Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras top most repressive list in hemisphere

Posted on Sunday, 04.28.13

Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras top most repressive list in hemisphere
By The Miami Herald Editorial
HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com

Another report on human rights points out the worst culprits in Latin
America: Cuba, Honduras, Venezuela.

The 2012 report released recently by the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights, a fact-finding arm of the Organization of American States,
focuses on the nastiest violators in the hemisphere without regard to
their politics, whether from the left or the right. The United States,
for instance, has rightly been criticized by the commission for abuses
at the Guantánamo Naval Base in Cuba, where terror suspects have been
held for more than a decade.

In its latest report, the OAS commission points out continued repression
in communist Cuba and socialist Venezuela, as well as Honduras after a
right-wing coup in 2009.

• Cuba. Even though Cuba finally freed the dissidents who were arrested
in the so-called Black Spring of 2003, it has continued its crackdown.
Among those treated to arbitrary beatings and detentions are the Ladies
in White, who have been marching peacefully throughout Cuba for human
rights. "Cuba is the only country in the Americas in which one can say
that there is no guarantee whatsoever for the right to freedom of
expression," the report notes.

There were more than 3,000 temporary detentions of dissidents in the
first six months of 2012 alone.

• Venezuela. From constitutional changes that turn the president into
king — giving him powers that usurp the legislative and judicial
branches — to a shameful murder rate and kidnappings of political
opponents, Venezuela is far from a democracy. The commission "received
information to the effect that 60 percent of the victims of the
homicides on record as of January 2012 had been shot at least four
times. It was said that one barometer of the severity of the violence in
Venezuela is the number of officers of the court killed, which by
February 2012 had reached 12," the report said.

Aside from using supporters as Bolivarian militias to harass independent
labor unions, business people, religious institutions and independent
media, Venezuela also has adopted the Cuban model of detentions without
charges.

• Honduras. Since the 2009 coup, the report states, "There have been
human rights violations that have gravely affected the Honduran
population."

A deadly fire at the Comayagua National Penitentiary, the assassination
of human rights activists, community leaders and journalists, and the
stacking of the judiciary to remove its independence — all raise serious
questions about Honduran President Porfirio Lobo's commitment to democracy.

The commission also points to discrimination of indigenous citizens and
women, and no serious follow up to the recommendations by Honduras' own
Truth and Reconciliation Commission to end the violence and prevent more
coups.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has long stood up for the
fundamental rights of each citizen. Not surprisingly, there has been a
push by those disgruntled with its findings — particularly Venezuela and
led by Ecuador's President Rafael Correa — to weaken the commission and
the OAS human rights court. That move failed at the OAS general assembly
on March 22, but there will be other attempts.

They must not be allowed to succeed. Whether the assault on liberty
comes from the left or right, the commission gives the hemisphere's most
desperate citizens a voice on a global platform, focusing on universal
human rights that all nations must honor.

Read more here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/28/3366935/cuba-venezuela-honduras-top-most.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy