A U.S. citizen in Peruvian jail may be looking at another two years before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights reaches a final judgement on the merits of the case.

A member of the secretariat of the court said complicated cases can take up to two years to reach a conclusion. The case of Lori Berenson is still in its initial phase.

The court accepted the application filed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the Berenson case during its last session, and has not set a date to move the case into a further stage.

A member of the secretariat of the court said the Berenson case is unusual, because, besides the commission’s application, the state of Peru also requested that the court look into its human rights practices.

The member said a state has never before called on the court to investigate its human rights system. Peru is challenging the court to vindicate its judicial system of the commission’s claims.  The commisison was critical of how the Berenson case was handled.

The court will hear from three parties: the Berenson side, the Peruvian side, and the human rights commission side. One lawyer appointed by the court will present the facts from the Peruvian and Berenson sides.

Miss Berenson has been imprisoned in Peru since 1995. The state convicted her of high treason under military law and sentenced her to life in jail. Miss Berenson was accused of leading a terrorist organization.

Peru later threw out her conviction under military law and tried her under civil law. Miss Berenson 

In 2001, Peru’s civil court sentenced Miss Berenson 

Miss Berenson ...in file photo

to 20 years in prison for allegedly collaborating in terrorism. The human rights commission’s application to the human rights court said the laws used to convict Miss Berenson in both the military and civil trials were not in line with the standards of the American Convention, of which Peru is a signator.

In Peru’s petition to the court it asked the court to find that all human rights practices with regard to its legal system and the Berenson case were up to the standards of the American Convention. 

Peru did not request that the court look into the part of the case where Berenson faced a military tribunal. The human rights commission said “faceless” military judges presided over that trial. 

The human rights court is currently in session here until Nov. 30. 

The court will hear how this case is progressing from the lawyers, but it will not make any decisions besides maybe setting a time to judge the case. 

The human rights court said in its press release from the last session it will judge the merits of Peru’s claims and the commission’s claims at the same time. 

According to a member of the court’s staff it is possible the case will enter a new phase sometime next year, and some of the hearings will be open to the public. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The need for nations of the Western Hemisphere to cooperate more closely on security issues has increased in the face of both traditional and emerging threats to regional stability, according to Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. secretary of defense.

"Our hemisphere faces a number of old threats: drugs, organized crime, illegal arms trafficking, hostage-taking, piracy and money laundering," Rumsfeld said, "and new threats such as cyber-crime, and still-unknown terrorist threats which can emerge without warning."

Rumsfeld made these comments Tuesday at the meeting of Western Hemisphere defense ministers held in Santiago, Chile. He departed later that day for the Czech Republic to attend the NATO summit in Prague, where as many as seven European nations may be admitted as new members of that trans-Atlantic security organization.

The secretary of defense said he was struck by the "similarities of our objectives" at both the Santiago and Prague conferences, such as consolidating democratic progress, identifying and better understanding the new threats of the 21st century, and transforming individual and collective military capabilities to meet those threats.

To increase defense cooperation in the Americas, Rumsfeld said, ministers at the Santiago conference should consider a pair of proposed initiatives involving the region's naval forces and peacekeeping capabilities.

The naval initiative would include not just strengthened planning, command, and information-sharing capabilities among partner nations, but also cooperation among the coast guards, customs, and police forces in the region.

Hemispheric peacekeeping forces could be improved, Rumsfeld said, by integrating the specialized capabilities of individual nations into a larger regional capability.

Rumsfeld also emphasized that elected governments "have the responsibility to exercise sovereign authority throughout their national territories," noting comments by his Colombian counterpart that narco-terrorists, hostage-takers and arms smugglers use the ungoverned areas of the Western Hemisphere "as bases from which to destabilize democratic governments."

Canadian wheat imports
given go-ahead

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dumping and subsidy investigations into imports of wheat from Canada have been approved to go forward by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

By a 4-1 vote Tuesday, the commissioners made a preliminary determination that the evidence of injury or threat to the U.S. industry sufficed at least to let the investigations proceed on the imports of Canadian durum wheat and hard red spring wheat.

A negative determination would have ended the investigations at this early stage.

Similarly, imposition of antidumping duties requires final affirmative determinations from Commerce on dumping and from commission on injury.

Preliminary determinations from Commerce are due by Dec. 27 on subsidies and March 12 on dumping.

Imports, nearly all from Canada, accounted in 2001-02 for a 21.5 percent share of the U.S. durum wheat market and a 16.3 percent of the hard red spring wheat market. U.S. imports from Canada in 2001-02 amounted to $86 million for durum wheat and $210 million for hard red spring wheat.

Dumping is the import of goods at a price below the home-market or a third-country price or below the cost of production. A dumping margin represents by how much the fair-value price exceeds the dumped price. A subsidy is a grant conferred on a producer by a government.

Protestors challenge
Caracas police takeover

CARACAS, Venezuela — Anti-government demonstrators have blocked a busy highway here with vehicles and piles of burning trash to protest the army's takeover of the city police force. 

The demonstrators blocked the city's Francisco Fajardo highway late Tuesday before authorities stepped in to clear the roadway. 

Hours earlier, National Guard troops fired tear gas to separate pro-government activists from thousands of marchers protesting the takeover. There were no immediate reports of injuries. 

The soldiers took action as opponents of President Hugo Chavez marched to the National Assembly to deliver a petition demanding that he restore the police force's autonomy. 

Chavez says he took control of the metropolitan police from Mayor Alfredo Peña to prevent anarchy in the wake of a strike by some police officers. The president said the takeover was necessary, but gave no timetable for when it would end. 

Peña told news sources the president could order similar takeovers of other local police forces to consolidate power and avoid an early vote on his rule. 

Chavez is resisting calls for a vote next month on whether he should voluntarily step down. His opponents say he is trying to model the oil-producing country on communist-run Cuba and that his policies are leading Venezuela toward ruin. 

The president says a referendum can only take place next August, when he is halfway through his term.
 

The Judicial Investigation Organization is looking into the murder of a 22-year-old man found dead in a drainage canal in central Limón Monday afternoon.

Initially, investigators thought the victim, Eddier Olando Sandi, had drowned until a bullet wound was discovered in Olando’s back.

Olando lived 100 meters from where his body was found and was believed to have left his house some 15 minutes before the shooting occurred, according to officials.

In an unrelated case, a 42-year-old Nicaraguan man drowned while trying to cross a river in Cochen de Batán, a Limón neighborhood. The man was identified as Alyandue Mena Mendoza.

A neighbor alerted police Monday afternoon when he observed Mena being carried away by the river’s current, according to the police report. Police discovered Mena’s body later that evening.
 

Churches may see end 
to broadcast constraints

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Churches and religious groups here may soon be able to own broadcast radio and television stations if a controversial new legislative proposal is enacted. The passage of the new law would be a significant victory for religious groups that have been battling for decades for such legislation. 

The proposal is part of the new media reform package promised by President Vicente Fox, who says it's designed to open free channels of communication through an independent and impartial press. Churches remain the only organizations that are still barred from the right to engage in broadcasting. All other segments of society have such a right under the country’s emerging democracy. 

Strict anti-clerical laws have limited the power and influence of the Catholic Church for most of the past century here. These laws are the legacy of a bloody civil war in the 1920s between the Church and supporters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. That party had ruled the country uninterrupted for 71 years until the election of Fox two years ago.
 
 

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