Echoing the last dictatorship, Argentine Justice Minister slams ‘politicization’ at IACHR.
Argentine Justice Minister Germán Garavano criticized the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) after the organization called on member countries to provide financial support in view of the institution’s precarious financial situation.
In a column published yesterday, Garavano criticized the IAHCR’s “weaknesses” and while conceding the organization should be supported, asserted that it should be done so only “as part of a wider human rights policy, without sectoral interests.”
“We can’t deny the positive impacts the IAHCR has had in Latin America since it was created,” Garavano wrote. “Its work on forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and torture have been relevant. It has also set standards and has collaborated on the development on public policies over freedom of speech and protection of vulnerable groups.”
Garavano, however, argued that “weaknesses” of the IACHR also need to be stressed — weaknesses that, according to him, include delays in legal proceedings, “politicization” of some issues. and what he referred to as the organization’s “double-standards.”
Like Amnesty International and other leading international human rights watchdogs, the IAHCR has been critical of the right-wing Macri administration for among other things the continued detention without trial of indigenous community organizer Milagro Sala after five months, decrees limiting the right to protest, and a recent bill that would, if passed, criminalize publication by journalists of any personal financial data of Macri officials (many of whom have been implicated in the Panama Papers scandal).
The IAHCR first earned renown in Argentina during its 1979 fact-finding mission commissioned to assess the extent of the massive human rights atrocities that had recently been committed by the dictatorship of Gen. Jorge Videla. The presence of the commission was deeply resented by both the Videla regime and its supporters, which frequently accused the IAHCR of being likewise “politicized.”
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/216071/gov%E2%80%99t-criticizes-iachr-but-promises-financial-support