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PRESENTATION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INTER-AMERICAN
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS BY
THE PRESIDENT OF THE IACHR, PROF.
MICHAEL REISMAN TO THE COMMITTEE ON JURIDICAL AND POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE PERMANENT COUNCIL OF
THE OAS
Mr. President, distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is an honor and a privilege, Mr. President, in this 35th
anniversary year of the foundation of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights to come before this Committee to present the
Annual Report for the year 1993 as well as the Commission's special
reports on Colombia, El Salvador and Haiti.
Before I describe the Report and the activities of the Commission
throughout the year that it encapsulates, I would like to note a number
of personnel changes that have occurred in the Commission since my
predecessor, Dr. Oscar Luján Fappiano, appeared here last year to
present the report then. In periodic elections of the General Assembly,
Dr. Marco Tulio Bruni Celli and Ambassador Oliver Jackman retired from
the Commission, having fulfilled the maximum two terms which the
Convention allows. Each of these men had served as Chairman of the
Commission and gave distinguished service to it. Dr. Bruni Celli now
serves as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee which
oversees the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and as the United
Nations' special rapporteur on Haiti. Ambassador Jackman, who once
served as permanent representative of his country, Barbados, in the
Permanent Council of the OAS, is now a candidate to the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Happily, the Assembly selected equally outstanding jurists to
take their place. Ambassador John Donaldson, the former Foreign Minister
of Trinidad and Tobago who has, through a long and distinguished career
served his country in many important posts, has joined the Commission as
has Dean Claudio Grossman, a renowned scholar on international human
rights, a specialist on the inter-American human rights system and
a successful advocate before the Inter-American Court.
In its February session of this year, the Commission elected
Ambassador Alvaro Tirado Mejía as its First Vice-President and
Dr. Leo Valladares Lanza as the Second Vice-President.
I was privileged by my colleagues to serve as President. Both
Commission officers are present at this meeting.
In addition, both Mr. Donaldson and Professor Grossman are here
with us today. Their
presence here is an indication of the importance that all members of the
Commission attach to the annual review by the political branches.
Hopefully, this wider attendance will become a precedent.
Before proceeding, I would like to express, on behalf of the
Commission, our congratulations to the Government of Dominica for having
ratified the American Convention during the past year. Likewise, it is
fitting to recognize and congratulate publicly the acceptance of the
jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court by Bolivia and Paraguay.
Similarly, congratulations are in order for Ecuador and Panama,
both of which deposited their instruments of ratification to the
Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the
Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Riqhts, the "Protocol of San
Salvador" during the course of the past year. I am also pleased to
record, in this regard, that Uruguay and Venezuela have recently
ratified the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human
Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty.
All of these actions demonstrate the commitment of these member
states to the extension of human rights obligations under international
law.
The year under review has been one of intense activity for the
Commission. In its course, the Commission conducted on site visits to
Haiti, Guatemala and Peru. I
wish to thank the governments of those countries for having invited the
Commission to carry out these important tasks.
In the course of its two regular sessions, the Commission
conducted hearings at which numerous representatives of governments,
non-governmental human rights organizations, victims of human
riqhts violations and witnesses came before it.
In addition, the Commission continued to litigate a growing
number of cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
A full account of the IACHR's diverse activities is contained in
the Report.
All of this work was facilitated by the extraordinary committed
and skillful work of the Secretariat, led by Ambassador Edith Márquez. It is common knowledge that given the range of tasks that
have now been assigned to the Commission by the Convention and by the
General Assembly, our staff resources are insufficient. It is a great tribute to the Commission that so much has been
accomplished with so little resource base.
The Annual Report, which was duly presented to the Secretary
General, in a timely fashion, in accordance with the request of the
Permanent Council, and pursuant to Article 91(f) of the Charter, is a
comprehensive report of the Commission's activities in the year under
review. Structurally, it is comprised of five chapters which treat
sequentially, the following matters:
-
A brief examination of the history and legal bases of the IACHR;
-
A summary of the main activities of the Commission during
the period covered by the Report;
-
Reports on individual cases;
- A chapter on the human
rights situation in several countries; and
- A section containing
studies and recommendations on various specific matters affecting human
rights in the Americas.
