Civil Society, Headlines, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Activists Learn What to Do in Case of Abuse, While Waiting for the Lawyer

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 1 2005 (IPS) - “We cannot do without lawyers, but we must have the legal tools to know what to do in an emergency,” Argentine rural activist Carlos González told IPS.

González, a member of the Campesino Movement of Santiago del Estero (MOCASE), was referring to cases in which the police arbitrarily detain and mistreat activists – something that still occurs frequently in Argentina – and the need for immediate legal advice and assistance before the lawyers are called in.

MOCASE came up with one solution to this problem: the training of “human rights promoters” or facilitators who can help negotiate the legal system and prevent or secure redress for abuses.

“First we bring the complaint before the prosecutor on duty, and after that we circulate a bulletin to get out the word” about what happened, said González.

The idea to train human rights facilitators emerged in response to the needs of campesinos (small farmers) who belong to MOCASE, in the impoverished northwestern province of Santiago del Estero, where large landowners often call in “para-police” forces to harass and intimidate rural workers and indigenous farmers to help evict them in cases of conflicts over land.

MOCASE’s Secretariat of Land, Human Rights and the Environment, where campesinos turn for legal advice in the face of violent evictions, came up with the idea to create “autonomous popular defenders offices” in 2003, and the idea caught on, under different names, in dozens of social organisations.

This is occurring as part of the mushrooming of social movements defending the right to work, land, health and education since Argentina’s late 2001 economic collapse. In many cases, there have been attempts to silence dissent and protests by persecuting activists.

The “autonomous popular defenders offices” are not an organisation with a structure and headquarters of their own. “We work with other groups so that in an emergency, they don’t have to sit with their arms crossed waiting for the lawyer, but instead will know what to do, how to defuse the conflict,” said González.

Lawyers with human rights groups like the Centre for Legal and Social Studies or the Coordinator Against Police and Institutional Repression already provide social organisations with legal aid. But more immediate assistance is often needed.

In the workshops for training facilitators, the MOCASE activists with the greatest experience give advice to members of other rural or campesino organisations.

They also assist organisations of “piqueteros” – the movement of the unemployed, that takes its name from the “piquetes” or roadblocks that the demonstrators use in their protests – sexual minorities, or victims of police brutality.

The training involves an exchange and sharing of experiences that enables the participants in the workshops to identify the most efficient and effective tools for preventing human rights violations or for reporting them if they have already occurred, said González.

Sometimes preventive efforts even make it unnecessary for a lawyer to get involved.

Other tasks undertaken by the human rights promoters are helping the elderly navigate the red tape to secure pensions, for example, or assisting local residents in their fight against a factory that is causing pollution and hurting their health.

Even organisations of overweight people or the families of victims of traffic accidents have expressed an interest in the workshops.

Roberto Marsenaro is a member of the Javier Barrionuevo association of the unemployed, which forms part of the Aníbal Verón Movement of Unemployed Workers in Esteban Echeverría, a poor neighbourhood in Greater Buenos Aires.

Marsenaro’s organisation was named for a member of the movement who was killed by a local political leader during a roadblock. “This man, who had good relations with the police, drove up in his car, and when the protesters didn’t let him through, he drove over the barrier and shot and killed Javier Barrionuevo,” Marsenaro told IPS.

The killer, Jorge Bogado, was let off the hook within just a few months, after the prosecutor’s office dropped charges for “lack of evidence”, even though Bogado confessed to firing the shots against Barrionuevo, and there were at least five witnesses who testified that they saw him pull out the gun and take aim at the piquetero’s neck.

After Barrionuevo’s murder, the police began to persecute other members of the movement. “They would stop us all the time, beat us, humiliate us. One day they took one of our activists to an abandoned quarry, made him strip, pretended they were going to rape and shoot him, and then let him go,” said Marsenaro.

Having received training by the network of “autonomous popular defenders offices”, Marsenaro filed charges of “abuse of authority” against the two police officers who mistreated the activist, and did everything without the assistance of lawyers.

But there are also cases in which the human rights promoters actually prevent abuses from being committed in the first place.

“Sometimes one of us is just walking down the street and is hauled in by the police to check if he has a criminal record, and now we know what to do to prevent beatings and other abuses,” said Marsenaro. He explained that it is necessary to talk to the police chief at the station, demand to know the reasons the person was detained, and file a legal complaint.

Another essential step is to quickly draw attention to the case, which is done through small news networks set up by social movements and non-governmental organisations that send out bulletins and statements to larger media outlets.

Marsenaro also mentioned a case in which the human rights promoters took action to prevent an eight-year-old boy with behavioural problems from being expelled from his school.

The vice-principal denied him entry to the school, and after the parents complained, they were told that he was to be transferred to a boarding school.

After the human rights facilitators requested, and were refused, an interview with the school principal, they took the case to the school council, the public body that supervises schools in Argentina.

They explained that the boy’s father was not only disabled but was an alcoholic as well, and that what the child needed was psychological assistance.

After two months of efforts by the human rights promoters, the child was readmitted to the school, where he now receives psychological attention.

“Not only that but he was given make-up classes to allow him to catch up on what he missed in the two months that he didn’t go to school,” said Marsenaro.