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

RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: Defenceless Defenders

Inés Benítez

GUATEMALA CITY, Feb 21 2008 (IPS) - The security situation for human rights defenders in Guatemala has gotten worse in the last five years, with around 50 activists killed in that period and near total impunity for the murderers, said Hina Jilani, special representative of the United Nations secretary-general.

“The reported figure of 98 percent of impunity for attacks against human rights defenders makes justice an empty word in Guatemala,” the Pakistani lawyer said in a news briefing Wednesday at the end of a three-day mission to the country aimed at following up on progress made since a previous visit in June 2002.

Attacks on human rights activists form part of a broader context of violence that has claimed 25,700 lives in the last five years, making Guatemala one of the most violent countries in Latin America, Diego de León, an activist with the Myrna Mack Foundation, said Monday in a meeting with Jilani and members of other local human rights groups.

The U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders also met with representatives of the government, the judiciary and the international community.

Factors like extremely unequal income distribution, rampant violence and organised crime, almost total impunity and the influence of “parallel powers” have drastically deteriorated the environment in which human rights defenders work in this country, said Jilani.

Nevertheless, the special representative pointed to some advances, such as the creation of specific mechanisms, like the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).

CICIG, the result of a 2006 agreement between then president Óscar Berger and the United Nations, began to work in January to investigate and attempt to dismantle illegal, clandestine security groups that have infiltrated state institutions, including the justice system.

According to Jilani, “two state institutions that should be in the frontline in providing protection and redress against these attacks are part of the problem…the police and the Attorney General’s Office.”

She said the protection provided to at-risk human rights defenders is “selective, inefficient and at times it is even a cause of further risk when the police themselves are believed to be involved in the attacks”.

In addition, “the inaction of the prosecutors in investigating cases reported by or concerning defenders is disappointing,” said Jilani, who called for “strong and firm measures…to redress the deficiency of the investigative mechanism.”

She also warned that some political sectors and the media carry out constant campaigns that stigmatise and “criminalise” human rights activists, accusing them of working to protect the rights of criminals, and thus putting them at even higher risk of threats and attacks.

This situation, said Jilani, demonstrates the lack of political will to solve the problem.

She recommended that the government take “concrete and visible steps to give political recognition and legitimacy to the work of human rights defenders. This can be made by way of firmly condemning attacks against defenders and by acknowledging the importance of their work.”

Jilani also suggested improved coordination among the institutions responsible for investigating such cases, especially the police and the Attorney General’s office.

The expert called on the international community to continue monitoring the situation of human rights defenders in this Central American country and expressing support for their work.

She also recommended that activists strengthen alliances and coalitions both within and outside the country to “enhance the protection that defenders can provide to each other through these networks.”

According to Jilani, all sectors of the Guatemalan human rights community have suffered from rights abuses and attacks, while those who work in the areas of justice and in the struggle for “the right to truth” are particularly targeted.

Other frequent targets of attacks, she said, are trade unions, journalists, lawyers, women and youth defenders, peasants’ organisations, indigenous people, and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“The impunity is appalling; there are no investigations or prosecutions in these cases,” Claudia Samayoa with the Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit of the National Movement for Human Rights, a local NGO, told IPS.

In the meeting with Jilani, representatives of trade unions complained about what they described as “a state policy against the labour movement.”

The NGO Hijos e Hijas por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (HIJOS) – Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Oblivion and Silence – which strives to keep alive the memory of the 200,000 victims of Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, complained of attacks and threats by “the police and former members of the military.”

Defenders of peasant farmers reported violent forced evictions from their land by the police and private security agents, while women activists complained about death threats and expressed concern about the “setback” seen in the last few years.

The United Nations is particularly concerned about the situation of women activists in Guatemala, and of women in general, said Jilani, who called for special protection measures for them.

According to a report by the Mutual Support Group, a local rights organisation, 392 women were murdered in 2007, out of a total 3,319 murders.

“The justice system is the source of the impunity surrounding the massive human rights violations,” said de León.

Social democratic President Álvaro Colom, who took office on Jan. 14, announced last week that he would not commute the sentences of inmates on death row, thus reinstating capital punishment, which has not been applied since 2000.

His announcement came after a new law restored the executive branch’s power to pardon or commute the sentence of a convict facing the death penalty, which opened the door to the resumption of executions by filling a legal vacuum that had prevented them from being carried out. The law was approved by Congress almost unanimously after gangs killed at least 10 bus drivers who refused to pay “protection money.”

Opinion polls show that a majority of Guatemalans are in favour of the death penalty.

Jilani told journalists that capital punishment is an extremely important human rights issue, and that she hoped that the government would take its international commitments into account before making a decision on the cases.

The special representative said she was “encouraged by the commitment expressed by the new government and hopes it will be sustained and determined enough to take the country through the reform processes and transformation that will enable Guatemala to tackle structural problems like inequalities, violence and impunity, that impede the enjoyment of human rights of the people of Guatemala and put those who defend these rights at great risk.”