On this Human Rights Day

Pedro Camargo, a community activist opposed to the Petaquilla gold mine, exercises his human right to peacefully advocate for redress of his grievances at a recent public hearing in Miguel de La Borda. Photo by Eric Jackson

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly resolved that "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" and went on to promulgate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This was not a rhetorical shout in a vacuum. The world had just been through a shocking global conflagration in which atrocities which may have been precedented in their cruelty were committed with the tools and organization of highly industrialized societies. For reasons good and bad it's a political minefield to describe what the Nazis were, but for the student of history it's not hard to recognize the ancient Assyrians at their worst, or the pile of skulls that Tamerlane left before the gates of Baghdad, and recognize the Third Reich as that sort of people with far more sophisticated tools and techniques at their command. Today the world is ever more opposed to the death penalty, but after the Holocaust there were precious few who objected to its imposition on the survivors of Hitler's inner circle. The General Assembly that met in December of 1948 had the sickening revelations of the Nuremberg trials fresh in its collective mind.

Alas, the leading nations were at that time gearing up for a long Cold War in which the enunciated principles were frequently breached with impunity.

But still, there it was, a declaration of principles that has progressively taken hold of humanity's imagination and expectations and become an increasingly insistent demand.

And yet, here in Panama, Martín Torrijos celebrated Human Rights Day by publishing a new set of regulations for the SPI presidential guards that set up obedience to the orders of superiors as a defense to charges of abuse. This is not a mere blunder of an Aggie frat boy who majored in getting blasted and had as his only real job outside of politics the position of shift manager at McDonald's. This is a decree setting the rules of engagement for an elite armed unit that earlier this year beat the living daylights out of peaceful protesters, many of whom were ailing from the poisoned cough syrup given to them by the Torrijos administration. This is a decree ratifying the SPI's recent reckless killing of a hostage in a totally irresponsible fusillade in response to an attempted robbery. It's a declaration of impunity by a man who when he first came to office started out by threatening criminal prosecution of those who insisted on continuing the investigations into the political murders and disappearances carried out by his father's military dictatorship. This is that act of a guy who's about to appoint two replacement magistrates to the Supreme Court and thus gain a control over the courts as complete as his domination of the legislative branch.

"I was only following orders" as a defense to the unjustified killing of somebody, announced to the nation on Human Rights Day. This, at long last, is what the Torrijos administration has come down to.

Now there will be those who argue that since I can publish this things can't be all that bad, and indeed they could get worse. But then at the moment I am personally facing a possible two-year prison term for publishing truths about a former "Patriot" movement shill who took his alias from the Montana Freemen and admits online what he denied under oath in his criminal defamation complaint against me, and Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez, President Martín Torrijos and their prosecutors and cops have embraced Mark Boswell alias Rex Freeman's case as if it were their own. They're even letting the guy offer unregistered banking services out of Panama.

This, too, shall pass.

* * *

Alberto Fujimori had his day in the sun, too. A lot of people didn't survive it.

Today Fujimori went on trial for the murders of 10 university students and a professor. Peru still hasn't sorted out the legacy of its vicious civil conflict of the 80s and 90s, nor for that matter the ugliness from the Spanish Conquest. But the country does seem resolved that there will be the rule of law and there won't be impunity.

Many brave colleagues in journalism were in the front lines of the struggles that made today's trial possible, and one of them who was forced into exile here for awhile, Gustavo Gorriti, should be proud of what he did for Peru and what he did for Panama. We ought to remember the hoodlums, crooked public officials and ethically compromised hack journalists who hounded Gorriti when he worked in Panama, because by and large the same crowd is in power again and playing the same games against other people.

* * *

Today in Iraq, AP photojournalist Bilal Hussein, who was arrested without charge and interrogated for more than a year and one-half by US forces and whose trial and such evidence there may be have been declared secret by an Iraqi judge, also had a day in court. The AP believes in Hussein's innocence and the Committee to Protect Journalists expresses its deep concern.

I don't know the truth of the matter in this case. However, I will neither take the word of a US administration that led the country to war for a lie at face value nor trust in an Iraqi administration that's deeply compromised by death squad activities in the most vicious of civil wars among rival religious and ethnic factions.