For the sake of completeness, the Report also contains updated
information on the status of all of the inter-American treaties on
human riqhts, the press communiques issued by the Commission during the
year, the speeches delivered ex officio by my predecessor and
a summary of the Commission's on site visits.
Three chapters of the Annual Report merit some additional
comment.
Chapter III, entitled "Report on Individual Cases," is
by far the lengthiest section of the Annual Report.
Individual cases are initiated by individual petitioners, so the
size of this part of the Commission's report is not something it
determines. This is a
particularly important part of the Report, because it treats the plight
of many citizens of our countries.
In the final analysis, they are the intended beneficiaries of our
system, for human rights are the rights of individual human beings.
In sum, this Chapter comprises 350 pages and a total of 23
reports, covering 37 numbered and 65 named victims, brought against 10
countries. In addition,
there are lengthy decisions on the admissibility of two cases involving,
in principle, hundreds of putative victims.
The fourth chapter of the Commission's report discusses the human
riqhts situation in Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru.
I will not go into the specifics of the Commission's findings
regarding the status of human rights of these countries at this moment,
since I am sure you are all familiar with the Commission's observations
in this regard. Suffice it
to say, however, that chapter IV reflects the Commission's continuing
concern about the human rights situation in each of these states.
Chapter V contains three reports that are direct responses to
recommendations of the General Assembly of the OAS.
They deal respectively with economic, social and cultural rights,
the situation of refugees, displaced persons and repatriated peoples in
a number of OAS member states, and lastly, a distillation of the
Commission's reflections on the World Conference on Human Rights held
last year in Vienna, Austria and its implications for the
inter-American human rights system.
Permit me to note, Mr. Chairman, that with the publication of
these studies the Inter-American Commission has now responded to
all of the recommendations and requests of the General Assembly in its
various resolutions, creative and thoughtful, and in doing so has sought
to provide guidance to the member states on these great issues
confronting our governments and peoples.
The 1993 Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission
concludes with a series of recommendations to the foreign ministers who
will meet soon at Belem do Para at the twenty fourth regular session of
the General Assembly.
Some of the recommendations are reiterations of recommendations
made in years past while others are novel.
All have the same aim: to secure greater respect for the
political, civil, social, economic and cultural rights, which are
prescribed in the Convention, for the citizens of our countries.
In addition to its Annual Report, the Commission has also
published three special country reports since the last General Assembly.
These examine the human rights situations in Colombia, El Salvador and
Haiti. Each is an extensive
and thorough undertaking. I wish to note Mr. Chairman that each of these three reports
were duly sent to the governments of the states in question in
conformity with the pertinent provisions of the American Convention on
Human Rights and the Commission's regulations and the observations
provided to the IACHR by the governments concerned were carefully
considered and taken into account.
I will not try to summarize these country reports for the
Committee during this hearing, Mr. Chairman.
To do so would exceed the time and scope of this presentation. Nevertheless, later during the course of our meeting, I and
my colleagues would be happy to respond to any questions or observations
the delegates may wish to make in this connection.
Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates, 1993 was a year of
achievements as well as frustrations in the field of human rights in the
Americas. While notable
advances have been achieved in many countries in their efforts to
consolidate democratic institutions, human rights violations, alas,
still persist on a large scale in some countries.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has sought to
fulfill its obligations under the Charter, the Convention and the
American Declaration in a dynamic manner while scrupulously adhering to
the instruments that regulate its conduct.
Our objective, like yours, is, in the words of the preamble of
the American Convention on Human Rights, "to consolidate in this
hemisphere, within the framework of democratic institutions, a system of
personal liberty and social justice based on respect for the essential
rights of man."
On behalf of my colleagues I am proud to present the reports
before you and at the appropriate moment, I will be pleased to entertain
your questions.
Thank you very much.
ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR CLAUDIO
GROSSMAN TO THE OAS PERMANENT COUNCIL AT ITS SPECIAL MEETING
OF MAY 11, 1994 TO ASSESS THE SITUATION OF HAITI Chairman of the Permanent Council Ambassadors Permanent Representatives Permanent Observers Secretary General Assistant Secretary General Deputy Dante Caputo, Special Representative of the
Secretaries General of the OAS
and the United Nations for Haiti Ladies and Gentlemen
On behalf of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, I
would like to thank the Permanent Council for inviting us to participate
in this special meeting on Haiti.
The Commission has been observing the human rights situation in
that country on an ongoing basis. As
is widely known, the legal bases for the Commission's work are enshrined
in the OAS Charter, in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties
of Man and in the American Convention on Human Rights, which was
ratified by Haiti on September 27, 1977.
These legal instruments provide a regulatory framework that
includes a list of rights used by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights to ensure compliance with international obligations freely
assumed by the member states.
In Haiti's case, the Commission has received numerous individual
complaints of human rights violations, has conducted investigations on
its own initiative, and has asked for and received evidence.
In view of the serious nature of the claims of widespread and
systematic human rights violations in Haiti since the military coup of
September 1991, the Commission made two on-site visits to that country,
one in December 1991 and the other in August 1993.
Its findings were described in special reports on the human
rights situation in Haiti in 1993 and 1994, respectively.
Based on those visits, the Commission has decried the continued
and drastic worsening of the human rights situation in Haiti noting that
those who hold power in the country have escalated the repression
against the people of Haiti. As
stated by the Commission in its 1994 report,
summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture
and extortion are carried out with complete impunity by the military and
paramilitary. The attacks perpetrated against President Aristide's
supporters in broad-daylight go unpunished.
Suffice it to cite a single example of such outrageous conduct:
the murders of Antoine Izmery and Guy-François Malar.
The people have no legal recourse or any other type of protection
against these violations. The
restrictions of freedom of expression and the
attacks and physical threats on journalists stymie the internal
publicizing of such acts. The
Commission has concluded that, paradoxically, human rights violations
increase each time the military decide to renege on the political
agreements designed to establish democracy in Haiti.
Such agreements, espoused by the international community, have
led the supporters of democracy in Haiti to rejoice publicly at the
adoption thereof, only to discover subsequently and tragically that the
pacts were a prelude to new murders and torture.
The brutal nature of these fundamental human rights violations
should not conceal the fact that they constitute deliberate political
activities meant to terrorize those who seek the reestablishment of
democracy and the reconciliation of Haiti'_ people. After conducting a detailed study of the de facto
power structure and the causes contributing to human rights violations,
the Commission concluded that the army has become a tool for violating
human rights, a palpable distortion of its primary purpose of protecting
national sovereignty. In
addition, the army enjoys absolute power, free of any checks or
balances, within a framework of armed institutions that have not
received and continue to need basic training to respect the fundamental
rights of their own people.
In the Commission's view, the army is responsible for repressing
its own people and maintaining a veritable reign of terror in Haiti.
In light of this situation, the latest IACHR Special Report on
the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti noted that:
The Commission is convinced that the essential requirement to
remedy the grave human rights situation in Haiti is quick
reestablishment of the constitutional democratic regime elected at the
polls on December 16, 1990, and deposed
in the coup d'état of September 29, 1991.
This restoration should be accompanied by fundamental changes
such as separation of the Army and the police as provided in the
Constitution of 1987. At the same time, the necessary steps should be taken to
professionalize an independent police force.
...The Commission is convinced that in order to safeguard the
personal rights and liberties of Haitians and to protect the population
from abuses by the military, there must be:
a. a substantial reform of
the legal system to ensure that the perpetrators of the criminal acts
are brought to justice and that persons who are arrested are brought to
trial in as short a time as possible, and
b. an immediate disarming
and disbanding of the paramilitary forces and section chiefs who commit
indiscriminate acts of violence with impunity.
Given the serious deterioration of fundamental values in Haiti,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has decided to conduct
another on-site visit to the country, starting on Saturday, May 14.
