JOINT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS debate -
Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Human Rights Issues: Discussion with Front Line.

Chairman

I welcome Ms Mary Lawlor, director of Front Line International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. She is accompanied by the winner of this year's Front Line award, the environmental activist and human rights defender, Dr. Yuri Giovanni Melini from Guatemala. Accompanying Ms Lawlor and Dr. Melini are Mr. Maldonado Flores and Ms Paula Garuz Naval. Dr. Melini will be participating in today's meeting through an interpreter. I ask members to bear this in mind during questions and afford adequate pauses to allow for interpretation.

The annual Front Line award was established in 2004 to honour the work of an individual who had made an outstanding contribution to the protection of human rights in the face of considerable personal risk. Its aim is to protect those who, through their work, protect the rights and the lives of others. Last Friday in Dublin's City Hall, Front Line announced the winner of this year's award as Dr. Yuri Giovanni Melini.

Dr. Melini is the director of CALAS, the Centre for Legal, Environment and Social Action. Among its many achievements CALAS last year successfully argued a case in Guatemala's constitutional court to change the laws which permit opencast mining for gold and other metals. Dr. Melini has also compiled two major reports on human rights violations against environmentalists in Guatemala as well as highlighting large-scale water contamination affecting Mayan communities throughout Guatemala. In September last he was shot seven times in an attack which was linked to his campaigning.

At this stage I also want to mention Mr. John Ging whom the committee knows well. We met him in Israel and he came to the committee previously. He is the director of UNRWA in Gaza. We are pleased that Mr. Ging was also honoured by Front Line on Friday last for his outstanding work with and on behalf of the besieged people of Gaza. Mr. Ging appeared before this committee in March and the ongoing and worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza remains of deep concern to members of this committee.

Before we commence I advise witnesses that whereas members of the Houses have absolute privilege in respect of utterances made in committee, witnesses do not enjoy absolute privilege. Accordingly, caution should be exercised, particularly with regard to references of a personal nature. I invite Ms Lawlor and Dr. Melini to address the committee following which we will take questions from members.

Ms Mary Lawlor

I thank the committee for allowing Front Line to attend and to hear Dr. Melini. I will speak for a few minutes about Front Line before I pass over to Dr. Melini.

Front Line was founded in 2001 to work for the protection of human rights defenders at risk. By that I mean people who put their lives on the line for the human rights of other people. They do so non-violently and peacefully and we try to increase the space in which they work so that they are not always under threat, harassment or attack, or defamed in the press, and that they are not imprisoned, tortured or disappeared. A Sri Lankan human rights defender disappeared only two days ago.

The work of Front Line is mainly advocacy. We have a Brussels office. We follow the EU agenda. We lobby through the Irish Government. As the committee will be aware, Ireland has prioritised the protection of human rights defenders in its foreign policy and we are grateful to the human rights unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs for promptly following up on cases. It is vital when people are in danger that speed and flexibility is the norm.

Front Line also provides grants. Last year, for example, we gave grants to 150 human rights defenders to a value of €285,000. This is for security and protection needs. In Dr. Melini's case, after he was attacked we gave some money for his medical treatment because he was injured badly. He was in intensive care for 22 days and had four life-threatening operations.

We carry out training in security and capacity building. We train human rights defenders in how to manage the risks they face and we try to increase their capacity to withstand attack and decrease their vulnerability. We deal with personal security and risk assessment. We also deal with digital security because all around the world governments are hacking into computers and using information stored on them to bring spurious charges against human rights defenders.

We operate a 24-hour emergency line in five languages — English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian. Our website is also in five languages. I encourage the committee to look at our website occasionally. One will find new information every day on human rights defenders and there are pages on each country.

Ireland led the way in Europe in providing a temporary humanitarian visa scheme for human rights defenders at risk. We have an agreement with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform whereby human rights defenders who are in danger can come to Ireland for rest and respite on a temporary basis. We are trying to encourage other European Union member states to do the same. We offer internships at the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Africa, which is under the aegis of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, and at the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Geneva. People train with us for three months before going to either of these bodies, after which they return to us.

I take this opportunity to say that we are honoured and inspired by the efforts of Dr. Yuri Melini. He and his colleagues in CALAS, the Guatemalan Centre for Legal, Environmental and Social Action, are doing extremely dangerous work in Guatemala. He has paid a terrible price for his efforts, as have all the members of CALAS. I ask that the committee send a resolution to the Guatemalan Government demanding that the perpetrators of the brutal attack on Dr. Melini be brought to justice and that he, the other members of CALAS and other environmental activists in Guatemala be allowed to carry out their peaceful work without fear of persecution.

