3.1 What organizations exist
The roots of the human rights movement in Ecuador go back approximately 20 years and are strongly tied to the Catholic Church. Most major cities boast at least two or three NGOs working explicitly on human rights, with a total of 25 to 30 formal organizations in total and many more informal groups with missions relating to human rights. All of the main social movements (labor, indigenous, women, environmental, children) along with student groups, universities, and community organizations have incorporated human rights into their work to varying degrees. Among the human rights NGOs, the focus has been predominantly on CPR, but ESCR have surfaced in recent years as an increasingly important part of their work. Economic, social and cultural concerns are at the forefront of the social movements and the larger sectors (labor, indigenous, womens) have all created separate human rights commisisons within their coordinating bodies.
The human rights movement should be understood in its historical context. In the late 70s and 80s, the movement was largely the province of small organizations linked to the Catholic church and concerned with CPR abuses, including a pair of massacres of social leaders. There was some coordination with the labor movement to the extent that their leaders were often the target of abuses and labor groups provided human rights organizations with a more powerful platform. There were very few links to international organizations and widespread public ignorance about human rights (a poll in 1981revealed that less than 5% of the population in one area had even heard of human rights). Government repression in the mid and late 80s also contributed to a general silencing and discrediting of human rights organizations, who the government linked to delinquents and guerrillas.
The movement underwent a dramatic change in the late 80s, sparked by the unprecedented public protests by the family of two disappeared boys. Following years of stonewalling from the government, military and police, the Restrepo parents set up a weekly vigil outside of the Presidential Palace that gradually attracted the interest and participation of other victim families, NGOs and members of the general public and drew significant media attention. This marked the beginning of a broader human rights movement and coincided with the strengthening of social sectors, particularly the indigenous and women’s’ movements.
In the words of Alexis Ponce, spokesperson for the APDH: “We call it the ‘ciudadanization’ (‘citizenizing’) of human rights. No longer was it just 5 or 6 Quijotes, 4 or 6 religious workers, rather it was a theme that attracted a foundation in social bases and the public and the media. This provoked two things in the 90s, it broke the movement into two eras: before the Restrepos and after the Restrepos. They inaugurated this type of social concern for the theme that did not exist before then.... This happened because of the struggle of this heroic family and the surge in new social subjects, indigenous, women, children, environmentalists...” (Ponce Interview) Pedro Restrepo, the father of the disappeared sons, notes that “while there were human rights violations before and after the Restrepos, the case of an innocent family, gratuitously affected by violence, awoke the solidarity of groups beyond the traditional militants connected to the left.” (Restrepo Interview)
The 90s has seen a surge in human rights groups and human rights commissions within social sector organizations. Almost half of all the human rights NGOs in Ecuador are based in Quito, the capital. Among the largest and most active are CEDHU (the Ecomenical Commission of Human Rights, the first human rights NGO in the country and now entering its 21st year, APDH (the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights), and INREDH (Regional Foundation for Human Rights Support). Both CEDHU and APDH have a wide network of affiliates throughout the country, making them more representative than traditional NGOs. Three other important Quito organizations are the Confederation of the Incarcerated (work with prisoners), the Amparo Commission for Human Rights of the Catholic University (promote student involvement in human rights), and CDDH (the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights – education on human rights in Quito and provinces).
Outside of Quito, the strongest human rights advocacy is found in some of the smaller provinces and the Amazon, where organizations supported by the Church have created networks of human rights volunteer “promoters” who do outreach to outlying communities. Among the most important are the Commission for Human Rights of the Northeast, of Los Rios, and of Esmeraldas. In Ecuador’s two other biggest cities, Guayaquil and Cuenca, the most active organizations are also the respective Human Rights Commissions of Guayas and Azuay. All of these Commissions share the same name, but are otherwise unrelated.
Most national groups range in size from 4 to 10 paid staff, along with volunteers. Apart from INREDH, most groups have at most one lawyer on staff. Most budgets range from ,000 to 75,000/year, with most falling on the smaller side. The Church is linked directly or indirectly (eg. through funding) to more than half of all existing groups and is particularly important in the rural areas.