* * *

Sometimes, when one is a dual citizen, it's the best of both worlds, or one situation in which to take refuge from the madness of another. But sometimes there is cause to despair for both of one's countries, especially when they are not getting along with one another. At the moment Panama and the United States are divided over Pedro Miguel González and I am not particularly distressed about that argument. There are more pressing concerns for both countries.

* * *

The greatest human rights weakness of the United States has always been in the field of race relations. It remains so.

There are new turns in the case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been a prisoner for going on 26 years now, many of those years on Pennsylvania's Death Row.

I don't know if Mumia Abu-Jamal killed Philadelphia cop Dan Faulkner, but I have long been satisfied that on many levels the trial that the journalist and former Black Panther didn't get a fair trial.

My own doubts about Mumia's guilt start with what evidence was not presented --- if not collected by the police and prosecutors, it would be mind-boggling; but if it was collected and not provided to the defense or presented at trial that's misconduct per se and pretty good circumstantial evidence that the prosecution's case was a lie. To which missing evidence do I refer? First, there were no ballistics tests to show whether Mumia Abu-Jamal's pistol had in fact been fired. Second, there were no paraffin tests to determine whether Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was arrested (wounded in the stomach) at the scene, had the gunpowder residues on his body that indicate that he had fired a weapon. In a cop killing case they ignored these basic tests? That seems pretty unbelievable to me. So they did these tests and somehow "lost" the results? In that case the old presumption that when a party conceals evidence those proofs tend to negate that party's claim should come into play.

See the Black Commentator article on the new developments in this controversial case at: http://www.blackcommentator.com/256/256_cover_color_of_law_mumia.html and the photos in question themselves at: http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/

(To me, I'm not sure if these photos prove all that it is claimed they do by Mumia's defenders. They do, however, clearly show the contamination of a crime scene and that they were kept from the defense and the jury shows prosecutorial misconduct.)

What does it add up to in my eyes? Not necessarily the proof of a negative, but surely sufficient reason for any justice system worthy of the name to throw out a flawed trial and try this case anew.

* * *

I don't believe that journalism is a license to kill. That's why I didn't join the protests when Venezuela declined to renew the license of a television station that was a central player in a short-lived coup in which a bunch of people were killed.

I also don't believe in human infallability, and thus suspect the concentration of too much power in any one person's hands, no matter how well meaning that person might be. It seems that a lot of the people who have supported Hugo Chávez against the old order that made such a mess of Venezuela draw those sorts of distinctions too. The president asked for more power and the voters said no, and if George W. Bush or the politicians whom Chávez replaced sense blood in the water, all I see is a democratic process that worked.

* * *

So is it just me?

I think not.

On this, the 59th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Amnesty International secretary general Irene Khan called on the people of the world to lend a hand to "stop a human rights meltdown." From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, in Darfur, Burma and places of which you may have never heard, fundamental rights are being violated in many political situations by offenders adhering to all manner of ideologies.

Ms. Kahn, however, puts things in a more proper focus: "More attention and resources must be allocated to tackle the hidden or forgotten human rights scandals that destroy millions of lives and livelihoods. While the atrocities of wars make the newspaper pages, very few people are aware that violence against women causes more casualties than armed conflicts."

* * *

In this issue I review a book by Tom Bleming, an American who took up arms under more or less Arnulfista auspices back during the dictatorship and spent some most uncomfortable prison time here as a result.

Tom was a political prisoner but not a "prisoner of conscience" as Amnesty International would describe it. He's also a living example of why torture doesn't work.

* * *

Is everything thus grim this Human Rights Day?

Not really. There are also plenty of positive things going on globally and locally.

There is a benefit to start the process of opening a bilingual community library in San Carlos, a dinner concert at Finca La Maya.

The Canadian Society is having a happy hour for another good cause.

Those who stop to appreciate the scenery will notice the interesting birds and cool architecture.

Sparky the Wonder Dog is standing guard.

So if all you seem to read about Panama from the foreign press or the local characters who cut and paste other people's work and sell it as their own are about these two Brits who are in more ways than one contenders for the Darwin Award, understand that from a Panamanian perspective there are many more newsworthy things going on here, both fun and serious. And actually, if you have a dark enough sense of humor some of the most seriously disturbing stories herein include elements of astounding stupidity that can be downright funny. And if you can't laugh about it, you can always sing the blues.

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