Chairman

Before we continue, I welcome our guests in the Visitors Gallery: the Malaysian ambassador, Raja A. Nazrin; Mr. Sofian Akmal Abd. Karim, first secretary at the Embassy of Malaysia; Mr. Horst-Dieter Dopychai, cultural attaché at the Embassy of Germany; and Ms Aoibhín de Búrca, from the school of political and international relations at University College Dublin.

Dr. Yuri Melini

I am a 47 year old Guatemalan doctor who, in 1986, stopped practising medicine to devote my life to the protection of the environment for the benefit of the Guatemalan people. In 2000, I founded CALAS, the Guatemalan Centre for Legal, Environmental and Social Action. This organisation seeks to work against environmental impunity and demands that legal and political means are used to enforce the human right to a healthy environment. This is my job.

On 4 September 2008, I was the victim of a criminal attack. The attempt on my life brought me very close to death. I was shot seven times and remained in intensive care for 28 days. I lost 40 pounds in weight and 150 cm of intestine. I needed 18 blood transfusions and was in the operating room for 11 hours. My left knee was completely destroyed by one of the bullets. I have had six surgeries and must undergo another one very soon. This was the price I paid for my work as a human rights defender.

Guatemala is a natural paradise of Central America, a place of forests, rivers and an exuberant natural richness. Four peoples live together in Guatemala, namely, Mayas, Xincas, Garifunas and Ladinos. My country is in transit between electoral and participative democracy after a civil war that lasted 36 years, from 1962 to 1996. That conflict resulted in 200,000 deaths, 43,000 disappearances and hundreds of orphans and widows. The desolation that followed was accompanied by an economic backwardness.

Twelve years after signing the peace, there began a fragile process of dialogue and tolerance. However, this is threatened by a weak state, where there are parallel groups of power and illegal security groups. More than 60% of the population is indigenous Mayan. There are huge social differences, with 80% of the population living in a certain degree of poverty. There is a very high rate of unemployment, illiteracy, morbidity and child mortality. It is a country characterised by racism and discrimination towards the Mayan people.

My work in human rights involves going to the courts to claim the enforcement of the right to a healthy environment through reports, lawsuits and trials. These actions have resulted in the cessation of industrial projects and the suspension of part of the Guatemalan mining law, with seven articles of the same law being declared illegal by the court. I avail of politics as a mechanism to correct social and environmental inequalities by reporting and denouncing cases through the social media to raise awareness among the people. I drew up two national reports on human rights violations to environmentalists, with 121 cases. That is the reason I resorted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington.

I have also had an unequal fight with the parallel power, by which I refer to those involved in the drug trafficking activity in Guatemala. I have denounced the existence of 28 illegal tracks within the tropical forest of Petén, Guatemala. I fight for the preservation of the 1,000 year old Mayan tropical forests, where alarming destructions occur such as illegal tree felling, forest fires and illegal hunting. I fight against powerful economic interests. This is a difficult task when the various interest groups resort to discredit, disqualification, threats and, in my case, even an attempt on my life.

Human rights defenders have a very important role to play. We stand up and demand with courage the enforcement of the rights of every person. We defend the dignity of the person, the essential human nature. We are in the spotlight, in the first row in every country, willing to speak up, demand, denounce and put our lives at risk so that people's rights are respected. For all these reasons, I thank everyone present. I ask the joint committee to make a pronouncement on my case and similar cases and express its concerns, through the appropriate means, to the Guatemalan Government given that no progress has been made in the investigations to date.

Chairman

I thank Dr. Melini. I note he concluded with a request to the joint committee to make a pronouncement on his case and express our concern, through the appropriate means, to the Guatemalan Government. Dr. Melini's request is agreed to unanimously.

Deputy Michael D. Higgins

I join the Chairman in congratulating Front Line on its continuing and important work. Dr. Melini, bienvenido aquí. Felicidades por su honor por su trabajo por derechos humanos. I also congratulate Dr. Melini on his work for human rights in Guatemala. The figures provided for the period from 1962 to 1996 are shocking. I was a regular visitor to Central America when Mr. Ríos Montt was slaughtering some of Guatemala’s native people. Guatemala was always an interesting country because it is the only one of the seven countries of Central America where native people are in the majority. The Western world owes the Guatemalan people a great deal because we did not condemn sufficiently the Reagan Administration’s support for the slaughter of the country’s native people.

When I was at the border of Guatemala during the Reagan Administration thousands of fundamentalists from the United States were intimidating native people, the villagisation programme was in full flight and a sustained military campaign was being waged against ordinary people. At one point, the country had the largest number of internally displaced people as a proportion of population in the whole of Latin America.

