Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Several Human Rights Cases in Latin America

Between leaving New York and arriving in New Mexico, I suddenly found that I would be teaching (with all of the accompanying research and lecture-writing) at UNM this semester, on top of working on my dissertation, so blogging will not be as prevalent as I would like.

However, there are a few things related to human rights worth noting this week. First, Guatemala sentenced former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero to 150 years in prison for his role in 6 disappearances between 1982 and 1984. The sentence is a major one, because it is the first conviction of anybody for human rights abuses during the 36-year civil war. This is rather remarkable and depressing, given that upwards of 250,000 people were murdered during the civil war, and the armed forces committed nearly all (80%) of those murders. It's almost inexcusable that it's taken 13 years for even one conviction, but you have to start somewhere, and hopefully, many more will follow. And at least Guatemala did not give Cusanero some weak sentence, either.

In Argentina, a new book by a mother of one of the disappeared from the Dirty War (1976-1983) reminds us just how heartbreaking and difficult those cases continue to be as they haunt their families. In fighting for human rights and against abuses, it's easy to lose sight sometimes of how this still affects people daily, but just reading the opening sentence (quoted in the article) is a devastating reminder of how real the effects for many remain.

In Chile, a judge has issued arrest warrants for another 120 intelligence officers connected to torture and other crimes against humanity during the Pinochet regime, even while many torturers remain on the public payrolls in Chile. And for any who still think Pinochet led Chile for purely selfless reasons for 17 years, the fact that he managed to earn $25 million (with $20 million of it having "no justifiable origin") would hopefully destroy any such notions. Unfortunately, Cold War zealotry dies hard, and he'll still have his defenders for years to come.

Finally, only marginally related, a major obstacle to Alvaro Uribe's quest for a third term was overcome yesterday, as the Colombian House of Representatives approved the referendum bill for a third term (probably made him feel a bit better as he tries to recover from H1N1). It's still not a lock - the Court could surprise people and rule it unconstitutional, and the Colombian people could vote it down. But neither of those outcomes is very likely, given Uribe's support both on the courts and among the general Colombian population. For all of the spastic reactions from the right against Ecuador's Correa for seeking a second term or Manuel Zelaya trying to get a referendum for a second term before being unceremoniously overthrown in a coup, Uribe is currently the one Latin American leader that really seems to be pushing the boundaries of "democracy" with his efforts towards re-election right now.