By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

RIO DE JANIERO, Brazil-Brazil’s police are being criticized for their response to a violent incident in a slum that left eight people dead. During a routine patrol in the city’s northern zone the police called in reinforcements after they came under fire.

The police response led to what is considered to be one of the worst outbreaks of violence since October, when drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter. Forty people were killed in the police response. Brazil’s bid for the 2016 Olympics was accepted just one week later.

The state governor ordered a police crackdown on gangs in the slums in mid-2007. Officers are accused of heavy handed tactics and of fueling the violence by forming off-duty vigilante squads that extort slum residents. The United Nations and human rights groups criticized Brazil’s aggressive policing.

Three people are killed in Brazil’s slums each day on average. Officials defend their methods, arguing that they are going up against heavily armed gangs with assault rifles, grenades, and even anti-aircraft weapons.  Last week, police found the body of the leader of a local non-profit organization that offers young people living in the slum theater training. Fred Pinheiro’s throat was slit and he had been missing for two days.

In the past nine years, 10,216 people have been killed in police clashes in Rio. The majority took place in the city’s nine hundred and eighty slums.

For more information, please see:

AP-Shootout in Rio Slum Ahead of Carnival; 8 Dead-11 February 2010

The Washington Post-Eight Killed in Pre-Carnival Violence-11 February 2010

AFP-Eight Dead in Police Clash with Drug Gang in Rio Slang: Officials-11 February 2010

PARÁ, Brazil-The landowner accused of ordering the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang in the Amazon in 2005 has been ordered back to jail.  Sister Dorothy Stang worked on behalf of the indigenous community and for rainforest preservation. Vitalmiro Bastos Moura “Bida” was originally convicted for the killing in 2007. The verdict was overturned a year later and he is now facing a retrial.

Sister Dorothy Stang was seventy-three and had lived in Brazil for thirty years when she was shot six times as she walked along a muddy rainforest trail. She was left to die in the mud.

The thirty year sentence is the maximum in Brazil and  legislation requires a second trial to confirm the sentence. At the second trial, Bida was found not guilty. Yesterday an appellate court ordered him back to jail, with a majority of the judges agreeing with a lawsuit filed by government attorneys, which annulled the second trial.

The man who is believed to have ordered and paid for the murder is another landowning farmer, Regivaldo Pereira Galvao, also known as Taradao (“Big Pervert”), has been indicted but never tried.

Estimates are that hundreds of people have been killed in land disputes in the state of Pará in the last few decades, with few prosecutions. Despite the international outrage, missionaries who campaign on behalf of the poor in the Amazon region face death threats and reportedly need police protection to do their work.

For more information, please see:

AP-Suspect in Slaying of U.S. Nun in Brazil is Back in Jail, New Trial Expected This Year-7 February 2010

BBC-Brazil Man Accused of Nun Murder Back in Jail-7 February 2010

Sydney Morning Herald-Brazilian Linked to Nun’s Death Jailed-7 February 2010

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia-A new report by a non-governmental organization released on Wednesday found that in the last twenty-five years, 2.4 million people were displaced under the presidency of Alvaro Uribe. The report was prepared by the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (Codhes).

According to the report, 2009 saw a twenty four percent drop in displacement relative to 2008. In 2008 there was a record high of 380,863 people forcibly displaced. The head of Codhes stated that “clearly there is progress in some sectors of society, but not for the entire population, which calls into question the entire police of “Democratic Security.”

The report found that people are most affected in the regions of Chaco, Nariño Antioquia, Cordoba, Cauca, Arauca, Valle del cauca, Risadalda, Bolívar, Cesar, Meta, and Guajira. Narña, reportedly has experienced the worst displacement, with fifty-six percent of the total amount of displacement events.

Nariño is located on the border with Ecuador and is home to the majority of Colombian indigenous communities. It has been the sight of constant conflict between the Colombian military and the FARC rebels.

The “Democratic Security” policy went into effect in 2003, and has operated with the objective of widening the territory under the direct control of the central government and denying access of land to illegal armed groups; protecting population centers with the presence of security forces; and fighting the flow of drugs.