Ecuador is also home to a number of international human rights organizations including SERPAJ (Peace and Justice Service), ALDHU (Latin American Association for Human Rights ), Amnesty International, and CDES. These groups work closely with local partners, and in the case of SERPAJ, have local offices scattered throughout the country.
Human rights have become an increasingly important part of the work of social movements. These movements have long fought for the rights of their particular constituencies and to varying extent have used human rights instruments and allied themselves with human rights organizations. The most important movements over the past fifteen years have been the indigenous and campesinos, labor, and women. Other movements include environmentalists, sexual workers and transexuals, child rights activists, students, and senior citizens. Today, the indigenous and women’s movements are ascendent, while labor organizations have been badly discredited. Smaller labor groups, like health workers, teachers, and taxi drivers are able to exercise considerable pressure, even without the support of larger federations. On various occasions, these movements have individually and jointly brought the government to a standstill.
In this respect, the indigenous movement is in a class of its own. The national federation, CONAIE represents approximately 70% of the indigenous population, meaning close to 30% of the entire Ecuadorian population. CONAIE has gained tremendously in influence over the last decade and has spawned a political party, Pachacutik that now enjoys 8 members of Congress. In the words of its then president Luis Macas “Little by little, the indigenous movement has qualitatively developed its stuggle for survival, for land, for defense and recuperation of territories. Today it is a political proposal, and it is a proposal for all of society.” (quoted in Selverston).
Ecuadorian NGOs and social movements are also connected to a number of international networks. In the case of human rights NGOs, the networks serve primarily for communications, including ALAI, Nizkor, and Human Rights Derechos, and human rights education, including the Latin American Network of Education and the Council of Adult Education of Latin America (CEAAL). The social movements are all connected to larger regional networks, including ORIT (labor), COICA (indigenous), CLADEM (women), ALOP (development groups), Alianza Social (labor and human rights), Amazon Alliance (indigenous and environmentalists), and Grito de los Excluidos (grassroots and human rights). The South American Platform on Human Rights, Democracy and Development has also recently established an Ecuadorian chapter that includes four human rights groups and is focused principally on ESCR.
3.2 Use of human rights instruments: problems and possibilities
Ecuadorian NGOs and social movements have made limited use of international and national human rights instruments. During the repression of the late 80s, groups turned to the national courts and later took some of those cases to the Interamerican system. Very little work has been done at the United Nations. Groups have had some success with national cases and promoting new legislation, but on the whole, there is great skepticism about the capacity of the domestic judicial and political systems and greater reliance on social and political pressure and outside intervention.
As mentioned earlier in the report, the most commonly used legal instrument at the national level is habeas corpus. INREDH reports that approximately 250 habeas corpus actions are brought per week in Quito relating to illegal detentions and that more than half are successful. Most cases are brought by private lawyers unconnected to human rights groups. That rate is significantly lower in other cities, but testifies to the importance of the instrument. Some groups and families have also brought penal cases against public forces, but most of those have ended up in the specialized courts of those institutions.
The Constitutional Court (formerly Tribunal) has heard only a handful of cases involving rights concerns, and its decisions, even when favorable, have rarely resulted in concrete action. Human rights groups express little interest in bringing cases to the Constitutional Court because of its lack of independence and inability to enforce decisions. As Elsie Monge writes “CEDHU, after bringing many various cases to the Court, views its capacity as insufficient to stop human rights violations: it cannot demand the imposition of sanctions that would limit, at least partially, the abuse of power of the State... Its operations, on some occasions, have been influenced by political pressure.” (Monge95) In recent years, the Court has heard frequent labor complaints arising from cutbacks to the public sector and salary issues, but though many are successful, there is little follow through on the decisions. The court recently declared unconstitutional the raising of gas prices and the freezing of bank accounts, but in both cases the government has simply ignored the decisions.
