Americas Watch Overview

AMERICAS WATCH OVERVIEW Human Rights Developments The trend witnessed over the last decade toward elected civilian government in Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a serious challenge in 1991, as the Haitian military on September 30 overthrew the only freely elected government that Haiti has known in its nearly two hundred-year history of independence. The coup was accompanied by a killing rampage by Haitian troops unparalleled even in that troubled nation's recent history. Nonetheless, encouragement can be drawn from the unified response of the hemisphere's governments, which have coordinated diplomatic and trade efforts through the Organization of American States (OAS) to reverse the coup and restore Jean- Bertrand Aristide to the presidency. Elsewhere in the hemisphere, the spread of elected government continued with the May 25 presidential elections in Suriname, reinstating an elected civilian government after a December 1990 military coup. The government's principal challenge is to assert civilian authority over military strongman Colonel Desi Bouterse, who has exercised de facto control, when not formally governing the country, since overthrowing the elected civilian government in a prior coup in February 1980. In Paraguay, the nation's first-ever municipal elections on May 26 marked a significant broadening of political pluralism there. Only the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba continued to resist pressure to open up its political system, instead jailing scores of independent activists for their peaceful advocacy of change and subjecting others to violent "acts of repudiation" orchestrated by security forces. Despite this salutary trend toward democratic governance, the hemisphere's worst human rights offenders remain the security forces of some elected civilian governments. In Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru, government forces are engaged in widespread political assassination, disappearance and torture of civilians perceived as opponents. The use of torture by the police also is frequent in Ecuador and Honduras, both of which have been governed by elected civilians for at least a decade, and in Mexico, where elections have been held for more than sixty years, albeit amid sustained charges of widespread fraud. The persistence of violent abuses in these countries illustrates the dictum that elections, even when free and fair, do not in themselves guarantee human rights. Efforts to end internal armed conflicts moved ahead in Colombia, El Salvador 129 and Guatemala in 1991, but as of December, had yet to bring peace to any of these nations. In each country, serious breaches of the laws of war were committed by government and guerrilla forces, even while peace talks proceeded. In El Salvador, negotiations produced significant informal agreements on human rights issues such as the establishment of a "Truth Commission" and the purging of human rights violators from the officer corps. Moreover, the United Nations installed a human rights verification commission of over one-hundred members C an unprecedented development. These accomplishments leave room for optimism about the human rights situation in El Salvador, although they have yet to bring a halt to the steady stream of assassinations, disappearances and torture that has plagued El Salvador over the last decade. In Colombia, negotiations with one of the country's three largest guerrilla organizations C the Popular Liberation Army C were successfully concluded in 1991, while discussions with the two major groups still in arms were initiated in mid-year but failed to reach a cease-fire. Those still fighting C the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army C killed many civilian leaders in the countryside in 1991 and conducted kidnappings-for-ransom, all violations of the laws of war. For its part, the Colombian army continued to employ "dirty war" tactics in its war against the guerrillas, including disappearances, massacres, selective assassinations, arbitrary arrests, and aerial strafing and bombardment of civilian targets. Hundreds of civilians continued to flee conflictive areas and join the ranks of the displaced living precariously in urban areas. The tremendous violence associated with the government's war against the Medellín drug cartel all but ended in the second half of 1991 as the government negotiated the surrender of major traffickers in exchange for an end to extradition and leniency for those who turned themselves in. Paramilitary groups C responsible for scores of massacres of civilians in 1988 and 1989 C continued to carry out violent abuses, although in 1991 there were fewer mass killings than in those years. A series of decrees enacted by the former government of Virgilio Barco contributed to delegitimizing these groups, which had enjoyed a quasi- legal status as "self-defense" associations. In Peru, both official forces and the insurgent Shining Path continued to murder and torture with abandon and to force civilians into the conflict, while the lesser rebel group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, carried out selective assassinations and bombings. For four straight years, Peru led the world in new disappearances reported to the United Nations. Although there was some reduction in new disappearances in 1991, the practice continued at a high rate. 130 President Alberto Fujimori, who completed a year in office in July, has failed to offer the fresh approach to counterinsurgency that his campaign had advertised, and instead has delegated ever-widening authority to the military to conduct the war its way. The government has expanded the territory under state of emergency C effectively military government C to encompass nearly half the national territory and more than half the population. Human rights abuses historically have risen in areas placed under emergency rule. The Guatemalan government of Jorge Serrano Elías, which will complete one year in office in January, has also initiated peace talks, with guerrillas who have been fighting for more than a decade. However, the dialogue reached a deadlock in September over human rights issues, and there is little hope for a quick end to fighting. While actual combat is sporadic compared to the warfare engulfing large areas of Colombia, El Salvador and Peru, the army exercises a profoundly repressive form of permanent counterinsurgency in conflictive rural areas. In addition to the assassinations, disappearances, torture, threats, intimidation and illegal detentions carried out directly by the army, important parts of the counterinsurgency effort C and accompanying abuses C are delegated to military-organized civil patrols installed in most highland villages. The army also commits massive violations of the freedoms of association and movement through forced participation in civil patrols and forcible relocation of displaced civilians to so-called model villages. Rural violence against peasants and their advocates in the context of land disputes remains a significant concern of Americas Watch, particularly in Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico and Paraguay. Americas Watch takes no position on the question of rightful ownership of the lands in question; rather, we address the use of violence against those who try to defend their claims, when that violence is supported or tolerated by agents of the state. In Brazil, forced labor on remote rural ranches in the northern and western frontier states persists, largely because of the government's failure to pursue reported incidents. Meanwhile, the government of the Dominican Republic responded to mounting international pressure to end the widespread use of forced Haitian labor in its state sugar industry by striking back at the victims, summarily and abusively deporting thousands of Haitians and Dominico-Haitians, without regard to whether they were Dominican citizens. Thousands of other ethnic Haitians fled to avoid being caught up in the abusive process. Accountability for past and present abuses has been a prime concern of Americas Watch in virtually every country that has experienced serious violations. In places where abuses are systematic C as is the case of torture, illegal detentions, disappearances and assassinations by government agents in 131 Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, as well as the case of torture in Honduras and death-squad operations against common-crime suspects in Brazil C the agents responsible for the abuses commit them with impunity. Breaking through this barrier C making punishment the predictable result of crime committed under color of authority C is fundamental to ending human rights abuses in these countries. Convictions have been obtained in a handful of the most notorious cases, such as the Salvadoran army's November 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests and two women, and the Guatemalan army's December 1990 massacre of thirteen Tzutuhil Indians near the lakeside town of Santiago Atitlán. Americas Watch welcomes these prosecutorial actions, but believes them to be token steps taken under the glare of the international spotlight, and thus not enough to end the systematic practices that the crimes represent. Accountability for abuses committed by previous governments is also crucial, both in establishing a clear historical record of atrocities and in preventing their recurrence. This issue was addressed directly in Chile with the publication on March 4 of an immense and detailed report by the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. The report documented

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