PLANS FOR PLANS FOR
1998-2000
ACSUR Las Segovias works in the areas of solidarity cooperation, awareness, education, and incidence from the perspective of human rights. We consider development as a right of people and of towns
We work for democratic fortalization through grass-root particpation and the development of local powers.
We desire to empower the associative pluralistic social fabric and the fortalization of work in nets and alliances with socially diverse organizations.
We work from the perspective for change in values of tolerance, equity, and solidarity.
Finally, we believe that the economy should entail ethics and should not dehumanize anyone, man or woman, in the frame of substainability during its natural development.
TO CONSOLIDATE AND PROFOUND THE WORK IN PRIORITY SOCIAL SECTORS
. TO CONTINUE POLITICALLY SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGANIST INJUSTICE
The focus-frame of ACSUR´s work is "development as an excercise of human, social, political, economic, and cultural rights."
a) What do we mean by "human rights"?
The expression "human rights" refers to those fundamental rights that people have by means of their their own human nature (i.e., because of the fact that they exist). Therefore, they are not concessions from the political society, but should be consecrated and guaranteed rights.
The United Nations, formed after World War II, established the principal of international of human rights. Article 1, Section 3, shows that the UN desires a "stimulus of the respect for human rights and of the fundamental liberties of all, without making a distinction by motives of race, sex, language, or religion;" in Article 55, the UN undertakes the effectiveness such rights and liberties.
In 1948 the UN created the Commission for Human Rights, entrusted to make a declaration of human rights. On December 10, the 58 member states approved the Declaration of Universal Human Rights. This established that all human beings have equal and inalienable rights that should be protected by a regimen of Rights so that "man does not see himself compelled to the supreme resource of rebellion against tyranny and oppression" (paragraph 3)
The Declaration contains a group of rights relative to liberty, considering the prohibition of:
* slavery,
* torture,
* arbitrary detentions,
* Ex post facto, or retroactive, penal laws,
* restrictions of the liberty of movement and exit of any country, including one´s own country,
*arbitrary privatization of property,
This group also includes liberties of:
* conscience,
* thoughts,
* religion
* opinion and expression,
* information,
* assembly and pacifist associations
While these rights imply the abstention of the state, others require the intervention of the state for their application. .
The processal and political rights are:
*The guarantee of the states to concede equally to all, and without distinction, legal protection by means of independent tribunals and courts, with the presumption that all are innocent until proven guilty
*The right of unversal suffrage and participation in the government of the country, directly or by means of freely elected representatives, put into office by the will of the people. This is the base of the authority of public power.
The social rights are:
* social security,
* work and equivative renumeration,
* rest,
* protection against illness,
* free syndication,
* the education in order to develop the human personality,
* to freely take part in the culture of the community,
* to establish a social and international order so that the proclaimed rights and liberties in the Declaration are effective
This Declaration does not have legal force, but inscribes the moral obligation. This means that the UN recommends its application in all member countries, but does not execute the rights to individuals or groups but guarantees partial or complete compliance to the Declaration.
The last forty years have shown a great advance in the universilization of human rights; a part of this growth has been due to the actions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Amnisty International, that watch the member states to see if they are complying with the Declaration. Other important documents are the International Pact of Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the International Pact concerning Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966).
During the 1980s, global public discussion increased concerning human rights, which aided in the fight for democracy versus dictatorial regimens. Diverse international organizations, such as the Commission for Global Governmentability formed, believing in a common ethic that all citizens, individuals, and members of groups and associations, should accept obligations to remember and help to protect human rights.
b) The position of ACSUR Las Segovias
ACSUR Las Segovias operates from the same perspective of human rights as the rest of the NGOs that form Group South (GRUPO SUR) and, therefore, we make our Declaration following the same theme as the UN Declaration.
Meeting in Rome, 20-21 March 1998
GROUP SOUTH (GROUPO SUR)
GROUP SOUTH (GRUPO SUR) is a political alliance of European NGOs, formed with the objective of developing a common strategy. Dealing with North-South problems, GROUP SOUTH aims for the construction of an alternative solidarity, based on the rights of peoples and towns to develop. We work in cooperation and in awareness from the perspective of human rights.
This alliance allows greater dialogue with networked organizations and South organizations, implicating us together in an innovative reflection and criticism through the actual process of globalization
The scope of work of GROUP SOUTH is Latin America and the Carribean, working towards concrete development in those regions. Therfore, we are aware that the political debate that exists and we want to give a sign through the platforms of NGOs and institutions that will globally effect all people.
