Blog Posts

A December 2010 report by Human Rights Watch outlines the lack of accountability for human rights abuses committed during and following the June 2009 coup in Honduras. The report also documents 47 cases of threats or attacks, including 18 killings, against journalists, human rights defenders, and political activists since the inauguration of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo in January 2010.

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa “returned safely to the presidential palace… after spending hours held by police inside a hospital room outside Quito,” according to CNN. While attempting to talk with rioting police demanding that a law be revoked that they believed would cut their salaries, Correa had tear gas lobbed at him and had been taken to the hospital. Later he was rescued by soldiers and returned to the palace. Correa characterized the events as an attempted coup. He stated, “I leave as president of a dignified nation, or I leave as a cadaver.” 

History was made on Thursday when a U.S. District Court Judge in Southern Florida, William J. Zloch, sentenced former Guatemalan special forces soldier Gilberto Jordán to ten years in federal prison. Jordán was convicted of lying on his citizenship application to hide his role in the 1982 massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians in Dos Erres, Guatemala. In condemning Jordán to the maximum time allowed by law for naturalization fraud, Judge Zloch made clear that he intended the ruling to send a clear message that “those who commit egregious human rights violations abroad” cannot find “safe haven from prosecution” in the United States. The sentence marks the first time that any of the dozens of Kaibil special forces who carried out the murders almost 28 years ago has been prosecuted.

In early June, we released Waiting for Change, a report on President Obama’s first-year policies toward Latin America. We aren’t the only ones aware of limited progress: Latin Americans are also less enthusiastic than at last January’s inauguration.

On June 17, the Pew Research Center released its most recent 22-nation Global Attitudes Survey, with Mexico, Argentina and Brazil representing Latin American opinion. Though U.S. favorability ratings in these nations jumped after Obama’s election, this year’s poll shows that fewer people in Argentina and Mexico have confidence that Obama “will do the right thing in world affairs,” than did one short year ago. Brazil, which has received special attention from the Obama Administration, consistently responded more favorably to this poll than did the other two Latin American countries represented.

Guatemalans dreaming of and campaigning for a nation governed by the rule of law were devastated June 7th when the head of a UN-supported body set up to investigate organized crime resigned in frustration. Carlos Castresana had labored valiantly, as head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), to investigate the organized crime that has penetrated the nation.