Human Rights-A New Voice
The summer of 1980 was a bitter season for human rights in Latin America, kicked off by a military coup in Bolivia and capped by a phony plebiscite in Chile. Bodies of Argentine dissidents...
...But the freedom referred to is strictly economic...
...NACLA, represented by staff member Janet Shenk, attended ihis founding conference as an observer...
...Facing serious domestic obstacles to his proposals for economic and social reform, Roldos has sought to shine in the international arena by leading Andean opposition to the Bolivian coup, by opposing a United States proposal for a "peacekeeping force" in Nicaragua prior toSomoza's downfall, and by pledging similar opposition to any U.S...
...The first justification for any coup d'etat, said Tomic, is that "freedom must be preserved...
...Amnesty International reported a dramatic increase in "political arrests and systematic torture" in Chile...
...Tomic defined representative democracy as "waiting on line to vote every four years," while a progressive alienation and apathy sets in...
...It is the first coup in an entirely new international context...
...Radomiro Tomic, founder of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, set a recurrent theme in a brilliant exposition of the incompatibility between capitalism and democracy in Latin America...
...Adding to the political pluralism of the conference were Gustavo Carvajal, president of Mexico's ruling party (PRI), Santiago Diaz of Cuba, Ernesto Cardenal of Nicaragua, Hector Campora, ex-President of Argentina, and three representatives of El Salvador's Democratic Revolutionary Front-to name only a few...
...and against striking workers in Honduras...
...The rejection of traditional notions of representative democracy and the need for a "democracy of a new type" was a second major theme of the conference...
...Its honorary presidents are Jaime Roldos of Ecuador and Hernan Siles Suazo, President-in-clandestinity of Bolivia...
...to elaborate a strategy to defend human rights in Latin America...
...and to coordinate and support the efforts of national and regional bodies concerned with human rights...
...Despite the marked under-representation of Latin American revolutionary movements, the tone 46 of the conference was surprisingly radical in its analysis of the causes of democratic demise and alternatives to dictatorial rule...
...In Central America, the war continued against the Indians, peasants and trade unionists of Guatemala, whose Vice-President resigned in protest against human rights abuses...
...The composition of the Quito conference reflected the need to unite all democratic forces in Latin America against an increasingly united and audacious enemy...
...Representatives of the Revolutionary Democratic Front received a standing ovation after the film, while the final declaration of the conference recognized the FDR as the "legitimate expression of the majority of the Salvadorean people...
...Jaime Paz, Vice-President-elect of Bolivia and now the official international representative of the 46 HUMAN RIGHTS A New Voiceupdate * update * update * update Siles Suazo government-in-clandestinity, made the point most forcefully: "Bolivia is an ideological frontier," he said, "between the democracies to the north (referring to the newly elected governments of Peru and Ecuador) and dictatorships to the south...
...These conferences are all well and good," said the Bishop...
...And Brazilian terror squads reappeared after a short hiatus, to register their opposition to "liberalization" with bombs...
...Freedom under capitalism means that lions are free to eat rabbits and vice-versa, but the vice-versa never happens...
...Much of the impetus for the :onference came from Ecuador's iew President, Jaime Roldos, Nhose inauguration in August 1979 ended seven years of military dictatorship...
...As he spoke, two Ecuadorean dissidents stood silently near the podium, bearing placards that denounced Ecuador's own new "National Security Law," which grants special, antidemocratic powers to the state in the event of broadly defined threats to "national security...
...The sharpest plea for participatory democracy came from Monsenor Leonidas Proa-no, the Ecuadorean Bishop of Riobamba and spokesperson for radical currents within the Catholic Church...
...Again and again, the alarm was sounded that the winds of fascism are blowing from the south, threatening to consume the entire continent...
...Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, General Secretary of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) also came as President of the Socialist International for Latin America and the Caribbean...
...The trend evidenced by these events was the subject of a threeJay seminar in mid-August, hosted )y the government of Ecuador and :he Latin American Institute of Social Research (ILDIS), with headquarters in Quito...
...Like all such conferences, this one was marked by endless speeches and denunciations of conditions in country after country that ultimately numb the listener to further outrage...
...Yet delegates sat in stunned silence after the screening of a new film, entitled "El Salvador, 1980," which clearly demonstrates that repression and terror have eclipsed the reformist pretensions of the military/civilian junta there...
...This is not the 189th coup in Bolivia's sad history," he said...
...The Association cites among its objectives: to promote human rights in the broadest sense of the term, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights...
...Bodies of Argentine dissidents turned up in Lima and Madrid...
...Paz denounced the blatant participation of the Argentine military in planning and executing the coup, and warned that a new "International" is taking shape, composed of the dictatorships of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and now Bolivia...
...But we must consider the people's need to know their own rights and to organize themselves to defend them...
...against the popular organizations and armies of El Saltador, where the year's death toll climbed to 5,000...
...attempt at "multilateral" intervention in El Salvador...
...The document also defends the people's right to armed insurrection, when all peaceful means have failed...
...A New Voice The new Latin American Association for Human Rights was created by the conference as a nongovernmental, regional body with headquarters in Quito...
...The conference, a sequel to one held in November 1979 in Quito, culminated in the creation of a Latin American Association for Human Rights-the :irst continental organization of its ype...
...Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos declared that "no frontier separates formal constitutionalism from dictatorship," and called for an authentic democracy based on popular participation...
...Carlos Andrez Perez, ex-President of Venezuela, and Daniel Oduber, ex-President of Costa Rica, represented their respective parties...
...Social Democracy, an increasingly important current in Latin America, was present at the conference in force...
...Ruben Berrios represented the Pro-Independence Party (PIP) of Puerto Rico and Leonel Brizzola spoke for the Brazilian Workers' Party (PTB...
...An Executive Committee of 12 is headed by Venezuela's Carlos Andres Perez, with Horatio Sevilla of Ecuador as Executive Secretary of the new Association...
Vol. 14 • September 1980 • No. 5
