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Dissent and violence

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

In the introduction to the Report of the Truth Commission over which he presided in Argentina, the writer Ernesto Sábato said "In the course of our depositions were were insulted and threatened by those who committed the crimes, who far from repenting went on to repeat the previously stated reasons for the Dirty War, about the salvation of the country and of western values --- the precise values that were trampled by them inside the bloody walls of the centers of repression --- and they accused us of not promoting national reconciliation, of activating hatreds and resentments and of impeding the process of forgetting," and he added that "great calamities are always lessons and without a doubt that of the most terrible trauma in the nation's history was suffered during the period in which the dictatorship that began in March of 1976 lasted will serve to make us understand that democracy is uniquely capable of saving a people from such horror, that only it can maintain and salvage the sacred and essential rights of human beings. Only in this way can we be sure that never again will our country repeat the acts that have made it tragically famous in the civilized world."

In less that a week, we Panamanians have borne witness to the shameful and unmasked declarations on the part of the erstwhile chief of the Dignity Battalions, in which he said he felt proud of the his paramilitary activities against the Panamanian people, as well as those of the dictatorship's ex-minister Amado III, who, with the shamelessness as if he were using his democratic freedoms to state truths, said that the people of the dictatorship don't have to ask any pardon from anybody for anything.

For those of us who denounce the increasing impunity with which those who run our country have committed grave and unforgettable violations of the most elemental human rights, perpetrated during the 21 years of the military regime and during the past three administrations, these declarations are inscribed in the spiral of violence that outstanding figures of the present government are promoting, with the open purpose of justifying a police state that has been growing at an accelerated pace these past three years and which has now begun to bear the expected fruit.

In effect, the murder of a worker and construction union leader at the Odebrecht offices and the justifications given for the crime by high government officials are the evidence of the violence that yesterday we said was beginning to appear, which has now come to our beaches in the form of contracted hit men who are, at the moment, put in charge of murdering workers, but soon enough will be used to intimidate, disappear and murder those who state any sort of dissent in the fact of the anti-popular actions and plans of the governing elite.

Not content with the repressive legal scaffolding that has been erected by a series of laws and a new Penal Code, as well as by a series of practices that permanently violate the presumption of innocence and due process that are ever more perpetrated in the night courts, in the corregidurias and in the Public Ministry, they more and more avail themselves of every sort of manipulation of information to drown any dissidence, not only within the governing party itself but also which might emanate from a population beaten down and punished by the high cost of living, the low salaries, unemployment and insecurity of every kind.

Every day the state gives this country's inhabitants less legal protection of our human, social, economic and political rights, along with the other attributes of humanity. Every day the government tries ever more to weaken the public spiritedness of citizens. Every day the government tries ever more to erase and tear out the healthy aspirations of broad sectors of the population, setting back their noble aims. It leads us, then, to come back and ask: "What happens with a system of ideas loses its effect, when established dogmas now don't inspire faith, when the institutions don't jibe with reality, when a collection of exhausted doctrines now awaken no noble enthusiasm?"

Miguel Antonio Bernal is a tenured law professor at the University of Panama, a radio show host and award-winning journalist for his work as a correspondent for France's Le Monde Diplomatique, a member of the Honor Tribunal of Panama's Colegio de Abogados and a veteran human rights and anti-corruption activist who's running for mayor of Panama City in 2009

Bernal, Dissent and violence
Gutman, Has America lost its moral compass?
Amnesty International, China lags in implementing human rights promises
Nasser, Gaza beyond the humanitarian and political perspectives
Weisbrot, The western mainstream media and Venezuela
Carmona, Climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean
Pilgrim, Another hurricane season in the Caribbean
Denis, Defending the interests of small states

Kellberg & Duncan, Haiti's cautious government

Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy, Repression in Guyana is a CARICOM issue

Schaeffer & Sánchez, Why Paraguay matters
Schaeffer, A scandal a day in Brazil while Lula was away

Lauer, The CAFTA referendum in Costa Rica

Jackson, Now that they're killing people...