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Welcome to USAGOLD's "Gilded
Opinion" pages.
We invite you to browse our index
of outstanding gold-based commentary.
(Back to Holger Jensen Index)
While we find Mr. Jensen's columns particularly informative with respect to foreign affairs, his opinions do not necessarily represent those of Centennial Precious Metals, USAGOLD, its management and clientele.
INSIDE FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Human rights abuses spawn
much finger-pointing
by Holger Jensen, International Editor
The United Nations Human Rights Commission is engaged in its annual finger-pointing exercise at Geneva amidst concerns that human rights are taking a back seat to the war on terrorism.
Over six weeks it will hear hundreds of speeches by government representatives and nongovernmental activists on topics ranging from the death penalty to torture, child abuse and racism. But the principal worry is that repressive regimes are using the popular mantra of "fighting terrorism" as an excuse to crack down on political opponents or religious freedoms.
For the first time in the 56-year history of the 53-nation body, the United States is sitting on the sidelines with mere observer status.
We lost our seat last year because of European annoyance with President Bush for backing out of international treaties, Third World resentment of what many lesser nations regard as American arrogance, and displeasure throughout the General Assembly over our repeated failure to pay our share of U.N. dues.
That leaves such egregious human rights violators as Algeria, China, Congo, Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone and Sudan to hold court on themselves and fellow abusers -- which makes it a cynical exercise indeed.
But before we point too many fingers we should know that others are pointing their fingers at us.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson all have criticized the Bush administration for denying due process to suspected terrorists, including military tribunals for non-Americans, detention without charge for visa violators of Middle Eastern origin and refusing prisoner-of-war status to those taken in Afghanistan.
Robinson, a former Irish president who always prided herself on being "an awkward voice" of conscience, was so outspoken in her criticism that many believe U.S. pressure forced her ouster.
"It is widely known that officials in Washington had pressed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan not to ask her to serve out the last three years of her second term," said a statement issued by Amnesty.
The Irish Times agreed, noting that while Robinson joined "in the universal condemnation of mass terrorism, she warned governments against allowing military and security countermeasures to supersede their human rights commitments and the relationship between justice and the political order.
"This made her unpopular, especially with the Bush administration and its ideological allies."
Yet Robinson's criticisms were not only justified but badly needed. As Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch points out: "Human rights around the world are under siege. In response to Sept. 11, too many countries have adopted the logic of terrorists that anything goes.
"Governments around the world are cynically using the banner of anti-terrorism to justify crackdowns on internal opposition, and other countries are happy to turn a blind eye to the brutality of their allies in the anti-terror cause."
Among those "other countries" is ours.
The annual human rights report of our own State Department faults key allies in the war on terrorism including Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya, where separatists are alleged to have links to al-Qaida,include "disappearances, extrajudicial killings, extortion, torture and arbitrary detention," said State's report.
In China, the report said, authorities are using the war on terrorism as a pretext to crack down on Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang Province
In Uzbekistan, which provided a base for U.S. search and rescue operations in the Afghan campaign, security forces "tortured, beat, harassed and arbitrarily arrested persons on false charges, particularly Muslims" who rejected the state's officially sanctioned version of their religion.
This did not stop Bush from hosting Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Washington and tripling U.S. aid to his country.
Finger-pointing by State or the U.N. does "shed light on the darkest of abuses," as Secretary of State Colin Powell put it. But it doesn't mean much if everyone then pats themselves on the back and goes back to business as usual.
March 23, 2002
Send your questions to international editor Holger Jensen, who will answer one each day. E-mail: hjens@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 The E.W. Scripps Co. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by USAGOLD with permission of Mr. Jensen. No further reproduction without permission.
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