Dr. Patrick L. Robinson, Ambassador John Donaldson, and I will be
members of the visiting group. The
Commission will be represented by its Executive Secretary, Ambassador
Edith Márquez Rodríguez, and a team of three lawyers.
As is its custom, the Commission will meet with all sectors of
the Haitian population; hear individual complaints; and prepare a report
on each of the situations observed.
Pursuant to the resolution adopted by this distinguished Council
just last Monday, the Commission will give priority to investigating
mass executions of defenseless groups of the population and other crimes
of equal magnitude. It will
also prioritize investigation of the crimes of rape, sexual abuse, and
kidnapping of children, particularly when they are used as pawns in
political terror tactics.
The Commission will report on the findings of their visit to
Haiti to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States at
its twenty-fourth regular session.
Complying with the mandate conferred by the Charter of the
Organization of American States and the other existing treaties, the
Commission will continue to perform its task of thoroughly documenting
the human rights situation in Haiti.
The Commission's reports will tell the victims, their relatives
and the Haitian people that their tragedy will not remain undocumented;
that there are no anonymous dead in Haiti; and that each human rights
violation is perceived and condemned by the nations and public opinion
in this hemisphere.
As one of its ongoing objectives, the Commission provides the
political organs of the OAS with information that will help them perform
their duties as guarantors of freely assumed obligations in respect of
human rights.
As a body established by the Charter, whose principal function
shall be to promote the observance and protection of human rights and to
serve as a consultative organ of the organization, the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights will continue to perform its duties
indefatigably until democracy and human rights are reestablished in
Haiti.
Thank you.
TEXT OF THE SPEECH OF THE
CHAIRMAN OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ONHUMAN RIGHTS,
PROFESSOR MICHAEL REISMAN, BEFORE THE FIRST COMMITTEE OF THE
TWENTY FOURTH REGULAR SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE OAS TO
PRESENT THE 1993 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE IACHR Mr. Chairman, distinguished Delegates, Members of the Commission,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is a juridical
commission, based on law and charged with applying law, so it is
appropriate to begin with the law. Article 41 (g) of the American
Convention on Human Rights prescribes that the Commission submit an
annual report to the General Assembly of the Organization of American
State. In fulfillment of
that function, I have the privilege of presenting to you today the
Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for
1993. In addition, the
delegations have received the Commission's special reports on Colombia,
El Salvador and Haiti. I
will refer to these later in the course of my remarks.
But allow me, first, Mr. Chairman, to introduce my fellow
officers and colleagues on the Commission. I am joined here today by
Ambassador Alvaro Tirado Mejía, the First Vice-President, and Dr.
Leo Valladares Lanza, the Second Vice-President, as well as by Dr.
Patrick Robinson, a former Chairman of the Commission. Our collective
presence here today, Mr. Chairman, which I believe is unprecedented,
underscores the gravity with which the Commission views this task, our
perception of the critical character of the relationship between the
Assembly and the Commission for our work and the importance that we
attach to the Assembly's understanding of what we are doing and why we
are doing it. Above all, our presence underlines the seriousness with
which the Commission takes the work of the General Assembly, the supreme
legislative body of our Organization and the ultimate political decision
maker in all matters under the Charter, including the enforcement of
those human rights on which you have charged us to study and report to
you.
May I also note, Mr. Chairman, that, following elections in the
Assembly, there have been changes in membership in the Commission
starting on January 1 of this year.
Two very devoted and experienced members of the Commission, Marco
Tulio Bruni Celli and Oliver Jackman, both of whom had served at
different times as Chairmen, completed their second terms, the statutory
limit, and have retired. They
have earned the thanks of the entire Commission and, I daresay, of all
those in our region who cherish human rights. Dr. Bruni Celli is now a member of the United Nations Human
Rights Committee and serves as its rapporteur for Haiti.
Ambassador Jackman has been nominated for the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The General Assembly elected two new members of the Commission,
Ambassador John Donaldson and Dean Claudio Grossman. I congratulate and
thank the General Assembly for selecting two such outstanding jurists
for our work and, likewise, for having re-elected to a second term
Dr. Oscar Luján Fappiano, a veteran in the struggle for winning respect
for human rights for all.
