Mr. Javier Zuniga, a native of Mexico, decided he needed a respite from his job in London as the Amnesty International Director for the Department of Research for the Americas. However, rather than quietly devoting his one year sabbatical, which started in October, to academic pursuits, he decided to do something more challenging and took advantage of an offer to become the new Director of Human Rights for MICIVIH, replacing Mr. Ian Martin who left in July. Mr. Zuniga, who arrived on October 12, said that he regards, "the work of MICIVIH as an investment in Haiti," and he looks forward to the contribution he can make.

The political predicament in Haiti and the plight of the Haitian people has long been a concern of Mr. Zuniga's. He began working on projects with Amnesty related to Haiti in 1979 and traveled to the country six times during the period 1983 to 1995 in order to investigate the human rights situation. During these years he established contacts with prominent government officials and local organizations, but the primary focus of his work involved inquiring into the abysmal conditions of the prisons. This work entailed locating the many prisoners who had vanished, investigating charges of police abuse and examining prison conditions. But Mr. Zuniga has not given up his search for certain prisoners, "I still remember their names, ____ and ____ and I hope they will never forget them in this country." He believes that the current political climate may make it easier to locate them.

Mr. Zuniga contends that prison conditions have changed dramatically since 1993, but he can't forget the brutality of the system that once existed, "a prisoner had to pay for everything, he even had to pay so that he would not be beaten-up." He asserts that there are far fewer cases of arbitrary arrest and beatings now. He attributes this change to the emergence of the new Haitian National Police and to the judicial reform that is underway. One major transformation he has noted with regard to the work of MICIVIH in 1995, as opposed to 1993, is the access observers have to the prisons. In 1993 access was limited, where as today observers are free to visit and talk to prisoners and are thus in a much better position to monitor cases of possible violations. He hopes that after MICIVIH vacates Haiti, penal reform and judicial reform will continue. However, he is concerned that some of the old methods are still entrenched in the Haitian system: "Countries are like a river and, therefore, the old ways will not disappear, they will simply be transformed."

Another transformation that Mr. Zuniga believes has taken place in Haiti since 1993 is the dramatic improvement in the human rights situation. He maintains that because there is currently no pattern of human rights abuses committed by the state, the emphasis of MICIVIH's mandate should move towards civic education. Mr. Zuniga is concerned about the manner in which the program should proceed and feels that there is a fine line between preaching and teaching, "people intuitively know what their rights are, therefore, you have to know how to say things otherwise you end up sounding like a missionary and when that happens the civic education disappears and people become like objects." Mr. Zuniga's vision for the structure of a civic education program entails building the society from both ends of the economic strata. "First, you build from the bottom up, allowing the state to become more consolidated. At the same time you do work at the top and you allow that to filter down, but there is a lot of space to fill in the middle of the structure." Mr. Zuniga admits that such a program will take generations to realize, "each generation will be better prepared than the next, but you can't be over zealous and we must understand the limitations of such a program." He hopes that the recent seminars on civic education which took place on October 26 and 27 will provide a forum for constructing this vital program.

Mr. Zuniga has also witnessed a dramatic change in the security situation in Haiti since 1993 and believes that, "by and large, Haiti is now a very secure country." Such change was evident between a visit to Haiti in March and another one in June of this year. In March he visited areas around Hinche, Gonaives, Cap Haitian, Les Cayes and Mirebalais where there was no MNF presence. In these regions the issue of security was very much on people's minds. He visited these same places and met with many of the same people in June after MICIVIH and MINUHA had begun their work and noticed a vast improvement in terms of how the locals felt about their security. He contends that this feeling of security will persist even after MICIVIH and UNMIH leave the region, despite the fears that have been expressed by many Haitians that once the UN apparatus is gone, many former members of FAd'H and FRAHP will resurface. According to Mr. Zuniga, "the security of the state depends very much on the ability of the state to project an image of security to the country." In this respect he feels that the HNP will add to the growing sense of security that the country is already experiencing.

Although Mr. Zuniga's passion lies in the human rights field, his interests were not always in this area. He began his career as an agronomist and has a degree in agronomy from the International School of Agriculture in Mexico City. While pursuing the highly technical study of agronomy in Mexico, he noticed that he was captivated by the land reform and peasant reform movements that were transpiring in Mexico during the early 1960's. He began to observe that, "at the heart of these conflicts were human rights violations." This early experience led him to take a harder look at the social aspects of the economy in Mexico as well as the rest of Latin America. He continued his post-academic studies in Paris and then returned to Mexico to teach agronomy. In 1977, he began work with Amnesty International. His work with Amnesty provided the final impetus to shift his career from agronomist to human rights worker.