WOLAblog

Whither Civilians?

The Pentagon has been taking a bigger and bigger role in U.S. policy in Latin America for several years now, as this report from WOLA, LAWG and CIP shows. The trend has all kinds of implications for the way U.S. power is projected abroad in the long term. And yet it has received so far little attention in the media, government and Congress. That needs to change.

In yesterday's New York Times, WOLA's George Withers talks about how this trend has drained resources from civilian authorities, like the State Department. Read on.

Lula Rules

Brazil's astute, pragmatic president has become the man of the moment in South American geopolitics, the Los Angeles Times reports. Big oil discoveries have helped, too.

Lula's rise has paralleled the decline of U.S. influence in its "backyard," analysts say, a result in part of Washington's plummeting global prestige and the Bush administration's unremitting focus on the Middle East.

Colombia's Displacement Crisis II

Beyond the statistics, internal displacement takes a huge humanitarian and human rights toll. The problem requires priority attention from the international community. Particularly hard hit by this crisis are Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities.

 

U.S. organizations and activists recently wrote to the State Department to voice concern about the assertion by the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples (ONIC) that 32 groups of indigenous people are at risk of disappearing, with 18 smaller indigenous groups at risk of becoming physically and culturally extinct in the near future. The displacement on average of 10,000-20,000 indigenous people every year plays an important role in the acceleration of disappearance of cultural traditions in Colombia.

In 2007, Representative Jim McGovern and 42 other representatives passed House Resolution 426 expressing the sense of the House that the U.S. government should increase resources for emergency humanitarian assistance and protection for Colombia’s IDPs through international and civilian government agencies and assist IDPs “in rebuilding their lives in a dignified, safe, and sustainable manner.”  The resolution recognizes the significant dimensions of the problem and need for action on the part of the U.S. government. 

Colombia's Displacement Crisis

New statistics on internal displacement in Colombia released by the NGO Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) show that internal displacement crisis in Colombia is far from over.

 

According to CODHES, 270,675 people became newly displaced in the first six months of 2008, an increase of 41 percent over the same period last year. Not surprisingly, the Colombian government disputes CODHES’s figures, argues that displacement is decreasing and places the number at 110,000.

 

It is hard to accept the Colombian government’s argument since IDP organizations and NGOs throughout Colombia point out that there is significant underreporting of IDPs. Colombian authorities, for example, require that a person identify the armed group that caused his or her displacement in order to be counted. Those forced to flee by new paramilitary groups or due to anti-coca fumigations are not considered internally displaced by Colombian authorities.

Recent field reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also contradict the Colombian government's assertions that internal displacement is under control. OCHA reported on September 18 that 70 indigenous people were displaced in the Bajo Baudo (Chocó) due to the Rastrojos paramilitary group.  Thirty-five more people tried but could not flee the area due to blockades imposed by illegal armed groups. OCHA notes that there is currently probability of another massive displacement taking place in the municipality of Istmina. In its previous weekly report, it notes that 2,000 persons were also displaced in Antioquia due to a mobilization against the eradication of coca allegedly imposed by the FARC. Of these IDPs, an estimated 900 are minors. OCHA says the IDP assistance system in Bogotá "is about to collapse."  With an estimated 200 IDPs arriving in Bogotá daily, a three-fold increase from 2007, local authorities are overwhelmed and unable to meet the needs of the displaced.

WOLA on Film

WOLA has a new, 12-minute film about its work and mission, made by filmmaker Jason Aldag. The film had its premiere at the WOLA annual gala on September 17. Here it is, parts one and two, on YouTube.

Not so Sweet: Striking Sugar Cane Workers in Colombia under Attack

On September 15, workers in the sugar industry in Colombia’s Cauca and Valle del Cauca Departments went on strike in response to the refusal by the Sugar Cane Growers’ Association, Asocaña, to negotiate with them for better working conditions.  Currently, sugar cane workers earn roughly $200 a month; work 14 or more hours a day; and have temporary labor contracts through worker cooperatives that don’t provide any benefits such as health care.  Working under brutal conditions with no protective gear, the workers suffer from skin and respiratory problems due to pesticide aerial spraying and sugar cane burning.   WOLA staff met twice with the sugar cane workers in the last twelve months in Valle del Cauca and heard first hand testimony of workers describing slavery like conditions. 

 

Because they work in Worker Cooperative Associations, they are perceived as individually self employed and have to pay for their own health insurance to the cooperatives associations.  They cannot organize unions, bargain collectively for wages and other internationally recognized labor rights.  This labor model effectively releases the sugar plantation and mill owners from any labor obligations whatsoever.  With a work force made up of a large number of Afro-Colombians, the strikers are demanding better pay, shorter working hours, a healthier work environment, and a formal labor contract that recognizes unions.  The strike comes at a time when the sugar cane growers and mill owners plan to expand sugar production to produce bio-diesel fuels as well as sugar.

 

 

The response to the strike has not been pretty and threatens to get uglier still.  Approximately forty people have been injured to date by public security forces through and human rights organizations have been prevented from monitoring and documenting the situation.  Yesterday, September 25, 130 members of the anti-riot squad of the National Police encircled two sugar mills and, without reason, attacked the workers injuring four more people.   Rather than recognizing the legitimate labor complaints of the sugar cane workers, the government is erroneously claiming that the workers are being manipulated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).  Diego Palacio Betancourt, Minister of the Public Security claimed on television this morning that he had personal information that the strike was being manipulated by the guerilla.  More alarmingly, he linked associates of Senator Alexander Lopez, a staunch supporter of labor rights and President of the Senate Human Rights Commission, directly to the armed group.  These irresponsible statements put the lives of both the strikers and Senator Lopez at grave risk.  The Minister added on air that the strike wasn’t a labor problem but one of public order. 

