U.S. ignores its own rights violations but slams others
U.S. ignores its own rights violations but slams others
By Arif Havas Ugroseno
JAKARTA (JP): The United States' Department of States handed
down its annual verdicts on the human rights reports on Jan. 30,
1998.
The verdicts touched on virtually all countries but each
verdict comes with different colors and music, depending on
national interests towards the targeted countries.
It goes without saying that the verdicts are not applicable to
the judge. The United States has conveniently played the role of
human rights judge for more than 20 years.
Students of American domestic politics know the meaning of
American "exceptionalism": the United States is different from,
and superior to, most other countries because of its purported
domestic commitment to individual rights.
The isolationist variant of American exceptionalism, expressed
with particular clarity in George Washington's farewell address,
advocates the country as a beacon of hope for an oppressed world,
but only as an example, not as an active participant in the
struggle for freedom overseas.
On the other hand, the interventionist American exceptionalism
stresses an active American mission to spread its values through
direct foreign policy, even military force.
American exceptionalism believes that human rights problems
exist only in far away lands that must be reached by muddy roads
or large bodies of salt water. So, other countries have massive
human rights problems but the U.S. only has minor problems of
police brutality, civil rights problems or a health care crisis,
which are stated as if they are entirely different from torture,
racial discrimination and denial to the right to good health.
The facts show that the U.S. has a very poor human rights
record. A tip of the human rights violation iceberg that is worth
excavating. It is a public knowledge that racism is in no way
diminishing. Racial violence erupts frequently.
Racism is so pervasive and institutionalized that almost all
aspects of life is plagued it. Since 1995, there has been more
than 40 black churches burned down by white racists. There have
been environmentally racist acts. Three of the five largest sites
for hazardous commercial waste are in African-American or
Hispanic populated areas, with 60 percent of these minorities
living in areas with hazardous waste sites. Indian reservations
are also targets pursued by waste disposal companies.
In 1995 alone there were 458 cases of anti-Asian violence and
72,864 human rights violations perpetrated against Mexicans.
Since 1990, more than 100 Mexicans have died because of American
police brutality and border patrols, but impunity reigns supreme.
The U.S. human rights record outside its territorial
boundaries is also far from exemplary. Since the U.S. was
established 200 years ago, it has launched more than 70 wars and
aggressions, killing countless of foreign civilians.
The rape of a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa in 1995 by American
soldiers and the beating to death of a Korean woman in 1996 by an
American soldier are examples of American human rights practices.
Since 1967, 34,900 rapes, beatings and murders of local people
by American soldiers based in South Korea have been reported.
During the Okinawa outrage, American troops "accidentally" fired
1,520 uranium tipped bullets on an island near Okinawa.
American exceptionalism also makes an exception as to which
human rights deserve its attention. Clearly, the U.S. selects
civil and political rights and certain elements of property
rights as human rights and denigrates economic and social rights
because it perceives economic and social rights as the invention
of communist and developing countries.
The domestic and international sides of this arrogance come
together in the U.S.'s refusal to ratify the International Human
Covenants, as well as most other international human rights
treaties. In the spring of 1992, the U.S. finally did ratify the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but with
massive and substantial reservations, making the ratified treaty
looks like a senile tiger.
Naturally, it is not likely that the U.S. would give serious
considerations to ratifying the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, reflecting its rejection of
such rights.
The U.S. has failed to ratify the Convention on the Rights of
the Child 1990, although the state of American children is
worsening. America has the highest rate of violence against
children in the industrialized world and the highest child
fatality rate in the world arising from shootings, homicides and
suicides. The U.S. has characteristically held other countries to
international human rights standards and procedures that it has
refused to allow to be applied to itself.
When scrutinized by international human rights mechanisms, the
U.S. becomes surprisingly and outrageously defensive. Senator
Jesse Helms, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman,
declared the results of a visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial killings as an "intentional insult" and labels the
visit as "an absurd UN charade" and a "strange investigation
which is intended to be merely a platform for more outrageous
accusations from U.S. critics at the UN."
The UN Special Rapporteur asserts that some U.S. death
sentences result from proceedings which fall short of
international guarantees for a fair trial. A counterattack was
also launched against the report of the visit of the UN Special
Rapporteur on racism, which slams the practice of racism in the
U.S.
The report reveals that sentences meted out to African-
Americans and ethnic people were usually two or three times more
severe than those given to whites for committing similar crimes.
The number African-Americans sentenced to death for killing
whites was four times that of whites condemned for killing
African-Americans. Linda Chavez, an American human rights expert,
blasted the UN Special Rapporteur as subjective and inaccurate.
The worst news is that these records of human rights
violations were made in a country claiming to be the beacon of
democracy and a vanguard of human rights. One cannot imagine what
would be the faith of the rest of the world if the so-called
beacon of democracy forces others to follow its democratic and
human rights record.
Such poor human rights records clearly give no credibility to
the annual human rights verdicts. Countries are entitled to
ignore at face value this piece of paper named as the human
rights report of the Department of States. Without even going
into the report's details, one can readily and rightly conclude
that the report is biased, subjective and selective. The report
will never "treat human rights globally in a fair and equal
manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis", as
envisaged by the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action.
Errors in facts and figures are bound to be made but it is
guaranteed that errata will never be published. Clearly, the
report ignores the principle of cooperation in the promotion and
protection of human rights as stipulated in the Charter of the
United Nations.
A number of responses against the crusade of the human rights
judge whose hands are stained with the blood of those sentenced
to death and whose justice is not color blind is worth pondering.
First, countries can just simply ignore the report because it
has no credibility at all. One might argue that the international
community has never mandated the U.S. to release such a report
and, therefore, the international community should never be held
accountable to the American authority.
Second, countries could remind the U.S. that such an act is
contrary to the principle of international cooperation in the
promotion and protection of human rights. However, such a call
can only be heard and materialized by sensible countries whose
approach to human rights is "nonmessianic".
Third, reciprocality could be a helpful diplomatic tool.
Countries could start making an inventory of human rights
violations in the U.S. and bring them to the attention of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and through the
United Nations human rights mechanisms.
A discussion on racism, the treatment of American Indians and
other ethnic minorities, child abuse, rape, violence against
women, denial of various economic and social rights and a huge
range of human rights violations in the U.S. at a presidential
summit between an American president and the Head of States
hosting the visit is not only important but also beneficial, to
provide a forum whereby both parties can learn each other's
experience in the promotion and protection of human rights.
Simultaneously, local NGOs could be encouraged to report on
well-documented human rights violations in the U.S. to the UN
human rights mechanisms. However, with large funding from the
U.S. and the profitable human rights awards provided in America,
it is not likely that major local NGOs dare send such reports.
This third option should not be seen as a confrontational
approach running the risk of violating the principle of
international cooperation, but more as a way to build a two-way
street for communications on the promotion and protection of
human rights. Dialog in this mode could be executed to achieve
better understanding and build more confidence and trust among
countries. Does anybody have the urge to start this dialog?
The writer is an alumni of Harvard Law School.
Window: American exceptionalism believes that human rights problems
exist only in far away lands that must be reached by muddy roads
or large bodies of salt water. So, other countries have massive
human rights problems but the U.S. only has minor problems of
police brutality, civil rights problems or a health care crisis...