Things I've Learned (and am still considering)

Before taking this course, there was no question in my mind that the protection of human rights was the absolute single, solitary moral and legal obligation that binds us all in a global community. The fact that you cannot go a day without reading in a newspaper about human rights abuses, and how the international world is going to respond to them, is proof positive that, as least in the Western world, we have convinced ourselves that we are the guardians of human rights and have done, do and will do anything in our power to protect them when some developing country does not (as it could only be a less developed nation abusing their citizens right? *cough* Canada + aboriginal rights). Everyday I feel I hear the term, or shall we call it a buzz word, being thrown around, willy nilly; usually it is to justify the intervention of a first world nation in the affairs of a "third' world nation (I prefer developing, but third in this context provides the right amount of condescension). It's almost become a formulaic sentence...so and so is abusing its citizens civil and human rights and so we...(usually America will be the first in line)...are sending an armed intervention to protect the people of so and so because their government will not. This, or some form of this sentence seems to get repeated often, especially in modern events such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to name a few. A special amendment actually exists in the Charter of the United Nations that justifies third party intervention in a country when human rights abuses are evident and accurately reported. There is no question therefore that human rights, at least in the the Western world, are something that we have convinced ourselves, as everyday people through school, the media, and governmental ramblings, that we believe requires the utmost protection and is the most despicable abuse a government can subject its people to. Until this course, I was a proud defender of human rights and the first to object against any action performed by our or any other government that could infringe on a solitary human right.

Nearing the end of this course, I can't say I still have the same, narrow view of human rights. This first half of our course taught me, embarrassingly enough, that I had never considered the idea that any and all human rights discourse has been written by and from the perspective of a Western, "first world" nation. For example, in considering our current UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights--how many "third world" nations were included in the discussion while writing this lengthy document? Furthermore, the fact that some of the earlier rights documents were written by middle class, white males (and therefore only protected a very limited section of the population) has taught me that if anything, supposed "universal" declarations can actually be more exclusionary than inclusive. With this in mind, if we once again consider the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written from a first world perspective, and therefore only taking Western first world cultures and traditions into consideration, I believe even this recent document excludes many developing nations populations who have different cultures and ideals than us in the Western world. Therefore while I recognize that the UN Declaration was written with good intentions (I'm not that cynical), I believe a more inclusive document, with input from developing nations, needs to be written if we are to create a truly universal and inclusive international declaration of rights.

The second half of this course...oh boy...that's where my ideas about human rights and their power to protect really started to change. I've always been aware of the atrocities committed in South America, by the government against its own people, just maybe not to the full extent. What I was unaware of however, is the amount of complicity developed nations, especially America, had in either allowing or blatantly helping corrupt governments continue to abuse its citizens. This for me was most shocking because as supposed crusaders for human rights protection, the fact that developed nations have been, and still are (in my personal opinion) involved in military operations and political dealings that harm human beings is nauseatingly hypocritical and disillusioning. How can we go on and on about the necessity of protecting human rights, at home and abroad, when we don't practice what we preach, by any stretch of the imagination. More and more it seems that the protection of human rights is of secondary importance to achieving political and military wins; the term human right will get thrown in there only to capture greater attention or to provide shallow justification to a naivee population that believes, 'hey, if human rights are at stake, we have every right to intervene,' an assumption that lacks a thorough understanding of one's government's true motive and intention.

