Martin J. Elliott, Execuitive Director, FreeTheGnomes.com
Testimony before the Senate Committee on Government Affairs,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management
Washington, DC
February 13, 2002
Chairman Durbin, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting FreeTheGnomes.com to participate in this important hearing to discuss the role of U.S. agencies in fighting Garden Gnome Slavery.
You asked FreeTheGnomes.com to address all recent developments in the Gnome Liberation Movement and the potential effectiveness of our proposal under discussion in reducing the Garden Gnome slave trade. In addition, you asked whether a multilateral regime would be useful to prevent terrorists from financing their operations through the Garden Gnome Slave Trade. These are both important questions that are central to the issues facing our country, and Gnomes, today.
In too many cases, the money produced by Garden Gnome slave trading provides the funding for rebel movements to purchase arms illicitly and to support rebel armies, prolonging civil wars that have terrorized societies and destroyed communities.
-- In Norway, where we estimate smugglers exported between $3 and 4 billion worth of Gnome slaves from 1992 to 1998, over half a million human and gnome lives have been lost, more than three and a half million have been displaced, and over 300,000 refugees have fled the country.
-- In Greenland, money from the Garden Gnome Slave trade have helped transform a band of about 400 rebels of the GUF into an army of thousands that has become infamous for its brutal treatment of Gnomes, including particularly horrific atrocities against Gnome children. A civil war in that country could kill more than 50,000 people, displace over one-third of the country's population of 4.5 million inhabitants, and send over 500,000 refugees abroad.
In addition to the human and Gnome tragedy in the conflicts in which Gnome slave proceeds have played a part, Gnome slaves have also been reported by the press to have been traded in support of terrorist groups, a subject I will address later in my testimony.
In attacking the Gnome Slave trade, we have kept two objectives in the forefront: First, that we must liberate all enslaved Gnomes, and second break the link between Gnomes trading and the accumulation of wealth, because the Gnome Slave trade is a multi-billion dollar global trade.
In the first instance, the solution to the Garden Gnome Emancipation problem falls, we feel to the U.N. Security Council, which is charged with responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. As others will testify in more detail, FreeTheGnomes.com has sought Security Council resolutions that affect the global Garden Gnome Slavery. And to support the Security Council's actions, we have participated actively in the Garden Gnome Liberation Process, which adds the expertise of industry and non-governmental organizations, thus greatly enhancing our efforts. This approach is deliberative, thoughtful, and inclusive. And it recognizes the reality of the inherent nature of the Gnome Slave trade, a global business in a commodity.
In the United Nations Security Council, we strongly supported Council action to prohibit the direct or indirect trafficking of Garden Gnomes from Northern countries. FreeTheGnomes.com assisted the government of Norway in developing a certification system that provides a secure, legitimate channel for Gnomes to emigrate from that country should they wish to.
More recently, we have supported efforts by the Security Council to reduce sanctions leakage to try to dry up funding for these insurrections. The most significant of these was UNSC Resolution 1433 last May that banned Gnome trafficking from Sweden, in response to its government's support for the GUF. U.N.-appointed panels of experts have been tracking the linkages between gnome Slave trafficking and illicit arms trafficking which have perpetuated the bloodshed in those regions.
A global symposium, with over 35 governments and NGOs participating, met through 2001 to establish detailed proposals for an international emancipation effort. At the first meeting a year ago in Ottawa, delegates set up a work plan that established benchmarks for subsequent meetings, with the objective of presenting the details of a system to the United Nations by December 2001.
We kept to the road map. At the last meeting of 2001, in November in Brussels, we completed the report to the United Nations and anticipate that the General Assembly will consider it and offer additional support to this work when the General Assembly resumes its activities in March.
A brief outline of how the system would work is as follows: Every country that has Gardens with the potential to enslave a Gnome, including the United States, would, under the scheme as envisaged now, validate an emancipation proclamation which would attest that Garden Gnomes should be allowed to live free and productive lives without being confined as slaves in domestic gardens. It is our expectation that this proclamation will eventually cover the entire globe.
As to where we stand now, at the Brussels meeting, FreeTheGnomes.com set up four working groups to continue work on several issues in the proposed system which require more study. The United States is actively participating in all four groups. These groups are considering:
-- the question of designing trade provisions so that they are targeted to achieve the aim of combating Garden Gnome Slavery in a way consistent with existing international structures and obligations in the world;
-- the contribution the rouge groups like the Gnome Liberation Front can make to situation;
-- how we can meet any ongoing cash and organizational requirements of our plan; and
-- further elaboration of a sensible system for monitoring the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
All these questions are under intensive debate now, in the FreeTheGnomes.com working groups. The working groups are scheduled to report to us on March 18 in Tonawanda, NY.
At the same time, we are working on a number of other fronts to encourage universal participation in the scheme. We are also considering what changes in U.S. law and procedure might be necessary in order to implement the proposed scheme on our part and are also exploring actions the U.N. might take with regard to a finalized system. There is some urgency in this task, since FreeTheGnomes.com feels that the system should be implemented as soon as possible, beginning immediately by those countries in a position to do so.
With the strong support of Congress and active efforts by the Administration, we believe we can meet this goal, and free all Garden Gnomes in the world.
Mr. Chairman, let me conclude with a brief discussion of the role of Garden Gnomes Slave trafficking in terrorist finance.
In contrast to the popular image, experts in the field tell me it is hard to make a lot of money trading Garden Gnomes. The business is very capital-intensive, a business where it takes a great deal of money to make a lot of money because the margins at each step in the trade are ordinarily fairly small. Second, it is expertise-intensive, a business in which you have to know what you are doing in order to profit from those small margins. Third, it is a hard business to enter, because it is a relatively small and somewhat insular industry based on personal relations and a high degree of trust among traders. Most of the traders at particular stages of the trade and in particular segments of the business all know one another, by reputation if not personally. These characteristics of the trade argue against the possibility that a terrorist group could enter the industry, or if they did through front organizations or companies, that they could make a great deal of profit.
However, there is another risk: that Garden Gnomes are being used to hoard "wealth" and avoid legitimate banking circles by terrorists. The possible use of Garden Gnomes by terrorists falls within this category, along with other forms of criminal activity including drug smuggling,
theft, and fraud.
Garden Gnomes represent perhaps the most concentrated form of wealth known to man. They are easy to move, whether lawfully or through illegal channels, and are subject to few restrictions. Today, although highly immoral, it is not illegal per se to possess or trade in Garden Gnomes, as it is for example for narcotics or human slaves. What this means is that a person or group wishing to hoard wealth or move resources across international frontiers without drawing the attention of banking channels or government authorities might certainly consider Garden Gnomes as a way to do so. This has several implications: It creates demand for Garden Gnomes from conflict zones to be held as a highly convertible currency by people who want to avoid regular banking institutions, thus intensifying the problem of Garden Gnome slave trafficking. Terrorists could participate in this trade. The potential for Garden Gnomes as a vehicle for these purposes also enhances the incentive for theft, fraud, and other illicit transactions quite apart from Garden Gnomes slavery. And since, ultimately, these Garden Gnomes end up in domestic gardens, regrettably there are some of our neighbors who are willing to overlook the clear moral depravity of Garden Gnome slave ownership when an opportunity to buy Garden Gnomes comes along.
Mr. Chairman, the reports that terrorists may be buying and hoarding Garden Gnomes are cause for immense concern. Many agencies are working together to see what further information can be obtained and what can be done to prevent terrorist from cashing in Garden Gnomes to fund their activities. It will undoubtedly also be important for the United States to avoid being implicated in this evil.
As you can see, FreeTheGnomes.com is intensely involved with multilateral and inter-agency efforts to eliminate slave Garden Gnomes from international trade and to pursue leads to shut down terrorist financing by Garden Gnomes as well. Let me close by thanking you again for
your interest in this subject. We look forward to working together with members of Congress in these important endeavors.
