[smygo] EL SALVADOR: Attempt to criminalise water protesters as terrorists - protests continue Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 09:50:39 -0500 (CDT) NOTE: the El Salvador protest link is dead, but I managed to find the article anyway. And yes, human rights activists really are comparing British policing to notorious Latin American regimes. The protesters accused have now been released on bail; solidarity protests have been held in El Salvador and elsewhere. see also: http://www.cispes.org/ --------------------------------------------- Terrorizing Social Protest http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/mariner/20070815.html By JOANNE MARINER Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007 A disturbing trend is afoot. In the past couple of months, in two countries, governments have relied on broadly-worded terrorism laws to put down social protests. Political demonstrators in El Salvador and London have found police deploying a new weapon against them: laws designed to prevent and punish terrorism. In the town of Suchitoto, El Salvador, during a mass demonstration in early July against a water decentralization plan, fourteen protesters were arrested and charged with terrorism. At London's Heathrow Airport this week, police have been relying on stop-and-search powers contained in a recent terrorism law to control a huge demonstration against global warming. A government document made public last Saturday warned that police would employ their counterterrorism powers to deal "robustly" with any illegal protests. The demonstrators in El Salvador threw rocks at police and blocked roads, and some minority of participants in the ongoing Heathrow protest may also break the law. But the police already have plenty of legal authority to arrest demonstrators who disrupt flight schedules or damage property; their use of counterterrorism legislation is sheer opportunism. Political protesters are not terrorists, as police and prosecutors well know. Yet it seems that the broad authorities granted under recent counterterrorism laws are too tempting to resist. Why would state officials respect normal criminal law rules when they can instead employ laws that offer sweeping powers, few procedural safeguards, and harsh penalties? Conduct "Genuinely of a Terrorist Nature" Both the British and Salvadoran counterterrorism laws are written in broad language that invites police and prosecutorial misuse. In this respect, unfortunately, they are not all that different from many other countries' counterterrorism legislation. More than 50 governments have passed counterterrorism laws in the past six years -- many of them poorly written, filled with open-ended language, and vulnerable to misuse. The UN counterterrorism expert recently discussed the question of defining conduct that is "genuinely of a terrorist nature." He explained that the concept of terrorism should be understood to include only those acts committed "with the intention of causing death or serious bodily injury, or the taking of hostages," and "for the purpose of provoking a state of terror, intimidating a population, or compelling a government or international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." "That an act is criminal," he emphasized, "does not, by itself, make it a terrorist act." Few counterterrorism laws are as narrowly drawn as he and other experts recommend. Indeed, some of these laws are so broad that they easily cover political protests. They tend to cover a set of acts -- not necessarily violent acts -- requiring only that the acts be carried out for an enumerated, "terrorist" purpose. Reading the terms of these laws, there is good reason to fear that acts of political dissent could wrongly be deemed terrorist in a number of countries. In Azerbaijan, for example, acts that inflict "significant damage to property," or (an interesting catch-all category) cause "other socially dangerous consequences," can be prosecuted as terrorist, as long as they are carried out with the goal of requiring state authorities to comply with the perpetrator's demands. Other countries' definitions are similarly broad. Since social protest is almost always meant as a form of political pressure -- that is, a means of compelling state authorities to change their policies -- the purpose requirement of such counterterrorism laws will almost always be met. And so the possibility of arbitrary enforcement of such laws is very real. Placards Not Bombs With fears of terrorism high, many governments now have tough counterterrorism laws at their disposal. But while the extraordinary powers granted to police and other state authorities under these laws are publicly defended by reference to the threat of terrorism, some of the actual conduct they apply to has little connection to the problem. Governments apparently need to be reminded: political protesters are not terrorists. Rock-throwers are not suicide attackers. People carrying placards are not people carrying bombs. --- Joanne Mariner is a human rights lawyer based in New York. Her previous columns on terrorism and human rights are contained in FindLaw's archive. Readers who would like more information about El Salvador's prosecution of political protesters should visit Human Rights Watch's website, at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/31/elsalv16545.htm. If convicted, the defendants will face 10 to 15 years in prison. ------------------------------------------------- http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/31/elsalv16545.htm El Salvador: Terrorism Law Misused Against Protesters Salvadoran Legislature Should Amend Overbroad Law Against Terrorism (Washington, DC, July 31, 2007) - The government of El Salvador should dismiss terrorism charges brought against protesters who allegedly blocked roads and threw stones at a July 