A study in hypocrisy
Next week Hong Kong faces the UN Human Rights Committee. After last week's unusually harsh criticism in Washington's annual rights report, the session may turn heated. However, US reports on human rights abuses in other nations have come to be treated more like Rodney Dangerfield than Simon Wiesenthal.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Next week Hong Kong faces the UN Human Rights Committee. After last week's unusually harsh criticism in Washington's annual rights report, the session may turn heated. However, US reports on human rights abuses in other nations have come to be treated more like Rodney Dangerfield than Simon Wiesenthal.
Wiesenthal was the World War II death camp prisoner turned Nazi hunter. His dogged lifelong determination to bring those who had tormented and murdered innocents to justice created a legacy of lasting respect. On the other hand, Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic, constantly lamented he could get no respect.
His wife scorned him, his friends ridiculed him, even his own dog bit him.
The latest US report triggered an unprecedented wave of disparagement. Rights-abusing states once feared being named and shamed. Not now. Most commentary scoffed that on human rights, the US should not point fingers.
It got no respect.
Russia charged the report "abounds in clear juggling of facts and is a specimen of unconcealed double standards." Pakistan said it lacked objectivity, pointing out while it was roundly criticized, Israel and Saudi Arabia were not even named. An American spokesman, asked about Saudi Arabia where women are not even permitted to drive or vote while they can do both in Pakistan, said he would not make comparisons between countries.
Very convincing.
In Iraq, the report insists, "2005 was a year of major progress for democracy, democratic rights and freedom."
Tell that to Iraqis terrified death squads will snatch them or their loved ones or fearful a bomb will go off in their market while shopping or their mosque while praying. The government elected with American backing more than three months ago has yet to even form.
Meanwhile, GeorgeWBush insists things are getting better. Mission accomplished, almost.
Right.
Venezuela's vice-president derided the report as "toilet paper." The US has no right to opine on such topics, he mocked. China primly suggested the US should concentrate on improving its own rights record instead of criticizing others. The mistreatment of blacks in New Orleans after Katrina and Iraqis in its custody leaves little room to point fingers, China noted.
Normally respectful Hong Kong even gave the report short shrift.
While serious concerns should be raised at the UN, the result could be disappointing. And the Democratic Party, by stopping democratic progress here with their vote against constitutional reform, may discover their submission getting little respect too.
Given what we now know of US behavior, it is hard to argue with this scornful response.
US soldiers have been caught on tape using torture in Abu Ghraib. Suspicious deaths have taken place repeatedly of those in American custody. Hundreds in Guantanamo Bay have been locked up without charges or any notice to their families or access to a lawyer.
Former jailers have admitted that "detainees" have been chained to the ceiling for hours, and that the names of prisoners were kept secret until they were recently forced to reveal them.
Shades of Soviet Gulags.
The New York Times revealed government spies on US citizens without court authorization, a practice the American Civil Liberties Union calls a breech of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights which requires judicial oversight of such state powers.
Far from being repentant about this repellent rights record even its EU ally condemns, Bush wants a crackdown on the media for revealing abuses. Journalists should be locked up if they will not name their source, he insists. They betrayed state secrets.
Yet the report criticizes China for locking up journalists on the same charge. When is a state secret not a state secret, Mr President? How are yours different?
Both states mistreat the press. China offends rights more often and to a greater extent provides little consolation.
During the Vietnam era the US military reported it had to destroy a village and everyone in it in order to "save" it from communists. Bush just as unconvincingly protests he has to destroy freedom - the right to privacy and a free press - in order to save it from terrorists.
The US has pushed for a new UN Human Rights Council. It rightly felt abusive states like Syria, Burma and Zimbabwe damaged the present committee's credibility. But its own poor record hampers progress toward a more convincing forum on human rights.
Bush allegedly worships the private sector. The US should privatize its report - put it into the hands of an evenhanded, trusted, respected organization like Amnesty International. Amnesty has criticized the United States, China, Israel and Saudi Arabia alike for rights abuses.
Amnesty regards abuse as abuse wherever a human of whatever nationality is concerned. That deserves respect.
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