La Lettre

FIDH Newsletter

FIDH celebrates its 80th birthday!

FIDH was founded on 22 May 1922 and was the world's first NGO. In a Europe devastated by the horrors of the First World War and destined for a second, bloodier war, FIDH's aim was to change the hearts and minds of men and women through respect for human rights. This could not be achieved in a world of terror where freedom was not guaranteed, human dignity was flouted, and the future of humankind seemed bleak and uncertain. It could only become reality in a world of peace, stripped of sinister ideologies like fascism and Nazism which were a weapon in the hands of criminals and led to the holocaust.

It could only become reality in a world where each individual's human rights are universally respected and protected by law. This is what FIDH believed, and it went on to develop a framework to help such a world emerge. It condemns human rights violations all over the world, raises awareness so that the public can tackle injustice, investigates the ways in which governments wield their power to make them toe the line, and observes trials to ensure that everyone gets the right to a fair trial. It supports all those who are the victims of racism, discrimination and oppression because they belong to a social, national or religious group or have particular political beliefs. It educates and promotes universal human rights and democratic principles to encourage their spread worldwide. It spearheads an ongoing campaign to create an international organisation to promote international peace and security. Through the UN it has got involved in the legal process to universalise human rights and the international conventions upon which international human rights law is currently based.

FIDH has fought tirelessly for human dignity and today it has redefined its methods of intervention, refined its strategies, organised its structures and become a specific, democratic, international organisation made up of 115 leagues which represent the most active populations of the world's various regions. They make FIDH a real movement that focuses on concrete goals to meet the hugely complex challenges that threaten human rights nowadays.

For human rights to be universal, everyone's rights must be protected in the same way at the same time. Historically it has proved easier to protect civil and political rights than economic, social and cultural ones. Globalisation is a route to wealth for the Northern countries and the slippery slope to poverty for the poor Southern countries where "Pariah States" are at the mercy of multinationals. The politics of such multinationals annihilate the right to a roof over one's head, or to clean drinking water, or a decent life, or health. Profit comes first over a right to health, with millions of women and children condemned to die from AIDS. It is top priority for FIDH to see these rights put in place, as confirmed by the 1997 congress in Dakar and the 2001 congress in Casablanca.

The struggle against impunity is also a universal scourge. Very early on in its existence FIDH called for an international criminal code and a legal body to try the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. It condemned the shortcomings of the war trials of Nuremberg and Tokyo and supported the ad hoc trials in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Its philosophy, which is largely based on thorough analysis on the part of eminent legal professionals from around the world and their legal expertise, contributed to the founding of the International Criminal Court.

The Court was created in 1998 and its statutes will come into force on 1 July 2002. FIDH will always be with the victims whom it helps in their search of justice, so their oppressors will held accountable for their crimes either before the International Court of Law or national courts. It will also stand by those who uphold human rights and in doing so endanger their own freedom and lives. All of these people can rely on an organisation that has preserved the vigour of its youth, and that daily sets out on its difficult but exhilarating mission to serve human dignity. Happy birthday.

Sidiki KABA

 

AUC AND AUV WIN THE ELECTIONS IN COLOMBIA

Who won the elections in Colombia, AUC(1) or AUV?

Alvaro Uribe Vélez (AUV), the new Colombian president and a dissident from the liberal party, was elected on 26 May 2002 by nearly 6 million voters out of a total of 24.2 million people old enough to vote. Therefore 18 million Colombians did not vote for him, and he was elected by just 24.08% of potential voters. 13 million abstentions bring the legitimacy of his victory into doubt. Nevertheless, AUV got 53% of the votes cast and was therefore elected in the first round(2).

Who voted for AUV? In the first place, the whole of Colombia's 'establishment' ie all the manufacturing and agricultural corporations, including those from the financial and commercial sectors (Andi, Fenalco, Sac, Fedegán, Anif, etc), which control the mass media. He was also backed by the political chiefs from the Conservative and Liberal parties and the drug traffickers, in other words the main social component of the paramilitary movement (the AUC or Colombian Self Defence group). All of these backers put a great deal of money into the extreme right candidate's victory.

