Campaign for Declassification of
Documents on Human Rights Abuses in Latin America
The National Security Archive is leading a campaign to open secret U.S. files on human rights abuses in Latin America and the Caribbean to public scrutiny.
President Clinton has stated repeatedly that democracy, human rights and respect for the rule of law are central to United States policy in Latin America. The Archive believes the release of U.S. documents on human rights should be a fundamental part of that policy. Human rights information can no longer be shielded by the system of secrecy prevalent during the Cold War. As newly-democratic nations throughout Latin America confront their legacies of violence, the Clinton administration should strengthen its commitment to human rights in the region by declassifying all United States files on human rights abuses and releasing them to the public.
The Archive is joined in this effort by a wide range of public interest, human rights and religious organizations, including the Center for National Security Studies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Latin America Working Group, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the Washington Office on Latin America, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, United Church of Christ, and many more. Together, we ask that the President announce a new human rights initiative: In response to requests from appropriate bodies in Latin America and the Caribbean, the President should order release of information in United States government files concerning human rights abuses.
In support of our campaign, the New York Times ran an editorial in August which called on the Clinton administration to open U.S. human rights files to the public. On September 25, the Senate introduced a groundbreaking piece of legislation, entitled the Human Rights Information Act (S. 1220), requiring the President to provide declassified information on human rights in the event of an official request by a Latin American government or an appropriate international entity. The House followed suit on October 8 (H.R. 2635). And over three dozen organizations from around the country have signed a letter to Clinton urging him to open the files.
If you or your organization is interested in participating in the National Security Archive’s declassification campaign, please call Kate Doyle at 202 994-7035, or write to kadoyle@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu. For additional information on the Human Rights Information Act, you can go to the Web site of the Latin American Working Group: www.igc.apc.org/lawg and click on "Declassification Bills in Congress."
Last week in Guatemala, a truth commission began sifting through the rubble of that country's 36-year civil war. Commissions to Investigate the human rights abuses of the past have become a standard part of the healing process in Latin America as guerrilla wars and military dictatorships recede into history. Like the other commissions, Guatemala's will be constrained by penury and political realities. Cooperation from the military will be scant. The United States, which backed that military for long periods, is giving $1 million for Guatemala's commission. But Washington has declined to provide something more important, its own files on Guatemala's crimes.
The Central Intelligence Agency recently released a small batch of records on the 1954 military coup It organized in Guatemala, and promises more coup records in the months ahead. But it has declassified practically nothing on the security forces that have killed more than 110,000 Guatemalans since the coup. Washington trained and supported some of these forces. It also backed abusive internal security organizations in Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador. It owes the victims of these groups whatever information It has.
The National Security Archive, a nongovernmental repository of formerly classified material, is leading a worthy effort to have President Clinton order the release of information concerning human rights abuses in Latin America and the Caribbean. The C.I.A. is right to protect the names of its sources and its sensitive methods. But its cold-war enemies are now vanquished, its old methods supposedly abandoned and the international landscape redrawn. The agency's continued secrecy serves to protect it from embarrassment.
Except for material concerning the Guatemala coup and about 1,000 pages the C.I.A. released in 1993 on El Salvador, virtually everything the C.l.A. has turned over concerns cases where the victims or their survivors were American citizens. The need for truth, however, does not stop at the border.
One case where the C.l.A.'s Information is especially crucial Is Honduras. Government officials there are risking their lives to prosecute some two dozen military men involved in a death squad that killed or "disappeared" at least 184 people in the early 1980's. The trial would be a major victory for democracy in Honduras. The death squad grew out of a collaboration between the C.I.A. and the Honduran military, and it is reasonable to think that C.l.A. Information could help in the prosecution.
The Honduran Government has been asking for relevant American documents since 1993. The State Department has complied, but the most important material must come from the Pentagon and the C.l.A. The Pentagon has turned over a small fraction of its documents, some almost completely censored. The C.I.A. has provided only material on the death of an American-born priest. In June, President Clinton set target dates for document releases from the Pentagon and C.l.A. Although some have now passed, no files have appeared.
Full disclosure from the C.I.A. matters to the United States as well as to Latin America. Washington has done much lately to become a good neighbor. To consolidate that change, it now needs to open the archives on a painful era.