"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind...."
Thus begins the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, and which, despite the countless breaches and all the hypocrisy from on high, remains the most important benchmark of the freedom that people enjoy or are denied.
The Declaration was not the last word in human rights, which has yet to be pronounced and won't be anytime soon. Back in 1948, the Cold War was barely underway, colonialism was just beginning to crumble, the next wave of feminism wasn't yet on the horizon, the apartheid regime had just come to power in South Africa and racial segregation was the law across much of the United States. The rights of workers to form unions and bargain collectively, and of everybody to have access to education and health care regardless of means, were considered either radical fantasies or luxuries applicable to rich countries if at all.
Still, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was an important milestone in human history and is one of the cornerstones of modern international law, and thus it is fitting that at this time of the year we take time to honor what the UN did back then, and to defend human rights.
So how's Panama doing in the field of human rights?
Theoretically, and by realistic comparisons with some of our neighbors, we are doing well. We are not engulfed by civil war, with all of the human rights violations that come with such a catastrophe. With a few caveats, we can say that we have freedom of religion, belief and association here. With many more reservations, we enjoy freedom of expression. As capital punishment is not part of our law, we have no death row. Nor do we have Panamanian death squads. Though we sometimes have police brutality, cops are not immune from punishment when they are caught practicing it. Though these systems are ailing and often fail to serve our poorest and most remote communities, we do have free public education and health care.
But we do have serious human rights problems in Panama.
Shall we rate severity by the body count of those killed and wounded?
In that case, Panama's principal human rights problem is violence against women. We have an alarmingly high murder rate, and the biggest part of it is the product of domestic violence. Likewise, virtually all rapes, many assaults and batteries and a whole range of intimidation are examples of men attempting to exercise control over women, in flagrant abuse of the fundamental rights of half of humanity.
Shall we rate severity by the corrosion of our institutions?
In that case, Panama's principal human rights problem is corruption. Impunity for the rich and powerful in the context of a legal system that runs on favoritism and bribery is a long-standing problem, which has been severely aggravated by the hoodlum Mireyista regime. This time next year Mireya and her cabinet will be gone from public life, with about as much of a chance of returning to power as Manuel Antonio Noriega has. But the institutional morass, and a bunch of her judicial appointees, will still be with us.
Some of the other Panamanian human rights issues that deserve more attention include:
• Widespread discrimination by race, gender and class, despite laws prohibiting it. Travel around Panama a bit and see what the people look like. Then look at the government ministers, or the models who appear in TV commercials, and notice the difference. Read the employment ads in our major dailies --- you won't have to look long before finding flagrant discrimination on the basis of sex. Know that your surname usually makes all the difference before our courts, in government hiring and contracting and in the private business world. These are major human rights issues, but maybe we'd do better to look at the economic implications of marginalizing most of this nation's talent in order to maintain the privileges of a narrow segment of our population.
• Panama's de facto participation in Plan Colombia and implicit alliance with the AUC paramilitary. When the Mr. Castaño's thugs invaded Panama with several Kuna public officials on their hit list, Mireya and her administration not only failed to pay proper respect to the slain sahilas. She jailed one of the AUC's victims, who managed to escape and run ahead to Pucuro to deliver a warning that prevented several more assassinations. Taken along with her lenient attitude about AUC gun running through Panama and disparate treatment of those Colombians fleeing AUC offensives versus those running here from FARC offensives, we can only conclude that Mireya Moscoso supports Colombian death squad attacks on Panama, and that's the worst part of her habitual misconduct in office.
• The overloading and degradation of our justice system by drug cases. Every year the US State Department issues a report criticizing Panama for horrendous overcrowding in our jails and prisons, but rarely do these missives mention the principal cause --- the enforcement of drug laws urged upon this country by the United States. Panama does need to take other countries' needs and wishes into account, and so must act to restrict the use of our territory as a transit zone for drug shipments to other nations. However, much of the prison population is behind bars for relatively minor drug offenses. Moreover, the abolition of the presumption of innocence in drug cases, such that now in the face of a mere allegation the accused must prove a negative, is a gross violation of all international legal norms. Whether we want to look at it in terms of how we allocate Panamanian resources or how we apply universal values, this country simply can not afford the made-in-the-USA War on Drugs.
• The persistent intimidation and restriction of the press, and the lack of governmental and economic transparency that this is designed to ensure. Now, thanks to a couple of infamous court decisions, it's considered a crime to publish a true story that makes Winston Spadafora look bad, or to satirize his relationship with Mireya Moscoso. A large portion of Panama's journalists are facing or have faced prosecutions or threats of prosecutions, mostly by members of the nation's political and business elites, and usually for entirely bogus reasons. The obvious part of this is that public corruption is rampant and the guilty don't want to be pointed out. Maybe even more important is the reality that much of the Panamanian economy is smoke and mirrors. If data about the true value of the assets and extent of the liabilities of publicly traded companies were readily available, a number of Panama's high and mighty business empires would shrink or collapse. The opacity of both Panama's private and public sectors is one of the main reasons why there is so little investment in an economy that so badly needs a jump-start.
Did we fail to list one of Panama's serious human rights concerns? Of course we did --- more than one, in fact. Freedom is a multifaceted, never-ending struggle. That's the main thing to remember this Human Rights Day.
