- UNITED NATIONS (IPS)
-- According to a joke circulating in Washington political circles, former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's notorious torture chamber in the Abu Ghraib
prison in Baghdad -- once held up as a symbol of barbarity -- was never
shut down.
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- A signboard outside the prison chamber now reads: "Under
New Management". U.S. management, that is.
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- The extent of the U.S. administration's embarrassment
following the publication of photos showing torture and abuse of Iraqi
detainees in Abu Ghraib is evident in the fact that Washington has postponed
the release of the State Department's annual report on human rights abuses
worldwide.
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- The official reasons for the eleventh hour postponement
have not been disclosed.
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- The report usually takes aim at virtually every country,
most in the developing world, for human rights excesses while excluding
U.S. abuses from its pages.
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- The question now being asked is: can Washington afford
to take a holier-than-thou attitude when it beats up the rest of the world
every year in the annual report?
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- Even the 'New York Times' admitted in its editorial Friday
that "the United States has been humiliated to a point where government
officials could not release this year's international human rights report
this week for fear of being scoffed at by the rest of the world."
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- "Internationally, there is little U.S. credibility
on human rights issues," says Phyllis Bennis of the Institute of Policy
Studies in Washington.
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- She attributes the lack of U.S. credibility to two primary
factors: "the blatantly political motives of human rights criticisms
(largely ignoring abuses in U.S. "client states" like Saudi Arabia
and Egypt, and especially protecting Israel from the consequences of its
human rights violations), and because of U.S. denials in the past of its
own human rights abuses".
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- The harrowing images of US soldiers brutalising and humiliating
Iraqi prisoners -- aired worldwide starting last week -- have triggered
outrage not only in the Middle East but throughout the world.
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- The photographs and television images include those of
young Iraqis stripped naked and forced to pile up in a pyramid formation,
while U.S. soldiers grin at the hideous spectacle.
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- According to published reports, Iraqi detainees were
also beaten up, tortured, threatened with rape and victimised by ferocious
guard dogs. Dead bodies are now being exhumed in Iraq to ascertain the
cause of death at the hands of soldiers or interrogators from the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).
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- The United States, which actively participates in an
annual ritual of "bashing" countries like Iran, Cuba, Syria,
North Korea, Sudan and Myanmar at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva
and at the General Assembly sessions in New York, has lost its moral authority
to point an accusing finger at miscreants when it has problems in its own
backyard, say diplomats from developing nations.
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- Although the commission holds its major session only
once a year, the U.N.'s Third Committee and the General Assembly also take
up the question of human rights violations in individual countries every
year, from September through December.
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- Since usually no western nations are singled out for
attack, these year-end U.N. resolutions have been described as exercises
in "Third-World bashing."
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- But the release of the torture photographs, Bennis told
IPS, "may have the effect of evening the score a bit if, for example,
the U.N. Human Rights Commission decides to launch an investigation of
its own".
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- At its annual sessions last month, the commission abandoned
a proposal to probe abuses in Iraq, primarily because of U.S. pressure.
Still, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva
is expected to present a report on Iraq to the commission May 31.
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- Acting High Commissioner Bertrand Ramacharan, who expressed
disappointment over the commission's inability to adopt a resolution on
Iraq last month, has already written to Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator
in Iraq, members of the Iraqi Governing Council and foreign ministers of
countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition forces in the occupied
nation, asking them to provide information relevant to the inquiry.
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- Ramacharan and his team have also expressed their willingness
to go to Iraq to probe abuses. But it is very likely Washington will reject
this request.
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- Speaking to U.N. reporters last week, U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell said the photos had "stunned every American.
It showed acts that are despicable," he added.
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- President George W Bush, who publicly apologised for
the growing scandal, went on Arabic television networks this week to say
he was "appalled" by the abuses.
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- Bush was momentarily taken aback when an Arab interviewer
told him many Arabs believe his administration is no better than the government
of former President Saddam Hussein.
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- "(Human rights) violations by the United States,
such as the torture scandal in Iraq, have global repercussions," says
Roger Normand, executive director of the Centre for Economic and Social
Rights.
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- Normand, who is currently working on a book on the United
Nations and human rights, told IPS, "not only is the United States
totally unaccountable for its actions, but also its disregard for human
rights in the so-called war against terror encourages other states to violate
human rights."
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- Moreover, he added, Washington goes so far as to deny
the very application of international law to its own actions and consistently
covers up abuses by allies like Israel. "This policy of double standards
and U.S. exceptionalism poses a threat to the very existence of the human
rights framework," he added.
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- Even as the United States was coming under heavy fire
for human rights abuses in Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Sichan Siv blasted the
African Group for nominating Sudan for re-election to the human rights
commission -- particularly when the country is accused of ethnic cleansing
in Darfur.
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- Responding to the U.S. criticism, Sudanese Ambassador
Omar Bashir Mohamed Manis launched an attack on the United States, accusing
Washington of political hypocrisy for preaching human rights to the outside
world while there are abuses in its own backyard.
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- "It is yet very ironic that the U.S. delegation,
while shedding crocodile tears over the situation in Darfur, is turning
a blind eye to the atrocities committed by American forces against the
innocent civilian population in Iraq," he said.
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- Normand said the rights commission is composed of 53
member states, most of which violate human rights to some degree. "The
government of Sudan is among the worst, and its record should be strongly
condemned," he added. "But U.S. violations have global repercussions."
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- Bennis said U.S. credibility will also continue to suffer
from the Bush administration's ''unsigning'' of the international criminal
court (ICC) treaty.
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- "If the U.S. were a signatory, the ICC would have
clear jurisdiction (to probe U.S. atrocities in Iraq) in case the internal
U.S. investigation proved insufficient," she added.
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- Copyright © 2004 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights
reserved. http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23652
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