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RIGHTS: War Provoking Terror, Amnesty Says
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, May 23 (IPS) - The war on terror is provoking more terror,
Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan told IPS in an
interview Tuesday at the launch of the human rights group's 2005 annual
report.
"The war on terror and the way it has unfolded actually is premised on
the principle that by eroding human rights you can reinforce security,"
Khan said. "And that is why as part of the war on terror we see
restrictions being placed on civil liberties around the world."
That has led to the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison
camp "where people that are considered to be dangerous by the U.S.
Administration are being locked up without any charge, without any
trial, indefinitely," Khan said. "That cannot be the best way in which
you fight terrorism. Because it plays straight into the hands of those
who would want to destroy human rights."
Khan added: "The proof of what I am saying is that the world is not
safer today. The number of attacks by armed groups has been going up
according to research, and empirical evidence."
Irene Khan had controversially spoken of Guantanamo Bay as the Gulag of
today, referring to the infamous Soviet concentration camp. But that
comparison now stands vindicated, Khan said.
"Last year when we called for the closure of Guantanamo, there was a lot
of negative reaction from the U.S. Administration, but today a year
later you even have President Bush saying he would like to close
Guantanamo."
Last week the UN committee against torture called for the closure of
Guantanamo, she said. "So what we had said last year about Guantanamo
being the Gulag of our times was really that Guantanamo is the symbol of
blatant superpower abuse, just as the Gulag was the symbol of superpower
abuse during the Soviet times. And from that perspective we have been
vindicated because more and more people see Guantanamo as an iconic
symbol of human rights abuse, and want to close it."
But that dispute did mean a political brush for a human rights group.
Human rights and politics may not always be easy to separate.
"We are not a political organisation, we do not promote any particular
ideology or any particular party," said Khan. "What we are doing is we
are holding all governments to account for their international
obligations on human rights."
But are the two issues easy to separate in Iraq? "What we are looking at
is the situation of the Iraqi people, the human rights of Iraqi people,
and whether those that are responsible for upholding them are doing so,
and that means looking at the Iraqi government, looking at the coalition
forces, U.S., UK and others, and looking at the armed groups in Iraq. In
every case there has been a dismal failure to protect the human rights
of Iraqi people."
In Iraq, she said "we judge what is happening not on the basis of
political or military strategies, but on the basis of international
standards of human rights that have been ignored, eroded and violated."
But is this not the consequence of political decisions? "Of course,
governments are political beings, and the decisions governments make are
made for political reasons. But it is those same governments that also
have legal obligations to respect human rights. You have to look at the
human rights consequences of political decisions."
And are Western governments talking of human rights violations only
where it suits them? "Of course, we see that very much happening, we see
that for example in the context of the European Union which has been
looking at human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, but not
necessarily within the European Union, and we see it now with the
information that is coming out about renditions and the CIA flights
carrying prisoners to countries where they could be tortured."
The European Union is often silent on abuses by its own member states,
Khan said. "So clearly there are double standards, but those double
standards apply also to governments like Russia and China. Darfur is a
very good example of where they have miserably failed, because of their
own oil interests, and the arms trade with the Khartoum regime."
Despite such human rights failures, the Amnesty report points to a
brighter side of the human rights story last year.
"One of the most interesting things about last year is the contradiction
that on the one hand we have seen abuses, and despair and hopelessness,
but on the other we are also seeing some remarkable progress and signs
of hope," Khan said.
On the issue of impunity, she said over the last year both former
Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori and former Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet are now on way to being tried. And the International Criminal
Court issued the first indictment against armed groups in North Uganda
and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We have also seen that though governments basically rejected the UN
reform package put forward by the UN secretary-general, they actually
accepted his proposals on the UN human rights machinery," Khan said. "We
have a new human rights council in place, we have seen a doubling of the
budget of the UN high commission on human rights."
In Britain, she said, the House of Lords threw out the government's
claim that they could use evidence obtained by torture by foreign
officials in British courts. "We have seen parliament question the anti-
terrorism legislation of the government, forcing the government to
modify some of the provisions there."
One of the most positive developments of last year was the mobilisation
of global civil society, she said. "Think of last year's campaign
against poverty, think of the changing public mood on issues of torture.
We have seen a number of very positive things happening, but the
question is the way in which governments are still in denial."
(END/2006)
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