The Rapid Erosion of Human Rights in Latin America

By Newt Gingrich and Sylvia Garcia.

The Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez

This past November, the free world celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Europe and Russia.  The sudden end to the Cold War as the 20th century came to a close was seen by some as proof of the inevitability of the expansion of liberal democracy and human rights throughout the globe.

Unfortunately, the new century, thus far, has not cooperated with that thesis.  The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the war against the irreconcilable wing of Islam have shown us that forces of totalitarianism come in many forms and are still working to expand their oppression globally.

Gone less noticed has been the rapid erosion of human rights in Latin America.  The combination of a resurgent wave of socialism and communism along with narco-violence has resulted in a region that is growing gradually less free, not more.  In particular, recent months have given us vivid examples of government assaults on free speech.

On November 6th, Yoani Sanchez, a Cuban blogger, was arrested and beaten for nothing more than defending freedom and speaking out against the Castro regime. Furthermore, the people of Cuba have been prohibited from reading her blog, as well as many others.  In fact, the Inter American Press Association has recorded 27 journalists in Cuban prisons serving sentences ranging from 1 to 28 years.  The government exercises complete control over Cuban’s access to the press.  These atrocious assaults against personal freedom are all inflicted by the tyrannical regime of the Castro brothers in Cuba.

Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s President, is known for publicly criticizing the press. He has been quite brutal in humiliating journalists who aren’t in agreement with his policies. Just last month, six citizens were arrested for placing billboards that called Correa persona non grata. They were hoping that the President would change his hostile attitude towards the city of Guayaquil, instead they found themselves incarcerated for “being offensive and propagating separatism.”

Eight journalists have been killed in Mexico in the past six months. Just a couple of weeks ago, Bladimir Antuna Garcia, a reporter with El Tiempo was murdered. His body was found with marks of torture. Weeks prior, Antuna had broken a story on corruption within the Durango Police force. This is the second journalist from the same newspaper that has been assassinated. Carlos Ortega Samper, the other journalist from El Tiempo that was murdered, worked on local corruption stories. Other murders of journalists in the past six months include: three in Honduras, two in Guatemala, two in Colombia, and one in El Salvador.

In Argentina, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has been heavily criticized. She has ordered newspapers and magazines to be sold only in union-run stands. Media professionals fear that this will allow the government to prevent distribution of newspapers that are not aligned with the ruling party’s principles by enlisting pro-government unions to shut them down.

In Nicaragua, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega won the presidential election in 2006 with just 37 percent of the vote and followed Hugo Chávez’ model in order to erode democratic institutions by transferring power to citizen councils that Ortega himself controls and by expanding the country’s Supreme Court to seventeen members in order to fill it with his supporters. When Ortega could not win enough support from the legislature to amend the country’s constitution to do away with term limits, he used the Supreme Court to declare the “constitution unconstitutional.” Today, Nicaragua is sinking into corruption and increasing totalitarianism. By doing away with democratic constraints on his power, Ortega is now leading Nicaragua back into dictatorship.

This troubling erosion of freedom in Latin America is further proof that the fall of the Berlin Wall did not signal the inevitable expansion of liberal democracy throughout the globe.  Instead, it is evidence that the true lesson to learn from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia is that the spread of freedom is only possible with strong American leadership.  Like Ronald Reagan, when he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”, we must be willing to defend basic human rights clearly and forcefully, even if it offends would be dictators.

American leadership can begin with the American people.  If you have a blog, Facebook, or Twitter account, consider using it to raise awareness of the oppression of our neighbors in Latin America.  Write letters to the editor and your Representatives to demand the United States take a more assertive role in defending human rights.  Because, until the day that all governments come to embrace the idea that the best remedy to harmful rhetoric, as Justice Brandeis once noted, is not the repression of speech but the fostering of more speech, it shall remain our duty to speak on behalf of those who cannot do so for themselves.

Newt Gingrich was a Speaker of the House of Representatives and the founder of the Center for Health Transformation and chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future. Sylvia F. Garcia is the Editor-in-Chief of TheAmericano.com.

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