LATIN AMERICA--Human rights evaluated

<a href=www.lapress.org>LatinAmericaPress Saturday,  June 7,  2003 May 30, 2003

Colombia, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela were cited by the United States as countries with a "poor record" in the protection of human rights last year.

The US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, published March 31, state that the four countries did not "generally respect" human rights, measured by the number of abuses committed.

The reports — published annually since 1976 — are compiled using information from the US State Department, human rights groups, international bodies, academics and the media.

The governments of Cuba and Venezuela stated that the US has no right to make a unilateral qualification of other countries’ human rights records when, against the wishes of the United Nations, it recently conducted an invasion that violated human rights, referring to the war against Iraq.

Other countries such as Peru — accused of attempted state control of the media — stated that they only recognize the UN and the Organization of American States as authorities qualified to make such pronouncements.

In brief;

Drug traffickers, according to a US government report, have destroyed some 3.6 million hectares of Andean Region tropical rainforest in the last 20 years. At the same time, chemicals used in the production of drugs have contaminated many rivers.

On May 26 in Paraguay a judge acquitted 19 people — police, politicians and members of the military — accused of attempting to mount a coup against ex-President Luis Gonzáles Macchi in May 2000 (LP, June 12, 2000).

Although the Constitution of Guatemala prohibits former dictators from running for president (LP, May 21, 2003), on May 24 the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) chose retired Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-83), who is currently president of Congress, as its presidential candidate for the Nov. 9 elections.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo announced May 9 the recuperation of another child of the disappeared in Argentina, the 75th, who was illegally appropriated by a member of the military during the last dictatorship (LP, Sept. 10, 2001). Horacio Pietragalla Corti, aged 27, whose parents were killed by the Argentinean Anti-Communist Association, was kidnapped when just six months old.

The number of impoverished people in Mexico rose by two million in the first two months of 2003, according to government figures. The Technical Committee for the Measurement of Poverty calculates that 55.7 million of the country’s total 100 million inhabitants live in poverty.