To me, what was particularly revolutionary? shall I say, from these readings was the idea, most clearly articulated in the last section of reading about Guatemala, that people who are enduring human rights abuses recognize that was is occurring to them is wrong, but have little to no faith that these wrongs will ever be righted. I think it was a priest who said something along the lines that the human rights commissioner might as well be a thousand miles away for all the good it would do for him and his people that were being killed by the military. This statement shows just how disillusioned people living under corrupt and abusive governments are towards the ability of human rights to protect them. And so they should be. We can talk until we're blue in the face about the universal rights people should have, but until an effective instrument for protecting those rights is imagined, human rights really are just another way of talking. They mean nothing when millions of people are suffering from indignities that limit their ability to survive as "free" human beings. They mean nothing to the families of Argentinian and Guatemalan desaparecidos who still have no answer to what happened to their loved ones. The very phrase "human right" means nothing to people who live under a known abusive government and yet receive no help from the international community. In fact, human rights protection has been constantly trumped by other, supposedly more pressing issues of political or economic importance. It is only because we, the people of the industrialized world, are able to live in relative prosperity, that we have the luxury to discuss the various human rights violations that have occurred and are occurring. And really, that's all we do; we talk about human rights and how important they are to protect; we shake our heads at the horrible atrocities occurring around the world and thank our lucky stars that we are fortunate enough to live in a country that, after experimenting with rights abuses, finally cleaned up its act. However, the actual amount of true, honest to goodness, altruistic protection of human rights missions we embark on, without any other motive, political or economic? Very, very few.

So, what is the answer then. Are human rights useful? Is there a point in continuing this protection rhetoric that we, quite obviously, have failed to uphold? My simple and short answer would be: Yes. Yes this is a use for human rights. Despite the fact that the world has a horrifying track record of human rights abuses, I think they serve a purpose. Human rights exist as a promise that one day, everyone will be equally free from abuse. They exist as a guideline for how human beings must be treated. If you compare it with the laws of a country, human rights should be  considered the law of the world; unquestioned and undisputed boundaries that exist to keep people safe, conflict free, and enable them to prosper and live the one life they have, for as long as possible. Yes it is incredibly disheartening how completely inadequate we have been thus far in protecting human rights, or rectifying situations that abuse them. Governments are especially defective in protecting human rights because they let other more petty yet more financially rewarding motivations obscure their vision of their obligation to protect. However, I think it is important to recognize that some groups of people, particularly non-governmental organizations, have tirelessly and discreetly (in the sense that they don't clamour for recognition of every good deed they do) worked to help people that are suffering. For me, I believe NGOs set a far better example of human rights protection than any government ever has; NGOs are the epitome of an altruistic group of people, who do try to help people as their primary motivation; political and economic incentives do not exist, as are the inherent characteristics of a non-governmental body. Therefore, maybe the future for human rights protection isn't necessarily through national governments as the first line of defence (although they could certainly clean up their act) but through NGOs and other, more apolitical and morally motivated bodies that still believe human rights are and should be a universally shared commonality between all of the world citizens. Call me an optimist, but I believe their is possibility for greater collaboration and improvement of global human rights; we just need to figure out the appropriate avenue to achieve them.

Investigation into Peruvian Forced Sterilizations Continue

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/17/world/americas/peru-sterilizations/index.html

A few weeks ago I posted a news article about the  forced sterilizations that occurred in the mid-90s under the Fujimori government in Peru (and then wrote my research paper on it). This CNN news article reports that further investigation has been conducted regarding forced sterilization, that included tying the fallopian tubes of unwitting women, and has found that over 2000 cases of forced sterilization have been confirmed, although this number is very likely much higher, in the hundred of thousands. This campaign was aimed largely at indigenous women as a way to curb Peru's expanding population.

What is particularly troubling about this article is that the health minister in charge at the time these sterilizations were taking place continues to deny that any state supported sterilizations occurred. Regardless of the countless testimonies of women who experienced forced sterilizations, and the doctors and nurses who were coerced by the government, through a quota system, to perform these procedures, the minister and many other government officials that were in charge continue to deny any governmental involvement.

While a modicum of justice is being served, for example the article states that one women was awarded (only!) $2,500 for having her tubes tied against her will, the doctor who performed the operation received no jail time. Devastatingly, most of the women who did experience forced sterilization will unlikely ever be compensated for the harm done to their bodies, against their will.

Guatemalan Genocide.

