By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela- Venezuela is strongly denying the findings of a new report on human rights from the Organization of American States. The report was released earlier this week by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and made findings that the Venezuelan government often intimidates or punishes citizens based on their political affiliation. The Venezuelan government claims that the Commission distorted statistics to construct a pattern of political repression that does not actually exist.

The report was compiled by seventy-five jurists and rights activists from Antigua, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and the United States. The report specifically finds that democracy is in danger in Venezuela because the state punishes critics, including anti-government television stations, demonstrators, and opposition politicians who advocate an alternative form of government.

The report also states that “the commission considers alarming the number of cases of extra-judicial execution; torture; forced disappearances; death threats; abuse of authority; and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment meted out by agents of the Venezuelan state.” Human rights workers and journalists were among those most affected by the “pattern of impunity.”

Venezuelan Ombudswoman Gabriela Ramirez told members of the press that the report “attempts once again to discredit and weaken the democratic institutions of the state.” She further criticised the OAS for a lack of impartiality demonstrated by taking statistics out of context and using others selectively. Ramirez maintains that the data actually shows that human rights violations have decreased in Venezuela.

The report acknowledges that the Chavez government has observed citizens’ economic, social, and cultural rights. However, the commission “emphasizes that observance of other fundamental rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of realizing economic, social, and cultural rights in Venezuela.”

For more information, please see:

AP-Chavez Rejects Report Citing Human Rights Violations-26 February 2010

CNN-Venezuelan Official Disputes Report on Human Rights Abuses-25 February 2010

Washington Post-OAS Report Criticizes Venezuela-25 February 2010

Organization of American States-IACHR Publishes Report on Venezuela– 24 February 2010

By Ryan C. Kossler                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – Amnesty International reports that the indigenous population of Colombia is at risk of disappearing.  Increasing abuses and a lack of government protection has forced thousands of indigenous Indians to flee their homes.  Amnesty International credits this influx in dispersion of nearly 1.4 million Indians to the changing nature of the four decade conflict between the military, leftist rebels, armed gangs, and drug traffickers.

Since the Colombian military increased its offensive against the rebels, the conflict has moved away from the urban centers where the conflicts originally occurred, and more toward remote rural and jungle areas where many indigenous groups live in designated reservations.  The shift in the fighting has increased the indigenous groups’ exposure to attack by armed groups who operate on their lands.  Marcelo Pollack of Amnesty International said, “part of the reason for the increase in human rights violations is to do with the way the conflict in Colombia has changed.  The conflict has been pushed to the margins, to rural areas where many indigenous peoples live.”

According the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), 114 indigenous people were killed last year.  This is a forty percent increase as compared to 2008 figures.  ONIC estimates that armed groups have killed more than 1,400 indigenous Colombians over the last decade.  Right wing paramilitary groups, drug gangs, and Colombia’s security forces have all been accused of committing human rights violations against indigenous tribes such as kidnappings and sexual abuse of women.

Colombia is home to one of the world’s largest displaced population, at an estimated 3.2 million internally displaced people.  According to the U.N., although indigenous groups make up around 3.4 percent of Colombia’s population, they account for seven percent of the country’s total displaced population.  The U.N. estimates that nearly 20,000 indigenous people were uprooted in Colombia last year.  The most recent threat contributing to displacement of indigenous people has been the danger of rebels kidnapping children to fight in their dwindling ranks.

For more information, please see:

Amnesty International – Indigenous Peoples in Colombia, Facts and Figures – 23 February 2010

Colombia Reports – Amnesty International is too Critical – 23 February 2010

Reuters – Colombia’s Indians Face Worsening Human Rights Situation – 23 February 2010

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina- Recent increases in food prices, coupled with shortages of electricity and other outages, have led to a dramatic increase in public discontent with the government. Increases in beef prices, Argentina’s dietary staple, has led to numerous protests by farmers.

Other governmental failures allegedly include the lack of progress on poverty reduction programs for Argentina’s outlying areas. Additionally, the public is angry about charges that the President’s spouse and former president, Nestor Kirchner was involved in insider trading while buying $2 million in U.S. currency soon after the 2008 financial crisis.

“Most of the Argentine population is paying for the Kirchners’ mistakes.” said Eduardo Buzzi, head of the Argentine Agricultural Federation and an outspoken critic of the government. Farmers are worried because many producers have allegedly lost their livestock and have had to give away their cows due to drought and because “someone from the government decided what the highest prices would be and forced them to sell their cattle.”

