Memoria de la V Conferencia Nacional sobre Derechos Humanos

INAUGURAL LESSONThe incidence of violence and insecurity is undermining the public space and limiting the rights andcitizen freedoms.The National Human Development Report of Honduras for 2006 indicates that according to anational survey conducted in the framework of the Report, “46% of the persons no longer walk on thestreets due to violence and insecurity, 39% has limited their recreation activities, 16% has rejected a job,16% has stopped to participate in associative activities, and 18% was thinking of leaving the countrydue to insecurity.”That report also remarks the flowering of a culture of informality and illegality, as “20% of theinterviewed persons approved the idea of taking justice in their own hands; 23% declared that laws arediscretionally respected; 50% think that a person has the right to kill in self-defense, and 28% justifiesthe homicide of a person who kept the community scared.”IV. Citizen Participation and Democratic GovernanceThe legitimacy of democratic governance requires citizen participation.Such participation transcends the exercise of electoral suffrage and goes into citizen participationfor the construction of a vision for the country at short, middle and long term, and the citizenparticipation for the tracking and monitoring of public policies and actions of social auditing,among others.Citizen participation requires on one part, political will on the part of the state for the opening ofspaces to guaranty the same. On the other part, it needs the commitment of the citizens to the commongood.It is here where it is important to highlight that the modern conceptualization of citizenship includesnot only the rights, but also the obligations and social responsibilities of the citizens.One could argue that in societies where the basic freedoms are not satisfied, where thepopulation struggles daily to seek the sustenance for life, it is difficult, but not impossible to talk ofcitizen participation. This is a challenge for democracy. How to build a civic culture to ensure theinvolvement and participation even of the citizens living in precarious conditions? Even more, howto generate the economical, social, political and cultural conditions to facilitate the participationof the excluded?The development of a country and the human development of its people can be catapulted by abroad democratic governance when citizens and/or their organizations, through processes of advocacyand participation in the monitoring of public management, identify policies and propose concreteactions that allow them to exercise their rights and freedoms, as well as their obligations and socialresponsibilities.– 455 –