This week's readings delineates the genocide or civil war (depending from what side one chooses to examine it) in Guatemala, largely between the military and the indigenous Mayans in the Ixil triangle region (I'm calling them Mayans for simplicity's sake even though they are technically only of Mayan descent). The two main forces at play appeared to be the Guatemalan military, that seemed to act as its own sovereign body, without really submitting to governmental rule, and the Guerilla Army of the Poor (EGP)--the rest of the Mayan population was caught in the middle, or between a rock and a hard place. The reason I say this is because no matter what side a Mayan person chose to support, the costs of supporting that side far outweighed the benefits, and neither side promised safety. If, for example, a Mayan "chose" (or more accurately, was forced) to be on the side of the military and join the so-called "Civil Defense Patrol" that person was ordered to give up, torture and even kill their neighbours and people they knew. On the other hand, if a person decided to join the EGP, this meant putting the lives of everyone you knew (not to mention your own) in danger, as the military killed anyone and everyone (children!) who could be connected to a subversive or delinquent terrorist. Both of these "choices" meant death, whether you were the killer or the killed. The only other option for most Mayans was to flee;  to flee their homes that had been passed down from generation to generation and leave the only community they had ever known, as a desperate and risky attempt to escape ending up another statistic of the heinous war. This was however an option many decided to take. As Mayor Sanchez said, at the height of the terror in 1981, only 40-45 people remained in Cortzal, a village with a typically permanent population in the hundreds. This genocide, that killed or displaced roughly a third of the Mayan population in the Ixil triangle, was an atrocity it seems that few people escaped unscathed. While it is obvious to place blame on the military for conducting such a blatantly racial campaign against the poor indigenous Guatemalans, it is also important to consider the role the EGP had in, fuelling the flames, so to speak. As the author points out, the EGP, "must bear responsibility for jeopardizing the lives of thousands of native Guatemalans, who believed their impossible promises of a swift victory over their oppressors, and re-dress of their centuries-old grievances." The EGP should hold some accountability for endangering the lives of thousands of its own people (regardless of their reason for rebellion). The military's massive, vastly over-exaggerated and unnecessary use of force however, for me, appears to be the culprit most responsible for the murder of 30,000 people. 


What surprised me while reading this (somewhat jumbled and confused) narration of events was the number of times "human rights" and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were mentioned. As this was occurring in the 70s-80s, human rights were really coming into their own and garnering global recognition as an intangible 'something' that required universal protection and promotion. Therefore, the presence of a considerable number of human rights advisors and helpers in Guatemala while this genocide was occurring should not be too surprising. What is surprising is that, even though human rights organizations, whose sole purpose for existence is to protect humans from the worst kinds of abuses (e.g. murder), had people on the ground, witnessing the terror that was occurring, and yet this apparently did little to deter the military's vendetta against the Ixil triangle. As Father Tomas remarks to the author, after being asked if he had reported any of the atrocities to the Human Rights Attorney, "If I make direct denunciations, I will be endangering my parishioners, as well as myself....Guatemala City and the Human Rights Attorney might as well be on another planet." From this quote, I think it is fair to surmise that Father Tomas, and undoubtedly most of the other people living through the genocide, lost all (if they had any to begin with) faith in the ability of "human rights" to legally and physically protect them from the determined campaign of the military. This then begs the question, what use ARE human rights. It's all well and good to sit around and talk about them in the Western industrialized world, but when human rights organizations are active in a country that is experiencing the worst kinds of atrocities and are powerless to enact any change or deter aggression, I'm beginning to see their uselessness (although the optimist in me is not completely and wholeheartedly convinced). 


The final thought I had with regards to this week's readings has to do with the American CIA involvement, surprise surprise. The last half of the third section of readings discusses the CIA's rather blatant financial involvement in supporting the military against the "communist" (really guys?) guerilla army. The author goes as far as to state that the CIA funded and directed the counterinsurgency against the guerillas for 35 years (pg. 364).  I think I speak for everyone when I say, what the heck America. Why. Why were you involved. Contrary to this (and previous blogs), I am not anti-American, half my family is American. I do believe however that America has just a dark and corrupt political history as many other nations and that shouldn't be ignored or down-played simply because it is *in whispered tones* "the US." While countries like Russia and China are still carrying around the negative reputation for once having corrupt and malicious dictators, America seems to largely still be venerated as the greatest and most just nation in the world. While America does have some remarkable qualities as a prosperous and successful nation, more attention should be focused on some of the more negative and despicable choices America has made in the past (dare I say so history does not repeat itself?) 