Mr. Chairman, it is a source of particular pride for me to
present these reports to you in the year in which the Commission is
celebrating its thirty-fifth anniversary. With your permission,
Mr. Chairman, I think it appropriate, in this anniversary year, to
consider briefly the historic commitment of the Organization of
American States to human rights and the role the Organization has
assigned to the Commission in its oversight. The OAS was among the
pioneers of modern human rights law.
The Charter--the Pact of Bogota of 1948-- is an
agreement between states but it incorporates the "fundamental
rights of the individual" as one of the Organization's founding
principles. The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man,
prepared by the Inter-American Juridical Committee in 1947, was
adopted by the OAS in Bogota the year after to elaborate on the
Charter's general commitment to human rights. In 1959, at Santiago,
Chile, your predecessors, the foreign ministers of our countries of this
hemisphere, established the Inter-American Commission of Human
Rights.
The Commission started life with a rather vague mandate. In 1965,
the Commission's competence was expanded to accept communications,
request information from governments and make recommendations "with
the objective of bringing about more effective observance of human
rights." In 1967, the Charter was amended and the Commission
became a principal organ of the OAS.
The American Convention of Human Rights, signed in 1969,
incorporated the Commission and assigned it specific conventional
competences. It also
created an American Court of Human Rights. The Convention entered into
force in 1978. Currently, there are 25 parties to the Convention, but
because of the history of the evolution of the Commission, which I
reviewed, all states in the hemisphere, whether or not they are
party to the American Convention, are subject to some form of the
Commission's jurisdiction. Let me explain.
The Commission's conventional jurisdiction applies to the
25 states that have, to date, become party to the American Convention.
Its judicial invocative jurisdiction,i.e., its competence
to invoke the American Court, applies to the States Parties to the
American Convention that have declared that they accept the Court's
jurisdiction. But the
Commission's Declaration jurisdiction, i.e., jurisdiction based
on the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man of 1948,
applies to all the members of the OAS, for the Declaration elaborates
the human rights commitments that all members have undertaken in the
Charter. Thus, the
Commission may receive petitions from citizens of states-parties
to the Convention, based on the rights enunciated in the Convention, and
it may receive petitions from citizens of member-states of the
OAS, who are not yet party to the American Convention, based on the
rights enunciated in the American Declaration.
The Court, in one of its Advisory Opinions, has authorized the
interpretation of each of these human rights instruments by reference to
the other.
Human rights are about individuals so it should be no surprise
that a substantial part of the daily work of the Commission comes from
individual petitions. Article 44 of the Convention states that:
Any person or group of persons, or any nongovernmental entity
legally recognized in one or more member states of the Organization, may
lodge petitions with the Commission containing denunciations or
complaints of violation of this Convention by a State Party.
A case begins on receipt of a petition about an alleged violation
of human rights. Petitions about the same event often come from a number
of different sources. The events they refer to are sometimes
heartrending. The Commission examines the petition in terms of the basic
requirements of Articles 46 and 47--whether the petition contains
names and signatures, whether it states facts that tend to establish a
violation of the Convention or whether it is manifestly groundless,
whether domestic remedies have been exhausted, whether the petition has
been lodged within specified time limits, whether the petition is
pending in another international proceeding, or has already been
before the Commission. If
the petition does not fail these threshold tests, it is relayed to the
government it names for information and its views.
The information that is supplied may lay the matter to rest, in
which case Article 48(b) instructs the Commission to order that the
record be closed or the information provided may establish that the
petition is inadmissible which also terminates the procedure. If not,
the Commission, with the knowledge of the parties, must proceed to
investigate the matter, asking for information it deems necessary,
hearing oral arguments and receiving written statements. It also puts
itself at the disposal of the parties with a view to reaching a friendly
settlement.
