ALBA attacks justice, human rights

Posted on Monday, 06.11.12

ALBA attacks justice, human rights
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
Firmaspress.com

This shameful act needs to be explained. One of the main objectives of
the ALBA nations is to leave Latin Americans without international
protection so the governments can beat them up with impunity. We have
just seen that painful spectacle at the 42nd meeting of the OAS, held in
Cochabamba.

The fact is that Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez
(represented by his foreign minister), Bolivia's Evo Morales and
Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega want to confiscate means of communication,
imprison peaceful opponents, harass journalists, hound judges and
lawmakers, steal elections or seize citizens' properties without
allowing the victims to plead before the Organization of American
States' Inter-American Court of Human Rights. (I don't even mention Raúl
Castro, because the Cuban government was expelled from that organization
half a century ago.)

While in the civilized world, nations are forging international laws
that protect individuals from government's arbitrariness and abuses, the
so-called 21st-century socialism marches in the opposite direction,
ignoring that, in the past, the OAS helped the victims of right-wing
military dictatorships find at least some moral solidarity.

In 1969, most of the OAS nations signed in Costa Rica a document known
as the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights. That accord defined
and established the rights that needed to be protected and created two
autonomous institutions for that purpose: the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights, based in Washington, whose function it was to promote
respect for the spirit of the treaty and publicly denounce any
violations, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, devoted to try
the lawsuits that managed to reach that tribunal. According to the
Convention, the signatory nations were obligated to obey the court's
rulings at once.

Of the 34 countries that form the OAS, 25 of them voluntarily signed the
Convention. Nine abstained — the United States and Canada among them —
while one, Trinidad and Tobago, signed but a while later decided to
resign from the group, abiding by the rules and deadlines set by the
pact to effect the resignation. All Ibero-American countries, except
Cuba, are signatories, including the members of ALBA that now attempt to
denounce the pact.

Naturally, the ALBA governments can legally abandon the Convention, as
Trinidad and Tobago did, but that does not free them from any lawsuits
or denunciations filed while they were part of the treaty. Which means
that abuses like the shutdown of Radio Caracas Television, the judicial
harassment to Ecuadorean journalist Emilio Palacios and the Guayaquil
newspaper El Universo, or the stealing of the municipal elections in
Nicaragua in 2008 are not voided by the simple fact that those
governments now denounce the accords.

Which explains why Correa, Chávez, Morales and Ortega are trying to
destroy those institutions of law, perhaps the ones that work best
within the OAS, so as not to comply with the international obligations
their countries contracted.

It is always useful to remember that the first thing that legitimizes a
government in the eyes of its citizens is not the elections but justice
and the rule of law. In the Middle Ages, the legitimacy of kings
depended on their "jurisdiction," i.e., the territory within which they
"spoke the law" and the manner in which they dispensed justice. The
Castilian monarchs did not have a permanent home but carried the legal
codes in their carts. That legitimized them. For that reason, and for
that purpose, they ruled.

It would be a pity if these authoritarian rulers achieved their
purposes. One thing Latin Americans generally lack is justice. Few are
the countries where individuals can enjoy a fair trial. In many nations,
judges have a price and the powerful always win. Presidents dictate the
sentences. The law does not exist. In that sense, the Inter-American
Court, with all its imperfections, was always a source of hope. It would
be a shame if it disappeared.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/11/2844451/alba-attacks-justice-human-rights.html