The paramilitary element of the establishment was the first to applaud the victory, hailing it as "a coup.". In a press release, Salvatore Mancuso (the secretary of the AUC, who after the 10 March 2002 parliamentary elections admitted that nearly 100 MPs in the new Congress were members of his organisation), stated "A worthy president, Dr Alvaro Uribe Vélez, has been consciously and conclusively elected for a state that wishes for peace and solid growth"(3).

AUV patiently built its political base on his role facilitating the "peace process" between the outgoing president, Andres Pastrana, and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). AUV promised strict sanctions against guerrillas, the mobilisation of a million Colombians to serve in his paramilitary plan, and a twofold increase in the armed forces' budget. He even called upon the "blue berets" of the US army to help win the war. There can be no doubt as to his paramilitary tendencies, though he disguised them carefully in his acceptance speech.

AUV should be judged by his actions and not by his words alone. Let us retrace the different stages in his career in public life. In 1980 he was Director of Civil Aviation and gave pilot's licences to several notorious drug traffickers including Fabio Castillo and the Horsemen of Cocaine. In 1982, while he was serving as the mayor of Medellin, the friendship between him and his father and the Ochoa Clan of the Medellin Cartel was made public. After 5 years of strikes and trials, in 1982 he decided to give up his company, La Mundial, because of the social security payments he owed for his workers. One by one the directors were accused of collaborating with guerrillas, and fired. In 1989, while he was an MP, he opposed the extradition of drug traffickers. In 1990 he brought in Law 50, which spelt the end of employment stability, and in 1993 he brought in Law 100 privatising the Social Security service. Between 1995 and 1997, as governor of Antiquoia he made increased attempts to legalise paramilitary activity, which was rife in the province and spreading all over the country. At the same time he worked to weaken the unions and helped reduce the number of civil servants in the department by two thirds. In 1996 198 union members were murdered, rising to 210 in 1997, and this caused a lull in social unrest. By the end of his governorship he believed that peace had been achieved in Urabá, with 3,500 people murdered in 3 years and social and political opposition wiped out (see complaints made by Gloria Cuartas, who was mayor of Apartado during that period). In 1999 he made a speech by way of compensation for Generals Alejo del Río and Fernando Millán, who were suspended for their close links with paramilitary activity.

We can learn several lessons from AUV's victory. Firstly, there was no referendum for the war in Colombia, or for a military solution to the current armed conflict. Fewer than 6 million votes out of 144 million Colombians cannot be interpreted as the collective will of the people. Communications played a deciding role in his election. His murky past was well hidden, the paramilitary plan was presented as a "necessary evil", and the guerrillas - especially the FARC - stepped up their violent crimes against the laws of humanity, a slap in the face for politics on both the national and international scene. Four years ago the FARC helped bring Andres Pastranga Arango to the presidency using great political cunning; this time round they were alarmingly clumsy in their support for AUV as presidential candidate.

Although political chiefs from both parties contributed to AUV's victory, it showed how weak the traditional parties were as a viable political option. The emergence of the democratic movement, in spite of the small number of votes it gained, offered an alternative democratic opposition. Provided that it is not snuffed out by violence it may lead Colombia towards a peaceful conclusion.

Like the US government, AUV supports a neo-liberal, authoritarian agenda. The US intelligence services know about AUV's past and can turn him, like Fujimori before him, into their puppet.

AUV will surely help to accelerate the decline of the regime. Congress will come increasingly under the control of the paramilitary movement, just like the justice system and the police. His election has strengthened the paramilitary state.

One thing is certain, and that is that AUV will not win the war and will not get rid of the Colombian people's suffering. Instead, he will plunge the country deeper into war and make the people suffer more. The factors behind the armed conflict will be worsened.

The people of Colombia should be encouraged to resist the war and the things that are causing it. The only way to end the armed conflict is dialogue, and the consensus of the people to unite and transform Colombia. The international community must be told about the new government so that it can force it to make clear commitments on issues such as human rights protection and the dismantling of the paramilitary agenda.

Pressure should be stepped up for the rebel groups to toe the humanitarian line and work with the State to draw up and implement an agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law.

