Last week on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) called attention to the June 2009 murder of Salvadoran mining activist Gustavo Marcelo Rivera—which is still unresolved—and pointed to the urgency of addressing issues of justice and impunity in El Salvador.
WOLA applauds the speech. With the one-year anniversary of the Funes Administration rapidly approaching, we hope to see concrete actions by his government—the Attorney General, the police, and other institutions—to address unresolved human rights concerns in El Salvador.
Adam Isacson Joins WOLA Regional Security Program Team
The Washington Office on Latin America is pleased to announce a new addition to its staff. Adam Isacson recently joined us as a senior associate on WOLA's Regional Security Policy Program.
Isacson has long experience as an analyst and advocate on peace, security, military assistance and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 1995, he ran the Center for International Policy's Latin America Security Program, where he helped create and maintain "Just the Facts," a comprehensive website and series of publications about U.S. military relations with the rest of the hemisphere (http://www.justf.org/) This work led him to focus particularly on Colombia, the region's largest recipient of U.S. military aid during the 1990s and 2000s.
At WOLA, Isacson will continue to develop "Just the Facts," a critical tool for citizen oversight and transparency over U.S. military relations with Latin America. He will also lead WOLA's Regional Security Team, which includes Senior Fellow George Withers, Fellow Lucila Santos and Program Assistant Colin Smith. This team addresses military issues including: transparency over increasing arms transfers and defense spending; appropriate civilian and military roles in democracies threatened by organized crime; restructuring and reform of U.S. security assistance and counter-drug programs; and the U.S. military's growing role in U.S.-Mexico border security and in setting overall policy toward the hemisphere.
WOLA is concerned that U.S. policy remains too narrowly focused on threats and military assistance. Working with partners throughout the region, we want a policy that helps build civilian capacities and relationships, promotes peaceful conflict resolution, and puts the highest priority on strengthening the rule of law and ending impunity. With this goal always in mind, WOLA welcomes Adam Isacson and looks forward to adding his expertise to an already top-notch security team.
WOLA supports the victims’ families in their struggle for truth and justice, promotes initiatives that will lead to greater accountability and transparency in Mexico’s law enforcement and judicial institutions, calls for the sanction of government officials that failed to adequately investigate the murders because of negligence or omission, supports the work of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) to identify unknown remains of murdered women, and encourages all sectors to support efforts to eliminate violence against women through education, prevention, and effective investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators.
WOLA also works to engage U.S. policymakers in efforts to prevent and punish the murders of women in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua.
WOLA is concerned by the increasing role of the Mexican military in public security and counter-narcotics efforts. WOLA encourages efforts to strengthen the civilian police corps and for the establishment of a clear-cut distinction between military tasks and policing tasks in law-and-order functions.
WOLA supports the protection of the human rights of formerly gang-involved individuals, who are frequently victims of gang violence as well as victims of a legal system in which their rights cannot be guaranteed. We also support the protection of the human rights of any individual persecuted by gang violence.
WOLA seeks to engage with Latino organizations in the United States, and with partners in Central America, working to promote best practices that address gangs in a comprehensive manner.WOLA opposes current U.S. policy toward Cuba. The four-decades long policy of isolation and of “punishing” the Cuban government has only succeeded in harming the average Cuban while having little effect on the Cuban government. As do others in the human rights community, WOLA is critical of human rights violations in Cuba. While respectful of Cuban sovereignty, we believe that the most beneficial way to influence the state of human right and democracy on the island is by engaging with Cuban society.
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