2 demonstration, Human Rights Watch said today. Blocking roads and throwing rocks may well be crimes, but they're not acts of terrorism. The Salvadoran government can legitimately prosecute protesters who break the law, but it should not misuse counterterrorism legislation against less serious crimes. Josi Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch On July 2, a public protest in the Suchitoto municipality against a national plan to decentralize water distribution ended in a violent confrontation between police and protesters. Protesters blocked public roads and threw rocks at police, while police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters. Police also alleged that protesters fired shots, although none of the press coverage of the demonstration mentioned that protesters were shooting. Fourteen people were arrested and subsequently charged with "terrorism": 10 of them were charged on the basis of alleged involvement in the roadblocks and rock-throwing, and three others on the basis of additional claims that they used firearms against police. (Charges against the remaining defendant, who allegedly interfered with police operations, were provisionally dropped.) An appellate court sustained the charges against the 13 defendants, but found that the firearms allegations were not even minimally supported by the evidence. If convicted, the defendants will face 10 to 15 years in prison. "Blocking roads and throwing rocks may well be crimes, but they're not acts of terrorism," said Josi Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Human Rights Watch. "The Salvadoran government can legitimately prosecute protesters who break the law, but it should not misuse counterterrorism legislation against less serious crimes." Although the international community has not agreed on a precise definition of terrorism, it is widely understood that the term applies only to the most serious crimes of political violence, directed at instilling fear in the population in order to achieve a political goal: "the peacetime equivalent of a war crime," in the words of United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch expert A.P. Schmid. El Salvador's use of terrorism charges for less serious crimes allegedly committed during a political protest is inappropriate and represents a misuse of counterterrorism legislation. El Salvador's Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism, which entered into force in November 2006, does not include an explicit definition of terrorism. The closest the law comes to defining terrorism is in Article 1, which provides that the purpose of the law is to prevent and punish crimes that "by their form of execution, or means and methods employed, evidence the intention to provoke a state of alarm, fear or terror in the population, by putting in imminent danger or affecting peoples' life or physical or mental integrity, or their valuable material goods, or the democratic system or security of the State, or international peace." The provision used in the present case purports to criminalize "acts of terrorism against the lives, physical integrity or liberty of public officials and internationally protected persons," but it makes no reference to terrorism in its operative language. Nor does it require showing that the prohibited act provoked a state of alarm or terror in the population (Article 5). Instead, the part of the provision used against the 13 defendants simply criminalizes actions aimed at "destroying or damaging" the belongings of government officials. The provision covers a wide variety of acts that do not fall within any reasonable definition of terrorism. The counterterrorism law contains other overbroad provisions as well. Besides criminalizing incitement of terrorism, Article 8 of the law imposes a sentence of five to 10 years on anyone who publicly justifies terrorism. Article 6 prescribes a prison sentence of 25 to 30 years for people who participate in "taking or occupying, in whole or in part" a city, town, public or private building, or a variety of other locations, through the use of weapons, explosives or "similar articles," when these acts "affect ... the normal development of the functions or activities" of the inhabitants or other users of the location. Again, this provision criminalizes a variety of actions that do not fall within any reasonable definition of terrorism. Human Rights Watch called on the Salvadoran legislature to amend its counterterrorism law to ensure that it is only applicable to certain very dangerous acts that are committed with the requisite intent and could thus be reasonably deemed acts of terrorism. In addition, the legislature should amend or repeal several provisions of the law, including articles 5, 6 and 8, which are vague and overbroad, and which prescribe sentences that are disproportionate to many of the crimes they encompass. Human Rights Watch also called on the Salvadoran authorities to put in place safeguards to prevent inappropriate use of the counterterrorism legislation instead of ordinary criminal law, in particular where such use could be politically motivated. ----------------------------------------------------- http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2873.cfm El Salvador Privatizing Water and the Criminalization of Protest Jason Wallach NACLA News July 24, 2007 Supporters of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) march during a protest in front of the special court of San Salvador to demand for the liberation of 14 people accused of terrorism in the aftermath of a demonstration against the government's plan to decentralize the drinking water supply. (Photo: Jose Cabezas / AFP-Getty Images) Last year, when residents in Santa Eduviges entered their second month without running water, everyone knew something had to be done. A town assembly was