RIGHTS-LATAM: Computers a New Weapon against Impunity

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Néfer Muñoz

SAN JOSE, Sep 8 2000 (IPS) - Human rights activists, families of the disappeared, and South Americans living in other countries are using the Internet to demand the trial of former Argentinean navy captain Miguel Cavallo, arrested in Mexico on charges of genocide.

An extradition request against Cavallo is pending, presented by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who is known for his defence of international jurisdiction when it comes to crimes against humanity. Garzón issued the arrest warrant that led to the detention of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998.

Internet users in many countries quickly organised themselves to take on the Cavallo case, exchanging charges against this repressor-turned-businessman, and organising rallies.

One of the movement’s leading Internet sites is http://www.laneta.apc.org/cavalloentrerejas/, which shows a picture of the former military officer behind the bars of a Mexican prison. The site provides access to a database of news stories, testimonies and precedents related to the case.

The web page, known as “Cavallo Behind Bars,” has updated news about the extradition process and calls for public demonstrations against Cavallo’s business holdings. His firms in Mexico and El Salvador hold government concessions to run the countries’ national vehicle registries.

This campaign “would have been impossible a decade ago, before the Internet,” Gala Rebés, president in Madrid of the non- governmental ‘Al Sur del Sur’ (South of the South), told IPS. Her organisation advocates against the impunity of those who have violated human rights.

Rebés, in Spain, shares information daily with other Spaniards and people in France, Argentina and Central America through her computer. She says that thanks to this new technology it is easy to join the campaign against those who tortured and killed political prisoners under South America’s dictatorships.

The Internet sites aimed at fighting Cavallo’s impunity seem to multiply week by week. One can obtain general information on the case, for example, at http://www.laneta.apc.org/pipermail/azulyblanca/ or read the legal case against him at http://www.nodo50.org/asoargen.

“The key aspect of the Internet and e-mail is that they are fast and cheap – even instantaneous,” said Anwar Al-Ghassani, professor of new technologies at the University of Costa Rica.

The Internet campaign against Cavallo is an example of the new global process of human relations, Al-Ghassani told IPS. It makes people from distant countries seem close and gives international co-operation on humanitarian issues a boost.

Celia Medrano agrees with this assessment. As director of the Commission for the Defence of Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA), the Salvadoran Medrano, like other rights activists, has joined the efforts via the Internet to condemn former South American torturers.

This week, “Cavallo Behind Bars” posted a CODEHUCA statement on the business dealings of Cavallo and his brother, Oscar, who had hoped to win the government’s concession to manage El Salvador’s national weapons registry.

The 12 organisations that make up the CODEHUCA say that Central America may be serving as a base of operations for those responsible for crimes against humanity, and exhort police authorities to investigate the Argentinean entrepreneurs involved with the Cavallos.

“We are investigating the ties of the Cavallo brothers with former Honduran military officials, and if we uncover proof of irregular business deals we will make it known,” stressed Medrano.

“The Internet has become an essential communications vehicle, but one must read everything with a critical eye and verify the sources of the information,” Beatriz Roux, a woman from Argentina who is a member of the Franco-Argentinean Association in Paris, told IPS.

This organisation was created shortly before Pinochet’s arrest in Great Britain, and since then has been dedicated to disseminating and discussing information about former dictators and their repressive forces.

Within a few minutes, Roux, in Paris, collaborates on the issue of French citizens who disappeared in Argentina, sends e-mails around the world about human rights issues, and contacts attorneys working on the charges against Argentinean military officers.

The activists and experts are well aware that this kind of work would have been much slower and much more expensive with pre- Internet technologies, even with the fax machine.

In addition to the Internet sites dedicated to fighting Cavallo’s impunity, there are other websites that target other human rights violators, or that focus on building awareness among civil society, such as http://www.nuncamas.org and http://www.desaparecidos.org/arg.