Amnesty Says US Leads Global Assault on Human Rights

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FOCUS | Amnesty Says US Leads Global Assault on Human Rights

Wed, 25 May 2005 08:58:25 -0700

 

 

 

 

FOCUS | Amnesty Says US Leads Global Assault on Human Rights

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052505Y.shtml

 

 

 

US Leads Global Attack on Human Rights - Amnesty

By Jeremy Lovell

Reuters

 

Wednesday 25 May 2005

 

London - Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and

Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United

States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty

International said on Wednesday.

 

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the picture is bleak. Governments are

increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the

U.S.-led war on terror, it said.

 

" The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic

hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide, "

Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty

International's 2005 annual report.

 

" When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at

the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to

commit abuse with impunity, " she said.

 

London-based Amnesty cited the pictures last year of abuse of

detainees at Iraq's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison, which it said were

never adequately investigated, and the detention without trial of

" enemy combatants " at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

 

" The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of

our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite

detention in violation of international law, " Khan said.

 

She also noted Washington's attempts to circumvent its own ban on

the use of torture.

 

" The U.S. government has gone to great lengths to restrict the

application of the Geneva Convention and to 're-define' torture, " she

said, citing the secret detention of suspects and the practice of

handing some over to countries where torture was not outlawed.

 

U.S. President George W. Bush often said his country was founded

on and dedicated to the cause of human dignity -- but there was a gulf

between rhetoric and reality, Amnesty found.

 

" During his first term in office, the USA proved to be far from

the global human rights champion it proclaimed itself to be, " the

report said, citing Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

 

Blurred Distinction

 

But the United States was by no means the sole or even the worst

offender as murder, mayhem and abuse of women and children spread to

the four corners of the globe, Amnesty said.

 

" The human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan were far from

being the only negative repercussions of the response to the terrible

events of Sept. 11, 2001.

 

" Since that day, the framework of international human rights

standards has been attacked and undermined by both governments and

armed groups, " Amnesty said.

 

The increasingly blurred distinction between the war on terror and

the war on drugs prompted governments across Latin America to use

troops to tackle crimes traditionally handled by police, the report said.

 

In Asia too, the war on terror was blamed for increasing state

repression, adding to the woes of societies already worn down by

poverty, discrimination against minorities, a string of low-intensity

conflicts and politicisation of aid, it added.

 

Africa too remained riven by regional wars and political

repression, and the abject failure of the international community to

take concerted action to end the slaughter in Sudan's vast Darfur

region was a cause of shame.

 

Khan also condemned the United Nations Commission on Human Rights

for failing to stand up for those supposedly in its care.

 

" The U.N. Commission of Human Rights has become a forum for

horse-trading on human rights, " she said. " Last year the Commission

dropped Iraq from scrutiny, could not agree on action on Chechnya,

Nepal or Zimbabwe and was silent on Guantanamo Bay. "

 

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