2007 Activities

An OSI grantee, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team–Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (EAAF), launched a massive public campaign to collect blood samples from families of the disappeared in Latin America. The samples will be processed in a soon-to-be-completed DNA laboratory, the first of its kind in the region. EAAF’s cofounder, Mercedes Doretti, received a 2007 MacArthur Award in recognition of this important work.

Another grantee, the Washington Office on Latin America, helped win U.S. support for Guatemala’s International Commission Against Impunity by underscoring its importance in the fight against corruption, organized crime, and impunity in Guatemala.

In Mexico, OSI and the Revenue Watch Institute sponsored a study by Fundar and the Asociación Ecológica Santo Tomás that indicated the state of Tabasco was not managing revenues from the national oil company, PEMEX, in a transparent manner. Six weeks after the report, Mexico’s legislature introduced measures calling for an audit of PEMEX’s resource distribution. In addition, PEMEX announced new guidelines to strengthen transparency and accountability at the state level.

In Peru, a country rich in mineral resources, federal law stipulates that half of the income taxes paid by mining companies to the central government should go to the communities and regions directly affected by the mining. With support from the Latin America Program and the Revenue Watch Institute, Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana (GPC), a group of 11 NGOs throughout Peru, has worked hard to assert civic oversight of these funds. GPC research and advocacy has persuaded the government and mining companies to begin cooperating with citizen monitoring efforts, and there are indications that tax collection has improved.