Media Center

Press Release

OAS and Civil Society of the Americas Debate Citizen Security and Its Impact on Democracies

The central theme of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) to be held in San Salvador from June 5 to 7, “Citizen Security in the Americas,” today was the focal point of the Eight Civil Society Hemispheric Forum, which began today and will conclude tomorrow at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, and has for its objective to enrich the initiatives of the hemispheric organization through discussion and the exchange of ideas with representatives of non-governmental organizations.

In particular, the first two plenary sessions held today explored the issue of citizen security in the Americas and its impact on democracy, human rights, and development, while the third session offered an analysis of the opportunities and challenges of the Inter-American Democratic Charter on its tenth anniversary.

During the inaugural session, Ambassador Luis Menéndez, Alternate Representative of El Salvador to the OAS, asserted that his country wishes for the Declaration of San Salvador, the result of the Forty-first General Assembly, to contain “a balance between public policies, its components and preventive actions, the fight against crime, rehabilitation and reintegration, assistance to victims and people addicted to drugs, and the strengthening of institutions, all of them aspects that together will express the concept of citizen security.”

On the theme chosen by his country’s Government, the Salvadoran representative said that it was “defined first by recognizing that it constitutes an issue of common interest that expands the hemispheric security agenda and its effects on the life and development of citizens in their respective nations, affected not only by traditional threats but also by those derived from organized crime and common crime, as well as by new threats and challenges.”

The Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the OAS and Vice President of the Permanent Council, Ambassador José Enrique Castillo, emphasized the importance of the selected theme and its relationship to the fundamental rights of all peoples. “Without citizen security there cannot be full human rights. That is why the theme of the Assembly is closely related to that of human rights. Neither can there be democracy, because it is not possible to exercise civil and political rights in a political system in which citizens don’t have the minimum security to be able to exercise them. And development cannot be achieved under conditions of insecurity,” he said.

On this forum, the Costa Rican representative said it is evidence “of the importance of the participation of civil society and its organizations in the construction of better horizons for the Americas.”

The OAS Secretary for External Relations, Ambassador Alfonso Quiñónez, asserted that “eight years after the adoption of the Declaration on Security in the Americas, security continues to be one of the principal concerns facing the region, and our governments recognize more and more that this is a complex issue that depends on the interrelationship of multiple actors, including civil society, the media and the private sector, among others, to promote a culture of peace and non violence.”

Further, he said that at the OAS “we are convinced of the important work carried out by non-governmental organizations and citizens groups that, with innovative programs, contribute to the formulation of policies and mobilize their communities, whether it be to demand changes to such policies or assist the States in their implementation.”

The OAS Secretary for Multidimensional Security, Ambassador Adam Blackwell, recalled that in the year 2010 more than 130,000 people were murdered in the Americas, a region in which more than two thirds of all kidnappings in the planet take place and where every three minutes a homicide takes place. “Crime and violence in our region kill more people than AIDS or any other known epidemic, and they destroy more homes than any economic crisis we have ever endured,” he said, adding that “the situation has reached such extremes that today we must recognize that the lack of security not only directly affects people’s physical wellbeing, peace and communities, but also constitutes a threat to stability, the strengthening of democracies, the rule of law, and the development of all countries of the Americas.”

Among the important steps that countries of the region have taken, the Canadian diplomat highlighted the adoption in 2003 of a new concept of security in the Americas, which “establishes that the purpose of security is the protection of the human person, and includes in its definition the existence of traditional and new threats, as well as concerns and other challenges to security in the States of the hemisphere.” With this in mind, the OAS General Secretariat created in 2005 the Secretariat for Multidimensional Security, which encompasses drug abuse control, terrorism, human trafficking, and firearms trafficking, among other subjects, and the purpose of which is “to contribute to the development of the abilities of the OAS Member States” and “facilitate cooperation among them for this purpose,” Blackwell concluded.

The inaugural session of the VIII Civil Society Hemispheric Forum was moderated by the Director of the OAS Department of International Affairs, Irene Klinger, who recalled that throughout the 13 years in which civil society has participated at the OAS, more than 110 meetings and forums have been conducted with civil society organizations, and more than 2,200 recommendations have been generated on the principal issues on the hemispheric agenda. She noted that only since 2004, when a resolution created a dialogue with civil society prior to the General Assembly, civil society organizations registered with the OAS have grown in number from 89 to 353, which is evidence of, among other things,that “the voice of civil society is present in the Organization and its opinions are addressed.”