The peace organisations in Colombia should be supported and fostered - Human Rights NGOs, 'afro descendent organisations' and indigenous groups, rural and popular organisations.

We should also be calling for the immediate resignation of the State Prosecutor, Luis Camilo Osorio, for his shameless promotion of crimes against humanity. The Peace and Country Congress should also be followed through.

Colombian democracy has been seriously wounded and the election of the AUC - sorry, AUV - as president of Colombia (sorry, I meant to say AUV) was the last straw for the little shred of democracy that was left.

Luis Guillermo Perez Casas Member of the Law Society (27 May 2002)

Notes:

1. Autodefensas unidas de Colombia, Colombian self defence groups 2. 31.7% of the electorate voted for the Liberal party's official candidate, Horacio Serpa, 6.19% of votes went to the centre-left coalition, the 'Democratic Pole', led by Luis Eduardo Gonzalez, and 5.82% went to the Conservative candidate Nohemy Sanin. 3. Reproduced by the EFE agency on 26 May.

 

The first referendum in the history of Tunisia has produced a 99.52% majority in favour of President Zine Ben Ali.

For Suhyr Belhassen, historian and vice-chairwoman of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), the official results confirm that the consultation was a "masquerade [... that has] become indecent". The referendum on 26th May 2002 was aimed mainly at reforming the Constitution of 1959 in order to allow President Ben Ali to grant himself a "legal dictatorship", according to Sihem Bin Sedrine, co-founder of CNLT (National Committee for Liberties in Tunisia, an unrecognised body).

In the "permanent coup" led by the Tunisian president since his accession to power in 1987, the 26th May referendum legalises the abuses of dictatorial power: reform of the status of president, in a de-facto restoration of the life presidency abrogated in 1987, modifications to the general legal framework that criminalises any opposition to the regime and curtails all the freedoms of Tunisians. The amendments adopted modify nearly half the 78 articles of the Constitution. For Mokhtar Trifi, chairman of LTDH, they "run counter to the complaints from civil society, which demands a more democratic Constitution that guarantees freedoms and, more important, allows them to be put into practice".

Reform of the presidential status: life presidency

The constitutional reform raises the age limit from 70 to 75 for candidates to the presidency and removes any limitation on the number of presidential mandates. This will allow Ben Ali to request a fourth mandate at the next presidential election in 2004. "The population has understood that these reforms will install Ben Ali as life president," emphasises Suhayr Belhassen. In addition, the president will now enjoy immunity from prosecution during and after his period of office. Furthermore, in the Assembly, the President alone, not the deputies, will have the initiative over laws with a budgetary impact (90% of the total). The president alone will be able to ratify international agreements and treaties. In the areas of justice, the President, who already controls the judicial power, will now chair the judicial council and appoint 99% of its members. "In short, all powers will legally be in his hands," concludes Sihem Bin Sedrine.

Modification of legal framework: increased control over population

Of course, the powers that be attempt to dress these measures up as so-called "advances for public liberties", by promulgating an amendment on the secrecy of correspondence, for example. However, it is well known that phone-tapping is common practice and a law already authorises the government to open private mail. More worrying still is the adoption of a "clause of loyalty to the fatherland", which will make any criticism of the regime punishable by the High Court of Justice. Consequently, the modifications to the constitutional framework will deprive human rights organisations, which have always fought in the legal terrain, of one of the rare tools still allowed them by Tunisian law.

A referendum to legalise the dictatorship

The referendum comes at a time when the situation of fundamental liberties has been undergoing a relentless decline in Tunisia. The Tunisian regime is characterised by its persecution of human rights defenders, its use of the justice system to settle political accounts and its close surveillance of the press. These flagrant and systematic violations of fundamental liberties by the Tunisian regime are regularly denounced by the UN Human Rights Commission and the European Parliament. In addition, since the attacks of 11th September, the Tunisian regime has used the pretext of the war against terrorism to repress all opposition. Just as in 1990, when he took advantage of the Gulf War to launch a ferocious anti-Islamist repression, Ben Ali is now using the anti-terrorist struggle to harden his regime. As Sihem Bin Sedrine says, "a sort of violence is increasingly becoming established in political morals". It is to be feared that this will intensify, as the referendum of 26th May has given the President total immunity.

