Juanita Goebertus: “I do not believe that the decision to recognize an armed conflict in Ecuador is the solution”

The Colombian Juanita Goebertus (Bogotá, 40 years old) does not mince words: 2023 was a bad year for democracy in Latin America. The different dynamics to restrict the right to vote and political participation began very early, from the first days of January, with the Bolsonaro assault on Congress in Brazil, and then spread to other countries such as Guatemala, where Bernardo Arévalo takes office this Sunday despite innumerable obstacles, or Ecuador, where a presidential candidate was murdered and organized crime has the nascent Government of Daniel Noboa in check. “It has been a year in which we have seen different types of authoritarianism emerge and strengthen,” warns by video call the director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, which this Thursday presents its annual World Report.

Ask. Did it surprise you the security crisis that has just erupted in Ecuador?

Answer. Sadly, the crisis in Ecuador does not surprise us. We have seen the expansion of organized crime in the country, which has tripled the homicide rate in recent years. The situation that Ecuadorians are suffering at the hands of these criminal gangs is dramatic and requires effective responses to protect the population. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the decision to recognize an armed conflict in the country is the solution. Recognizing an armed conflict should always be a technical decision based on a rigorous analysis of the facts and international law. On the other hand, the decree approved by the president [Daniel Noboa] It lacks legal soundness and by authorizing the use of lethal force as the first option, it opens the door to serious abuses committed with impunity. What Ecuador needs to confront organized crime is more and better prosecutors and judges who can effectively investigate these gangs and attack the money laundering and corruption that allows them to operate in the country.

Q. In a more panoramic sense, do you perceive a deterioration of democracy in the region?

R. Without a doubt, 2023 was not a good year for either human rights or the rule of law in Latin America. We saw different dynamics of restriction of the right to vote and political participation since the beginning of the year in Brazil, with the takeover of the Capitol by the Bolsonarists, passing through Guatemala with three presidential candidates disqualified and then the successive attacks from the Public Ministry of Consuelo Batons to prevent Bernardo Arévalo from taking possession. Also Ecuador, with a presidential candidate murdered, and Peru, with attacks from Congress on the National Electoral Jury. It has been a year in which we have seen different types of authoritarianism emerge and strengthen, both in executives and in strange alliances from congresses and public ministries or prosecutors' offices.

Q. Are you worried about any particular country in 2024?

R. We have several elections, we are going to closely monitor at least three. We are concerned about El Salvador, where the president [Nayib] Bukele has used his popularity as a result of the fight against gangs to erode the rule of law, reduce the separation of powers and virtually eliminate any checks on his exercise of power. We will have elections in Mexico, where the security situation is very worrying. And we will also have elections in Venezuela; If the qualification process of María Corina Machado, who has been chosen as the opposition candidate, is not definitively consolidated, the entire negotiation process would seriously affect its legitimacy.

Q. In Argentina, Javier Milei has made worrying statements regarding human rights, threatening to repress protests and bypass Congress.

R. The first thing is to understand how we got here. Argentina is mired in an economic crisis, but that has overshadowed a deeper institutional crisis. The entire Supreme Court in impeachment trial before Congress; Ombudsman and prosecutor unnamed for years, due to the impossibility of Congress to reach an agreement. These are phenomena that in other countries in the region would not have gone unnoticed. In this scenario, President Milei wins – with immense popularity – and has made a series of very worrying announcements attacking sexual and reproductive rights, the right to peaceful protest and ignoring the very serious human rights violations committed in the last dictatorship in Argentina.

Q. Has the Joe Biden Administration's policy towards Latin America been appropriate in this situation?

R. Latin America has long only been a priority for the United States due to migration or drug issues. Although the Biden Administration has a greater commitment than Trump to human rights, to the rule of law, we have seen few changes on these issues. In immigration matters, we recently published a report on Darién; more than half a million people annually cross this dangerous route. We have documented forced disappearances, cases of sexual violence, homicides… The Biden administration seems more immersed in its own domestic problems in the face of the dispute between Republicans and Democrats than in seeking to strengthen the rule of law and human rights in Latin America.

Q. There are also presidential elections there this year. What implications would a return of Donald Trump have for the region?

R. It would be unfortunate. What we have seen is that after former President Trump sought to ignore electoral results in the United States, he generated a copying phenomenon in Latin America. First, from the Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil. From there, a shameless attack on the institutions in Guatemala, in Peru. Trumpism opened the door for this type of authoritarian populists in Latin America and diminished the moral authority of the United States.

Q. The inauguration of Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala is this Sunday. Do they fear an attempted coup d'état or a final attack against the elected president?

R. We will be vigilant until the last second. Guatemala has shown us that every day there is a possibility of surprise and a new attempt by the Public Ministry led by Consuelo Porras to try to ignore the electoral results, to violate the right to vote and participation. There has been not only an attempted coup but a profound erosion of institutions. We will remain very attentive once Arévalo can take office, so that he has the possibility of governing based on the program that was chosen, not only with a platform of fighting corruption and recovering security, but also recovering the independence of the judiciary and the institutions. democracy in Guatemala.

Q. Is Bukele's authoritarian path in El Salvador on its way to becoming a model for Latin America?

R. We are very concerned about El Salvador, with more than 73,000 people deprived of their liberty in almost two years of state of emergency. Among the detainees, we have documented not only very serious violations of due process – hearings of more than 500 people without access to a lawyer, minors tried as if they were adults – but also very serious cases of torture, deaths in detention centers, ill serious and degrading treatment. We are concerned about the false dilemma in which Bukele has put the country and the region, as if citizens had to choose between security and human rights. It is a false dilemma. It is possible to have security policies that are both effective and protective of human rights. Latin America has done it in the past at different times in its history
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Q. In Mexico, in all likelihood, a woman will become the next president. How should Andrés Manuel López Obrador correct his course?

R. Under López Obrador we have seen at least three types of very serious phenomena for the rule of law and for human rights. Firstly, the strengthening of the military forces, not only by handing over much of the control of public security, but above all and in a serious way, by involving the military in administrative functions absolutely foreign to military functionality. Implementing a reform of the security sector to guarantee that there is civilian control over the military is going to be essential. Then, a second phenomenon has been the attacks on civil society, the way in which AMLO in a very personal way uses his morning program to attack journalists, civil society organizations and stigmatize them. Whoever is elected should be concerned about strengthening civil society. And the third has been a constant attack on all independent institutions in Mexico.

Q. Landing in Colombia, where you have been a congressman, you have expressed that you are concerned about the deterioration of security. What is this deterioration evident in?

R. It is clear that there is a growth of more or less 16% in massacres, 70% in kidnapping, 130% in the forced recruitment of minors. Beyond these figures, what we see through our qualitative work at the territorial level is a feeling of abandonment in many of the communities that have historically suffered from war.

Q. Is the deterioration attributable to the total peace policy of Gustavo Petro's Government?

R. The Constitutional Court has said that the peace policy, regardless of what it is, cannot ignore the State's duty to have a security policy to guarantee its duty of protection and guarantee. One of the concerns we have regarding the total peace policy is that it has not gone hand in hand with an effective security policy in the territory. The second is when the peace policy implies ceasefires that mean that the public force stops acting against violent groups. That is possible, Colombia has done it at different times, but it works if it has clear rules, impartial and credible monitoring, and consequences for non-compliance with these cessations. Unfortunately, during the Petro Administration we have seen several unclear, overlapping ceasefires.

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