In the early 90s, the Court ruled favorably on two important cases, one declaring a national park with indigenous territories, off-limit to oil companies, the other declaring an agrarian reform to be unconstitutional for its imposition on indigenous land-holdings. In the first case, under alleged pressure from the government and oil industry, the Court reversed itself, one month after the decision, without explanation. In the second case, the government explicitly renounced the ruling and failed to enforce it. A more recent petition brought by CDES and the Defensor del Pueblo relating to unconstitutional cutbacks to the national health budget has lingered in the Court without any decision.
While many amparo actions are brought, particularly in Quito, almost none of them relate to human rights victims and most deal with powerful private interests. The two primary obstacles identified by advocates are the lack of familiarity with this new legal instrument and the lack of confidence in the judicial system. Human rights groups could point to only a single successful use of the right to amparo in a human rights case. In that case, CDES brought a petition on behalf of the Achuar indian community and won an injunction from the court prohibiting an oil company from dividing the community and weakening its leadership by negotiating contracts with individual members of the community. The case was brought under both Constitutional law and the international treaty, ILO 169, and has been viewed as an important precedent for bringing similar actions relating to violations of ESCR.
Human rights groups have commented on the difficulty in bringing cases under domestic laws based on a prevailing cynicism about towards the judicial system and a culture of clientalism. As Judith Salgado, president of INREDH describes it, people are much more disposed to search for a personal connection and to pay a bribe rather than depend on a time and resource-consuming legal process characterized by corruption and inefficiency. Of the 848 allegations of torture identified by INREDH during the period 1996 through 1999 in Quito, only one person was willing to go forward with a legal complaint. Ms. Salgado places the blame for that primarily on a lack of faith in the system and a culture of payoffs and only secondarily on fear of retribution.
Human rights groups spoke more optimistically of international legal processes. There is particular interest in the OAS system based on a number of recent cases and an OAS mission that have resulted in concrete resolutions. The cases resolved by the Court and Commission involved CPR violations including torture, disappearance and arbitrary detention, in which the government, after years of denying responsibility, admitted blame and made monetary restitution to the victims and their families. In 1998, CEDHU, by far the most active in the OAS system, had 42 cases pending before the Commission.
The Interamerican Human Rights Commissions 1994 on site investigation and report (1997) were notable for their inclusion of ESCR concerns. One of the petitions that prompted the investigation was filed in 1991 by a US environmental group (Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) on behalf of an indigenous community facing threats from the oil industry. The investigation focused primarily on prison conditions and other CPR, but the commission spent a good deal of time with environmental and indigenous organizations and the final report included chapters on socio-economic conditions, indigenous issues, and the particular threat faced by Amazon communities from the oil industry.
Ecuadorian NGOs have yet to intervene before the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and have made little use of the other bodies. NGOs did provide information to the Committee on Torture and the Working group on Disappearances relating to the repression in the mid-80s and a coordination of child rights groups presented an alternative report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child during its 1997 review of Ecuador. CDES also presented the Committee with information. Labor organizations have made limited use of the ILO. CEOLS, the Ecuadorian Central of Free Unions, brought a case recently with a human rights group, APDH, and is working with CDES and an indigenous on a case to be presented under the recently ratified ILO Convention #169. The national indigenous federation, CONAIE, took part in the last meeting of the UN Working Group on Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Rights and provided information to the UN Human Rights Committee, with the support of ALDHU. SERPAJ has brought two cases involving education disputes to UNESCO and is waiting on a response.
3.3 Long-term ESCR strategies
Work around ESCR is relatively new and many groups are only beginning to strategize about long term initiatives. Given how little information about these rights exists and the general lack of awareness, there is a strong emphasis on education and consciousness raising at many levels of society. Because ESCR are more structural in nature and require long-term efforts, groups recognize the need to build alliances, both among different sectors of society and internationally, to ensure an impact. Legal petitions at the national and international levels, though less so than the other areas of work, are also on the agenda of some groups. The following five focuses thus encompass the primary long term planning for the most active groups: Education, consciousness raising, work with social movements, international alliances, and legal petitions. The overwhelming cynicism about governmental and judicial effectiveness is reflected in the lack of attention to reforming or working with public institutions.