Farmers deny the government allegation that they have been holding back on livestock sales to fatten their cattle and create a shortage of beef. Farmers say that the problem dates back to when the president’s husband ruled the country from May 2003 to December 2007. “Nestor Kirchner is responsible of endless mistakes in economic and productive matters.”

The president of one farming cooperative alleged that the government is “trying to blame someone, and attack the weakest link, in this case the farming producers.” Criticisms of the government have also reportedly come from within the government, though that has been weak due to “Kirchners’ sensitivity to any criticism.”

Close to six hundred farmers rode their tractors in a protest march in central Argentina to demand changes to government farming policies. The leader of the Agrarian Federation said that policies of the government are planned to concentrate production in a few hands. Groups are pushing to toughen the stance of the agricultural sector by “putting a stop to sales if that becomes necessary.”

There have been eight trade strikes in Argentina’s rural sector this year in protest of the government since it tried, in March 2008, to establish adjustable taxes on exports of soybeans, corn, wheat, and sunflower seeds.

For more information, please see:

Latin American Herald Tribune-Argentine Farmers Protest With Tractors-21 February 2010

Meat Trade Daily News- Argentina- Farmers Promise Drastic Measures Against Government-18 February 2010

UPI-Argentina’s Fernandez, Farmers Locked in Row Over Beer Prices-11 February 2010

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-More than sixty people were injured on Monday of this week when Argentine police moved excavating equipment through a  crowd of protestors and into an open pit mine in Catamarca. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, including women and children.  Fifty people were arrested. A judge has now ordered that work on the mine stop until calm is restored to the area.

The protesters included activists from the Citizens Assembly of Andalgalá, who have been protesting the Canadian owned gold mine for two months. Members of the Citizens Assembly claim that one of them members has been missing since yesterday, after being the target of death threats and police harassment just before the protests.

The protesters argue that the “open pit” mining project, which will include gold and copper will cause pollution. Anti-mining protesters in Argentina have managed to block numerous mining developments by lobbying local government to prohibit mining in certain protected areas. Mining is Argentina’s largest industry.

Concerns about Argentine police’s treatment of the public have been raised due to the lack of reform since the dictatorship period. Over 9,000 officers in the current Argentine police force were working during the dictatorship, with over 3,000 in clandestine detention centers. Rights groups argue that nothing has been done to ensure that the police forces undergo the same democratic transition that the rest of Argentina has.

For more information, please see:

Rueters-Argentine Judge Halts Yamana Mine Works Due to Unrest-18 February 2010

Free Speech Radio-Police Fire on Anti-Mining Protestors in Argentina-16 February 2010

NACLA-Argentina:Impunity is Not Just a Memory-15 February 2010

 

By Ryan C. Kossler

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry was sentenced to thirty years in prison on Wednesday for leading a military coup in Uruguay in 1973 and for nine forced disappearances and two homicides.  Eighty-one year old Bordaberry was sentenced by Judge Mariana Motta for violating the constitution by shutting down Congress fifteen months after taking office in early 1972 and of rights violations in the other two cases involving disappearances and murders.

Bordaberry, who was already serving a thirty year sentence under house arrest, was first arrested in 2006 for the 1976 slayings in Buenos Aires of exiled Uruguayan lawmakers Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutierrez Ruiz and Uruguayan leftist militants Rosario Barredo and William Whitelaw.  Bordaberry testified that he only heard about the disappearances twenty years after his presidency and that while in office, he kept himself removed from the actions carried out by the military. 

According to the prosecutor, Ana Maria Tellechea, this does not appear to be the case.  Tellechea said, “it has been clearly shown that in the period from the coup until Bordaberry was removed by the military there were hundreds of disappearances and torture-related deaths carried out by those at the head of [Bordaberry’s] dictatorial process.”

Attorney Hebe Martines Burle, who filed the charges against Bordaberry, said that even though the sentences will not affect Bordaberry’s status in terms of years in detention, it has enormous symbolic importance for Uruguay.  Burle said “This doesn’t change the time of reclusion at all and that’s not our concern.  The issue for us is emblematic, symbolic, that when someone violates the constitution, when a coup occurs, eventually you’re going to pay.”

Bordaberry is the second Uruguayan dictator sentenced to a lengthy prison term in the last four months.  Gregorio Alvarez was jailed for twenty-five years last October for murder and rights violations during his 1981-1985 rule.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Former Uruguay Dictator Bordaberry gets ‘30yrs Jail – 11 February 2010

America’s Quarterly – Former Uruguayan Dictator Sentenced – 11 February 2010

Latin American Herald Tribune – Former Uruguayan Dictator Gets 30-Year Prison Sentence for Coup  – 11 February 2010