Shameful U.S. HR record as viewed by Americans

Lionel Wijesiri

US drone attack in Afghanistan

Guantanamo Bay detention camp

The Human Rights record of the United States is a controversial and complex issue. The US government has been criticized for human rights violations, particularly in the criminal justice system and where national security is a concern. Some critics (in both friendly and hostile countries) and even eminent and distinguished US citizens and organizations have criticized the U.S. government for supporting alleged serious human rights abuses, including torture, legal rendition and Cold War assassination.

Global champion

Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, is the founder of the Carter Center and the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, writing as the OP-ED Contributor to New York Times on June 24, 2012, under the caption – A cruel and Unusual Record - says:

“The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights. Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.

While the country has made mistakes in the past, the widespread abuse of human rights over the last decade has been a dramatic change from the past. With leadership from the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This was a bold and clear commitment that power would no longer serve as a cover to oppress or injure people, and it established equal rights of all people to life, liberty, security of person, equal protection of the law and freedom from torture, arbitrary detention or forced exile.

The declaration has been invoked by human rights activists and the international community to replace most of the world’s dictatorships with democracies and to promote the rule of law in domestic and global affairs. It is disturbing that, instead of strengthening these principles, our government’s counter-terrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles, including the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or “associated forces,” a broad, vague power that can be abused without meaningful oversight from the courts or Congress (the law is currently being blocked by a federal judge). This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration.

In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications. Popular state laws permit detaining individuals because of their appearance, where they worship or with whom they associate.

Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.

These policies clearly affect American foreign policy. Top intelligence and military officials, as well as rights defenders in targeted areas, affirm that the great escalation in drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior.

Meanwhile, the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, now houses 169 prisoners. About half have been cleared for release, yet have little prospect of ever obtaining their freedom.

George W Bush

American authorities have revealed that, in order to obtain confessions, some of the few being tried (only in military courts) have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers. Astoundingly, these facts cannot be used as a defense by the accused, because the government claims they occurred under the cover of “national security.” Most of the other prisoners have no prospect of ever being charged or tried either. At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the United States should be strengthening, not weakening, basic rules of law and principles of justice enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.

As concerned citizens, we must persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership according to international human rights norms that we had officially adopted as our own and cherished throughout the years.”

Suspected enemies

Responding to Former President Carter’s statement, Daphne Eviata, Senior Counsel, Law and Security Programme, Human Rights First wrote to New York Times on June 25, 2012. She said:

“Former President Jimmy Carter is right that “America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.” The United States must take seriously the international human rights norms and treaties it has professed to follow, even as it wages “war” on terrorism. Equally important, killing a broad range of suspected “enemies” around the world not only violates human rights norms but also escalates armed conflicts that we should not be engaged in. The United States can fight terrorism effectively without perpetuating a global war that only encourages attacks against us.

Drone attacks

It’s time for the United States to end indefinite detention without trial and secret killings of people who don’t directly threaten us. We can’t wait to “regain moral leadership” only after we’ve ended all terrorism and achieved world peace; these are things we must do now to further it.”

Michael Barnett, a Professor of international affairs and political science at George Washington University, also joined the debate. He spoke to the CNN on July 4, 2012 and said;

“Recently, former President Jimmy Carter suggested that America should be a little less self-congratulatory and a little more self-critical. He was concerned that America is abandoning its role as a leading advocate for human rights. It is hard to disagree with some of his observations. There is no doubt that both the Bush and Obama administrations have trampled on fundamental human rights norms on the grounds that certain sacrifices must be made in order to protect American national interests.

The question naturally arises: Couldn't the United States have found ways to fight terrorism without turning human rights into collateral damage? There is evidence that sacrificing human rights has not made America any safer. For instance, the increased use of drone attacks might or might not have disrupted terror networks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but we do know that they have killed and injured countless civilians and inflamed anti-American rhetoric.

The issue isn't whether the United States will be able to win a popularity contest in the region (this is doubtful even in the best of times), but rather, that alienating large swaths of the local population makes it much more difficult to defeat terrorism. Similarly, in the name of counter-terrorism, the United States has pursued worrisome policies, including targeted assassinations overseas and intrusions on civil liberties.

While our country's counter-terrorism policies have compromised its respect for human rights norms, a little perspective is needed. America's human rights policy is bigger than its counter-terrorism policy. We should not judge the record on the basis of how the United States has fought terrorism.

In the last 10 years, the United States has been one of the largest supporters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, despite the fact that the Red Cross makes it a point to remind the United States and other governments of their commitments to international humanitarian law. On the other hand, we must not redact the inconvenient truths of American foreign policy. Looking further back into our history, our record in international human rights is a mixed bag. During the Cold War, successive administrations indulged dictators on the grounds that it was necessary for containing Communism. Shamefully, the United States did not ratify the genocide convention until 1988.

The Clinton administration did nothing to stop the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The world ratified the International Criminal Court in 2002 without our participation.

Even in better days, the United States has often made rotten compromises in the name of security. Simply put, the United States has championed human rights when it sees no damage to its security and economic interests. But when human rights are perceived as potentially detrimental to national interests, the United States has consistently chosen interests over values. America's support for human rights has had its ups and downs. Hopefully, in the future we'll see more ups than downs, and have more to celebrate.”

Global microscope

The Human rights record of the United States was put under an international microscope in 2010, when the UN Human Rights Council issued 228 recommendations on how Washington can address violations. America has long been the self-appointed global leader on human rights, pointing out the shortcomings of others. But now the tables have turned. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, incidents of injustice are taking place on US soil.

The point was made in Geneva, Switzerland at the Human Rights Council’s first comprehensive review of Washington’s record. The Council released a Universal Periodic Review Tuesday, listing 228 recommendations on how the US can do better. “Close Guantanamo and secret detention centres throughout the world, punish those people who torture, disappear and execute detainees arbitrarily,” said Venezuelan delegate German Mundarain Hernan.

The US dismissed many recommendations calling them political provocations by hostile countries. Yet even America’s allies highlighted grave flaws. For many, it’s the ultimate hypocrisy. How can a state with roughly 3,000 people on death row lecture the world about humanity?

Prison population

“The United States, the perpetrator of gross human right violations is using human rights as a political football against its enemies. Its enemies are not enemies because they violate human rights necessarily, but because the US wants to change the government in their country,” said Brian Becker, Director of A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition in Washington, This Coalition, is a United States-based protest umbrella group consisting of many civil rights organizations. “The country often criticizing adversaries like Syria, Iran and North Korea for oppressing its citizens, is now faced with defending domestic practices like indefinite detention, poor prison conditions, and racial profiling.

America is home to the world's largest prison population, with 2.3 million people currently behind bars. Children can be sentenced to life in prison and more than 100 undocumented immigrants have died behind bars while awaiting deportation from the US. Increasing discrimination against Muslims has become another blemish on America’s human rights record.

Hundreds have been arrested in so-called FBI foiled terror plots involving government paid informants accused of manufacturing and setting up the crime. It is a practice other countries term entrapment.”

Practices continue

These statements are not made by Sri Lankans. They are from acclaimed persons and organizations in USA. Americans themselves are talking about the shameful Human Rights violations done by their own government.

At the same time, US government points fingers, enumerates abuses globally, yet turns a blind eye to its own arrogantly, glaringly and hypocritically. As a result, US continues most abusive practices abroad and at home. It is a different reality than their sanitized major media, film, academia, and other dominant versions of a non-existent fictional America.