Just days ago, Sergio Adrián Hernandez Güereca, a 15-year-old from Ciudad Juárez, was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent on the banks of the Rio Grande, not far from downtown El Paso. The fatal shooting of this teen came on the heels of the death of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, a longtime San Diego area resident and father of five U.S.-born children, who died from injuries suffered when Border Patrol and other federal officers responded with a baton and taser gun when he resisted deportation. His death has been ruled a homicide by the San Diego coroner’s office. LAWG extends our condolences to both families.
The pursuit of justice “is a challenge that we have been called to take on, and we have no idea how far this journey will lead us,” said Guatemalan human rights defender Jesús Tecú Osorio at a reception in his honor on May 17th, 2010. Human Rights First and the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) organized this gathering to celebrate Tecú’s selection as winner of the 2010 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award for international human rights defenders.
President Obama was elected with a campaign of hope, and change. Those
of us who care about Latin America hoped that U.S. foreign policy
towards the region, too often unilateral and focused on military
solutions, would also change.
A year ago, at a summit of Latin America’s leaders, President Obama hit a
note that resonated well with his counterparts: “I pledge to you that
we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior
partner in our relations.”
After that hopeful moment, though, the new administration stumbled at
the starting gate. 2009 was a rough year for U.S. policy toward Latin
America and the Caribbean. Latin American governments and civil society
groups were disappointed by the Obama Administration’s inattention,
vacillation on democracy and human rights, and failure of imagination in
creating more humane policies, especially after it secretly negotiated a
defense agreement with Colombia and backed off from efforts to urge
resignation of the coup regime in Honduras despite an admirably united
Latin American and OAS response to protect the democratic order.
Death threats, attacks and assassinations. Human rights defenders and indigenous, afro-descendant, and IDP leaders in Colombia often face these terrors, but lately there has been a major spike in these actions—and we’re worried. This past week, LAWGEF and our partners released a public statement to the Colombian and U.S. governments, calling on the Colombian government to take action now to investigate and prosecute these threats and attacks, protect the people at risk, and make it publicly clear that human rights defenders’ work is legitimate and important.
As I listened to mothers and sisters and sons describe how they found their loved one in the morgue of a Colombian army base, dressed up in a guerrilla uniform when they knew he was a civilian, I was not only saddened, I was stunned by the striking similarity of the cases. From Casanare, Meta, Cauca, the facts were so similar. Witnesses saw the person being taken prisoner by a group of army soldiers. They went looking for him, thinking he’d be detained on the army base. Then they were shown a photo or the body of their relative, dead and claimed by the army as killed in combat.
Micheline Fleuron lives with her two boys in the median on the road in
Carrefour, Haiti. Her home, the pile of rubble across the street from
where she is now, collapsed during the earthquake and killed her
seven-year-old daughter. Before the earthquake Micheline had a small
business selling food items. She lost that in the earthquake. She says
food aid has been distributed near where she is but she has not been
able to get any of it. She says hunger is difficult and "dust from the
street is eating us."
On March 24th, President Obama sent his request to Congress for a
supplemental spending bill to support relief and reconstruction efforts
in Haiti. Millions of people in Haiti like Micheline could use that aid
to feed their children and begin rebuilding their lives, but Congress
still has not passed this crucial bill.
As Colombians go to the polls May 30th, they will elect a president who
will have a historic opportunity to change the lives of millions of
Colombians affected in profound and tragic ways by the country’s
enduring armed conflict. The Latin America Working Group and partner
organizations have sent an open letter to Colombia’s presidential and
vice presidential candidates to ask them how they will lead the nation
in building a more just and inclusive society that promotes and respects
the rights of all its citizens.
There are some memories you never forget, and some of those memories may even change the course of your life. I’ll never forget the excitement of seeing my first National Football League game. A twelve year old at the time, my father and I glimpsed perfection in the Metrodome of Minneapolis as the Minnesota Vikings embarrassed the Chicago Bears by a score of 48-22 – my fate was sealed as a life-long Vikings fan.
Then my family moved to Arizona – so I tried to acclimate as best I could by making the Phoenix Suns my basketball team. But with the proximity of the U.S.-Mexico border beckoning for my acknowledgment of reality, I suddenly found myself seated in a circle with the women and children of Lomas del Poleo, listening to their struggle with the injustices of minimalist wages and blatant civil and human rights violations committed against women both as they work in and travel to the maquiladoras that figure ever so prominently along the Mexican landscape that bumps up against the international line.
About two weeks ago there was an explosion aboard BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, tragically killing at least 11 rig-workers and eventually triggering a pipe-break that's now spewing an estimated 5,000 barrels into the Gulf of Mexico daily. As the oil slick has spread from its epicenter 50 or so miles off the coast of Louisiana to the Gulf state's shores, so have concerns that the disaster could severely harm the livelihoods of individuals--fishermen, for instance--and industries who depend on the vibrant, wildlife-rich ecosystem.
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.”