Rights Abuses Perpetrated by the Mexican Police

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/world/americas/mexico-miltary-abuses/index.html


This article from CNN reports about the accusations that have been made by Human Rights Watch against Mexican security forces who have allegedly been violating Mexican citizens' human rights in their attempt to find persons involved in the drug trade. Through a collection of interviews, testimonies, and governmental documents, Human Rights Watch laments that there have been over 170 reports filed against security forces by citizens that have experienced violence, torture, or disappeared family members, and yet only about 1% of these cases have been officially looked into by the government. Meanwhile, the Mexican government adamantly denies these allegations and promises that if there had been any reason to suspect unnecessary force being used by the police, they would examine each case in a court of law.

This seems to be a common theme in Latin America: allegations against state officials and police forces of torture and civil rights violations from the international community, while the government constantly and vehemently denies the validity of such statements. While the 170 reported cases makes the Mexican example seem trivial in comparison to the thousands that were affected in Argentina and Guatemala, it is important to recognize that such abuses are still occuring. Also, no single human torture or death is trivial nor undeserving of international attention and help.

Guatemala + America

“With its policy in supporting dictatorships, the United States has collaborated in the strengthening of these regimes and burdened our people with debt, often for the most superfluous programs. With its policy in police and military assistance, the United States has collaborated in the acts of repression, and consequently in the violation of human rights”

For me, this quote nicely summarizes the Guatemalan political history from the 1950s-1970s in a nutshell. It is a history heavily laden with unjustified American intervention, political corruption, massive military participation, and human rights abuses on a very large scale. Unfortunately for the Guatemalan people, their recent history is just as shockingly corrupt and murder-filled as Argentina’s, although for significantly different reasons. The most noticeable difference between these two Latin American countries is the significant involvement of the United States in Guatemala’s domestic affairs. With this understanding I think it is fair to insinuate, or blatantly state as the above quotation eloquently does so, that the US is responsible for facilitating the human rights abuses that have occurred in Guatemala because of the significantly large role the America government played in overthrowing the democratically elected President, Arbenz.

When democratically elected Arbenz became President of Guatemala, he began to enact significant reforms in an effort to modernize his poor country. Land reforms, a common Latin American initiative, angered the monopolistic, American United Fruit Company because land was taken; the owners and investors of this multinational refused to sit by and allow the Guatemalan President to expropriate “their” land. Thus a call to overthrow the government was conjured up and supported by many American officials, including Dulles of the CIA (who was an investor in the United Fruit Company). Dulles managed to gain support for this coup from the American government by framing it as anti-communist campaign, designed to rid Guatemala of its supposedly pro-communist President and stop the dreaded spread of communism in the Western Southern hemisphere. Through a series of ill-conceived political and military manipulations, the US managed to oust Arbenz (through shear luck if you ask me) and (eventually) replace him with a military dictator, Castillo Armas. From 1954 until the 1980s (or at least as far as this book was written), Guatemala suffered through a series of unstable military dictatorships, each more brutal than the next. Unfortunately, following Arbenz’s exit and as seems to be characteristic of dictatorships, human rights were the next things to leave the country.

One common goal shared by each junta was a desire to rid Guatemala of any political opposition, especially any right leaning revolutionaries. Through a series of disappearances, kidnappings, mass killings, and murders, thousands of students, intellectuals, professionals, professors and basically any minutely educated persons, with the ability to create dissent, were silenced. Just as we saw in Argentina, state sponsored terrorism against its own people was frequently and indiscriminately employed against any person who could pose the slightest threat to the government. And once again, American governmental intervention, this time in the form of police training and governmental support, collaborated with the Guatemalan government to abuse its people and deny them basic freedoms, freedoms the millions of American citizens living a few countries away would dismantle their government for depriving them of. And so the infuriating and almost unbelievable American hypocrisy continued to thrive, causing utter chaos and disaster in a country far away from the American government’s “caring” eyes. Therefore, while both Argentina and Guatemala are undeniably guilty for state sponsored terrorism that killed thousands of people, it could be argued that Guatemala was propelled down this path by an outside force, whereas Argentina managed to get there largely by itself. American intervention, causing the demise of democracy in Guatemala, is at the very least partly responsible for the ensuing decades of human rights abuses, as it paved the way for ferociously corrupt and violent dictators to gain power and strip their people of the rights granted to them under democracy. 