called. Community members expressed outrage that the water company's $7 per month bill always arrived on time, but taps barely flowed. When they did, the liquid that came out was an ugly brown. In the assembly, anger quickly turned toward system operator Roberto Saprissa. He received the money, but was doing nothing to fix the system's problems. They complained that service under Saprissa was deficient and polluted. Despite a number of meetings with government officials, the company simply did not respond. The community discussed the issue and came to a decision. They demanded the de-privatization of the town water system and its management to be put under the control of the national water agency, ANDA (Administracisn Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados). Last year, when residents in Santa Eduviges entered their second month without running water, everyone knew something had to be done. A town assembly was called. Community members expressed outrage that the water company's $7 per month bill always arrived on time, but taps barely flowed. When they did, the liquid that came out was an ugly brown. In the assembly, anger quickly turned toward system operator Roberto Saprissa. He received the money, but was doing nothing to fix the system's problems. They complained that service under Saprissa was deficient and polluted. Despite a number of meetings with government officials, the company simply did not respond. The community discussed the issue and came to a decision. They demanded the de-privatization of the town water system and its management to be put under the control of the national water agency, ANDA (Administracisn Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados). Days later, residents of this small community near the San Salvador suburb of Soyapango, overtook the Gold Highway that leads into the capital. Young and old occupied the busy thoroughfare from the morning rush until 6 p.m. The community made their demand clear: "Give us clean water and put our system under government control." That evening, police fired tear gas to dislodge the crowd and arrested five people. Eventually the government dropped the charges and released the five residents arrested during the protests. The community won a rare victory: the water system was put firmly under government control. But all that may soon change. While dozens of communities in El Salvador have occupied roads demanding water service, the particular conflict that confronted this village of 300 people - and their unusual demand - stands to be repeated now that right-wing deputies in El Salvador's Legislative Assembly are threatening to pass a controversial General Water Law. The legislation calls for water administration to shift from the national to the municipal level and requires local governments to sign over water management through "concessions" - or contracts with private firms - for up to 50 years. The proposed law has become a lightning rod for opposition from community groups and social organizations who say it amounts to a privatization of the country's water system. Critics of privatization argue that keeping the water under state-management through the ANDA is the lesser among various evils. The national entity is mired in corruption and bribery scandals and has been the target of extreme budget cuts by Salvadoran President Antonio Saca. Its budget was slashed 15 percent in 2005, falling to its lowest level this decade - a perplexing reduction in a country where 40 percent of rural Salvadorans have no access to potable water. While it is clear that the state-run ANDA isn't the smoothest-sailing ship in the sea, many believe it remains the most accessible and accountable entity for communities with an urgent need for water. ANDA workers responsible for repairing water systems agree. They say they want to work, but accuse the government of engaging a plan to discredit the agency and thus, justify the privatization as a solution to poor service. "People complain about ANDA's slow response time," says Wilfredo Romero, General Secretary at SETA, the union of ANDA workers. "But delays don't happen because workers don't want to work; we do. But to make repairs, we need an assignment order from management." Those orders, charges SETA's International Relations Secretary Jorge Reni Cordoba, "are prioritized for systems that are planned to be concessioned off. The rest have to wait their turn." SETA members explain that municipalities who reject water concessions are put at the end of the line. As a result, service has slowed to a crawl in San Salvador, where Mayor Violeta Menjmvar from the FMLN political party opposes concessioning the city's water services. SETA took out half-page ads in the nation's two biggest daily newspapers opposing the General Water Law, which according to the ad, "would privatize water and condemn thousands of our compatriots to suffer thirst for the inability to pay." SETA members point to the devastating results of the recent privatizations of the country's telecommunications and electricity sectors, which led to the firing of thousands of workers. Many of these workers were forced to re-apply for the same jobs at half the pay with none of the state-provided benefits. The average ANDA worker currently makes about $300 month. "If we take the electricity sector and telecommunications as guides, privatization has meant higher rates, lower quality, less access, and less sovereign control over public services," says Krista Hanson of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). Privately run water concessions in Latin America have a terrible track record. The most notorious example occurred with a project imposed by the World Bank in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Bank made delivery of a loan conditional on the privatization of the country's largest