Knowledge Centre : Human Rights : Human Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean : Page 2
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- He gets guns to play song of peace
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Guns for peace may sound like an oxymoron, but Colombian Cesar Lopez has a vision. Why not transform a tool of war into an instrument for peace? So was born the "escopetarra" - a combination of the words for rifle (escopeta) and guitar (guitarra) - a symbol of civilization overcoming destruction. (The Boston Globe, June 11, 2006)
(Added: Thu Jun 15 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 211)
- Paraguay Sojero: Soy Expansion and Its Violent Attack on Local and Indigenous Communities in Paraguay: Repression and Resistance [pdf]
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In Paraguay, the expansion of (GM) soy production by Brazilian sojeros, supported by biotech and agrochemical corporations, local and national authorities, and the financial sector, is currently the main cause of violence against small farmers and their organisations, and of severe damage to people's health and to food crops due to fumigations with agrochemicals. Grupo de Reflexion Rural from Argentina presents a new report providing detailed accounts of the current violent acts against rural and indigenous communities in Paraguay, which are strongly related to the expansion of (GM) soy production. (Grupo de Reflexion Rural, 2006)
http://www.aseed.net/images/stories/agrocadabra/soy/paraguay-humanrights-report-72dpi.pdf
(Added: Wed May 24 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 276)
- Lost in Transition: Bold Ambitions, Limited Results for Human Rights Under Fox
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Mexico's 2000 presidential election marked the end of seven decades of one-party rule and made clear that Mexican society was ready for this change. However, a principle requisite of democratic rule is that a nation's leaders be fully accountable to its citizens, as well as to its laws. This report focuses on human rights issues directly relevant to the challenge of promoting democratic accountability: openness to international rights monitors; public access to government information; accountability for past abuses (Chapter 4); and reforms of the justice system needed to end ongoing abuses (Chapter 5). In its concluding chapter, the report discusses the most notorious human rights case of recent years-the murder and "disappearance" of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez-showing how that tragedy illustrates the main themes of this report. (Human Rights Watch, May 2006)
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/mexico0506/
(Added: Fri May 19 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 107)
- Trinidad and Tobago: End police immunity for unlawful killings and deaths in custody
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Amnesty International's report looks at the issue of police killings and deaths in custody through cases reported since 2003. The report highlights the authorities' failure to conduct investigations and to bring those responsible to justice. This report argues that structural reforms within the police forces -- including the implementation of a human rights- based Code of Conduct, a transparent chain of command and criminal prosecutions in cases of human rights abuses -- are key to regaining community support, essential for preventing and combating crime. (Amnesty International, 26 April 2006)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR490012006
(Added: Wed May 17 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 205)
- Challenging Impunity Through the Guatemalan Justice System
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Though Bishop Juan Gerardi was murdered 8 years ago, his case still remains open in the Guatemalan courts. This author argues that the country must use the Gerardi case as a catalyst to address the glaring impunity that has surrounded attacks against human rights defenders and the murders of young people like Darinel in Guatemala. In order to challenge the violence, fear and corruption that have haunted Guatemala, justice must be backed by a legitimate judicial system and a police force that cares more about its citizenry than itself. (Jennifer Mizgata, Toward Freedom, 4 May 2006)
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/811/
(Added: Fri May 05 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 113)
- Bolivian Community in Buenos Aires Divided Over Sweatshops
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The Buenos Aires city government's new offensive against slave labour has resulted in the closure of 30 clandestine textile sweatshops in the Argentine capital. But it has also caused divisions in the Bolivian immigrant community: some denounce the exploitative labour conditions, while others desperately want to keep their jobs, however precarious. (6 April 2006)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32800
(Added: Mon May 01 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 163)
- Troubled Island
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This article looks at the complex issues surrounding homosexuality and homophobia in Jamaica, one of the world's most violent and unequal societies. "We who are homosexuals are seen as the 'devil's own children' ... and passed by on the other side of the street or beaten to death by our fellow citizens" - Brian Williamson, murdered gay activist. "I'm dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays" - Beenie Man, dancehall artist. "Homosexuals would find no solace in any cabinet formed" - Opposition leader Bruce Golding. (Gary Younge, The Guardian, 27 April 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,1762155,00.html
(Added: Thu Apr 27 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 91)
- Tragedy spurs action against slave labour in Argentina
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Denunciations of sweatshops operating in the Argentine capital have piled up over the past few years in the city government and the courts. The association of dressmakers estimates that there are nearly 400 clandestine sweatshops. 'The owners of the factories pay off inspectors and the police', said Gustavo Vera, president of the La Alameda Cooperative in Bajo Flores, a working-class neighbourhood on the west side of Buenos Aires, where 60 percent of the poorest residents are from Bolivia. Only after six undocumented immigrants - including four children - died in a fire on 30 March, did the authorities announce measures to crack down on the clandestine textile factories that use slave labour. (Marcela Valente, Terra Viva Europe, 4 April 2006)
http://www.ipsterraviva.net/Europe/article.aspx?id=3186
(Added: Tue Apr 11 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 109)
- The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN)
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The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is a labour and women's rights advocacy organization promoting solidarity with grassroots groups in Mexico, Central America, and Asia working to improve conditions in maquiladora factories and export processing zones. We believe retailers must be accountable for the conditions under which their products are made. Since 1995, we have supported garment workers' efforts to improve working conditions through policy advocacy, corporate campaigning and engagement, participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives to promote corporate accountability, and local labour rights capacity building. In a global economy groups in the North and South must work together for employment with dignity, fair wages and working conditions, and healthy workplaces and communities.
