My name is Jackson Day and I have been a resident of Howard County for 25 years. I am a member of several Howard County groups supporting human rights, including the Howard County Human Rights Commission and Howard County Friends of Latin America (or HoCoFoLa). Tonight I am speaking on behalf of HoCoFoLa.
We are asking you to approve resolution #46-1999 in support of HoCoFoLa's Chiapas Partnership Project. A request for some wording changes in the resolution to use slightly broader language in a few instances in keeping with the spirit of the project will be introduced at the proper time.
The Chiapas Partnership Project will support a volunteer to live in Chiapas, Mexico, for one year. The volunteer, an attorney from Baltimore, will work with human rights organizations seeking a peaceful and just resolution for conflicts which are taking place in Chiapas, keep us informed about the situation, and alert us to human rights violations. We hope to establish cultural connections and partnerships between people and organizations in Chiapas and people and organizations here. The volunteer recently made an exploratory trip to Chiapas where she met people from the human rights groups with which she hopes to work.
We believe this project is necessary and important because human rights are being violated in Chiapas. For example, in December 1997, more than 40 unarmed persons, primaily women and children and old men, were massacred as they prayed in church. They were killed by paramilitaries who work in close coooperation with Mexican security forces. Those murdered were people who were seeking to improve the conditions of their lives, and they were independent of any other existing groups. Unfortunately, this particular incident is not isolated but simply an example of many such incidents. To compound the matter, there are reports of U. S. military training, as well as equipment such as helicopters, intended for counter-drug efforts, being mis-applied to intimidate and harass Mexican citizens who are struggling to have their voices heard. Whether human rights violations take place because the victims are poor, or because they are members of a particular ethnic group, or because they are in the way of others who want their resources, or for some other reason, it is wrong for the killing and the suffering to take place.
Human rights abuses are most likely to take place when the perpetrators believe no-one is watching, and so the very presence of outside volunteers such as we are sponsoring reduces the chances of abuses taking place. Rarely does a small effort have the chance to do so much to save lives.
We are asking for your assistance by approving resolution 46-1999, for several reasons.
First, passage of the resolution will be an important boost to HoCoFoLa's efforts to raise the awareness of this project in the Howard County community. Additionally, it will provide encouragement to those working in Chiapas to promote human rights.
Second, passage of this resolution will be an appropriate expression of the County Council's own commitment to Human Rights. HoCoFoLa's attention is given to issues which touch the hearts of our citizens. When opportunities for civic participation are denied, when people are tortured and killed based on their ethnicity or economic status, when whole communities are turned into refugees through ethnic cleansing, as has been happening in Chiapas, when the Mayan communities' efforts to secure the same basic human rights and democratic freedoms we enjoy in Howard County are met with a repressive crackdown and intimidation by the Mexican Government, it is important for bodies everywhere in the world to say, "This is not right. We would not want these things to happen here. We will speak out about them when they happen there."
Third, passage of the resolution will express your appreciation of the importance of voluntary humanitarian efforts in the Howard County community. HoCoFoLa is an all-volunteer, grassroots, non-profit organization composed of a cross-section of Howard County citizens who contribute their time, their energy, and their financial resources on behalf of human rights. In the United States, we take for granted the existence of groups such as HoCoFoLa, but you need only talk to people from foreign countries to realize what a uniquely American phenomenon this is, and how essential it is to the fabric of our own democracy. While our efforts are focused on Latin America, the very existence of groups like HoCoFoLa makes Howard County a better place.
Other members of HoCoFoLa are here to ask, by their presence, for your support of HoCoFoLa and the Chiapas Partnership Project, and I would like to ask if they would stand for a moment at this time.
Thank you.