Education: Almost all of the NGOs working with ESCR have some component of their work dedicated to education. Much of this work is being done in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, which has included human rights in the national curriculum of education. FEDHU, the national network of human rights groups, has developed a series of modules on human rights to be used in junior high schools around the country. APDH, SERPAJ, CEDHU and CDDH do a great deal of educational work with students and other sectors of society, including community groups, unions, and professionals. INREDH and CDES have developed university courses on ESCR and are planning a long-term venture with a regional university to establish a permanent ESCR course in three countries tribunal. A number of organizations are also working with the Defensor del Pueblo to promote greater attention to ESCR violations.
Consciousness-raising: Closely linked to education, consciousness-raising is also evident in the work of most groups. Demonstrations, marches, public events are all very common in Ecuador, where groups face little threat of retaliation. Groups also build awareness through the media, particularly radio programs. A number of groups, including human rights, women’s, development, environmental and religious, are working to establish public tribunals focused on one of the principal threats to ESCR, the external debt. The APDH is particularly focused on drawing attention to ESCR through public actions.
Work with social movements: Human rights groups have a history of working with social movements and are particularly aware of the importance of these movements for ESCR. The women’s movement is the most closely allied with human rights groups, particularly INREDH and CEDHU, and has perhaps the broadest vision in terms of ESCR. To give a sense of some of the other planned work with social movements: APDH works closely with labor unions; some of the regional human rights commissions and CDES have developed strong ties to indigenous and campesino organizations and INREDH is planning workshops on amparo with these communities; SERPAJ, CEDHU and the APDH are looking to other allies like students, professional, and community groups and have brought many of them together in such forums as the Grito de los Excluidos (Yell of the Excluded).
International alliances: International alliances have been less significant in Ecuador than in most of Latin America. However, a number of alliances relevant to ESCR have incorporated Ecuadorian groups, and those groups most active with ESCR are eager to take advantage of these spaces. This year’s establishment of the Ecuadorian chapter of the South American Platform is a particularly important development as it unites four leading groups (CDES, APDH, INREDH, SERPAJ) around a common ESCR agenda linked to six other countries. Other groups are looking to international networks like CLADEM, FIDH, the Grito de Excluidos and the educational networks as important spaces for promoting ESCR.
Legal actions: Despite the discouraging history of domestic legal remedies, groups expressed interest in testing the new Constitutional rights through amparo actions and with the support of the Defensor del Pueblo. INREDH is undertaking a significant project with a number of other social organizations to build familiarity with the amparo right and to bring cases based in large part on ESCR violations. CDES is intent on bringing Constitutional challenges on a variety of ESCR violations, with an eye towards eventually taking the cases to the Interamerican system, the ILO and the UN CEDHU and INREDH are also interested in raising ESCR issues at the OAS level. Members of the South American Platform in Ecuador are also planning to prepare the first alternative report on Ecuador for the UN Committee on ESCR, even in the absence of an official government report (now years overdue). In all of these cases, the NGOs are working closely with social movement allies, who are similarly interested in testing the new Constitutional rights and newly ratified treaties like ILO 169. Finally, NGOs are eager to raise labor and education cases through the individual petition procedures of the San Salvador Protocol, which just came into force.
3.4 Activities of particular interest
Before 1997, work by NGOs around ESCR was very limited. Almost all of the significant activities in this field, though rarely going by the name of ESCR, were carried out by social movements. CEDHU started publishing a regular bulletin in the early 1980s that focused much attention on ESCR violations, and SERPAJ later began publishing a more substantive magazine that has also devoted attention to these rights. A number of human rights groups have for many years included ESCR secondarily in their workshops. In 1994, CDES published one of the first formal ESCR investigations - a report on the right to health relating to oil development in the Amazon - and joined an existing campaign around the issue with the intent of bringing human rights to bear on what had until then been framed in environmental and indigenous rights terms (see appendix for case study).
