Human Rights Watch: Dems are “cowardly”

(10 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Tonight I had the tremendous opportunity to hear Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch give a lecture on Defending Rights without Courts and Judges: War Stories from Around the World and Our Backyard. I’ve long admired HRW and Roth. Many of you have probably seen him speak or read him, and you know what a thoughtful, articulate, and humorous person he is, and I must say I left the lecture feeling both hopeful about the world and hopeless about our nation–how’s that for a powerful evening?  

Roth began by noting that often in places where there are egregious human rights violations, there are not functioning courts, or the courts have been so tainted by cronyism and corruption (ahem!) that they cannot function as courts. How then do you work to address and redress human rights violations in the absence of a mechanism for justice? Roth said that HRW has three basic tools in its overall strategy, which he would explain before talking about some specific cases and concluding with the issue of torture and rendition by the U.S.

THE STRATEGY

SHAME

“Nobody wants their dirty laundry aired,” he said. The foundational work of HRW is to investigate and report. These reports can be used to SHAME goverments and corporations into changing their practices.

HRW starts with on-the-ground investigations and the authoring of a report. It is, of course, difficult to negotiate access in many countries, but these countries know that if they refuse, that refusal itself will become part of the campaign by human rights groups. It is a constant struggle to get unfettered access, and HRW is hardcore about it. Roth recounted how when Khaddafi wanted to enter the community of nations, one of the things he did was invite HRW in. He wanted a “clean bill of health.” They had tough negotiations and were eventually invited in for 3 weeks. When conditions were breached, HRW went on strike and threatened to issue a report. Eventually they were able to complete their investigations. Their report directly resulted in the release of 130 political prisoners.

Roth emphasized that because of HRW’s reputation for “probity and accuracy” the media actually reports on their reports.

SHAME is one of the key ways to leverage change in practices that result in human rights violations. Roth emphasized this over and over again, as if to highlight the fact that it is not just a matter of not wanting to get caught and prosecuted for war crimes that keeps regimes on their toes, but that a veneer of legitimacy  is necessary for repressive regimes, and it is an assault on this image that is often key to bringing a halt to human rights abuses.

But shame is often not enough and international pressure is required …

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE

HRW goes to powerful governments and transnational institutions in order to have them advocate for victims of human rights abuses and pressure regimes to change practices. While part of this international pressure also plays the shame card, more importantly these groups are able to provide incentives or decentives to behavior. Here the strategy keys into the desire of the repressive regime–what does it want? This desire or the avoidance of a punishment can fuel change in behavior or pressure other nations to assist human rights prosecutions.

Roth told the story of Charles Taylor, brutal ex-president of Liberia, who went into exile in Nigeria eventually. HRW and others were pressuring the president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo to turn over Taylor, who had been indicted for crimes against humanity. Obasanjo resisted, loathe to set a precedent of one African leader turning in another. Eventually, HRW identified his key desire: a meeting with George W. Bush. This was the carrot, apparently, that after a long string of embarrassing events ultimately led to Taylor’s being arrested. (It’s actually quite a very strange story.)

HARDBALL

This is the toolkit for the most egregious cases, like Charles Taylor’s, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. In the most extreme cases, HRW calls for and works for prosecution through international courts.

Some situations may require the deployment of peacekeepers or even military intervention.

Roth told lots of fascinating stories illustrating all of his points. I could have listened to him for hours.

He concluded by talking about torture in the U.S. and the kind of pressure that HRW had put on Condoleeza Rice and John McCain through talks and on the Administration through the courts, and the sorts of gains, however minor, that had been won. A far cry from what they hoped for, but Roth took it as a sign that pressure still works to keep the Bush administration scrambling, that all of its policies are getting harder and harder to carry out and to hide. He always repeatedly affirmed the importance of every victory no matter how minor.

In the Q&A, I got to ask him more about this. I asked him how we can really SHAME an administration that has no shame? Does each bit of pressure really just result in their making a cosmetic or semantic shift? I then said that the U.S. seemed immune to the kind of INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE that could be exerted on other nations to hold them accountable. And then I concluded by saying that it seems unlikely that BushCo will be held accountable through the HARDBALL mechanisms. What can be done? Do the three principal tools of HRW fail in the case of the Bush administration?

Roth agreed that it is a difficult case with the Bush administration, but he did remind us that there has been some progress: Abu Ghraib has been closed down. The black box sites for the most part have been closed, (although their ops have been displaced to Afghanistan and Pakistan); and there has been some progress with GITMO. Roth is excellent at affirming every incremental success, no matter how small. This is part of human rights work–never giving up, chipping away, no matter how long it takes, or how minute the gains of progress seem.

But then he agreed that although HRW and others have called for prosecution of U.S. officials for torture, it is unlikely. The most important thing he said is to build a clear record through investigations, that even if there are never prosecutions, a clear and thorough record is necessary not only to document the violations but to expose them and thus build the groundswell of support for repudiation of BushCo’s “counterterrorism” practices.

And he said, “The Democrats are behaving cowardly. I know they have slim margins. But they haven’t even been vigorously talking about this or having serious investigations.” [He didn’t mention impeachment, but he kept saying vigorous investigations.] He further said that none of the Dem candidates are talking about this vigorously enough or advocating thorough investigations. He had little hope for this session of congress, but said that he hopes it will be a top priority of the next one.

A colleague of mine followed up with a question about the “cowardly”–was it really cowardice? or complicity? And Roth replied, whatever it may be, it is the case that Dems are behaving cowardly.

Ken Roth’s devotion to human rights is palpable and contagious. He underlines every victory and says we have to keep fighting. He’s the true embodiment of a pragmatic idealist. And this gave me hope for the world. But his dim assessment of our nation’s human rights record and the possibility for accountability left me feeling kind of helpless, especially since the cowardly Dems aren’t helping to stop the torture.

Maybe we need to SHAME the Dems too. Let’s keep calling our Congresscritters to tell them that torture is unacceptable and that the absence of vigorous and tenacious opposition amounts to cowardice and complicity.

Oh, and this holiday season, let’s support the incredible work of Human Rights Watch, who are entirely privately funded so that they can properly do their oversight and advocacy work with “probity and accuracy.”