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Human Rights Strategy Paper
We are dedicated to promoting human rights in the Americas and were participants
in the human rights working group of the second Latin American Solidarity
Conference (LASC II)
I. Statement of Understanding:
We believe that:
The economic order of corporate globalization creates an environment
that fosters grievous human rights abuses in the Americas, including but
not to limited to cultural rights, indigenous rights, land rights, women’s
rights, labor rights, economic rights, environmental rights, political
rights, and children’s rights.
The order of corporate globalization moves capital from Latin America
and the Caribbean to the United States and other wealthy nations. To achieve
this economic order, multinational corporations exploit the natural resources
and peoples of the Americas. As part of the implementation corporate globalization,
multinational corporations and International Financial Institutions also
pressure governments to exploit the resources of their countries and their
citizens.
Corporate globalization is levied on the peoples of the Americas through
military enforcement. This military enforcement includes comprehensive
military aid packages and the training of Latin American and Caribbean
soldiers by U.S. military forces. Graduates of U.S. military training
at the School of the Americas and other U.S. military training programs
have carried out terrible human rights abuses.
The rise and support of corporate globalization is fueled by the excessive
consumption of the wealthy. Corporate globalization has spawned increased
violations of economic and other rights committed against the poor in
the Americas. These violations are intrinsically linked with violations
being committed against poor people of all colors in the U.S.
Despite wide spread support for corporate globalization
by some sectors, we stand committed to promoting and defending all human
rights of all peoples. Certain sectors of society suffer multiple violations
of their rights. Human rights have both individual and collective elements.
We are gravely concerned with the persistent and serious human rights
abuses perpetrated throughout the Americas.
II. Statements of principle
We believe that:
Human rights abuses and those who perpetrate them must be condemned.
All actors (local, national, and international; private, inter-governmental,
and governmental) must be held accountable for those actions and policies
that contribute directly or indirectly to human rights violations. These
actors must not be granted amnesty or immunity for their crimes and should
be subject to legal prosecution either in national or international courts
of law. All forms of impunity must end.
Those who choose to dissent from and resist corporate globalization have
a fundamental right to do so, and this right must be protected, The criminalization,
abuse, and oppression of individuals and organizations that dissent from
and resist corporate globalization must end.
Significant attention must be given to the negative impact of poverty
on all the peoples of the Americas and to the causal relationship between
global economic policies and the growing disparity in wealth between different
classes and sectors of the same society and between nations.
We understand the connections between growing poverty in Latin America
and the Caribbean and the United States. We should support direct relationships
between the poor in the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean. We should
support those organizing for economic and other human rights throughout
the Americas. We see this as supporting the guarantee for human rights
for all peoples in the Americas.
Economic policies that impose conditions of poverty and deprive citizens
of basic needs are violations of human rights.
We must condemn all U.S. training of military and security forces in
the Americas, all U.S. military aid in the Americas, and their relationship
to the escalating militarization of the Americas. We call for an end to
the militarization of the Americas, an end to all U.S. training of military
and security forces in the Americas, and an end to all U.S. military aid
in the region.
We need to understand and document the ways in which corporate globalization
affects human rights today and find ways to oppose and change the systems
of oppression.
We call on governments to implement and abide by national, regional,
hemispheric, and international laws and accords that protect human rights.
We must identify alternative policies on a global basis that promote
human rights in Americas and negate the negative influence of corporate
globalization.
We must improve international solidarity and create or strengthen mechanisms
to protect human rights defenders and those who dissent from and resist
corporate globalization.
We need to increase awareness and advocacy between individuals and communities
in the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean about corporate globalization’s
impact on human rights.
The human rights working group met and discussed the pre-conference document
heard presentations from human rights workers from Chile, Guatemala, and
Colombia. Then we discussed obstacles to developing human rights solidarity
in Latin America and the Caribbean and opportunities and concrete actions
that can be taken to overcome barriers.
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Summarization
of presentations by three human rights workers
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Mario, exiled from Chile and
living in the U.S.
In October 1998, the detention
of General Pinochet in London brought mixed feelings: sadness and
the return of memories of those who had been killed or disappeared.
It was a victory, however, for those detained, tortured, disappeared,
and killed. The international network of human rights was strengthened
and solidarity groups were reactivated. Little by little the U.S.
role in the 1973 coup in Chile and during the Pinochet dictatorship
is coming out. CIA and State department documents are being declassified.
On a national and international level torturers and human rights
abusers know that they can’t operate with impunity. The example
of Pinochet shows the truth of what happened in terms of human rights
violations. Holding the perpetrators responsible, bringing them
to trial and justice, and finding the truth can happen. This breaks
the power of impunity.
Carlos, exiled from
Guatemala and living in the U.S.
The 36-year war in Guatemala
had some of the hardest and most brutal human rights violations
in the history of the Western Hemisphere. The REMHI report had a
problem in that it listed many cases of human rights violation form
the war. It is hard to read for some people. The hardest thing is
that the repercussions of the violations continue today. Everyone
knows that Bishop Gerardi coordinated the REMHI report and was assassinated.
One victory is the hope that Rios Montt will be tried before the
Supreme Court in Guatemala. In the country death threats, people
being detained, and lots of violence continues. While the military
war is over and it is four years after the peace accords were signed,
the agreements are just a piece of paper. We are far away from achieving
the goals the accords laid out. Guatemala is still in a process
of democratizing. A lot of solidarity and support is needed in continuing
to look for the truth.
