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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 13KB | 255 lines

<text> <title> Ecuador: Human Rights Watch </title> <article> <hdr> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 Americas Watch: Ecuador </hdr> <body> Human Rights Developments Compared to many other Latin American countries, Ecuador is rarely the focus of scrutiny for its human rights practices. Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, who assumed the presidency in 1988, has expressed strong verbal support for human rights, and his government has granted domestic rights monitors significant access. Nonetheless, human rights abuses continue to be frequent, persistent and serious in this Andean nation. The most systematic problem is torture and other physical mistreatment of common criminal suspects by agents of the National Police Criminal Investigative Service (SIC). In September 1991, an international commission investigating the January 1988 disappearance of two young brothers reported that torture and physical mistreatment are a routine aspect of SIC operations. ("Informe Restrepo: Arrancados del Hogar," supplement to Hoy (Quito), September 4, 1991, p.5.) This finding confirmed long-standing allegations by local human rights organizations. Until recently, the government had failed to explain the disappearance of the two brothers, Pedro Andrés and Carlos Santiago Restrepo Arismendi, ages fourteen and seventeen. They were last seen in public in Quito on January 8, 1988, when they left home in their parents' vehicle to see a friend off at the airport. Andrés Vallejo, former minister of government and police under President Borja, was censured in October 1990 by a majority of the National Congress for "having failed to act upon or take decisions that would have led to clarifying the arbitrary arrest, torture and disappearance of" the two minors. (Andean Newsletter, November 12, 1990.) After several failed attempts by Ecuadoran and international investigators to clarify the facts of the case, on July 13, 1990, President Borja created a Special (International) Investigative Commission, comprised of six individuals: Dr. Toine van Dongen, as representative of the United Nations; Dr. Gustavo Medina de López, attorney general of Ecuador; Dr. Apolinar Díaz Callejas, a former government official in Colombia and the founder of the Colombian Committee for the Defense of Human Rights; Dr. Juan de Dios Parra, secretary general of the Latin American Association of Human Rights; Dr. Isabel Robalino of the Ecuadoran Episcopal Conference; and Dr. Guillermo Arismendi Díaz, an uncle of the disappeared boys, representing the family. On September 2, 1991, the commission released its conclusions: the Restrepo brothers disappeared at the hands of members of the National Police; the police were negligent in their efforts to investigate the case and some officers were involved in a cover-up; and although the bodies of the boys have not been found, they are dead. Central to the commission's findings was the testimony of former SIC agent Hugo Efraín España Torres, who revealed that the boys were tortured by SIC officials and that he collaborated in dumping their bodies in Lake Yambo, near Quito, during the night of January 11-12, 1988. España has reportedly been in provisional detention since September 4, 1991. Also detained in connection with the case are: Guillermo Llerena, a former SIC agent; General Gilberto Molina, who retired from his post as general commander of the National Police on August 16, 1991; and Colonels Trajano Barrionuevo and Gustavo Gallegos, Captain Marcelo Valenzuela and Sub-Lieutenant Doris Morán, all of the police. In October 1991, Dr. Walter Guerrero, president of the Supreme Court, ruled that the case should be tried in civilian court. Human rights monitors in Ecuador believe that General Molina is likely to exercise his right under the Ecuadoran Constitution to be tried in a police court. The Restrepo case is of historic significance in Ecuador. In addition to determining that SIC officials were responsible for the death of the two boys, the commission found that torture, arbitrary detention, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are systematic SIC practices. ("Informe Restrepo: Arrancados del Hogar," p.5.) On the same day that the commission released its findings, President Borja abolished the SIC. Never before has the Ecuadoran government even implicitly acknowledged the institutionalized nature of human rights abuses committed by SIC agents or taken such a dramatic measure to curb abuses. Nor have so many officials or officials of such a high level been detained in Ecuador in connection with a human rights case. The case has lent unprecedented recognition and legitimacy to the cause of human rights in Ecuador. The resulting pressure of public opinion makes it likely that the case will be prosecuted vigorously. The armed forces also violate fundamental rights in Ecuador, though less frequently than the police. They have been implicated in cases of torture, homicide, illegal detention and physical mistreatment of common criminals and indigenous activists. Rural violence also remains a serious problem in Ecuador. Rural land conflicts occur in large numbers in the eastern coastal and central mountain regions, and are the predominant context within which rural violence occurs. Although Americas Watch takes no position on who has the right to land ownership in these disputes, we are profoundly concerned about the violent consequences of these conflicts, the consistent failure of the state to punish those responsible for acts of violence, and the repression directed at the Ecuadoran indigenous movement. In June 1990, the indigenous population in the Sierra participated in a three-day massive protest over land and other socioeconomic and cultural issues. A few months later, several landowners in the Sierra hired groups of armed men from the coastal province of Esmeraldas, ostensibly to serve as "security guards" for their rural property. Many of these men are former members of the armed forces; they dress in military uniforms and reportedly carry firearms issued only to the armed forces. (Eduardo Tamayo, "Chronicle of a Reported Death," Punto de Vista, as reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, May 31, 1991, page 35.) Abuses related to land conflicts are frequently committed during evictions by landowners and their "security guards," often in the presence of National Police officials. Beatings of indigenous community leaders and members are common, as are the burning of their homes and the destruction and theft of their property. From time to time, police and military officials play a direct role in evictions. "Guards" have also entered indigenous communities adjacent to the property they are protecting and subjected inhabitants to threats, theft, violence and destruction. Two indigenous activists were killed in 1991. Julio Cabascango, human rights officer of the Indigenous and Peasant Federation of Imbabura (FICI), was knifed to death in the community of Huaycopungo, province of Imbabura, on March 31. Members of the community allege that the assailant was a hired guard from the neighboring hacienda. According to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, Virgilio Ganzino was shot to death on September 21 by landowner Washington Albán. The killing took place in the community of Churo Lozán, the province of Cotopaxi, while Ganzino was on his way to a meeting about a local bilingual education program. Minister of Government and Police César Verduga told Americas Watch in a July 14 interview that the armed guards fill a gap in a country which has 15,000 police officials but requires 45,000. Verduga indicated that at no time has the government contemplated the dismantling of such groups. On the contrary, he intends to "control their existence" with government regulations requiring them to function as employees of a legally constituted securi