May 23, 2006
Doublespeak undermines war on terrorism: Amnesty
Reuters

Doublespeak by nations like the United States and Britain has undermined their own war on terrorism and increased human rights violations from Colombia to North Korea, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

By Jeremy Lovell

Doublespeak by nations like the United States and Britain has undermined their own war on terrorism and increased human rights violations from Colombia to North Korea, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

Accusations that the United States -- with the complicity of some European nations -- while banning torture at home had been flying prisoners around the world for interrogation by countries with no such qualms had dented their moral authority, it said.

"Duplicity and doublespeak have become the hallmark of the war on terror," the human rights watchdog's secretary general Irene Khan told a news conference to publish its annual report.

"There is evidence of widespread torture in U.S. detention centers," she said. "The United States outsources torture to countries like Morocco, Jordan and Syria."

She said that at least seven European countries had sanctioned or turned a blind eye to the use of their airspace for so-called extraordinary rendition flights carrying prisoners for interrogation outside the United States.

"Powerful governments are playing a dangerous game with human rights," Khan said. "The scorecard of prolonged conflicts and mounting human rights abuses is there for all to see."

"Nothing can justify torture or ill-treatment ... You cannot extinguish a fire with petrol."

OLD FASHIONED REPRESSION

Despite international protests, the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba remained full of prisoners who had not been charged or tried, and many European governments had tried to wriggle out of their legal human rights obligations, Amnesty said.

At the same time, powerful forces had paralyzed the United Nations just when it could have acted decisively in regions like Sudan's crisis-torn Darfur, Amnesty said.

"As a result, the world has paid a heavy price in terms of erosion of fundamental principles and in the enormous damage done to the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people," Khan said.

The report noted rising sectarian violence in Iraq as well as killings and repression in Colombia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and North Korea as governments felt they had impunity to act because of the double standards they saw.

"There is no doubt the war on terror has given a new lease of life to old-fashioned repression," Khan said. "These governments today do with much greater confidence what they used to do more quietly in the past."

It was not just the invaders of Iraq who bore responsibility for the spiraling violence around the world, Amnesty said. U.N. Security Council members Russia and China had consistently flouted human rights in pursuit of their own agendas.

But the past year had seen some positive developments, Amnesty said. There was huge public support for the campaign to Make Poverty History, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was finally arrested and an international arrest warrant for former Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori was enforced.

For the coming year, Amnesty called for concerted action to end the genocide in Darfur, international action against the deadly trade in small arms, the closure of Guantanamo Bay and a renewed commitment to uphold human rights.

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