dictatorship

Bringing Uruguay's tyrants to justice

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:15:07 +0200

Uruguay's last military dictator was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for the role he played in the brutal oppression of the early eighties. On Sunday, the country will decide whether hundreds of others involved can also be brought to justice.

Eighty-three-year-old Gregory Alvarez, who led the country's dictatorial regime from 1981 to 1985, was charged with 37 "aggravated homicides". He follows eight others involved in the 1973-1985 regime who have so far been sentenced. They will be the first and last, however, if in a referendum held simultaneously with Sunday's presidential election, the electorate votes to uphold a law that protects the remaining hundreds of military officials involved.

Around 6,000 people were imprisoned for "political reasons" during the regime, meaning that one in every 500 citizens was imprisoned at some point. On top of that, 300,000, or ten percent of the population, fled the country.

To give a "yes" to annulling the protection law, voters are asked to place a pink ballot slip inside their voting envelope. The poll will need a 50% turnout to be validated. Two decades into democracy, the issue remains a controversial one. But on Tuesday (Oct. 20), some 60,000 people filed into the streets of Montevideo, completely donned in pink, in support of the vote.

UPDATE (27/10/09 - 9pm Paris time): exit polls indicate that only 47.36 % voted in favour of repealing the amnesty law. Former guerrilla fighter Jose Mujica won 48% of the presidential vote. He will face a second round against centre-right Luis Alberto Lacalle on 29 November.

Tunisia's presidential election: "comical"

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:47:33 +0200

Image: "Reveiltunisien" on Flickr.

In the run up to Sunday's presidential election, the Tunisian minister of justice and foreign affairs told FRANCE 24 that democracy in the country is working. One of our Observers in Tunisia, who lives under police surveillance, reacts to what he says is a joke.

Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has been re-elected president of Tunisia three times already since his first victory on November 7, 1987. While Tunisia enjoys a growth rate of 5%, efficient infrastructure, a healthy education system, and one of the best reputations for women's rights in the region, it seems that somewhere along the lines, freedom of speech got left behind.

A guest on FRANCE 24's Debate programme, Justice and Human Rights Minister Béchir Tekkari, said that the electoral system remained "fair, transparent and multi-party". However, Tunisia's ruling party, the Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD), keeps the country under a tight grip, regularly disposing of certain opposition members and censoring unfavourable media.

This year the country can celebrate a slight improvement in its international reputation. Reporters Without Borders ranked Ben Ali's Tunisia in 154^th place on their press freedom index, up 21 from last year when they came in last - 175^th.

“This country is one big prison with walls built of ideology”

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:24:10 +0200

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was awarded Latin America's most prestigious prize in journalism in July of this year. Going to pick it up however, has proved impossible. Yoani is forbidden from leaving the country. Just before the awards ceremony was due to take place, she went to the immigration centre - to no avail.

Writer, blogger and linguist, Yoani Sanchez was named one of the most influential people on the planet by Time Magazine in 2008. A year later, she received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University - a reward highly aspired to by Latin American writers.

Her blog, Generación Y, generates more than 14 million page views per month. According to the Cabot Prize jury, "Generation Y has put the rest of the world in touch with Cuba - at least digitally. (...) It is a pitch-perfect mix of personal observation and tough analysis which conveys better than anybody else what Cubans' daily life - with all its frustrations and hopes - is really like."

She filmed this video on a trip to the office of immigration and migration in Havana, October 12. At 00:25 the image stalls. The audio recording continues. Translation and subtitles by FRANCE 24.

Yoani posted the video on her blog along with the following comment:

I was naive. Right up to the last minute, I thought that the government would change their mind and let me out in time for the awards ceremony, which took place yesterday [Oct. 16].

I'd saved this footage from a trip to the immigration office on October 12. Today, seeing as the situation hasn't changed [Yoani has been prohibited from travel for a year now]; I decided to publish it, in particular for all those who have gone through similar situations. Due to high emotions and having so much to get out, it's quite hard to understand what I'm saying. But I feel better for having told those people in uniforms exactly what I think of them and their absurd restrictions."

Democracy's first 'disappeared' dots walls of Buenos Aires

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:44:20 +0200

Image: Alejandro Rodriguez on Flickr.

Julio López disappeared on his way to one of the final hearings in the trial of the man who ordered his detention and torture during Argentina's brutal military regime. Three years later, and the 80-year-old bricklayer is still missing, for the second time. He has not been forgotten however; his face can be seen all over Buenos Aires, in stickers, paintings, and stencils.

López is now known as the first ‘desaparecido' to have disappeared after the return of democracy. His plight has made him a symbol of the struggle for justice following the mass human rights violation committed by the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Some 30,000 people ‘disappeared' in Argentina during those seven years.

López's story began in 1976, when he was kidnapped - for the first time - by national security forces and detained for almost three years. Former police commissioner Miguel Etchecolatz, the officer under whose supervision López was tortured, was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment in 1986 after the return of democracy. But the sentence was annulled on account of the controversial ‘Law of Due Obedience', which allowed officers to claim that they had acted under order from their superiors.

After the law was repealed in 2003 by then president Néstor Kirchner, Etchecolatz was the first soldier to be brought back to court. López testified as a witness. The court ruled the former police commissioner guilty of playing a role in the disappearance of six people and the torture of several others, and sentenced him to life in prison.

But just one day before the verdict, López had disappeared.

Pasting a sticker in the capital. Image: "la renate" on Flickr.

French student deported from Cuba for befriending political dissidents

Julien — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:17:50 +0200

Foreigners are welcome in Cuba, as long as they stick to the beaches and don’t meddle with local politics. A young French student learnt this the hard way, when she was forcibly deported from the island after she befriended local political dissidents.

Marie-Bérengère Ruet, a graduate student in the Parisian Institute of Political Science (Sciences-Po), spent two months in Cuba last spring to gather material for her thesis on Cuban opposition and resistance groups. During her stay, she met with, interviewed and befriended several opposition activists, considered as dangerous delinquents by the Cuban authorities. Their crime? Filtering information about the situation in Cuba outside the country, and generally expressing their dissent more vocally than most.