water systems. When the Cochabamba water services concession ran by the U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation raised household water bills by 200 percent, it sparked a civil uprising that forced the company to leave the country and the water system was put under public control. After Cochabamba, the World Bank retired the word "privatization" and replaced it with terms like "concessions" and "decentralization," or "private sector participation." But critics say whatever the euphemism, the end result is the same: higher rates, lower quality, and less access. In El Salvador the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a division of the World Bank, approved loan 0068-ES, "Reform Program For the Water Sector and the Potable Water and Sanitation Sub-sector" in 1998. The main function of the loan was to transfer state-run water companies "under a decentralization of services with private sector participation." The IDB directed $36 million of the loan for the "promotion of such private sector participation (PSP) using specialized consultants to give support and financial advice to the government towards the effective organization of PSP schemes." It was one of these new "schemes" President Saca planned to announce on July 2 in Suchitoto 28 miles northeast of San Salvador. The speech was meant to inaugurate a "national decentralization policy," including water administration. Saca arrived by helicopter and was quickly shuffled off in a limo to an elite resort area on Lake Suchitoto to make his announcement, but hundreds of invited dignitaries, including the Japanese Ambassador never got there. Road blockades guarded by unionists, grassroots organizations and community residents against the plan prevented their arrival. Militarized police swat teams attacked the peaceful protestors with tear gas and rubber bullets. Among the 14 people arrested, were Marta Lorena Araujo and Rosa Marma Centeno the president and vice-president, respectively, of the Association for the Development of El Salvador (CRIPDES), a widely respected grassroots organization. Araujo, Centeno and two other CRIPDES representatives rode in a red pick-up truck toward the protest in Suchitoto when police pulled them over and arrested them near the community of Milingo. The driver was accused with assaulting a police officer, though footage of his arrest proves he put up no resistance to the needlessly aggressive officers. "More than anything, this was a kidnapping," charged Julio Cisar Portillo, husband of the jailed Araujo. "With it, the government is sending a political message: 'Don't protest.'" Charges of "Acts of Terrorism" will stand against thirteen of the fourteen defendants. Judge Ana Lucila Fuentes de Paz of the Special Tribunal of San Salvador also denied bail for the jailed activists, who will have to wait up to 90 days in El Salvador's notoriously harsh and crowded jails while prosecutors gather evidence for trial. Fuentes de Paz threw out "Public Disorder" and "Illicit Association" charges against all the defendants, because prosecutors failed to provide evidence. A fourteenth defendant, Facundo Garcma, had all charges dropped. Fuentes said Garcma had only sought to aid those being arrested, which did not constitute a crime. After more than two weeks in jail, a review panel of judges allowed the conditional release of four more defendants on July 20, but the charges against them still stand. The "Suchitoto 13" are being charged with "terrorism" through the draconian "Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism" (SLAAT) passed after a sniper killed two police officers during a protest in July of last year. Activists say the application of the SLAAT confirms their warnings that the law would be used to criminalize protest and silence dissent. Amnesty International decisively condemned the detentions: "[Amnesty] fears the detentions were carried out to punish people for participating in the legitimate protests and to inhibit similar acts in the future." Demonstrations erupted against the detentions with protesters calling the 13 detainees El Salvador's first political prisoners since Peace Accords were signed in 1992. A July 4 statement signed by more than 60 Salvadoran social organizations demanded an immediate release of all detainees. Barring that, they exhorted respect for the physical integrity of the accused by state authorities. The demands were made in the wake of reports police had threatened to throw some detainees out of a transport helicopter as it hung over Lake Suchitoto the day of the arrests. Such threats resonate deeply here, with state-sponsored human rights atrocities of the civil war still fresh in people's minds. Meanwhile, U.S. solidarity organizations backed a wide range of Salvadoran groups demanding guarantees for the physical integrity of the arrestees, and for their immediate release. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) added a call for the repeal of the anti-terrorism law. "If the U.S. government publicly supported the approval of the anti-terrorism law, as they did, then they should denounce it when it is being applied for political purposes," said Hanson, who is Program Director for the New York-based CISPES. Representatives from the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities organization announced that efforts to launch a "Dear Colleague" letter in the Congress had netted two co-sponsors. They said final wording of the letter was finished and that the group would start trying to enlist Congressional co-signers in the coming weeks. ---------------------------------------------------- http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=260&Itemid=28 Organizations Mobilize Against Repression and "Terrorism" Charges on Romero's Birthday Thursday, 16 August 2007 On Wednesday, August 15 - the day that would have