From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 05 Nov 92 07:23 PST
Subject: HUMAN RIGHTS: NGOS MOVE AGAINST IMP
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700760:000:4255
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Nov  5 07:23:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: HUMAN RIGHTS: NGOS MOVE AGAINST IMP

/* Written 12:14 am  Nov  5, 1992 by newsdesk@igc.apc.org in
igc:ips.englibrary */ Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all
rights reserved.  Permission to re- print within 7 days of
original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: HUMAN RIGHTS: NGOS MOVE AGAINST IMPUNITY ENJOYED BY
VIOLATORS

geneva, nov 2 (ips/victor ego ducrot) -- non-governmental
organizations (ngos) monday began a four-day meeting aimed at
helping the international community to move to end the impunity
enjoyed by human rights violators the world over.

ngos attending the 'first international meeting on impunity' aim
to provide the un human rights commission with legal
recommendations enabling it to approve norms preventing states
from sanctioning laws which grant violators impunity.

they stress that many countries which in the past few years
imposed sanctions against former dictators and top military and
police officials for systematic torture, assassinations and forced
disappearances ended up nullifying these penalties through various
legal forms of impunity.

documents from the meeting, organized by the geneva-based
international commission of jurists (icj), mention argentina,
uruguay, brazil, chile, el salvador, guatemala and honduras as the
most notorious cases.

in argentina, for example, a series of laws and presidential
pardons issued between 1987 and 1990 freed people convicted for
crimes against humanity by civil courts in 1984.

legal provisions pushed through by uruguay's constitutional
government shielded officials of the previous dictatorship from
investigation.

in chile then dictator augusto pinochet proclaimed a
''self-amnesty'' law in 1978, while the military who ruled brazil
in the 1970s promulgated a similar law in 1979, ratified by
parliament in 1985.

similar laws were approved in guatemala in 1986 and honduras and
el salvador in 1987.

however, in 1992, for the first time in the history of latin
america and the caribbean, a civil court imposed and enforced
prison sentences on three ex-dictators, generals jorge videla,
eduardo viola and leopoldo galtieri, and top military and police
officials responsible for the disappearance and death of 30,000
people.

participants in the meeting include the american association of
jurists and the international league for human rights and the
liberation of peoples, presided by argenian nobel peace prize
winner adolfo perez esquivel.

also attending the nov. 2 - 5 encounter are independent experts
and jurists such as holland's theo van boven, former director of
the un centre for human rights and julio strassera, a former
argentinian prosecutor who obtained the conviction of his
country's ex-dictators. (more)
----

guarantees of impunity have not come only in the form of laws and
decrees, uruguayan alejandro artucio of the icj's execuitive
explained to ips.

there is also de facto impunity, when governments or judiciaries
do not investigate crimes or when their investigation is left to
military courts, since history has shown that these always defend
the agents of repression, he said.

''the way impunity has been imposed in latin america is a bad
example of what should be avoided in the solution of new problems,
like the atrocities which are being committed in the civil war in
the former yugoslavia,'' said joaquin ruiz jimenez, president of
spain's commission of jurists.

jimenez feels that the international community commits an error
when it creates ad hoc commissions or courts for individual cases
of violations.

''the un would have to create a permanent international court with
resources and prerogatives, which would have compulsory
jurisdiction in all cases of human rights violations,'' he said.

an icj leader admitted to ips that the issue would give rise to
controversy at the monday through thursday meeting.

this is because ''the representatives of un member states can take
the floor and we are sure that some of those which have sanctioned
laws granting impunity will try to justify their action.''

the meeting is sponsored and financed by the french government,
through the french national human rights commission.
(end/ips/trd/so/ved-da/kb/92)
----