In 1997, CDES began a number of activities in Ecuador aimed at raising awareness and building capacity around ESCR. It organized two major ESCR conferences with the National Congress and a university aimed at congressional representatives, NGOs and students. In 1998, CDES and the APDH extended these conferences to universities in the three principal cities. CDES has organized more than a dozen smaller workshops on ESCR with NGOs and social sectors in Quito and the Amazon. Last year, CDES co-organized with five Latin American networks (CLADEM, ORIT, ALOP, FIDH, PSDHDD) the largest conference to date in Latin America devoted to ESCR. The 3-day event brought together 50 of the most active Latin American NGOs to share strategies and build greater collaboration throughout the region and across social sectors. The conference produced a high profile Declaration on ESCR and a common plan of action for two years (see web site: www.encuentro-desc.org).
A number of groups have increased their focus on ESCR in terms of their education and outreach activities. Among the most active groups in this respect are the APDH, CEDHU, SERPAJ and FEDHU. The Human Rights Commission of the Northeast has also held a number of ESCR-related events aimed at the general public and human rights promoters in the Amazon. The Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia, a network of Amazon communities, in conjunction with CDES, Accion Ecologica (a Quito-based environmental group), an Austrian-funded laboratory, and local church missions, has trained a number of community leaders in rights and impacts relating to oil development, towards the end of building a monitoring network to investigate damages and report on violations.
In 1999, CDES released two significant ESCR publications as part of separate campaigns. The first report related to the right to health in Ecuador and provided the basis for a campaign involving five ex-Ministers of Health, NGO and university leaders, and student groups, who undertook a march on Quito with meetings with the head of the Constitutional Tribunal and the President of the National Congress and much media attention. CDES has subsequently brought two legal challenges to cuts to the health budget, one in front of the Constitutional Court and one in the civil court system. The second publication, a book on debt and human rights, is the precursor to an international conference on that subject and the launching of an Andean People’s Tribunal on Debt. Those events, involving a wide range of NGOs, are part of a much larger campaign around debt, led by the indigenous, women’s’ and labor movements in Ecuador.
One additional important initiative relating to ESCR is the National Human Rights Plan promoted by the government in conjunction with civil society. As many as 300 NGOs are reported to have taken part in the elaboration of the Plan and the Plan is an ambitious document reflecting most of the proposals from civil society around CPR, ESCR, collective rights and the right to development. The government approved the plan in early 1999, but subsequent work on the Plan’s implementation, which involves a number of government and civil society working groups, has been stalled awaiting ratification of the working group plans by the Minister of Foreign Relations. Among the Plan’s interesting clauses relating to ESCR is the establishment of a commission comprised of both governmental and non-governmental representatives to oversee compliance with ESCR obligations.
3.5 National NGO cooperation
The majority of human rights groups are members of the FEDHU (Ecuadorian Front for the Defense of Human Rights). The network was formed in 1982 and today includes 22 NGOs from around the country. A few of the more active NGOs, including APDH, INREDH and CDES are not members of FEDHU, but work closely with the member groups. FEDHU is strictly comprised of human rights NGOs and as such has maintained a distinct profile that has kept it beyond politics and sectarian issues. According to the Coordinator, Elsie Monge, this is important in a country in which human rights campaigns are easily politicized and taken advantage of by political parties.
The coordinating group, CEDHU, describes the mission of FEDHU, and other similar coordinations, in the following terms: “They constitute spaces for denouncing, mobilizing, discussion among popular organizations, analyzing the human rights situation, and searching for alternatives. They have confronted aspects of the national reality like repression, the Law of National Security, administration of justice, armed groups, labor policy, land tenancy, rights of women, the environment, neoliberalism, democracy. The coordinations have been means to disseminate information and create public opinion, insofar as the media generally refuses to report on complaints of abuse of power against the people.” (DDP, 1998)
FEDHU has established five areas of work: 1. human rights education, 2. petitions and legal assistance, 3. communication and consciousness-raising among the public, 4. human rights investigations and proposals for strengthening protections, and 5. coordination with popular organizations to undertake joint actions on rights.
A number of smaller and less formal collaborations also exist between organizations. APDH, CEDHU and SERPAJ all have a network of organizations and supporters with whom they coordinate activities. A number of human rights groups are joined in communications networks aimed at raising awareness and disseminating human rights action alerts.
