Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Bad news on the human rights front: Both in Latin America and in Washington, there are dangerous signs of a retreat from the collective support for democracy and human rights abroad.
In Latin America, many democratic presidents are making a mistake that could come back to haunt them: They are walking away from the principle that we should all condemn countries that violate human rights, regardless of whether the abusers are rightist or leftist dictators.
Next month, for the first time in recent memory, Cuba is likely to avoid a condemnation at the United Nations Human Rights Commission annual meeting in Geneva. This will be in part because many Latin American democracies will either abstain or vote against a motion to condemn Cuba's abuses, which Amnesty International and other monitoring groups say are as bad or worse than ever.
Ironically, the leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and other Latin American countries that are refraining from criticizing Cuba are former human rights activists who campaigned for international solidarity during their struggle against rightist dictatorships in the 1970s. Today, much like their adversaries did in the '70s, they are placing "realpolitik" over human rights principles.
Curious paradox
In an interview last week, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda noted a curious paradox in Latin America: Respect for human rights domestically is generally better in most countries than it has been in many years, while support for the collective defense of human rights abroad is fading away.
"It's worrisome," Castaneda told me, "because the best way to secure respect for human rights at home is by supporting international pressure against human rights abusers. If we weaken our support for human rights internationally, in the long run we are weakening human rights at home."
Even the center-right government of Mexican President Vicente Fox, which until last year condemned Cuba at the United Nations, may change its vote to an abstention this year, Castaneda said.
This may be in exchange for Cuba's help to sway several Caribbean votes in support of Mexico's bid to win the chairmanship of the 34-country Organization of American States, he said.
Asked about it, a senior Mexican foreign ministry official told me that such statements are "speculation without foundation."
Granted, the 53-country U.N. Human Rights Commission is a joke. Among its most active members are Cuba, Sudan, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, China and other dictatorships that go out of their way to win seats on the commission to block any international efforts to monitor their human rights abuses.
But the fact is that -- with a few exceptions, such as Chile's President Ricardo Lagos -- most Latin American presidents are abandoning the defense of democracy and human rights abroad.
Their main argument is that the United States is doing so too by having friendly relations with dictatorships such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Ammunition
Late last week, the Bush administration gave new ammunition to such criticisms by announcing that it will not seek a condemnation of China at next month's U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva. U.S. officials say there have been "improvements" in China's human rights record.
"There is an obvious retreat from all sides in the collective defense of human rights," says Jose Miguel Vivanco, a senior official at the Human Rights Watch monitoring group.
"We're definitely seeing a growing silence from countries on human rights abuses abroad when it touches their ideological, economic or political interests."
Human rights activists agree that this will set a precedent for growing international apathy regarding future human rights abuses and dictatorial regimes.
My conclusion: Something needs to be done to prevent a further erosion of the international human rights cause. Reforming the U.N. Human Rights Commission may be hopeless: It has already been kidnapped by the world's most ruthless dictatorships.
Perhaps the only hope would be for the United Nations to appoint an independent panel of human rights experts with a proven record of condemning abuses on all sides of the political spectrum, much like today's OAS or European Commission on Human Rights.
X Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.