Rapport de l'atelier hispanophone (en anglais)

Chair: Kerry Howard Rapporteur: Veronique Bassot

Participants : Maria Alice Mabota, Mozambique; Veronica Heredia, Argentina ; Cliver Rocha, Bolivia; Marcelo Freixo, Brazil; Maria Joelma da Costa, Brazil; Carlos Gaio, Brazil; Imer Villazon Arias, Colombia; Jacqueline Rojas, Colombia; Rosa Mireya Cardenas, Ecuador; Beatrice Alamanni de Carrillo, El Salvador; Dominga Vasquez, Guatemala; Nery Rodenas, Guatemala; Miriam Merced Miranda Chamorro, Honduras; Agustín Bravo, México; Celsa Valdovinos, México; Segundo Jara Montejo, Peru. First Workshop: Thursday 13th October 2005

Revising the patterns of attacks against Human Rights Defenders (HRDs), including the specific threats posed to women defenders. What are the most worrying tendencies? What are the possible counter-strategies?

After introducing themselves, the HRDs identified the most common forms of repression and violence against Human Rights (HRs) they experience in their countries:

The criminalisation of HRDs continues to be very serious in all the countries represented. Social defenders, union leaders, farmers etc. are defined by the authorities in their countries as defenders of delinquents and in many cases, as delinquents themselves. The defenders continue to be subjected to surveillance, psychological violence, imprisonment, raids on their offices and houses, legal processes, torture, direct campaigns against them and assassinations, all of this with the purpose of illegitimating their work.

While violations of HRs and attacks against their defenders continue, Governments maintain a dual position, publicly lauding human rights with progressive rhetoric, establishing special institutions to investigate the crimes of the past, public Human Rights committees, and in some cases, even national programmes for the protection of defenders, that set up teams, preventative measures etc. But what is still lacking on the part of the Governments is a real political willingness to end and investigate these violations, their internal and structural causes.

In countries such as Brazil and Mexico, the problem is that at a federal level, discourse with respective to HRs is progressive and open, but at a state level, the laws are neither implemented nor fulfilled and the public security forces and the military enjoy impunity for their Human Rights violations.

New laws are being implemented through public policies for “national security” supported by the United States that have reactivated old laws that restrict peaceful demonstrations and the freedom of expression in order to quash protest movements. We thus note a failure on the part of the media to express and denounce restrictions on civil rights, and therefore, and therefore a failure to sensitise civil society, that already reacts less and less to the subtleties of these restrictions. There is also a central intelligence network that concentrates on who the defenders are and on what issues they are working, in order to better persecute them.

Another manifest problem is the difficulty of defending cases that do not have an international profile. Such cases lack visibility because they are not reported internationally and therefore go completely unpunished.

Attacks can also come from non-official actors: clandestine structures such as paramilitaries in the cases of Guatemala and Colombia, continue to operate. Drug-trafficking and organised crime groups, are also powerful actors with contacts in public institutions.

In the same way, in these countries, the most powerful economic groups are generally those who have the greatest political power. They intervene more in the public arena and are not concerned with society, not least its most vulnerable sectors, and their spokespersons.

The decline of economic, social and cultural rights and the criminalisation of poverty, mark the context where natural resources and land are the basis of power. Privatisation of land and water is a phenomenon that is being imposed. Agrarian conflict and fights for territory are intensifying. And little by little, the richness of natural biodiversity is being lost.

Various proposals and strategies emerged to deal with these problems:

• Defenders need to document these new tendencies, especially new laws against public demonstrations. • European embassies have to inform society and defenders about their instruments, mechanisms and channels for the protection of defenders. • Denounce the EU for having contracts with Governments that are in violation of Human Rights • Call on the EU to impose economic and commercial sanctions on countries that are in violation of Human Rights Second Workshop: Friday 14th October 2005.

To identify practical measures for the protection of Human Rights Defenders - What can the defenders themselves do? - What should the international community do? - What should international NGOs such as Front Line do?

The HRDs can and should: - Learn to recognise and identify attacks, threats and intimidation

- Systematically document their work and the attacks against HRs and HRDs

- Diffuse their work at a national and international level to strengthen it and give it better visibility

- Analyse the risks, think of how to diminish the attacks, identify their own weak points and identify the means and strategies of protection

- Investigate and document new laws against public demonstrations and freedom of expression

- Demand national legislation for the protection of HRDs. It is not a nicety of the State to protect the defenders, it is the State’s duty and responsibility

- Strengthen their local, regional and national networks. An attack on a sister NGO means that another could also be at risk in the same region. Organisations need to react to and denounce attacks against any part of the Human Rights movement with a united voice.

- Establish networks of solidarity for exchanges of personnel between NGOs in different regions so that if a defender is at risk, he can be temporarily redeployed to another region.

- Use national and international networks so that small and/or rural organisation can receive better protection through higher visibility.

- Use visits of international representative (UN or y CIDH) to “push” more effective programmed of Human Rights protection

- Work with EU embassies to investigate their mechanisms with relation to directives on defenders and nationalising the information between Human Rights Organisations

- Safeguard the fabric of their communities and protect their cultural (indigenous) identities, to strengthen the social base and nurture a culture of mutual protection.

- Continue working to sensitise society about Human Rights

- Protect themselves from political parties who have served only to divide and not to construct. Human Rights is a different type of work that should not be mixed with political agendas.

There was a discussion about the value of police accompaniment of HRDs, in the event of threats and risks. The general view was that this type of accompaniment is inadequate, impractical, hypocritical, limited and difficult to access by definition. But it was finally agreed that it would be valuable in the face of aggression, there is no other choice but to accept accompaniment of escorts provided by the Government.

The International Community can and should:

- The presence of the international community is very important in areas of difficult conflicts and to save lives (Eg: PBI in Colombia)

- Recognise the different level of police: federal, state, municipal

- The Governments of the EU need to align their policies and discourses and denounce Human Rights violations when the occur, even in countries with which they have economic, political and commercial agreements

- The EU should have in its criteria for cooperation with governments, a clause that requires respect and freedom to civilian and HR organisation in those countries

- Monitor how support aid is invested. These resources are sometimes invested in militarization and the repression of the society they are supposed to support

- Push changes in the UN and OAS that confer more powers and make them more effective in implementing respect for HRs in their member states.

- Support and work with local HR organisations to know where and how to use their influence for the security of such organisations

- Shed lights on the non-compliance with signed International Treaties and Pacts and demand their respect and implementation

Front Line can and should:

- Promote and broadcast the work of the organisations that are under attack, in order to give them more visibility

- Raise the profile of attacks against HRDs

- Form a network of participants in FL platforms. A secretariat is not needed, but a system of communication between the participants

- Shed light on the non-compliance with ratified International Treaties and Pacts and demand their respect and implementation

- Continue to exert pressure on the UN and the EU regarding the cases of HRDs

- Send letter to every government of countries represented in the platform to inform them the defender X was at the platform and that Front Line is monitoring and protecting them.