“If that kind of barbarity can be directed against the highest-ranking
person in the country, what will happen to the rest of us?” asked the
activists at COFADEH, the Committee of Families of Detained and
Disappeared in Honduras, right after the June 28th coup that sent
President Manuel Zelaya into exile. Now the answer to that question
can be seen in COFADEH’s hard-hitting October 22nd report, “Statistics
and Faces of Repression.”
Despite the Micheletti government’s announced intention following
international and national pressure to lift the state of siege, the
notice has not yet been published in the official gazette, and rights
violations continue. The de facto government issued a new decree
allowing the government’s telecommunications agency to revoke licenses
for radio and television stations that transmit messages that promote
“social anarchy,” ensuring that censorship can continue. Police
continued excessive use of force against protestors, and some
protestors remain in detention. Meanwhile, hopes for dialogue increased
as the Organization of American States negotiators arrived, but no end
to the crisis is yet in sight.
by Vanessa Kritzer and Lisa Haugaardon September 15, 2009
Today, LAWGEF joined labor, environmental, human rights, development and faith-based organizations in submitting written comments to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in response to a formal request to the public for opinions on the pending trade agreement. In their comments, these groups outlined the specific human rights and labor problems in Colombia, and urged the Obama Administration to insist upon seeing fundamental improvements on these issues before going forward with a free trade agreement. Violence against trade unionists and other obstacles to worker rights were outlined by the AFL-CIO and US Labor Education in the Americas Project. Some groups also outlined the potential impact of the trade agreement on the rural poor, including Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities.
As international and domestic concern mounts over the suspension of
constitutional rights declared by de facto Honduran President Roberto
Micheletti on September 26th, the government promises to restore
rights, but does not yet act to do so, and human rights violations
continue.
Just as the Bush Administration did countless times before, the Obama
Administration certified on September 8th that Colombia meets the human
rights conditions in law. The conditions, which refer to gross
violations of human rights by Colombia’s security forces and
collaboration between those forces and paramilitary or other illegal
armed groups, are attached to thirty percent of Colombia’s military aid.
On September 21st, President Manuel Zelaya returned clandestinely to
Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the capital city
of Tegucigalpa. Honduran police fired tear gas to disperse Zelaya’s supporters gathered around the embassy. They alsolaunched tear gas at the human rights group COFADEH,
where men, women and children had taken refuge after the attack at the
embassy. People detained for violating a newly established curfew are
being held at the football stadium, where observers saw people who had
been severely beaten. The situation in the capital and elsewhere is
extremely tense.
The Latin America Working Group mourns the passing of Senator Edward
Kennedy, a crusader for human rights and social justice in our nation
and around the world. As the Woodrow Wilson Center's Cynthia Arnson describes his remarkable efforts in Latin America, including his
outspoken efforts to denounce human rights abuses following the 1973
coup in Chile, “His name is recognized and revered among a whole
generation of Latin Americans who were persecuted or forced into exile
during the years of the dictatorships.”
Action Center