During the first session of the forum, titled "Citizen Security, Democracy and Human Rights in the Americas," the OAS Secretary for Political Affairs, Victor Rico, highlighted the trends seen on national and regional surveys that show that the issue of security and crime has become "the main concern in the region, even above unemployment." He explained that this trend is marked not only by increased levels of insecurity in some countries, but also by perceived levels of insecurity. "There is an ever increasing divorce between perception and hard data," he said.

Rico noted that there are three dimensions to measure the political impact of insecurity: the first of them refers to governments and their role, an aspect that includes the adoption of exceptional measures and the loss of support for the government due to dissatisfaction. "The second dimension has to do with democratic institutions: a low level of trust in institutions and the tensions between public authorities generate a leadership role of the armed forces and a loss of autonomy of the judiciary," he said. The third dimension presented by the Secretary of Political Affairs referred to the state of democracy in some countries, including the low levels of satisfaction, a high tolerance for the rupture of legal order, human rights violations and privatization of security.

"The combination of factors create what we call the circle of public insecurity risk for democracy. This set of relationships may threaten the pillars of democratic governance, opening the door to authoritarian positions, the lack of institutional mechanisms and the emergence of political fronts that base their discourse and popular support on tough or punitive populism," said Rico, who also warned that the greatest risk for democratic governance is the influence of organized crime on communities and territories where state presence is low and therefore criminal fractions may replace some of the state duties. "

The Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Santiago Canton, explained the main findings of the report on public safety and human rights published by the Commission in 2010. In that sense, he recalled that, according to the statistics, Latin America and the Caribbean is the second worst region on homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants. He explained the great concern form the human rights standpoint regarding the tendency to resort to the "firm hand” and warned that "this policy is focusing the issue of citizen security on the repressive aspects and not on the preventive aspects of crime prevention.” He then called for the adoption of comprehensive public policies "that take into account all entities that are accompanied by the largest possible number of state bodies and are geared primarily to prevention."

The Secretary of the “Red de Seguridad y Defensa de América Latina (RESDAL)” (“Security and Defense Network of Latin America”) Gonzalo Serra, emphasized the need for governments and civil society to work jointly on the issue of citizen security. “The States by themselves are not in a position to face the challenges of security. We must take advantage of the opportunity to work together so as not to lose sight of the objective of finding tangible and democratic solutions that improve citizens’ future, and that fulfill their expectations and demands,” he said. Serra also alluded to the error made by States when they seek a solution to the problem as a dilemma between prevention and repression, when the two must be applied jointly.

Referring to the multidimensional approach to hemispheric security adopted since 2003 in the inter-American system, the RESDAL representative said that “to assume that the multidimensionality of security exists does not necessarily imply that this is going to solve on its own the problems it faces. What follows the assumption of this approach is the ability to deal with these problems and from there the opportunity to focus ourselves towards the future with greater efforts.”

During the second panel, titled, “Development and its Impact on Citizen Security,” panelists agreed that conditions such as “poverty, inequality, and unemployment” directly impact security. The Permanent Representative of The Bahamas to the OAS, Ambassador Cornelius Smith, asserted that this issue must be addressed as “a hemispheric priority” and the only way to achieve significant changes is “investing in education,” with the State working jointly with the private sector and civil society. Furthermore, the OAS Executive Secretary for Integral Development, Mauricio Cortes Costa, said insecurity must be addressed through public policies so that “access to the benefits of economic growth” is not hindered. “The new understanding on hemispheric security demands that non-traditional causes related to poverty and unemployment be taken into account, the sole way to preserve security in the region.”

For her part the Director of “Fundación Ambio” of Costa Rica, Roxana Salazar, said that citizen security must be understood as an issue on the “national agenda” that integrates “the different sectors, so as to thus strengthen democratic governance.”

The third plenary session, titled, “Inter-American Democratic Charter: Opportunities and Challenges on the Occasion of its Tenth Anniversary,” has as participants Elisabeth Ungar, Executive Director of “Corporación Transparencia por Colombia”; Ambassador Guillermo Cochez, Permanent Representative of Panama to the OAS and First Vice President of the OAS Permanent Council’s Committee on Political and Juridical Affairs; and the Director of the OAS Department of International Affairs, Irene Klinger. Among the challenges and obstacles to the realization of the objectives and ideals of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, adopted on September 11, 2001, the panelists highlighted the issues of corruption and lack of transparency in democratic institutions; poverty, inequality, discrimination, and organized crime; lack of collaboration and communication between the governments represented in the hemispheric Organization and their country’s communities, in particular those with more limited access to centers of power.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-640/11