Florent Geel

Israel

Civilian population in Israel grieving once again after yet another terrorist attack

After the latest terrorist attack against Israeli civilians in the town of Meggido on 5th June 2000, in which 17 people died and 37 were injured, the FIDH obviously reiterated its firm condemnation of such acts of cruelty.

With the International Criminal Court soon to begin its operations, the principle of criminal responsibility of the individual seems to be becoming ever more important, while, according to Article 8 of the Statutes of the ICC, a war crime is defined as 'the act of deliberately launching attacks against the civilian population in general, or against civilians who do not directly take part in the hostilities' (Article 8, b, (i) of the Statute to which Israel is unfortunately not a party).

The FIDH points out that these attacks, in line with the will of their perpetrators, only pose an obstacle to the peace process and strengthen those camps who want to fight a war, to the detriment of the peace forces in Israel. These Attacks back the politics of the present Israeli government whose principal characteristic consists of denying the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, above all, the right to a sovereign and viable state of their own.

The FIDH calls once again for intervention by the international community which is once again idly standing by and whose ignorance only helps to perpetrate the tragedy of the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Press release by the French Human Rights League (LDH), France of 5th June 2002:

Speaking out against the horror and in condemnation of these acts, how they can only run contrary to the claims of the Palestinian people and to finding a political solution, means expressing once again our protest against a situation which seems to be totally and utterly hopeless.

After each terrorist attack of this nature against the Israeli people, the Israeli people become a little more frightened and irrational, while the Israeli government of Mr. Ariel Sharon continues to deny even the right of the Palestinian people to exist, claims the right to proceed to arresting people and to killing, and, after having destroyed the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority, accuses the latter of not opposing to the acts of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the International Community and Europe are idly standing by, more guilty than ever of being incapable of taking any action whatsoever, while terrorist attacks, military operations, humiliation, hopelessness and death are part of people's daily lives.

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT:

Universal Jurisdiction - a Belgian joke?

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It's a case of the glass being either half full or half empty: it is now widely claimed that Belgium was at the forefront of international justice. It could also be worth considering whether, on the contrary, it might be the rest of the world which is lagging behind in implementing the principle of universal jurisdiction. In Belgium the mechanism of universal jurisdiction was first taken to its logical conclusion when perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide were tried and sentenced for crimes committed in Rwanda against Rwandan victims in application of Belgium's 1993 and 1999 universal jurisdiction laws.

But should we focus our attention on that particular country while more than a hundred or so other countries have a mechanism of this type in their domestic laws but, for legal, political, diplomatic and other reasons, do not apply it?

Even though the International Criminal Court comes into being on 1 July 2002, this must not obscure the fact that past crimes will not be judged by this future court. NGOs and human rights campaigners must be more vigilant than ever. They are not the only ones to have understood the important implications of international justice.

The Mechanism of Universal Jurisdiction The Mechanism of Universal Jurisdiction is usually a product of the international conventions which provide expressly for it. This is the case with the 1949 Geneva Conventions which gave universal jurisdiction to States for war crimes, or the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Inhuman and Degrading Treatment which provides for the same jurisdiction for crimes of torture whenever the presumed perpetrator of these crimes is on the territory of a participating state. The application of the principle of universal jurisdiction is, by definition, not dependent on the nationality of either the perpetrator or the victim for the complaint to be heard by a national court.

The recent recourse of the principle of universal jurisdiction is the result of a double discovery on the part of the victims of the most terrible crimes along with human rights organisations : firstly, that States are either unable or insufficiently resolved to fight against impunity on a national level and, secondly, the gradual realisation that victims could force the legal system's hand by taking legal action and making States face up to their international obligations.

Victims can bypass weak, corrupt or failing public prosecutors' departments by beginning legal proceedings on their own. So far, nothing new. The novelty resides in the fact that these prerogatives are now being used in the process of applying the mechanism of universal jurisdiction.

