GA-003-00

June 5, 2000

HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES NEED PROTECTION: OAS FORUM

 

Paraguay’s Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), Ambassador Diego Abente Bru n, said yesterday that the Organization’s member states will be asked to pave the way for a special representative of the Secretary General to be appointed to protect human rights advocates around the hemisphere.

 

In remarks to a public forum entitled "Human Rights in the Americas and the OAS System," Ambassador Abente said a proposed resolution was being pursued in response to appeals from human rights organizations. Every year the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an OAS agency, reports to the members states about "threats, disappearances, assaults and summary executions perpetrated against individuals and organizations advocating human rights."

 

The forum was held as foreign ministers and top authorities from OAS member states gathered in Windsor, Canada, for the Organization’s 30th regular General Assembly June 4 to 6.

 

The Paraguayan diplomat explained that the Commission was very concerned that "the Hemisphere does not have a Defender for the human rights defenders," given the increasing human rights violations committed against those advocates.

 

Present and future challenges in strengthening the inter-American human rights system were also discussed, with Canada’s Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa David Kilgour, IACHR Chairman Hélio Bicudo and Guatemala’s Ambassador to the OAS Ronalth Ochaeta among the presenters.

Among other speakers, Sheila Stuart of Caribbean Human Rights Network spoke about human rights in the Caribbean; and Anne Burke of Amnesty International dealt with human rights defenders in 1999-2000.

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