Eugenio, from Colombia
It is a critical time
right now in Colombia. There has been a lot of systematic violence
in the last few years. The judicial system has added to the repression
over the last 40 years. Many defenders of human rights in Colombia
are in jail. The state and security forces use the strategy of paramilitary
groups to commit human rights abuses. It is a dirty war strategy
and the goal is to leave Colombia with no civil society: unions,
women’s groups, peasant groups, and human rights defenders. State
security organizations and the Colombia military commit human rights
violations under the guise of paramilitaries. These groups have
been created by the Colombian military, big business, and multinational
corporations to destroy the social fabric of Colombia. The paramilitaries
have eliminated more people in a short time than the leftist guerrillas
have in many years.
There is no guarantee
for the defense and protection of well being in the part of the
state for human rights workers and activists. Narcotrafficking and
multinational corporations just perpetuate the problems of human
rights abuses in Colombia. The money for the U.S. backed "Plan
Colombia" goes mostly to the military and security forces.
The goal of the plan and support is to strengthen and prop up the
state in Colombia. International human rights accompaniment in Colombia
is vital at this time.
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Some barriers to human rights work to keep in mind and overcome.
* Impunity still exists.
* Judicial systems can be corrupt.
* It is hard to integrate democratization in a country with a social
fabric destroyed by conflict and human rights violations.
* Links between social political human rights violations.
* Militarization.
* Forced displacement of civilian populations.
* The bias of the corporate media. It puts out distorted information
and disinformation.
The economic interests of multinational corporations.
* The superficiality of peace accords. These agreements may end military
fighting, but not address the structural causes of the conflicts. Post-peace
accord societies like Guatemala and El Salvador are very violent.
* Solidarity movements that existed in countries with armed struggles
can ebb after the military conflict is over.
* Human rights violators are still in power in some countries or have
come back into power.
* There is a still a cover up of the historic and current U.S. role in
systematic human rights violations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
* Human rights violations also happen in the U.S. and Canada.
* The issue of human rights abuses is not unique to a certain country
and we need to think of the whole hemisphere.
* The use of paramilitaries is a policy of low-intensity warfare. It
is a strategy sponsored, backed, and designed by the U.S.
* The awareness of human rights violations committed against immigrants
and organizing to stop them is important.
* We need to think not just of the legal political type of human rights
violations, but also the social and economic violation of human rights.
Labor rights violations, denying the right to organize and privatization
of state services like health care and education are human rights violations.
* The National security doctrine (courtesy of the U.S.) trains Latin
American militaries to commit human rights violations.
Solutions to the above obstacles:
* International solidarity.
* International accompaniment.
* Organizing across borders and cross-border solidarity.
* The power of organized social movements or civil society to combat
human rights violations.
* Positive use of the media to internationalize the problems and focus
on emblematic cases.
* Demanding declassification of government (especially U.S.) documents.
* A visible opposition to human rights violations.
* Positive use of the Internet.
* Look for unified themes to organize around.
* Pressure for real implementation of international human rights conventions.
* Political pressure on international organizations and human rights
commissions to take actions to defend human rights.
The issue of visibility was important to the Central American solidarity
and anti-interventions movements of the 1980s. People were out in the
streets protesting. This had an impact and had concrete results in stopping
direct U.S. military intervention in Central America. U.S. foreign policy
was checked and countered to some extent. The U.S. government feared and
still fears this "Vietnam syndrome." We need to mobilize people
now around the issue of Colombia and Plan Colombia. We should make links
to the growing anti-globalization movement, as the solidarity perspective
we bring from Latin America and the Caribbean and our years of joint work
and strategizing with our partners in the hemisphere are powerful and
positive examples.
We should look for ways to collectively gather and disseminate information
on all of our work in the various countries we focus on. We need a structure
for emergency response actions. We also could use this clearinghouse for
cultural and structural questions. This could then let us decide what
are the violations we all want to work on together how to implement this.
We need to reach out to and communicate with people who don’t already
agree with us. We have to reach them via the Internet and other cheap
mediums. If we do this we should use popular education tactics. We have
to communicate to the people we want to in a way that’s accessible to
them. An example is not using neoliberal jargon or assuming everyone knows
what neoliberalism is. This means we have to stop just preaching to the
converted.
Statements of Action:
In January of 2003 there will be a march starting in Brazil and making
its way through many countries in the Americas. It will focus on the themes
of neoliberalism and its savage effects on communities.
The march plans to end on the US-Mexican border by the Rio Grande. Global
Exchange is interested in being involved with this march in the U.S. and
wants to know if U.S. based groups are interested in coordinating or participating.
We should make use of the Indy media organizations. Use them to get information
and our message distributed widely.
We could develop strategies to focus public attention on human rights
issues in the Americas. One tactic would be to focus on several key human
rights cases.
We support the International Criminal Court. We support the formation
of a U.S. Truth Commission to investigate the U.S. government’s role in
human rights violations in the Americas.
We should have more connections, information sharing, and development
of shared priorities among the organizations that participate in LASC.
On May 2nd there is an international tribunal in Parana, Brazil.
It is linked to a massacre committed against the landless movement, MST,
by state security forces in 1996.
In early August there are three days of global action sponsored by the
Kensington Welfare Rights Union. We should send them our information about
our struggles and organizing. This will be posted on their web site and
be accessible on the Internet.
We could hold a day of national action with the following demands. No
to FTAA, no to militarization in Latin America, and yes to human rights.
The annual World Bank and IMF meetings are being held in Washington between
September 28th and October 4th. There are going
to be protests. As LASC or groups with that structure we should organize
people in our groups to go and participate. We could demand:
1-No to FTAA. We will defeat it.
2-No to militarization, especially U.S. militarization in Latin America
and the Caribbean. Stop Plan Colombia.
There will also be a day of protest directed against the World
Bank and IMF on April 29, 2001. We encourage groups and individuals
connected to the LASC to participate.
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