If a friendly settlement can be arranged, the Commission issues a
short report to that effect to the Secretary General of the OAS. If there is no settlement, the Commission draws up a report
with the facts and its conclusions and recommendations and sends it only
to the state concerned, which may not publicize it. If, within three
months, the matter has not been settled, the Commission must either
issue a final report, which becomes part of the Annual Report to the
Assembly, or, for those states that have accepted the jurisdiction of
the Court, the Commission may refer the matter to the Court. Advisory
Opinion 13 instructs the Commission to decide this matter, not on
discretionary grounds but to select "the alternative that would be
most favorable for the protection of the rights established in the
Convention".
Aside from petitions, the Commission must stay abreast of general
trends in order to perform the various functions prescribed by Article
41 of the Convention. It
accomplishes this by using a wide-ranging methodology: in addition
to its scrutiny of all relevant documents, the Commission devotes a
great deal of its efforts to meeting with numerous government officials,
spokepersons for non-governmental human rights organizations and
citizens of our countries from all walks of life. This methodology is
important, for Article 41 also specifies, as a function of the
Commission, that it is to prepare "reports" or
"studies" as it considers advisable.
One form of report is a country-study. The Annual Report
explains:
Under its mandate to promote the observance and defense of human
rights, the IACHR has been reviewing the status of human rights in the
countries of the hemisphere and has drawn up special reports on some of
them. These reports have been prepared on the Commission's own
initiative, or upon instructions from an organ of the Organization of
American States, and, in some cases, at the spontaneous request of the
country concerned. (id. at 379).
A country report examines the aggregate human rights situation ln
the particular country on which it focusses and, where appropriate,
makes recommendations to the government.
Every application of a legal instrument requires interpretation
and judgment and governments do not always agree with all of the
conclusions the Commission may have reached in country reports.
Nevertheless, many governments have accepted the reports in a
positive way and have entered into a dialogue with the Commission about
ways of dealing with the problems that have been indicated, of which,
one might add, elements of the government may have already been aware. A
number of governments have been critical of the Commission, feeling
that they were being singled out unfairly or arbitrarily. In no case
is a country report about a member-state of the OAS prepared
without consultation with government officials and without giving
opportunities to the government to express its views on the issues in
the report.
Sometimes, as a result of the methodology I described above and
other information received, the Commission finds that essentially the
same discrepancies from the standards prescribed by the Convention are
occurring in many countries. There are some human rights violations that
are widespread, if not virtually universal. In some cases, they are the
result of major political, moral or technological changes, to which
national laws or institutional practices have not yet adapted
themselves. If the Commission were only to confront such pathologies
through the petition procedure, case-by-case and
country-by-country, remedies might be secured in the
individual cases that were lodged, but the underlying factors that
precipitated the problem would continue as would the broader pattern of
abuses. Some of these problems call for fundamental institutional
change, such as is contemplated in Articles 2 and 41(b) of the
Convention. Moreover, it does not seem fair to single out in a country
report only one of many countries engaged in a practice inconsistent
with the Convention.
To deal with these types of problems, the Commission may prepare
"studies," in the language of Article 41. Studies enable the
Commission to see things in hemispheric perspective and to develop
recommendations on a hemispheric scale. Currently, the Commission is
studying the status of women in national legislation in the hemisphere
and prison practices throughout the hemisphere and is considering a
study of the consequences on the rights in the Convention of
large-scale migration, both interstate and internal, which would
follow on a recommendation the Assembly had made to the Commission on a
cognate subject.
Thus, the Commission processes petitions for individualized
cases, undertakes country-studies for national patterns of human
rights conformity or violation and special studies for generalized
problems. This Annual Report reflects all these dimensions of the
Commission's work, in addition to special tasks referred to the
Commission by the Assembly. In keeping with AG/RES. 331
(VIII-0/78) and Article 63 of its Rules of Procedure, the 1993
Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is
composed of five chapters. I
should like to review them briefly.
- In the first chapter, the Commission sets forth the legal
bases and history of its work. I have related some of this to you this
morning.
- In the second chapter, the Commission summarizes its numerous
and varied activities during the year in question.