Some Irish non-governmental organisations, Trócaire, for instance, have a connection with Guatemala, particularly with small co-operatives. These mainly consist of women from the peasant areas who are involved in coffee production. Ireland should do much more.

I join the Chairman in paying tribute to Mr. John Ging, not least because the Israeli authorities directed a systematic campaign against him aimed at blackening his name. I was pleased to note Mr. Ging's work in Gaza received all-party support and that the joint committee passed unanimously a resolution to take up with the Guatemalan authorities the specific case of Dr. Melini. It is a long distance from here to Guatemala City and I hope Dr. Melini will bring home with him the many expressions of solidarity with the peoples of Guatemala. Muchos gratias.

Deputy Seán Ardagh

I congratulate Front Line on the work it does in protecting human rights defenders. For a small country such as Ireland to focus on human rights defenders on the world stage is admirable. I congratulate Ms Mary Lawlor, director of Front Line, on the success of her organisation and commend her on acting as a strong advocate for those who defend human rights in countries which have greater difficulties than Ireland.

I congratulate Dr. Melini on winning the Front Line award this year. He is a very courageous person and I am honoured to meet him and listen to his contribution. I hope the injuries he received will not reduce his lifespan or life's work. I am pleased to be associated with the motion proposed by the Chairman that we ask the Government of Guatemala to investigate fully and bring to justice the culprits in the awful crime perpetrated against Dr. Melini.

Senator Mark Daly

I join my colleagues in strongly supporting the motion to put pressure on the Government of Guatemala to investigate fully the attack on Dr. Melini. If the good doctor requires the assistance of the Irish Government with issues which arise in his work in future, I hope he will find a listening ear and support.

Ms Mary Lawlor

For us in Front Line, it is important to have the support of individual parliamentarians and the Irish Government in the protection of human rights defenders. We are pleased with the manner in which the protection of human rights defenders is developing. When someone is in danger it is essential that Front Line is able to call on individual parliamentarians or the Government to take speedy action to assist the human rights defender in question. We often forget that in many cases a simple action such as making a telephone call or sending a fax will save someone's life. It is a case of being available at a moment in time.

As a small country, Ireland cannot solve all of the world's human rights problems and massive human rights violations or solve the dreadful political problems in countries around the world. We can, however, support human rights defenders, the people on the ground who are bringing about change and building civil and just societies. It is a very good role for Ireland to be involved in because it helps the people on the ground to be empowered by their leaders, the human rights defenders, who are putting their lives on the line for it.

On the link between human rights and development, that is an area where we in Ireland and in Europe need to do more where human rights defenders are in danger. Many development agencies, intergovernmental agencies and governmental development agencies do not want to risk their projects on the ground by speaking out for the awkward voices criticising whatever is happening in the country. However, before all this happens partnerships can be developed with human rights defenders to enable that kind of dialogue to take place so that when somebody is in danger, effective action can be taken.

Chairman

I thank Ms Lawlor. Dr. Melini can have the last word.

Dr. Yuri Melini

I thank the committee for the warm welcome and solidarity here in Ireland. I appreciate and thank the committee for anything it can do. Perhaps it can send an official communication on the link demanding that the Guatemalan Government do something to ensure we are not faced with impunity once again. The aftermath of my recovery has not reduced my courage and my humility in continuing to carry out the work I have been doing up to now because I am sure that what I am doing is the right thing to do.

Chairman

I thank Ms Mary Lawlor, Dr. Melini and the delegation for appearing before the committee and for their presentations. They have been recorded for television and for posterity. We were glad to have them visit the committee. Some of our members had to go away. We would normally meet at 3 p.m. but met at 2.30 p.m. to suit the visitors. The Houses are sitting. Senator Norris who was present earlier had to go to the Seanad for the Order of Business. The Minister for Finance is in the Dáil and members have to be there, also a number of committees are sitting, hence the reason members come and go.

I understand your visit to Ireland and the receipt of the Front Line award will help to shine a light on the life protecting work in which you have been involved in Guatemala. We ask that you keep in touch with the committee in the coming months so that we can keep up-to-date with the human rights and environmental issues you and others are facing in Guatemala. We would be glad to keep in touch and to provide any assistance we can. I am giving you the first copy of a report on our visit to Malawi, one of the countries in which Irish Aid is doing a great deal of work. We have visited a number of countries and we produce reports on these visits. I am very happy to present you with the first copy of the report to get outside the establishment.

Dr. Yuri Melini

I will give you a copy of my report also.

The joint committee went into private session at 3.15 p.m. and adjourned at 3.25 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 20 May 2009.