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A MERICAS S ITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS1 Defending human rights in Latin America remained a very high risk activity in 2006 and those at the origin of acts of intimidation and aggressions against defenders clearly aimed at creating a general climate of fear to dissuade them from carrying on their activities. Those who persisted in promoting and protecting human rights continued to be the victims of multiple acts of reprisals: assassinations (Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela), forced disappearances (Colombia, Guatemala), torture (Colombia, Mexico), attacks and death threats (Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico), acts of harassment and surveillance (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru), or smear campaigns (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru), etc. The authorities increasingly instrumentalised judicial systems in order to criminalise the activities of defenders, who were subjected to searches, arrests or detentions generally based on fabricated evidence (Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico). Some States in the region also introduced or adopted new legislations to further restrict freedom of association, thereby creating a hostile environment for the activities of human rights defenders (Peru, Venezuela). With rare exceptions, impunity largely prevailed when it came to prosecuting perpetrators of violations against human rights defenders. Finally, protection measures granted by certain governments were in fact often superficial and mostly used as a mere alibi to avoid tackling the real causes behind these attacks or the crucial issue of impunity. 1. Unreferenced examples quoted in this regional analysis are detailed in the compilation of cases below. 175 A MERICAS Fighting against impunity and defending human rights in situations of conflict, post-conflict and democratic transition In 2006, human rights defenders continued to be on the front line when seeking for justice to be rendered or when trying to bring assistance to victims of past and recent human rights violations. This repression all the more prevailed in conflict or post-conflict situations, in which the authorities most particularly tended to severely prevent men and women who tried to fight against impunity from carrying out their activities. In Argentina, 23 years after the end of the military dictatorship, a number of acts of intimidation and threats were carried out against victims’ relatives, witnesses and human rights defenders involved in the trials that were opened after the Supreme Court repelled, in June 2005, the laws prohibiting the opening of investigations and prosecu- tions related to crimes committed under the dictatorship2.For instance, numbers of human rights defenders, including Mr. Leandro Despouy, Auditor General of the Republic of Argentina and Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on the independence of judges and lawyers, received threats after denouncing the disappearance, on September 14, 2006, of Mr. Jorge Julio López, a former detainee and disappeared as well as a key witness in the trial against the former Director General of the Investigation Department of Buenos Aires, Mr. Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, prosecuted for crimes against humanity committed under the last military government (1976- 1983). Several members of the organisation Daughters and Sons for Identity and Justice Against Oblivion and Silence (HIJOS) were simi- larly harassed and threatened with death through anonymous phone calls which were made from the Marcos Paz prison, where several former key actors of the dictatorship are being held. Finally, on September 25, 2006, several leaflets containing death threats against members of the Ecumenical Human Rights Movement (MEDH) were left at the offices of the organisation, in Santa Fé, after Ms. Milagros Demiryi, MEDH regional coordinator, played an active role, as a witness, in a trial against suspected perpetrators of gross human rights violations committed under the military dictatorship. 2. The “Full Stop” Law (1986) and the “Due Obedience” Law (1987), which exempted security forces from all judicial proceedings, were repealed in June 2005. 176 S ITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS In Chile, members of the Special Affairs and Human Rights Brigade (BAES) of the national investigation police, in particular Messrs. Sandro Gaete and Abel Lizama, were subjected to intense pressure by the director of the national police to prevent the publication of an expert report pointing out the responsibility of current Army General Miguel Trincado Araneda for the illegal exhumation of the remains of disappeared detainees carried out in the framework of an operation codenamed “removal of televisions”3, under General Pinochet’s military regime (1973-1990)4. In Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected on May 28, 2006 and announced the demobilisation of 30,000 paramilitaries of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) on the basis of a controversial judicial framework (namely, the Justice and Peace Law, which was declared partially anti-constitutional by the Supreme Court in May 20065). However, human rights defenders remained repeatedly targeted by the parties to the conflict, in particular by former parami- litaries who have reorganised under new names and continued to consider them as supporters of the guerrillas, and as such declared them “military targets”. A number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) received threats from these “new” paramilitary groups, which significantly increased their pressure during the electoral campaign. In August 2006 for instance, members of the National Movement for Victims of State Crimes in the department of Sucre, including Mr. Arnold Gómez, Mr. Carmelo Agamez, Mr. Juan David Díaz, Mr. Adolfo Berbel, Mr. Roberto Serpa, Mr. Amauri Vidual and Ms. Jackeline Moguea, became aware that their names were appearing on a “death list” drawn up by paramilitaries6. All these persons were entitled to testify or were seeking to obtain justice in several cases of human 3. In 1978-1979, General Pinochet ordered the operation “removal of televisions” to exhume the bodies of political prisoners executed during the first years of the military regime, in particular during the 1973 coup, and to burn them or throw them in the ocean, to make all evidence of the repression disappear. 4. See Corporation of the Promotion and Defence of People’s Rights (CODEPU), December 14, 2006. 5. In the framework of Law 975 of 2005 (known as the Justice and Peace Law), approved by the Colombian Congress on June 21, 2005 and ratified by the government in July 2005, numerous paramilitaries, supported by the army, and other illegal armed groups were “demobilised”. This law guarantees impunity for crimes committed by the paramilitaries and other illegal armed forces in the context of the civil war in the country. 6. See National Association for Solidarity (ANDAS), November 2006. 177 A MERICAS rights violations committed by the security forces or paramilitaries. As of October 31, 2006, nine of the 26 people whose names were mentioned on this list had reportedly been assassinated, including Mr. Luis Guevara, a member of the National Movement who was killed on August 22, 2006 in Coveñas (San Onofre municipality)7. Although the Ministry of the Interior set up a protection programme for human rights defenders, a number of those who benefited from these protective measures complained that their armed escorts, often made up of secret services officers, had intimidated them. Finally, the threats, attacks, acts of harassment, even assassinations or forced disappearances repeatedly faced by defenders were only rarely investi- gated, and the perpetrators were hardly ever brought to justice8. 2006 was further marked by a significant upsurge in threats against defenders in Guatemala. Indeed, the National Human Rights Movement (MNDH) registered 278 cases of threats or attacks against human rights defenders between January and December 2006, against 224 in 20059. Violence notably increased in June 2006 as Spanish Courts introduced requests to extradite those mainly responsible for the Guatemalan genocide, which clearly illustrated the ponderousness and the jamming of the national justice system, which failed to progress beyond the investigation stage in spite of years of proceedings10. As a result, defenders who publicly stigmatised these deficiencies or who campaigned in favour of these extraditions were specifically targeted. On June 26, 2006 for instance, 102 human rights organisations issued 7. The National Movement of Victims of State Crimes assists the families of persons killed by the army or allied paramilitaries during the 40-year conflict in Colombia. The death list was released shortly after the Movement had organised a demonstration on August 26, 2006 in Sucre, in protest against the rearmament of paramilitaries. 8. See Conclusions of the International Fact-Finding Mission mandated in Colombia from November 13 to 19, 2006. 9. See Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit (UPDDH) of the National Movement for Human Rights (MNDH), Impunidad : ¿Quiénes son los responsables ? - Informe sobre la Situación de Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos - Enero a Diciembre del 2006, February 2007. 10. Since the Peace Agreement was signed in 1996, human rights organisations have repeatedly demanded that suspected authors of crimes against humanity and war crimes be brought to