The German Foundation for International Development (DSE) is joining the search for solutions to resolve conflicts in developing countries. Three weeks before the presidential elections in Guatemala, whose political life is still suffering from the aftermath of the country's decades-long civil war, the DSE organised a conference on the subject ‘Reconciliation and Human Rights After Conflicts’. The conference was aimed in particular at conveying the experiences of other countries and thereby contributing to an improvement of the human rights situation in Guatemala. The co-organisers were the German Embassy, the Human Rights Office of the Catholic Church, and Guatemala's National University. From Bonn came the State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Erich Stather, whose ministry has since the change of German Federal government in late 1998 made conflict prevention and conflict resolution a political priority.
The 150 conference delegates included such notable figures as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú, and Helen Mack and Alfredo Balsells, both leading representatives of the human rights movement in Guatemala. From Argentina came the President of the ‘Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’, Laura Bonaparte, and from Honduras the independent presidential candidate Ramón Custodio. Carlos Vicente de Roux, of Columbia, a judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and Alexander Alter, a member of the Jewish Community of Cologne, were also among the guest speakers.
Addressing the subject ‘Human Rights and the International Community’, State Secretary Stather said that in Central America “still too little has been done to date to remedy the causes of conflicts. The extreme inequality in income, wealth, land and development opportunities has increased rather than decreased.” The crimes of the past were being confronted only insufficiently. Stather added that improvement of the human rights situation in the BMZ's partner countries was a prerequisite for the success of development projects.
Ramón Custodio clearly criticised the ongoing human rights violations not only in Guatemala but also in other Latin American countries. He said it was unacceptable that the international community did business with countries in which human rights were violated without their governments being called to account. Carlos Vicente de Roux analysed that the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights had not yet been incorporated in many constitutions, and that relevant international agreements also had not been implemented in many countries. Legal certainty for the people was a basic condition for democratic development.
Speaking on the subject ‘Coming to Terms with the Past’, the Argentinean human rights activist Laura Bonaparte reported on the difficulties in calling to account the military leaders who were responsible for the atrocities in her country. “We have remained stubborn, and I also recommend that to our friends in Guatemala,” she said. “By constancy and pushiness we have made the public in Argentina aware that there can be no forgetting.” Alexander Alter spoke of the problems of dealing with the Nazi past in Germany during the last 50 years. Amends could not be made solely by material compensation for harm done; there must also be an ‘intellectual-political’ analysis of the past. Alter said that this process was still relevant even 54 years after the end of World War Two, as one could see from the still existing radical right-wing movements in Germany, although these groups did not endanger democracy there. “Democracies offer a certain protection against extreme actions and views,” he said.
With the decision to participate in this international conference in the middle of Guatemala's presidential election campaign, the German Federal government made it clear that the subject of human rights is not only talked about at a theoretical level, but that it takes its development policy objectives seriously. Said Stather: “Development is nothing more than the realisation of the people's rights to freedom, self-determination, participation, food, shelter, education and good health. This means supporting the people in the partner countries on the path to realising their human rights. Development cooperation therefore is practical
human rights policy.”