http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/
(Added: Wed Mar 16 2005 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 122)
- Honor Haiti, Honor Ourselves, Forget Haiti, Forget Ourselves
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(Counterpunch) By Randall Robinson, January 1, 2004. "Between 1791 and 1804, hundreds of thousands of Africans enslaved in Haiti ignored the rivers, forests, precipices, swamps, mountains, gorges, bloodhounds, rifles, cannon, and whips that separated them and united to launch a massive, brilliantly executed, spectacular war of liberation that the armies of Spain, England, and France (with the help of the United States) all fought desperately--and failed absolutely--to crush ... They had wrested from Napoleon the engine of France's economic expansion, banished slavery from the land, and ended European domination of 10,000 square miles of fertile land and hundreds of thousands of slaves to work it. They had shattered the myth of European invincibility."
http://www.counterpunch.org/robinson01012004.html
(Added: Wed Mar 31 2004 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 304)
- The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign (NSC)
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The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign (NSC) was founded in 1978 a year before the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. The NSC is an organisation built on the traditions of the 1979 Sandinista revolution which overthrew the Somoza dictatorship; established democracy, political rights and social and economic justice; and acted as a beacon of hope in a region devastated by war and subjugated by US imperialism. The NSC works in partnership with progressive organisations in Nicaragua and the UK to promote social and economic justice. This is achieved through campaigning and lobbying in the UK and the development of political and economic solidarity at all levels between the UK and Nicaragua.
http://www.nicaraguasc.org.uk/
(Added: Thu Feb 05 2004 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 121)
- "Essential actors of our time": Human rights defenders in the Americas
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Amnesty International, 10 November 2003. In the context of persistent human rights violations against human rights defenders, the first section of this report outlines the international framework for the protection of human rights defenders and their work and highlights some developments since the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998. The second section of this report examines recent cases of attacks and intimidation of human rights activists from the USA to Argentina. The case studies are not an exhaustive account of the difficulties and dangers facing human rights defenders, rather they illustrate how current political and economic trends in the Americas region have aggravated and compounded insecurity for many defenders. Within the confines of this report priority has been given to cases of human rights defenders from civil society, although Amnesty International has also documented many cases of human rights violations against state agents working for the promotion and protection of human rights. Finally, five years on since the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, a set of principles issued to ensure states guarantee the rights of those defending human rights, Amnesty International challenges governments in the Americas to convert human rights rhetoric into real commitments by establishing protection of human rights defenders as a priority on both national and regional human rights agendas.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR010092003?open&of=ENG-CAN
(Added: Thu Nov 13 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 352)
- Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
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The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA is a non-profit, humanitarian organization founded in 1982 to monitor, document and report on the human rights situation in Guatemala. GHRC/USA also promotes advocacy for and aid to victims of human rights violations in Guatemala.
(Added: Tue Oct 21 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 231)
- Workers' Representation Insecurity in Brazil: Global Forces, Local Stress (PDF)
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Author(s): Cardoso, A.M. Produced by: International Institute for Labour Studies (IILS), ILO (2002) This paper assesses the situation of unions in Brazil. It argues that the demise of the conditions that favoured adversarial strategies, and the emergence of favourable conditions for class compromise both at the local and national level, should arguably have been sufficient to provoke the dislocation of the centre of power from CUT unions to Força Sindical unions. But this apparently has not happened (PDF 215Kb).
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/ses/download/docs/represent.pdf
(Added: Mon Sep 22 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 120)
- A Policy for the Neighbors
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Relations between Latin America and the United States are increasingly marked by irritation and distrust. Yet this tension has passed almost unnoticed by the United States press and unaddressed by the United States government. Such indifference has grave consequences not only for diplomacy but also for human rights.
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/cuba/826.html
(Added: Fri Aug 22 2003 Modified: Fri Jan 19 2007 Hits: 372)
- Coca-Cola and Anti-Union Death Squads in Colombia
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Violations of human rights are rampant in Colombia due to lawless activities of both the right wing paramilitaries and leftist guerillas. The paramilitaries in Colombia are particularly well known for murdering, abducting and torturing trade union leaders. Specifically, much of the violence against trade unionists in Colombia is directed at leaders of unions at multinational firms, including the Coca-Cola company.
http://lrights.igc.org/projects/corporate/coke/index.html
(Added: Thu May 15 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 218)
- Australian Human Rights Centre
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The Australian Human Rights Centre is a Research Institute based in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales established to: Increase public awareness about human rights procedures, standards and issues within the Asia-Pacific region; Provide accessible information on human rights to the general public, NGOs, government departments, human rights advocates, community legal centres, journalists, educators, researchers and students; Undertake human rights research on matters of national and regional interest; and Maintain a comprehensive collection of human rights documentation, provide an on-line database service, undertake research and prepare publications, organise human rights educational activities and, within available resources, respond to requests for advice in the area of human rights.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/ahric/
(Added: Tue Apr 30 2002 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 269)
