NEWS > 17 November 2006

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World Politics Watch - USA
17 November 2006

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There is Hope For Ending Polic

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- In a step toward solving one of Latin America's most unrelenting problems, five Latin American countries sent delegates from police and civil society last week to a conference in Brazil to discuss police reform.

The delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico met in Rio de Janeiro at a seminar sponsored by non-governmental organizations, including the Open Society Institute. Next year, they plan to invite five more countries in an attempt to create a permanent forum on the issue.

The problems are well known: violence, corruption and a lack of respect for the common citizen are commonplace in Latin America.

This by no means suggests that all or even most police in Latin America are corrupt, but anyone who lives in the region knows that enough of them are to warrant serious inquiry into the problem at an international level.

I write from experience.

Driving home from - ironically -- the police station one day, in a South American city I will not name to protect the innocent (namely myself), I was stopped at a roadblock for the most trivial of traffic violations.

I could not tell you the name of the cop who extorted my money because he kept his machine gun over his nametag the entire time. There were no overtures or subtle hints. He simply demanded money and that was that.

I have heard similar stories from people who live elsewhere in the region. And mine was a minor incident. There are even greater problems, like summary execution, torture, or cops who play both sides of the drug trade.

With alarming rates of violence in the major cities of Latin America, why are the police robbing from honest citizens instead of fighting crime?

Well, because they can.

There are of course laws against such behavior and systems intended to punish cops who cross the line. But throughout much of Latin America, these are clearly not working.

This is not to say crime has taken over in the region, because as shown by last week's conference something is being done.

The mere fact that such a forum is taking shape spontaneously in countries where harsh military governments had free reign just decades ago demonstrates that the horrifying machine of police oppression can be dismantled.

In the case of high-profile abuses of human rights, impunity is slowly eroding. According to a report last week by the Ansa news agency, Manuel Contreras, the former head of a torture center run by the notorious Dina secret police in Chile, will again face charges after escaping on a technicality in 2005.

Last month, Miguel Etchecolatz, a former Buenos Aires police chief, was condemned to life in prison for murders and other human rights violations committed in Argentina during the dictatorship of 1976 to 1983.

This week in Brazil, a civilian court for the first time in history began prosecuting a colonel of the now extinct Doi-Codi secret police, Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, for hundreds of human rights violations in the 1970s. The trial is symbolic because Ustra is protected under prior amnesty, but represents a landmark even so.

In Colombia, there has been a dedicated effort toward reform for over a decade, and public approval of the police has grown as a result. In Peru, an office has been created to teach police about their own rights when facing abuse from higher-ranking officers, helping to change their professional mindset.

There are no easy answers. To be fair to the police, there are many brave and well-intentioned officers who risk their lives every day to protect citizens and who are ill paid and never recognized for their service.

Unfortunately, those who reject the corruption in the system soon find themselves the victims of it as well, being cut off from career advancement, or worse. Often the police or their loved ones are targeted by random, brutal acts of violence by organized crime or even common thugs with a chip on their shoulder.

These factors tend to isolate law enforcement from their communities. Camaraderie becomes a necessary social convention that influences a mentality of mutual protection at all costs.

The conference this week proposed a number of solutions.

The two main proposals were to pay police decent salaries and to try to bridge the social gap between law enforcement and ordinary citizens. Both suggestions are pragmatic and reasonable. Other suggestions included the use of technology to integrate police work.

But greater social equality perhaps would be the best solution.

Basic economic conditions need to keep improving in the region, as well as levels of education, to provide alternatives to crime. Education includes awareness of and respect for basic citizenship rights, and enough self-esteem at a grassroots level for individuals to make the courageous decision to insist upon their rights without descending into criminality themselves, whether in uniform or out.

The media, itself a historical victim of police abuse in Latin America, can and should call more attention to the problem whenever possible. Prosecution of violators should be severe, by civilian, not military courts.

Government officials need to be more vigorous in enforcing ethics and discipline.
But above all the civilian population of the region, with honest police, must find common cause to fix the problem and take strength from numbers.

John Waggoner is an author and journalist based in Rio De Janeiro.

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Article sourced from

World Politics Watch - USA17 November 2006

There is Hope For Ending Polic

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World Politics Watch - USA
17 November 2006