Dirty War Officials Jailed...Finally

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/27/world/americas/argentina-dirty-war/index.html

This article is about the recent imprisonment of 18 ex-officials who were involved with the dirty war. I thought this fit really well with this week's readings, as it obviously touches upon many of the same situations and themes.
The article highlights a woman whose parents and grandmother were disappeared. She too was taken in 1977 but released a few days later (she was only 16 months). Never seeing her parents again, Marinela has waited thirty four years to see the people responsible for the death of her family, brought to justice. One thing that struck me about this article was that Marinela mentions running into the officer responsible for killing her parents, just as Mario mentions his encounters with his ex-torturers. This ex interrogator came into the bar Marinela was working at and she understandable had to pass him off to one of the other waitresses to serve him (they didn't even kick him out!?). It is so incomprehensible to me that so many examples of this type of situation have occured. The government that allowed criminals to walk free after the dirty war years, and that pardoned their crimes, should go to prison themselves. It is a crime that Marinela had to encounter and potentially SERVE the man who killed her family. Fortunately now (although incredibly late in timing) these dirty criminals are finally getting the punishment they deserve. Marinela, as other people who had family or friends disappeared during the war, expresses her sense of relief and satisfaction that they are finally being put behind bars. The fact that these monsters were able to walk the streets for almost thirty years after the war however is unforgivable.

Memories of an ex-desparacido

This weeks readings from a Lexicon of Terror were among the most disturbing and horrifying things I have ever read. Reading surviving desparacidos, or ex-desparacidos, testimonials about the time they spent in Argentinian concentration camps during the dirty war and the physical and psychological torture they endured was so incredibly upsetting that it is almost unimaginable that something like this could have occurred, and on such a large scale. The description of the forms of horrible torture imagined by sadists to "interrogate" the desparacidos was pretty close to unreadable. However for me what was most (unpleasantly) surprising was the idea that psychological torture was even MORE tormenting than physical torture. As Mario, the ex-desparacido in the second chapter describes, "physic torture was infinitely worse...Because it was constant" (76). I guess I had never really given it that much thought, but whenever I heard stories of concentration camp victims (such as Holocaust survivors) I immediately shuddered because of the pain  these poor people endured during sick, twisted torture sessions. I never realized that the psychological torture of waiting and wondering could actually be worse than mechanical, wound-producing torture itself. Mario describes how the torture of waiting for your next "interrogation session" or waiting to hear if your name was called to be "transferred" (which meant certain death) was infinitely more draining and painful than the physical pain of 220 volts running through your body.

In addition to this horrible death-waiting game desparacidos had no choice but to play, the interrogators and guards themselves contributed to the perverse psychological torture endured by the prisoners--apparently physical torture was just not enough.  One example I found particularly astonishing was the fact that the guards, in between their mechanical torture "interrogations," would come and play cards with the prisoners, in their cells, while they were still chained against the wall. How mind-numbingly cruel is it to play children's games with a person you just tortured within an inch of his life? Another example of this, as Mario states, was when the guards "allowed" the prisoners watch the World Cup final because Argentina was playing. This was particularly cruel because it was reminding the prisoners, and providing solid evidence, of the real world that was going on, business as usual, while these poor victims were held for no apparent reason and being mercilessly tortured everyday. Furthermore, by providing the desparacidos this glimpse of the outside world, they were offering a tiny shred of hope that they would escape the experience with their lives. Hope, as Mario underlined, was dangerous and could actually be the demise of a prisoner because with hope comes fear. Hopeless individuals, or prisoners like Mario who accepted the notion that they would not escape, seemed to fair better because this idea actually made them emotionally tougher and less easy to "break".