been Monseqor Romero's 90th birthday - the social movement of El Salvador celebrated his stand against repression by marching through the streets of the capital. A procession went from the Hospital de la Divina Providencia, the site of Romero's assassination, to the National Cathedral in downtown San Salvador. In reaction to the climate of increased government repression of social organizing and protest, the demonstrators demanded an end to repression and concentrated in front of the downtown Cathedral, where Romero is buried. The activity concluded with a mass offered in memory of Romero and his work - hundreds of people came from social organizations, historic ecclesiastic communities and the Romero Foundation which continues to work for the canonization of Romero. Before his assassination by right-wing death squads in March, 1980, Romero said, "It frightens me, brothers and sisters, when repressive laws and violent attitudes remove the legitimate ways people have to express themselves." Yesterday's activity was also motivated by the release on bail this past July 29 of the 9 remaining prisoners captured in Suchitoto on past July 2. While people are celebrating the momentary victory of their provisional release, the action also called attention to the fact that the terrorism charges are still being applied despite national and international opposition. All 14 accused of terrorism will go to trial the first days of October. FMLN and social organizations maintain their support to the prisoners and their families, continuing to organize and mobilize so that the charges are dropped. Criminalizing Protest the "legal" way: Reforms to Penal Code Under intense national and international pressure, President Saca and his cabinet have been making contradictory and diluted statements about the terrorism charges against the 14 Suchitoto protestors. Saca is now saying that it is important to make a distinction between "public disorder" and acts of terrorism, although his Fiscal General (chief state investigator), Garrid Safie, continues to insist that that terrorism charges be applied. President Saca is moving forward to ensure that even if protestors are found guilty of lesser crimes than "terrorism" that they still spend years in jail. Saca has been pushing ARENA and other right wing deputies in the Legislative Assembly to approve a series of reforms to the Penal Code, including "public disorder" and the newly created crime of "attacks against public peace." Both legal changes would further criminalize protests by making common protest tactics punishable with 2-10 years of imprisonment. For example, two or more people who block a road in a "dangerous manner" could go to prison for three to five years under these reforms, and anyone who gathers in front of a hospital - presumably to protest the privatization of health care - can go to jail for a maximum of ten years. This last reform to the Penal Code may be in response to the increasing mobilizing against the steps Saca is taking towards the privatization of both water and health. Security Minister Rene Figueroa has been unusually frank in speaking with media, saying that "our interest is that those that are rebellious be punished; they must be punished, either with the Anti-terrorism law or the Penal Code." The FMLN deputies in the National Assembly are opposing the reforms, saying they are a tactic by the ARENA government to "silence the will of the people" and eliminate dissent. Death Squads in the National Civil Police On July 29, Sergeant Nelson Antonio Arriaza Delgado, head of the Criminal Investigation Unit of the National Civilian Police (PNC) of San Miguel, was arrested by the armed forces for the murder of Amado Garcma, and he is also suspected of ties to extortionists in the region. Also arrested were Carlos Chivez Hidalgo, an ex-PNC agent implicated in this murder and others, and Rember Rolando Martmnez, a civilian accused of involvement in the death of Garcma. The PNC has admitted that they suspect members of the Division of Investigations have been involved in extrajudicial homicides, and that they have relationships with "delinquent groups." The FMLN has called for an investigation into this matter, citing the 2006 report of the governmental Human Rights Office (PDDH) which stated the existence of death squads in the country, and documented police participation within these groups. Irma Amaya, and FMLN deputy, stated her belief that the PNC "has been politicized, because its director is a militant of the official party..dedicated to promoting defamation campaigns against other sectors instead of investigating these cases fully and professionally." FMLN legislator Benito Lara has demanded an investigation into the PNC by the National Assembly. The president of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES) has presented a denouncement to the Inspector General of the PNC, calling for an investigation of this matter by the PDDH as well as a second investigation by both the PDDH and the United Nations Torture Commission into police brutality and extra-judicial torture. A number of businesses are accused of backing this practice by paying or otherwise compelling "hit men" - be they police or civilian - to carry out these crimes. One such businessman, Domingo Saravia, is being investigated for involvement with a death squad in which the participation of PNC members is presumed. PNC Director Rodrigo Avila says that at this time Saravia has not been accused of financing criminal structures but that there is an investigation. While the FMLN and social movement are calling for a real investigation and an end to the impunity of these organized death squad-like groups, ARENA officials are trying to brush this new information under the rug by claiming it is an isolated incident. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]