The Commission's work last year included, of course, its two
regular periods of sessions, as well as an extraordinary meeting held in
Mar del Plata, Argentina, and, as I mentioned to the Committee on
Juridical and Political Affairs, on-site visits to Guatemala,
Haiti and Peru. Since I
appeared before the Committee in April, the Commission has had another
extraordinary meeting in Washington, and has again visited Haiti and
has also visited The Bahamas. I
will return to the acute and generalized human rights crisis in
Haiti--the subject of a special report before you and the special
difficulties the Commission has encountered there, both in its
on-site work and its scrutiny from OAS headquarters.
Other than for Haiti, none of the on-site visits could have
been accomplished without the cooperation and assistance of the
governments, each of which acceded to the Commission's desire to carry
out on-site visits in their respective territories and helped in
many ways. I should also like to express special thanks to the
Government of Argentina for its help in making the Commission's
extraordinary meeting in Buenos Aires a fruitful one.
Chapter Two also provides up-dated information on the contentious
cases the Commission has litigated before the Court during the year
under review: with regard to Colombia, Peru and Suriname respectively.
In all of these cases, regardless of their merits and their
adversarial character, the Commission salutes the governments in
question for freely and voluntarily taking part in these judicial
proceedings. Adjudication is one of the best and fairest ways our
civilization knows for making factual findings, determining
responsibility and achieving justice in individual cases; all of these
are basic functions of the human rights system of the Americas.
Accepting the Court's jurisdiction and participating in such
litigation demonstrates, in what we hope will prove to be an exemplary
way, how democratic and civilized governments can address and resolve
disputes involving the human rights of their citizens.
In the period under review, the Commission also participated in
two cases under the advisory jurisdiction of the Court. One, requested
by Argentina and Uruguay, dealt with questions about the Commission's
jurisdiction and competence and the procedures to be followed under the
American Convention. The
Court's opinion, which the Commission has carefully studied and
discussed and on which it has had the benefit of learned studies
prepared and submitted to it by several governments, has been
incorporated into the procedures of the Commission. In particular, as I mentioned, Advisory Opinion 13 has
refined the criteria and procedures by which the Commission is to submit
cases to the Court. The
other request for an advisory opinion, this one submitted by the
Commission itself, poses two questions to the Court: the legal effect of
national laws that patently violate terms of the Convention and the
individual responsibility of state agents who implement such national
laws. The Court has not yet
handed down its opinion in this case.
In part because of Advisory Opinion 13 and in part because of the
growing number of adherences to the jurisdiction of the
Inter-American Court in accord with Article 62 of the American
Convention, the Commission's work before the Court is taking on greater
significance both for individual cases and for the human rights system
as a whole. As the Court renders decisions in each of these cases, the
cumulation of jurisprudence may help establish a carefully considered
and regionally responsive body of the international law of human rights.
Mr. Chairman, Chapter Three - entitled "Reports on
Individual Cases" is by far the longest section of the Report,
and rightly so, for human rights are, quintessentially, the rights of
individuals. In the course
of the year under review, the Commission opened 107 individual cases,
bringing the total number of individual cases being processed to 635.
Hundreds more were submitted but failed to pass the threshold
tests of the Convention and were dismissed.
As I noted to the members of the Committee on Juridical and
Political Affairs of the Permanent Council, Chapter III is 350 pages
long. It is comprised of 23 reports covering 37 numbered cases and 65
named victims brought against 10 different countries.
A tabular summary of these reports appears on pages 29 to 31 of
the English and Spanish versions of the Report.
Mr. Chairman, my colleagues and I have worked on many of these
cases for years. The
summaries in the Annual Report cannot convey the details of these
tragedies as we have come to know them.
It is a wonderful indication of the commitment of the OAS to
human rights that the legal conclusions about these individual tragedies
go directly to this Assembly and are not shunted off to a terminal
obscurity. We hope that, as
a result of the scrutiny of this distinguished body, the recommendations
in the reports will be implemented promptly.
One State in the hemisphere--Colombia--is now working
actively to revise its laws so that the Commission's recommendations in
individual cases can be promptly implemented at the national level; the
Commission has worked with it on this important development, which we
hope will be emulated widely. I regret to note that, in many countries,
the recommendations in many individual cases from previous years still
remain to be implemented.