It is interesting to examine the reasons why, for ages, these mechanisms were almost never applied, even though they were often part of a convention, usually incorporated into the domestic law of participating States and are recognised today as an integral part of international custom.

Quite simply, victims and NGOs had to become aware of the universal jurisdiction mechanism for it to leave the realm of ideas to become a useful instrument in the fight against impunity.

Like the Alien Tort Claim Act, the principle of universal jurisdiction in criminal law only really took off after the examining magistrate Garzon decided to make use of it to investigate the crimes committed by the Argentinian junta against families which were either Spanish or of Spanish origin. This investigation finally resulted in the famous Pinochet case, which unleashed great hopes in civil society. For the first time, on the victims' initiative, a head of state - albeit one who had long been out of power - was investigated without either politics for politics' sake or reasons of state being able to intervene - at least in the beginning.

In the interests of consistency, the States which have incorporated the principle of universal jurisdiction into their domestic law should be the foremost defenders of what appears today to be a formidable weapon in the fight against impunity. Yet the opposite is true. Why are public prosecutors' departments so passive? The situation is even more baffling when we note the very real dynamism with which the suspected perpetrators of terrorist acts are investigated and pursued.

It so happens that the application of the universal jurisdiction mechanism depends - in a near majority or even the majority of cases - on the pro-active intervention of the victims and the non-governmental organisations which support them. That is why we note that the universal jurisdiction mechanism is only applied in those cases in which the victims have direct access to the courts.

In practice, cases based on the principle of universal jurisdiction only flourish in States which allow individuals to associate in a court action with the public prosecutor. This is true in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Senegal and even Spain. It is also true in the United States but only in the civil courts.

The implementation of universal jurisdiction must not depend solely on the victims. In France, even though the judiciary is theoretically independent of the executive, the State has shown a tendency to obstruct association with the public prosecutor in a court action based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. The State is reluctant to apply the universal jurisdiction mechanism on its own initiative. The public prosecutor is nevertheless in charge of the pre-trial investigation and the enquiry into the facts of the case. As a result of this unwillingness on the part of the French authorities, it has become apparent in recent years that the public prosecutor service is trying to shift its own obligations onto the victims.

An attempt at reconciliation. Criticism comes from those who are disturbed by universal jurisdiction because it threatens to over-turn a long-established practice - that of organised impunity. Universal jurisdiction disturbs States, which have - without always realising the consequences - handed an essential weapon to victims and NGOs. Sheer exhaustion would prevent victims from continuing to fight on alone for the effective application of the principle of universal jurisdiction. While the International Criminal Court comes into force on 1 July 2002, States must commit themselves to a coherent anti-impunity policy. As the ICC cannot challenge the impunity of any past crimes, the principle of universal jurisdiction would go some way to remedying this oversight.

Jeanne Sulzer

PERSONAL JURISDICTION

-Active personal jurisdiction: the courts of a state have jurisdiction to try nationals of that state for acts committed abroad. In this case, it is the nationality of the perpetrator of the crime which determines the jurisdiction.

-Passive personal jurisdiction: the courts of a state are competent to try perpetrators of crimes whose victims are of that state's nationality. In this case, it is the nationality of the victims of the crime which determines the jurisdiction.

It is the case in France in accordance with the application of Articles 113-7 of the penal code and of Article 689 of the Criminal Proceedings Code. Two conditions are then required to be met:

1. The act which is carried out abroad must be regarded as a crime by French law or an imprisonable offence.

2. The victim of the crime must possess French nationality at the time of the offence. 3. It is on this basis that FIDH, LDH and Mr Baba, a French citizen at the time these acts were carried out.

THE JURISDICTION OF THE FRENCH COURTS to try Rwandan nationals for acts committed abroad is assessed under Articles 689-2 of the Criminal Proceedings Code, which grants to the French courts universal jurisdiction for crimes of torture (defined by the New York Convention of 1984) but also under the law adapting to the Statute of the International Criminal Court of Rwanda of 22 May 1996, which gives this same jurisdiction for "the crime of genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law". This jurisdiction assumes, in order for it to be applied, the presence of suspects on French territory.