In the field of ESCR, the Ecuadorian chapter of the South American Platform is the most significant coordination. The Platform’s roots go back five years and involve five initial countries, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Chile and Bolivia. The network was established to build consensus and common activities around a set of principles relating to democracy, human rights and development. Each country has a chapter with as many as a hundred member organizations. In Ecuador, the chapter was established last year with four initial groups, CDES (coordinators), APDH, SERPAJ and INREDH. The Chapter’s initial activities included support for two regional events in Quito, a conference on peace in Colombia and a Conference on debt and human rights. Next years agenda is still in discussion, but will include the preparation of an alternative ESCR report to the UN.
Outside of the strictly human rights NGO field, a number of important national coordinations exist with respect to particular sectors. Women’s groups, children’s groups, indigenous organizations, campesinos and environmentalists all enjoy strong and effective coordinating bodies, each representing dozens of groups from across the country. The labor movement has been more fragmented and is going through a particularly tough period presently.
3.6 International NGO cooperation
As described above, the Ecuadorian human rights community has not developed strong ties to international organizations and none take part in international human rights commissions. Regional human rights ties among NGOs are maintained through such networks as the South American Platform, ALDHU, SERPAJ, and the Human Rights Education Network (all mentioned above). Additionally, CLADEM (a women’s rights network) and ALOP (a network of development groups), both have national NGO affiliates. Ecuadorian NGOs and community groups have also taken part in regional coordinations such as the Grito de los Excluidos, ILSA (a network of groups focused on alternative law), and Jubilee2000, which has active affiliates in both Quito and Guayaquil. The Ecuadorian labor and indigenous movements are also strongly tied to regional networks: ORIT, in the case of labor, and COICA (the Amazonian coordinating body), and the Amazon Alliance (involving both indigenous organizations and NGOs ) in the case of indigenous groups.
3.7 Other work on ESCR
It has to be emphasized that the most successful work on ESCR has not come out of the human rights community, but rather by dint of social protests led by social movements. Ecuadorians are reticent to use formal processes and eager to take to the streets, because that is where they have traditionally had the most impact. In that respect, the following examples of popular protests are representative:
- 1988: human rights march against the Febres Cordero administration, one of the first large public gatherings to protest abuses, involving 5000 people led by families of disappeared persons and other victims.
- 1990: major indigenous uprising involving tens of thousands of indians and shutting down the country (blocking all major roads) for a week in protest of deteriorating social and economic conditions, land conflicts, and the government’s refusal to recognize indigenous peoples as distinct.
- 1991: popular tribunal for truth and justice, held in the National Congress, alongside a march against past abuses and the particularly abusive police investigations unit that is subsequently disbanded;
- 1994, indigenous uprisings involving hundreds of thousands of indians shut down the country again for two weeks in protest of agriculture law dispossessing many communities of communal land title, and succeed in establishing direct negotiations with President;
- 1994: demonstrations by indigenous representatives and environmentalists and the peaceful take over of the Ministry of Energy and Mines office to protest oil abuses and to demand a civilian petroleum oversight body, resulting in agreement with the Minister.
- 1994/1995 marches and demonstrations of women’s groups succeeding in the establishment of local government offices to hear complaints on domestic violence and the passing of a domestic violence law.
- 1997: massive civil society protests involving all the main social movements succeed in forcing the Presidents ouster;
- 1999: labor, indigenous and student marches, demonstrations, and shut-downs succeed in winning concessions to the Presidents austerity measures, including a cap on petroleum price increases.
These examples suffice to demonstrate that human rights advocates (understood broadly) have made more concrete gains, particularly in the field of ESCR, through informal than formal channels. The 1990s have been marked by particularly weak and corrupt political leadership, which has infected all three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial), making civil society even less inclined to employ formal challenges. With a stronger legal framework now in place, (owing to both the new constitution and such recent treaties as ILO169 and the San Salvador Protocol), stronger institutional support in the form of the Defensor del Pueblo, and new instruments like the right to amparo and the Human Rights Plan, human rights groups and social movements are likely to focus renewed attention on formal channels, but always in close conjunction with public protests and social organizing.