Another interesting revelation Mario alluded to was the idea that, in order to survive, one had to find a way to relate to the guards. Mario even states that he believes the reason he managed to survive five different concentration camps and make it out alive was because of his ability to understand and correctly interact with the guards. His first realization was that the guards were men themselves, and by envisaging them as monsters or beasts, this was actually doing yourself a disfavour. He also learned to understand the guards and to pick up on the little tests thrown his way. One such example was when one of the guards, after noticing Mario's girl companion was being "transferred" (i.e. murdered) he asked Mario if he was "alright" or going to be "ok" with his friend leaving, in a very paternalistic manner. Mario, intelligently realizing it was a test to see if his spirits were broken and he would therefore serve no more purpose for the guards, replied something along the lines of, "there are other fish in the sea". Had Mario admitted his true feelings about the girl being taken away, Mario very likely would have been on the next list of "transfers". Finally, Mario underlines the importance of learning the language of the interrogators, as the best protection against being arbitrarily murdered. He remarks that when he was first sent to the concentration camps, he could hardly understand what the guards were saying because they were using common, everyday terminology that has taken on new meanings in sinister setting of a camp. By learning the language of the guards and torturers, Mario says it had a way of uniting the prisoners with their torturers. He gives the example of going on a "field-trip" to a nearby cafe with other prisoners and guards. While sitting at a cafe, they are discussing the concentration camp and related details. At first Mario is aghast that they are talking about this in broad daylight, and wonder why no strangers are realizing that this odd assortment of people are actually desparacidos from a camp. He quickly realizes however that the language they are using is so limited and specific to the people who live within the walls of the camp that no one but someone who has been inside a camp for a lengthy duration of time would have any idea what they were saying. In this sense then, the idea that prisoners and tortures were speaking a 'new' and 'same' language, had the effect of uniting both groups. All of these tactics Mario learned to do, in order to relate and build quasi-relationships with the guards, managed to save his life. And he is not the only one. The author mentions that there are a number of examples of guards marrying the very people they were imprisoning--clearly other desparacidos learned how to survive in an environment so oppositely conducive to life.

While reading these chapters, I undoubtably was experiencing the same emotions as everyone else: shock, horror, revulsion, heart-break, and anger. Anger for me was one of the dominant emotions. I was angry that these abuses had happened, angry that torturers were complicit in carrying out the government's orders, and just generally angry about the unfairness of the entire ordeal. However, most infuriating for me was Mario's stories at the end of chapter two, in which he actually was forced to encounter his torturers AGAIN, even after he escaped the camps. The fact that those criminals were allowed to walk the streets after the murders they committed is inexcusable under every circumstance. I absolutely could not believe the gaul of Julian the Turk, who Mario ran into TWICE, after he was freed. The fact that the Turk tried to act like Mario's buddy and pretend that nothing unpleasant had ever happened between them was absolutely sickening and pitiful. He didn't even have the decency to at least given Mario the respect to apologize or walk away in the other direction when he saw him. Instead, by pretending to be an old friend, he tried to erase history through his fake friendliness and camaraderie. I was so appalled to learn that so many of the torturers and murders had been granted pardons under the new government that I did a little more research into the matter, to find out what happened to Julian the Turk. While researching, I came across an interview with the Turk and a journalist that the Turk had actually tortured at one of the concentration camps. Throughout almost the ENTIRE interview, Julian insists that he was not a torturer and that he had no idea what the journalist was talking about. It is not until the very end that Julian half admits to some of the atrocities he committed, but takes none of the blame for it and claims to have just been following orders. He even tries to play himself off as a "nice" interrogator who didn't go as hard on prisoners as he could have. The whole interview is sickening and yet very interesting to see an ex-"interrogator" forced to come to terms with (although he is apparently incapable of it) the crimes he committed and listen to the stories of someone he himself had tortured. I would give a standing ovation to the journalist for doing such a courageous interview if I could.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzaJeYe2Nk <---- the interview, check it out if you have time, very interesting.