 

Exhausting US lawmakers, President Uribe has spent millions of dollars lobbying for a trade agreement claiming that the labor situation in his country has improved.  The assassination of over forty trade unionists and the tense and precarious labor situation of the sugar cane workers in the Cauca and Cauca Valley disprove his claim.  Last week, WOLA and others including displaced Afro-Colombians and members of US trade unions protested the lack of political will by the Colombian Government to truly address human rights concerns related to the FTA at the National Press Club. President Uribe’s lack of leadership in pushing for negotiations to resolve the strike gives credence to his reputation as Colombia’s teflon president.  The US Congress has rightly refused to approve the trade agreement without the Colombian government’s recognition of labor rights and protection for labor union leaders and members---precisely the failings being demonstrated right now by President Uribe and his government.

 

 

For more information contact Gimena Sanchez and Vicki Gass at (202) 797-2171

 

WOLA is Deeply Saddened by the Assassination of Olga Marina Vergara in Medellin

 

Colombian human rights activist Olga Marina Vergara was assassinated on Wednesday, September 24, in another heinous crime that underscores the volatility in the country.  Vergara was assassinated along with her son, daughter-in-law and five year-old grandson.  The assassination occurred shortly before the release of a book Violence against Women in a Society at War and after human rights groups had presented a report the UN that alleges that 12,634 people have died as a result of the socio-political violence in the last five years under the Uribe government.  WOLA staff has met with the Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres on several occasions and visited their offices in Medellin. The NGO opposes the forced recruitment of Colombia youth by either illegal armed groups or the armed forces. Our thoughts and condolences go out to Olga’s family and the women of the Ruta Pacifica.

 

 

 

Truth and Tribunals in Latin America

Hundreds of people -- cashiered military commanders, ex presidents, police officers, among many others -- have been tried in Latin America in recent years for violating basic human rights. A whole, grisly chapter of Latin American history has been revealed in courtrooms across the region, most notably in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

One of the most important of these trials ever is going on now in Peru, where former President Alberto Fujimori has been on trial since December in four cases of human rights violations, following his extradition from Chile last year. He will later face charges related to corruption and abuse of authority dating from his authoritarian rule, which lasted from 1990 to 2000.  

On Thursday, October 2, WOLA and IDL/Lima and the Center for Global Studies at George Mason University will hold a one-day conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on the history and future of human rights tribunals in Latin America -- which a focus on the ongoing Fujimori trial. With legal and political experts from throughout the region and the United States, the conference promises to open new perspectives on the phenomenon of holding human rights abusers accountable for their crimes in court, in Latin America and beyond.

For details on the conference, click here. 

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission

The House voted yesterday to create a Human Rights Commission that will replace the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. The new body created by the bill (H.R. 1451) will be named the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in honor of the California congressman and stalwart human rights advocate who passed away in February.

The current co-chairs of the caucus, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), will lead the new commission. The upgrade from caucus to permanent commission solidifies the body's human rights work and opens the possibility of more staff and an expansion of its agenda.

WOLA congratulates Representatives McGovern and Wolf for this important move to expand work on human rights issues in the U.S. Congress.

(Photo: Tom Lantos, courtesy of Vanity Fair)

Storm Warning II

Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, offered a vivid picture in congressional testimony last week of what U.S. policy means in the aftermath of the hurricanes.   

It means that a Cuban American who visited his mother last year in Holguin and wants to locate her now and look after her, can’t do so because his visit was too recent, and he has to wait until 2010 to visit her again.

It means that a woman in New Jersey who has heard from her brother in Ciego de Avila that his house is intact but his refrigerator was destroyed by flooding, cannot send the money to buy a new one, because it would exceed the limit on remittances.

It means that in the case of a family in Pinar del Rio whose house was flattened and garden wrecked, their relatives cannot send seeds and new clothes, because since 2004 those items cannot legally be sent in gift parcels.

It means that two men in Hialeah who want to draw on their savings to go to Cuba immediately, buy supplies however they can, and put a new roof on their aunt’s house, cannot do so. The aunt is not immediate family, and the visit is not allowed.

After Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Salvadorans and Hondurans across the United States mobilized to raise money, send aid and help rebuild.  Now Cuban-Americans are barred by federal law from doing the same. It's a cruel policy that needs to be changed. Will Congress listen? 

(Photo: Storm damage in Gibara, Cuba, near where Ike came ashore. Courtesy of Phil Peters/The Cuban Triangle)

Storm Warning

Natural disasters can shift the political climate suddenly and dramatically. Two successive hurricanes have left catastrophic damage in Cuba. And Cuban-Americans are practically barred from sending aid to their families and home communities on the island because of the long-standing U.S. embargo and travel restrictions. Put these facts together and you have new pressure to end the long U.S. isolation of Cuba, even from hard-line exile groups, says this story in today's Washington Post.  

The story quotes former WOLA board member Silvia Wilhelm, of the Cuban-American Commission for Family Rights, as saying that Cuba could be facing "a major immigration crisis in the next few months." Clearly, there is no time to waste.

WOLA has long maintained that restrictions on family visits cause needless pain and do nothing to advance democracy and human rights on the island.  Travel restrictions are part of a hare-brained U.S. policy on Cuba that, as should be obvious, has achieved nothing. We are supporting bills in the Senate and the House that would at least temporarily allow Americans with families in Cuba to travel to the island to visit relatives or send cash or parcels to help them recover from storm damage. That would be a good start toward a realistic and sensible policy on Cuba, but only a start.