Media Center

Press Advisory

OAS and Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to Commemorate Human Rights Day with Conference on Human Rights and Democracy in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua

To commemorate Human Rights Day, the Organization of American States (OAS) along with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will organize a virtual conference on authoritarianism in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and the implications for Human Rights and Democracy in the region. Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 15:00 EST (20:00 GMT).

The videoconference with feature a one-on-one discussion between OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and Luis Guillermo Solís, former President of Costa Rica, followed by a panel discussion to include:

• Maria Werlau, Executive Director of the Cuba Archive;
• Ana Julia Jatar, Editor in Chief, El Planeta Media;
• Jose Pallais former Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua; and
• moderated by Carlos Ponce, of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

The year 2020 has been a particularly challenging for all countries. The videoconference comes days after a fraudulent parliamentarian election in Venezuela, where there is no end in sight to the political and humanitarian catastrophe. Meanwhile, the political and human rights crisis in Nicaragua continues and no democratic reforms have been made ahead of the scheduled 2021 presidential election. In Cuba, ever more repressive efforts to silence an increasingly critical and vociferous opposition continue. In today's globalized world, actions within one country’s borders are no longer isolated and are spilling through crises in health, migration, and organized crime and the costs of the dictatorships are increasingly born by the region. While the global Covid-19 pandemic has battered countries across Latin American and the Caribbean, in select cases, such as these, Covid restrictions are being used to silence critics, including human rights defenders and activists and further weaken the democratic voices that remain. Covid has been an excuse for Cuba to expand its medical brigades, which in practice is forced labor by Cuban personnel working under conditions of slavery, providing the involuntary, primary source of revenue for the Government. The discussion will focus on the current challenges as well as opportunities to move forward in 2021 to help return these countries and the region on a path back to restoring democracy and human rights.

The video conference will be broadcast live – in Spanish and English – on the OAS Website and Facebook page.

Those journalists wishing to cover the event are asked to send an email with their request to ([email protected])


WHAT: Virtual conference on Human Rights and Democracy in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

WHEN: Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 15:00 EST (20:00 GMT)

:WHERE: OAS website and Facebook page.

Reference: AVI-158/20