As an official “Truth Commission” was inaugurated May 4th in
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, leading Honduran human rights groups expressed
serious concerns and announced an alternative commission.
Saying that a real truth commission “should provide a space which has
been denied to the victims, in which they can be heard and injury to
their rights repaired,” the groups criticized the official commission
for “exclusion of the victims” and the “lack of processes to ensure
effectiveness and impartiality.”
Extremely serious human rights violations have taken place since
the inauguration of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on January 27th.
Since that date, there has been a notable increase in attacks against
people opposed to the June 28th coup d’état and their family members, as
well as a surge in attacks against journalists. A teacher was slain in
front of his class. Three campesino leaders from the community of Aguán
were assassinated.
Charles Bowden’s Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global
Economy’s New Killing Fields is an unflinching look at the
violence on the U.S.-Mexico border and the failing solutions by both
countries to address it. With an intense sympathy for the many victims
but also a degree of understanding even for a contract killer who finds
God, the author doesn’t let the reader find comfort in anything. The
book, just published by Nation Books (New York: 2010), can be found at
your local bookstore or online distributors. Here are a few selections
from this devastating catalog of violence.
On the 30th anniversary of the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes apologized for the role of the Salvadoran government in this cataclysmic event.
His words are so moving they require no further introduction.
I just listened to a group of Honduran lawyers, who were exhausted,
frustrated and in fear, as they explained their efforts to defend
citizens’ rights in their country.
The lawyers were here to ask
for help from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
Their message was:
As the Texas State Board of Education voted in March to exclude Archbishop Oscar Romero from history textbooks, just as we reach the thirtieth anniversary of his murder, it seems like a good moment to remember his legacy.
In a decisive ruling for democracy, Colombia’s Constitutional Court determined February 26th that a law authorizing a referendum to change the
constitution to permit a second consecutive reelection of President
Álvaro Uribe would be unconstitutional. President Uribe immediately accepted the decision.
We charitably termed the Obama Administration’s first year of Latin
America policy a “false start.” After the year was kicked off with a
promising beginning with a rousing speech at the Summit of the
Americas, a promise to close Guantanamo, the lifting of the ban on
travel to Cuba for Cuban Americans, and some principled words on human
rights to Colombian President Uribe, we had some hope for a new, less
ideological, more people-centered approach to the region. As the year
progressed, those hopes were dashed. But now we dare to hope again.
In two interesting analyses of elections in Latin America, Professor Doug Hertzler, associate professor of anthropology at Eastern Mennonite University and Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy remind us, and the U.S. government, to look closely at the reality in each country rather than viewing it in an ideological context.
As Hondurans sort through the wreckage of human rights and civil
liberties violations that occurred following the June 28th coup, one
pressing issue the country will have to address is the wave of violence
directed against members of the LGBT community.