Peace and Human Rights
GROUP SOUTH has a firm compromise of peace. We consider peace not just the absence of war, but as a positive action that integrates liberty, economic, social, and cultural well-being of individuals and groups in every state and between states. The peace has a relationship with human rights: meaning that human rights are not individual rights but are also collective rights. Those rights that are of national and international following and that all understand the individual liberties as economic, social, and cultural rights at all levels of the social organization.
Human Rights, Equity, and Social Justice
The Declaration of Univeral Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, affirms (art. 28) "Every person has the right to establish an international social order in which rights and liberties proclaimed in this declaration are made plainly effective. Also, the Declaration of the Right of Development of 1986 in the World Conference of Human Rights, Vienna 1993, established that the right to develop is universal and inalienable and forms part of basic human rights.
Following these definitions, GROUP SOUTH promotes the discussion of the defense of rights, peace, development, the use and enjoyment of the common patrimony of humanity and a clean environment and equilbrium.
We also believe that human beings are men and women, equally worthy and universally representative of humanity. Together, we work for individual and indivisible human rights.
THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMAN RIGHTS FROM WORK IN THE NORTH
In GROUP SOUTH, we work for the defense of human rights for all people. Millions of human beings clearly lack the possibility of obtaining some or all of their rights by being discriminated against or in conditions of exclusion. For this reason, we place as the axle of our activity of awareness, the concept of universal citizen. This is accomplished through "Nobody can stay out."
We want to contribute to the dismantling of the wall that separates the North and the South. We want this to occur through awareness and education centered in human values. We reject the toil of power and the exaltation of money: we propose to relocate the economy to the service of the people, determined for an ethic of production and responsible consumption.
We want to work in favor of peace, acting for the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts with the idea of security that happens by the respect of human rights and the well being of people. We plead for the defense of said rights in international political, juridic, and socio-economic forums. Finally, we propose a frame of intercultural co-existence in societies by the means of migratory process and in the national multiple co-existence
THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMAN RIGHTS FROM WORK IN THE SOUTH
Our strategy of cooperation is the development looking to support the democratization and the distribution of power, resources, and possiblities.
We accomplish this through networks of women of the South and of the North to incorporate the perspective of gender for the discussion of development in the international scope from a vision of equality and equity. In GROUP SOUTH we consider the political, economic, and social empowerment of women key to gaining integral development, eradicating povety and social disintegration.
We want to support the many economic, social, political, and cultural fights of oppresed people, of indigenous communities, of workers, of rural peoples, and all groups in Latin America and the Carribean that suffer infringements on their rights.
We consider important working together in coordination with organizations and networks of the South to combat the harassment of the diverse local cultures, encouraging the participation of marginalized sectors by actual models of development, in the construction of economic solidarity. In the same way, we hope to support the defenese of all of the propositions of substainable development which centers on the well-being of human beings.
Finally, in GROUP SOUTH, we agree with the "
Compromises of Cuernavaca" that sustain the necessity of a regional integratio that permits action together with civil organizations and social movements. The globalization of markets allows for the globalization of civil society. In this frame, "economic, social, and cultural rights should be articulated in new paradigms of development. They should utilize themselves as mechanisms of incidence and social authority including themselves in themes of government agenda. They should be an instrument for the participation of civil organizations in the cycle of public politics. They should transform into tools of fortalization of civil organizations, regional networks, and articulations with diverse sectors and to distinct levels.
EMPOWERING PARTICIPATIVE SPACES AND THE ENCOUNTER WITHIN A DEMOCRATIC SPACE
From the general coordination, ACSUR will encourage debate and formation in the terrain and in Spain.
This implies the possibility of realization of:
. TO CONSOLIDATE AND TO PROFOUND THE WORK IN PRIORITY SOCIAL SECTORS
. TO CONTINUE POLITICALLY SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGANIST INJUSTICE
ACSUR works in Latin America and in some Carribean countries; a mix of countries with notable differences, including population and geograpy. They do, however, have a series of similarities in the macroeconomic, social, political, and environmental situations.
These similarities derive from a colonial past and other historical processes- such as globalization of the New Economic Model- that profile a series of common axles. This model, that orients the economy of the Latin American countries with their backs turned to society, to the internal market, to exports, to potential of extraction of riches, and the transferrence of resources through Northern markets.