The head of Codhes told media that “at the core of the reasons for this forced displacement is the violent appropriation of land, and threats to leave that are issued by paramilitaries and the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia.” He also pointed out that, although the number of Colombians leaving the country has declined, “Colombia is still the country with the highest number of refugees in the world after Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan.”

The “democratic security” policy has been criticized as ignoring the social costs of its implementation and for the fact that Colombian civilians are exposed to danger and human rights abuses.

For more information, please see:

IPS-COLOMBIA:Who Cares About the Victims of Forced Displacement?-29 January 2010

Morning Star-Violence Forces Out 286,000 Colombians-28 January 2010

Colombia Reports-2.4 Million Colombians Displaced Under Uribe Presidency-27 January 2010

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

QUITO, Ecuador-The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Guinara Shahinian, expressed grave concern about the continued use of child labor in Ecuador. Ms. Shahinian just finished a tour of Ecuador. She concluded that child labor is a continued impediment to development in Ecuador.

Ms. Shahinian spoke with key stakeholders in the field of child rights and child labor. She also spoke with children and workers. An official report will be submitted to the Human Rights Council. Child labor is most likely to be found in banana plantations, flower farms, and garbage dumps. Child laborers lose out on education and limit their potential to earn a higher income and move their families out of the poverty cycle.

Other instances of labor exploitation observed during the visit included inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as discrimination. These situations reportedly exacerbate labor exploitation which are disproportionately encountered by refugee and asylum-seeking communities of Colombian nationals.

Special Rapporteur Shahinian praised Ecuador for a “genuine commitment to the elimination of child labor, including its worst forms, domestic servitude, forced labor, and debt bondage.”  Ecuador has worked comprehensively with the U.N. in developing initiatives, including a monitoring system.

One potential source of the difficulty in ending child labor is the income inequalities between families of indigenous or Afro-Ecuadorean decent and those of European or Mestizo descent. Children of indigenous or Afro-Ecuadorean descent have the most difficulty accessing education and are more likely to live in poverty.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits children under fifteen years of age from being employed or working dangerous conditions. The Ecuadorean constitution reaffirms these ideas.

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Education Associates-Ecuador: Child Labor an Obstacle to Development-2 February 2010

SOS Children’s Village-Child Labor Impedes Development in Ecuador-2 February 2010

U.N. Radio-UN Expert Says Child Labor Still a Problem in Ecuador-2 February 2010

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil-Brazil extradited a former Uruguayan army officer on Saturday to Argentina for the 1976 disappearance of an Argentine citizen. The extradition of Manuel Juan Cordero Piacentini, ordered on Tuesday, was delayed until Saturday because the officer’s lawyers argued that he needed to remain hospitalized due to poor health.

Cordero is thought to be involved in the disappearance of Argentine and Uruguayan citizens as a part of Operation Condor. Operation Condor was a collaboration between military dictatorships that ruled many countries in South America in the 1970s and 1980s. South American military regimes secretly cooperated in the torture and disappearances of each others’ citizens with CIA assistance.

Cordero was arrested in February of 2007 in Brazil near the border with Uruguay, where authorities believe he had been living since 2004. Since February, Cordero has been living under house arrest at that location, where he has a home. Cordero tried to avoid extradition by arguing that he was protected under a law in Brazil granting amnesty to Brazilian soldiers acting under that country’s military government.

Argentina, however has no amnesty law. Cordero is specifically suspected of being responsible for the disappearance of Adalberto Soba in Argentina. Uruguay unsuccessfully sought extradition, but because the crimes were committed in Argentina, Brazil only agreed to extradite Cordero to Argentina.

The head of a Brazilian organization called Justice and Human Rights said Cordero was believed to be third in command of a unit charged with “disappearances, torture, and murders.”

For more information, please see:

AFP-Operation Condor Suspect Extradited to Argentina-24 January 2010

BBC News-Brazil Returns Operation Condor Suspect to Argentina-24 January 2010

Washington Post-Brazil Extradites Uruguay Officer in Condor Case-23 January 2010