So Maryland is the second US State, after Illinois, to have temporarily suspended the application of the death penalty in the United States. Similar measures are currently under review in other US states, in Indiana, Nebraska, Arizona and North Carolina in particular.

These decisions, however, do not suggest any condemnation of the principle of death penalty. Governor Glendening declared that he remained in favour of the death penalty for 'crimes that shock our conscience'. It is the abnormal proportion of Blacks who are sentenced to death for killing Whites which has led him to question the 'fairness' of trials where death is called for and obtained by the prosecution.

It is known, for example, that in Illinois, after having discovered that thirteen detainees awaiting execution were innocent of crimes they had been accused of, Governor Ryan imposed a moratorium on these 'legal assassinations' that these executions on death row of American prisons constitute. The Governor of Illinois has now designated a Commission of experts to look into the procedures in force for 'capital crimes' and to propose possible improvements.

The Commission, which has just submitted its report, proposes 85 changes to make the entire procedures in force at the stage of police investigation and trial fairer, without condemning the principle of a penalty from a bygone age which, it believes, is what public opinion calls for in the United States.

The experts from Illinois, by proposing that the twenty crimes to which to the death penalty can apply in that state should be reduced to five and by proposing a series of reforms, from video-taping of police investigations to the training of judges and lawyers specialising in 'death penalty' matters, may be able to considerably reduce the number of death sentences pronounced by juries. These would be better informed about all the aspects of criminal cases they would have to deal with, to start with the agreements between some witnesses and the prosecutors, and substitute penalties which at present are hardly known. One step closer towards 'abolition'?

Etienne Jaudel

Appeal by the French weekly Nouvel Observateur on AIDS in China

This appeal, co-signed by the President of the FIDH, was published in Le Nouvel Observateur no. 1953 of Thursday, 11th April 2002.

In a climate of complete ignorance, a formidable mass grave is looming …a mass grave as big as China. Millions of poor farmers are suffering from AIDS. They are dying by the thousands. An estimated 5 million people are HIV-positive. In some areas the contamination rate is as high as 80 %. Entire villages are set to disappear from the landscape. Already, entire families have disappeared, leaving behind children, who, in turn, are abandoned.

It is not fate that causes the deaths of these farmers. They die of poverty. In order to feed themselves and to be able to survive, they had to sell their blood to blood transfusion organisations dependent on the local health authorities. These donations, carried out in complete defiance of all rules on prophylaxis, have not only disseminated the HIV virus, but also hepatitis, tuberculosis, etc.. and people die of negligence. This system of blood donations and transfers was practised from 1991 until 1996 and beyond. At that time, no health professional could ignore the risk of contamination through blood transfer. Yet, no precautions were taken. People are dying in a climate of complete indifference. The authorities responsible for this situation do nothing for these people. Victims have to care for themselves at their own expense, although no treatment is accessible for them. Already poor, they are now reduced to complete misery as a result of the illness. They are not even able to pay for the schooling of their children any more, and for these children, nothing is provided for…when their parents die, they will become orphans and street children. Different charity organisations are trying to bring aid to these families, but they run up against the obstacles put in place by Chinese bureaucracy.

Indignant and appalled at the fate inflicted on these people, at the imminent outbreak of an AIDS epidemic in a country of 1.4 billion inhabitants with no AIDS prevention policy or policy in place which may help to keep the contamination within limits, the signatories call on all relevant international organisations, such as the UN, UNICEF, WHO, the European Union to take action in order to bring aid to the people at risk and to intervene with the Chinese authorities in order to speed up a genuine international rescue plan; in the spirit of the international conference in Doha they would also like to encourage pharmaceutical companies to make treatments accessible to those affected by the illness. The monthly cost of a tri-therapy for one person today represents 30 times the average income of a family of Chinese peasants! Furthermore, the signatories call on the Chinese government to do everything in their power to help the victims to put in place shelters and facilities for looking after orphans, to intensify its efforts in the area of information, prevention and prophylaxis against AIDS and to lift all the obstacles to the activities of international institutions and NGOs, both Chinese and foreign ones.