The NEM dedicates the model of modernization in which millions of people are seen separate from their labor and productive base. According to the World Bank, 48% of the Latin American population is poor. That number is higher, 62%, according to UNDP, and ECLA puts it in the center at 50%.
Therefore, a structural and global element of poverty is derived from the enormous inequality in the distribution of the income and riches.
The processes of regional integration in common markets or zones, such as Mercosur, the Group of the 3, or CARICOM. These groups demonstrate the growth of exports and of the GNP of the the involved countries that have not shared in the best social equity. Therefore, we are facing a new demonstration of trickle-down economics- the supposed distribution of riches derived from economic growth. This has not been shown to be truthful in practice but only reinforces the mechanisms of concentration.
With the continous growth of mothers as head of the family, there has been a feminization of poverty. They are, however, also the principal victims of exclusion, of the precarious insertion based on exploitation, and the sumerged economy- a common theme on all of the continent.
The other point of globalization with reference to the actual market of work is based on the decrease of levels of social protection and the increase of exploitation- child labor (see UNICEF Information 1997). In Latin America, poverty has increased infant mortality, abandoned children, the phenomenon of "children of the street," as well as the increase of child labor in cities, mines, and in the country. Children are the most sensitive group to violation of rights, and as victims, will be the principal reproducers of poverty. There are millions of childrend that, due to chronic poverty, are not receiving basic necessities. This problem, marked with the complexities of urban poverty, deserves the immediate attention of ACSUR.
From this social point of view, in the panorama of superimposed inequalities, the indigenous people constitute a special unfavored social sector, with the problem of violation of their rights, marginization, structural poverty, displacement of forces...all adding up from centuries of domination.
From this comes the prioritized sectors that ACSUR should work with- popular sectors and indigenous people- that will be part of a transversal axle with women as the principal protagonists in every sector.
In this region, there persists grave problems of human development:
Less than three-quarters of the rural population has access to consumable water and only half have direct access to basic sanitary installations.
There are some 80 million illiterate people. Nine-million grade school-aged children and 15 million secondary school-aged children do not attend school.
In 1990, there were 73 million people living below the poverty line and more than 10 million that were under-nourished. Meanwhile, the defense expenditures were 5% of the GNP in 1970 and 12% of the GNP in 1989.
Only 17% of Arabic women form part of the active population in the structured economic sector. Women only occupied 4% of the Parliamentary seats, an inferior level compared to the world average of 10%.
The mortality of children under 5, 83 for every 1,000 live births, is less than five times worse than industrialized countries.
Given that there are annualy less than 1,000 cubic meters of water per capita, 55% of the population gravely suffers from the scarcity of water and are effected by diverse grades of desertion of the territory.
At the end of 1993, there wer more than one million refugees (UNDP, 1996, p.29)
There is a great amplitude to the inbalances of demographic-occupation growth in the Euro-mediterranean. If they continue, the actual tendencies, by the year 2010, the population of the Mediterranean countries of the European Union will only grow insignificantly, representing 34% of the Mediterranean population, in as many southern, adjacent, and eastern countries of the Mediterranean would grown until it reached 43.9% of the regional population.
Many investigators ask if this strong differential pressure, that also has a political, social, and economic correlation, will bring the inevitable persistence of migratory flow for a long period of time (presumably, until "equilibrium" is restored).
In synthesis, the structural situation in the region, characterized by inequality in the distribution of income, an abundant young population and the grave insatisfaction of basic human needs, is a propitious mark for the search for solutions on the other side of the Mediterranean. It favors the tendency of proximity, colonial relations, or of previous historic bonds,frequent contact, the knowledge of Europe gained by means of communication, the existence of immigrant networks that work in various countries, and the possibility of employing themselves in activities of the sumerged economy, such as agriculture, street businesses, etc.
It is necessary for a cooperation of solidarity to develop for the consolodation of productive and social processes. This cooperation should allow for stability for people in their places of origin through local development. This is the challenge that- whether late or early- NGOs should assume and politically fight for the defense of human rights in the countries around the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean as a challenge could be placed into two categories.
The first will consist of seminars and debates that permits the exchange of knowledge of the region. An important element that will bring to this process will be the establishment of mechanisms of sustained following and adjoining in the reality of Palestine, where we already have various finished and in-progress projects, drawing near and introducing progressions through eventual consorts with near-by NGOs, with experience in other countries of the region.
The second category, 1999-2000, without stopping the exchange of material of reflection, we intend to indentify the countries, social sectors, and strategic lines of work.