The summer of 1980 was a bit- ter season for human rights in Latin America, kicked off by a mili- tary coup in Bolivia and capped by a phony plebiscite in Chile. Bodies of Argentine dissidents turned up in Lima and Madrid. Amnesty In- ternational reported a dramatic in- crease in "political arrests and systematic torture" in Chile. And Brazilian terror squads reap- peared after a short hiatus, to reg- ister their opposition to "liberaliza- tion" with bombs. 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; against the popular organizations and armies of El Sal- tador, where the year's death toll climbed to 5,000; and against striking workers in Honduras. The trend evidenced by these events was the subject of a three- Jay seminar in mid-August, hosted )y the government of Ecuador and :he Latin American Institute of So- cial Research (ILDIS), with head- quarters in Quito. The conference, a sequel to one held in November 1979 in Quito, culminated in the creation of a Latin American Asso- ciation for Human Rights-the :irst continental organization of its ype. NACLA, represented by staff member Janet Shenk, attended ihis founding conference as an ob- server. 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. Facing serious do- mestic obstacles to his proposals for economic and social reform, Roldos has sought to shine in the international arena by leading An- dean opposition to the Bolivian coup, by opposing a United States proposal for a "peacekeeping force" in Nicaragua prior toSomo- za's downfall, and by pledging sim- ilar opposition to any U.S. attempt at "multilateral" intervention in El Salvador. The composition of the Quito conference reflected the need to unite all democratic forces in Latin America against an increas- ingly united and audacious enemy. Again and again, the alarm was sounded that the winds of fascism are blowing from the south, threa- tening to consume the entire con- tinent. Jaime Paz, Vice-President-elect of Bolivia and now the official inter- national representative of the 46 HUMAN RIGHTS A New Voiceupdate * update * update * update Siles Suazo government-in-clan- destinity, made the point most forcefully: "Bolivia is an ideologi- cal frontier," he said, "between the democracies to the north (re- ferring to the newly elected gov- ernments of Peru and Ecuador) and dictatorships to the south." Paz denounced the blatant partici- pation of the Argentine military in planning and executing the coup, and warned that a new "Interna- tional" is taking shape, composed of the dictatorships of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and now Bolivia. "This is not the 189th coup in Bolivia's sad history," he said. "It is the first coup in an en- tirely new international context." Social Democracy, an increas- ingly important current in Latin America, was present at the con- ference in force. Carlos Andrez Perez, ex-President of Venezuela, and Daniel Oduber, ex-President of Costa Rica, represented their respective parties. Jose Fran- cisco Pena Gomez, General Sec- retary of the Dominican Revolu- tionary Party (PRD) also came as President of the Socialist Interna- tional for Latin America and the Caribbean. Ruben Berrios repre- sented the Pro-Independence Par- ty (PIP) of Puerto Rico and Leonel Brizzola spoke for the Brazilian Workers' Party (PTB). 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 Nicara- gua, Hector Campora, ex-Presi- dent of Argentina, and three repre- sentatives of El Salvador's Demo- cratic Revolutionary Front-to name only a few. Despite the marked under-rep- resentation of Latin American re- volutionary movements, the tone 46 of the conference was surprisingly radical in its analysis of the causes of democratic demise and alterna- tives to dictatorial rule. Radomiro Tomic, founder of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, set a recurrent theme in a brilliant expo- sition of the incompatibility be- tween capitalism and democracy in Latin America. The first justifica- tion for any coup d'etat, said Tomic, is that "freedom must be preserved." But the freedom re- ferred to is strictly economic. "Freedom under capitalism means that lions are free to eat rabbits and vice-versa, but the vice-versa never happens." The rejection of traditional no- tions of representative democracy and the need for a "democracy of a new type" was a second major theme of the conference. Tomic defined representative democra- cy as "waiting on line to vote every four years," while a progressive alienation and apathy sets in. Ecuadorian President Jaime Rol- dos declared that "no frontier sep- arates formal constitutionalism from dictatorship," and called for an authentic democracy based on popular participation. As he spoke, two Ecuadorean dissidents stood silently near the podium, bearing placards that denounced Ecua- dor's own new "National Security Law," which grants special, anti- democratic powers to the state in the event of broadly defined threats to "national security." The sharpest plea for participa- tory democracy came from Mon- senor Leonidas Proa-no, the Ecua- dorean Bishop of Riobamba and spokesperson for radical currents within the Catholic Church. "These conferences are all well and good," said the Bishop. "But we must consider the people's need to know their own rights and to organize themselves to defend them." 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. 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." The document also de- fends the people's right to armed insurrection, when all peaceful means have failed. A New Voice The new Latin American Asso- ciation for Human Rights was cre- ated by the conference as a non- governmental, regional body with headquarters in Quito. Its honor- ary presidents are Jaime Roldos of Ecuador and Hernan Siles Suazo, President-in-clandestinity of Boli- via. An Executive Committee of 12 is headed by Venezuela's Carlos Andres Perez, with Horatio Sevilla of Ecuador as Executive Secre- tary of the new Association. The Association cites among its objectives: to promote human rights in the broadest sense of the term, including civil, political, eco- nomic, social and cultural rights; 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.
