The registration of applications for the selection of the person who will be in charge of the Ombudsman’s Office for a period of four years has just closed. Yes to inhabitants of the country, including foreigners, prisoners, Costa Rican indigenous peoples or not, boys and girls, third-party people, heterosexuals, homosexuals and other LGBT people, in short, to the entire population. But the central issue is that the Congress has a lot of variety among the 17 candidates, without a doubt the vast majority will be people with great professional and academic qualifications, the best intentions, but what is the most important thing?
If we make a historical recount of the previous elections, it can be easily concluded that the positions have fallen to people with a duly marked political past. Do not think that I want to demonize the candidacies that have an electoral color: never. What I would love, and I think the majority of the country’s population would love, is for someone to be elected who is independent, brave, who has the strength to say no when they have to, and who stands up to injustice. The figure of Ombudsman it is very relevant in many countries, it is even the object of many pressures and attacks by powerful groups when they see that their interests are at some type of risk, precisely when an independent person with their own criteria is in charge. In other words, in general terms, any person who protects human rights can be in danger, therefore, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has pointed out that “It would be convenient for member states to adopt effective and comprehensive prevention strategies in order to prevent attacks against human rights defenders. This prevention and protection policy should take into account the periods of greatest vulnerability of human rights defenders. State authorities must remain vigilant during such periods and make public their commitment to support and protect”.
Well, that is exactly what we need in the country, a woman, a man, in short, a person who carries out his work with determination, with transparency and who assumes the weight of his obligations for the well-being of the country. Therefore, there can be no agreements, compromises, negotiations or particular commitments in the election process, but total transparency to elect the best person, whether or not they are politically colored, I believe that the inhabitants of this country deserve it.
Few conflicts await the chosen person, starting with the issue of the restitution of indigenous lands, it will require a great capacity for dialogue, knowledge of the worldview of the original peoples, which includes the spirituality of indigenous peoples in its interrelation with nature, its traditional authorities, its Own Law or Indigenous Law, its forms of conflict resolution to achieve balance and social peace, its original, ancestral or traditionally occupied territories and the natural resources immersed in them, among others. (And finally, it will require above all common sense, so that incidents or setbacks do not occur that could endanger the recognition and restitution of the rights of our indigenous people.
I wish congratulations to the chosen person, an absolute success, and that there be no previous commitments in their actions, because the only one they should have is their obligation to act for the good of all the people who inhabit this country.
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And now, who can defend us? The election in the Ombudsman Office