Last November, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ecuador, Kintto Lucas, said his country would propose the creation of a human rights commission as an alternative to the IACHR in the CELAC.In this context, the division director for Latin America of Human Rights Watch (HRW), José Miguel Vivanco, responded to the President of the Republic of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, regarding the proposal to reform the Inter American system of human rights on the eve of CELAC’s founding summit recently held in Caracas.
In his statement addressed to the presidents of Latin America and the Caribbean, Vivanco widely defends the inter-American system and criticizes President Correa for too frequently using private broadcasting companies for State purposes with national chains.
On the other hand, Correa denounced the abuses of human rights institutions to his government and accused them of being manipulated, in that sense Ecuador suggested the creation of an alternative human rights monitoring system independent of manipulation by Western powers. Previously, Correa also claimed that the “Freedom of Speech section of the inter-American system is 80% funded by the European Union, an institution outside the continent”.
Vivanco was expelled from Venezuela in 2008 while presenting a report on Human Rights to lobby the opposition and kept a profile of attack against the progressive governments of the region. That nation's foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, said, "Vivanco was reporting as an assault emanating from government agencies of the United States and its removal should lead to celebrations in the streets for being an act of sovereign will."
Likewise, it has also been widely reported that the private media outlets that violate the new media laws in Latin American countries, helping or starring in coups or coup attempts as happened in Honduras and Ecuador, find legal refuge in institutions of the inter- American system mostly headquartered in the United States.
