and help its economy grow, says the Colombian ambassador to Canadá.

But a conflict prevention expert based in the South American country says Canadá should insist that human rights monitoring accompany any future sales of assault rifles or armoured vehicles to Colombia.

A government notice posted in january said that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird recommended an order amending the Automatic Firearms Country Control List (AFCCL) to create "new market opportunities" for Canadian companies to sell automatic weapons to the Colombian military. 

Baird's office has subsequently said that the list was actually amended to sell armoured personnel carriers to the Colombian military. 

Colombia is in the process of trying to formally end its 49 year old civil war through ongoing negotiations with leftist rebels.

Ambassador Nicolás Lloreda said in a recent interview that his country has benefited from the military support it has been receiving since the late 1.990s from the United States to fight drug traffickers and eradicate coca fields.

"The reason that Colombia is a much safer place, the reason that our democracy and economy is thriving, is in big part we were able to professionalize our armed forces," said Lloreda.

"The Canadian government has expressed interest in doing something similar, to much less of a scale, and this is what we're exploring right now."

Canada has completed a free trade deal with Colombia that was opposed by critics, who argued the deal didn't give enough consideration to human rights issues.

Javier Ciurlizza, the Bogotá based Americas program director for the International Crisis Group, said in a recent interview that although there's nothing inherently wrong with Canadá deciding to do business with the Colombian military, it should also be supporting efforts to monitor for human rights violations.