It may also be worth noting that while the majority of these
individual case reports find the state against whom the petition was
brought responsible for the commission of human rights violations,
that is far from always being the case. The two lengthy reports dealing
with admissibility--one confirming admissibility, the other
finding the petition inadmissible--are rather mundane
illustrations of the extraordinary care the Commission takes in its
analyses of the facts as well as the preliminary procedural and
jurisdictional requirements that guide its work.
The fourth chapter of the Commission's report discusses the human
rights situation in Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru.
Before examining these respective reports, a number of considerations
should be borne in mind. First, as I mentioned, the Commission sought
information from all those mentioned governments that are members of the
OAS before drafting these reports. Second, the reports are intended to
be up-dates of earlier special country reports, so, except for
necessary background information, they are limited to the year covered
by the Annual Report.
With regard to Cuba, the Commission focussed on personal freedom,
the right to justice and due process; generally practiced methods of
harassment of human rights activists; the situation in jails; and
freedom of movement. Free speech and dissent are still subject to
unrelenting repression. There
is a lack of due process in trials of government critics and, what is
worse, this is sanctioned by law. Numerous individuals were tried and
convicted in Cuba in 1993 in violation of their right to free expression
under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.
Among these were a number of courageous human rights monitors.
Methods cited by the Commission in dealing with human rights
activists ranged from dismissal from employment, the imposition of
fines, beatings, imprisonment, internment in psychiatric hospitals, to
forced disappearance. The prison situation in Cuba and, in particular,
the fate of political prisoners in that country is a cause of particular
concern. The severe limitations and punishments placed on free travel,
particularly in cases of Cuban citizens seeking to live abroad, remain
largely unchanged. The Commission finds that:
the human rights situation in Cuba has changed little in
comparison to years past. Civil and political rights are not effectively
exercised, primarily because of the concentration of power in the hands
of a small group of people and the absence of the rule of law. In
effect, individuals have no recourse against arbitrary measures that may
be taken by the state. (id. at p. 380).
The Commission will continue to monitor the situation in Cuba.
With regard to Guatemala, Mr. Chairman, the Commission
up-dates its June, 1993 special report. I should mention at the
outset that since publishing its Annual Report, the Government of
Guatemala has permitted and actively aided the Commission in conducting
another on-site visit to that country in March of this year. On
that occasion, the Commission visited a number of so called CPRs,
Comunidades de Poblaciones en Resistencia, in the Department of El
Quiche, and thereafter, held a long and useful talk with President
Ramiro de Leon Carpio, which covered some of the issues treated in the
Report.
In general, the Government of Guatemala has taken and continues
to take notable steps to improve the human rights situation in its
country--actions such as the demilitarization of the police
force, the strengthening of the Office of Ombudsman for Human Rights,
the increasing return and resettlement of refugees and internally
displaced persons. Yet the
phenomena of insecurity and violence continue at alarming levels. While
a portion of the violence is attributable to continuing actions of
subversives under the banner of the URNG and as a result of large scale
private criminal activity, it is, nevertheless, clear that unsolved,
extra-judicial executions are still occurring and bear all the
signs of traditional military and paramilitary repression. Victims
have included students, professors, union organizers, human rights
defenders, journalists and indigenous leaders.
The Commission also continues to be greatly concerned by
socio-economic indicators in Guatemala that show that the overwhelming
majority of people live in a state of bare subsistence while wealth and
land continue to be concentrated in the hands of a very small minority
of citizens. Tax policies have not been reformed and the provision of
public services, particularly in the areas of health and education, are
still greatly neglected while the country appears to be mired in an
institutional crisis. Despite efforts, fundamental reform of the
judicial system remains an unfulfilled dream and the so-called
Voluntary Civil Defense Committees composed of hundreds of thousands of
armed peasants continue to operate in the countryside despite recommendations
to the contrary made by this Commission and other human rights
organizations.
The Commission concludes its study on Guatemala with five
recommendations. They are: |
