News Round-Up

Colombia
MPs Attack Colombia Military Aid (BBC)

El Salvador
Activist Disappears (Tim's El Salvador Blog)

Honduras
Analysts Call Coup a "Return to the Past" (IPS)

Honduras: Back to the Bad Old Days? (Guardian)

Peru
Piden se reabra caso El Fronton (CNDDHH)

Uruguay
Condemned to Repeat it? (Memory in Montevideo)

Argentina: Army Torture Ruling

About 70 Argentine army officers can be charged with torture of their own soldiers during the 1982 Falklands War, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Over 80 cases are under investigation, including allegations of murder and causing death by starvation.

Argentine Army in Torture Ruling (BBC)

Argentina: Disappeared Still on Electoral Roll

With two days to go before parliamentary elections in Argentina, two human rights groups have complained that there are still disappeared persons who appear in the electoral roll. As voting is compulsory in Argentina, these people have then officially committed an 'electoral infringement' by not showing up to vote for the state that disappeared them.

This is purely symbolic, as the groups - the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Linea Fundadora and Servicio Paz y Justicia - themselves freely admit. Nevertheless, this is another of those hurtful little anomalies which should be removed, related to the difficulties with legal status in Chile which I wrote about it recently.

The article I was working from suddenly vanished while I was about to link to it (honestly!) so let's go with this link for now:
Organismos de derechos humanos advierten que en los padrones figuran desaparecidos (Analisis digital)

Paraguay: Dictatorship Official Jailed

After his recent return to Paraguay, Sabino Montanaro is now facing charges of torture and other crimes against humanity. This week, the 86-year old was transferred to prison.

Montanaro’s attorneys are challenging the arrest based on the fact that Paraguay allows defendants over 70 years-old to be in home detention during criminal prosecution. Defense counsel also question whether Montanaro can be prosecuted due his frail physical and mental condition.

Montanaro was transferred from the police hospital amid a strong show of security measures in the face of heated demonstrations by the relatives of those who went missing during the dictatorship.

"This is an historic moment. He is the last link in our fight against impunity", said Guillermina Kanonikoff, the widow of Mario Schaerer Prono. Schaerer Prono was a member of a clandestine student organization that opposed Stroessner. He was captured, tortured and killed. Kanonikoff added that the former minister was part of a regime that decided "who lived, who died and who disappeared."

After 12 Years on the Run, Former Minister in Prison for Crimes against Humanity (Impunity Watch)

News (Chile and Peru)

Chile

No Obama Apology for CIA in Latin America (AFP) - also blog comment on this here, here, and here

Peru
Images of 'Amazon's Tiananmen' (The Independent) - these are much more graphic than most photographs you see in the British press and a predictable debate is going on the comments

Peru: Radio Closure Could Undermine Press Freedom (Human Rights Watch)

Uruguay: Compensation for Political Prisoners

Uruguay has paid $42 million (973 million pesos) in compensation during the past three years to more than 3,000 former political prisoners and those who fled the country or hid from authorities, the state-run news agency said Monday.

Uruguay Compensates Ex-Political Prisoners (CNN)

Peru to Create Military Ombudsman

Peru is to create a military ombudsman (defensoria del personal militar) to uphold the rights of members of the armed forces, the Ministry of Defence has announced. The ombudsman's office will be able to provide legal advice, information, supervision of basic services to soldiers, and so on.

I have nothing against this in principle - in fact, quite the contrary. As we saw from the Shining Path ambush a few months back when underage soldiers were killed, there is good reason to be concerned about the rights of soldiers. Although human rights are universal, the armed forces have specific issues which makes them worthy of particular consideration. Giving soldiers the tools to understand their own rights may also help them to uphold the rights of others. Peru is also in good company with nations such as Canada, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands also having ombudsmen. I just hope that this is not used as another stick with which to beat the human rights organisations who are sometimes presented, quite erroneously, as 'persecuting' the armed forces. Basically, I'm suspicious of anything Defense Minister Flores-Aráoz does.

Ministerio de Defensa crea la Defensoria del Personal Militar (El Comercio)

See also:
Por una defensoria del militar YA! (Ideele)