"The seed of respect"

Environmental crimes are crimes against humanity, not just against species of flora and fauna, says Helen Mack, a leading human rights activist in Guatemala. "The greatest utopia is a society the lives and feels the sublimity of nature," she said in a conversation with Tierramérica.

SAN JOSE - Helen Mack, of Guatemala, has won international admiration for her fight for respect for human rights since the 1990 assassination of her sister, Myrna Mack, a noted anthropologist, at the hands of a military commando.

Myrna was stabbed to death. The authorities reported it as common murder. But the perseverance of Helen, at the helm of the organization she founded, the Mack Foundation, ultimately revealed that the assassination was planned by the armed forces.

In 1993 the courts found the perpetrator guilty of the crime, and one of the three men accused of masterminding the killing, retired colonel Juan Valencia Osorio, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Now, focusing her efforts on the sustainable development issue, Helen Mack assures that "the greatest utopia is a society the lives and feels the sublimity of nature." It is there, she says in an exclusive interview with Tierramérica, that the seed of respect is found, and the future of the defense of all human rights.

Q - A crime against nature is often referred to as "eco-cide". What is the worst eco-cide in Latin America?
A - The destruction of the forests and the contamination of water sources. From these arise many other crimes, which above all are true criminal attacks against humanity, not only against species of flora and fauna.

Q - If you were a judge and were a sort of "Baltazar Garzón of the environment", who would you issue an arrest warrant for? (Garzón is the Spanish judge who rose to fame in his attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, to face trial for crimes against humanity.)
A - For the mafias that are destroying the forests, for the government officials who collude with those criminals. I would also make a list of industries to force them to operate under terms that respect nature, and I would promote preventive programs and not just promises of compensation for damages caused.

Q - What would be the greatest utopia for an environmentalist?
A - The greatest utopia is a society the lives and feels the sublimity of nature, a society that acts out of respect above anything else. This utopia would not be anything new. Hesiod proposed it in his writing "The Work and Days" some nine centuries before our era. This would require freeing ourselves from individualism and from anthropocentrism.

Q - Is it true that environmentalists are like watermelons? Green on the outside, red (socialist) on the inside?
A - I don't think so. We need to break those stereotypes that have been stigmatized with the color red. What happens is that environmentalists inevitably reach a point at which they question the system. They ultimately have to fight the market, consumerism, individualism and power relations.

Q - Is there an antidote to poverty?
A - There is no magic potion. The fight against poverty requires a combination of different factors in order to create social well being. These include strong commitment, political will and a drastic reform of the existing social, cultural, economic and political structures.

Q - How would you explain to a child -- for instance, the child of a member of the Guatemalan military -- what human rights are? (In many ways, Guatemala is still recovering from a bloody 36-year civil war in which the military is blamed for a large portion of the grave human rights violations committed in that time.)
A - I would use the same teaching methodology I would use with any child. It is believed that children with military parents are exposed to militarism and to the shadowy notions that members of the military defend, but that is no reason to discriminate against or exclude these children.

* Néfer Muñoz is an IPS correspondent