http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/commentary/0104veto.html
UN Veto Reveals Bush Administration's Contempt for Human Rights
By
Stephen Zunes, April 1, 2001
The U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for the
deployment of unarmed monitors to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and
Gaza Strip demonstrates the new administration's contempt for human
rights. The United States was the only country to vote against the
resolution, which came before the Security Council on March 28 after
five days of tortuous negotiations that moderated the wording of the
original draft. Still, this was not enough for the U.S., which vetoed
its first UN Security Council resolution in five years.
The call for international monitors has grown over the past six months
as reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the
Israeli group B'tselem have documented a pattern of gross and
systematic human rights violations by Israeli occupation forces
against the Palestinian population. These have included detention
without charge, torture, extrajudicial killings, rocket and mortar
attacks against civilian targets, demolition of Palestinian homes,
restrictions of movement, and numerous acts of collective punishment.
Bush administration officials claim that monitors should not be
deployed without Israel's consent. However, the monitors would not be
going to Israel. Instead they would be assigned to Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territory and areas controlled by the Palestinian
Authority, so no Israeli consent is required. The recently vetoed UN
resolution did not call for a peacekeeping force but rather for a team
of monitors to observe and report on human rights abuses.
Although claims and counterclaims have been made by the propaganda
machinery on both sides of the issue, providing an internationally
sanctioned, neutral monitoring group was a very modest proposal. It
could have shed some light on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict
and could have served as a deterrent against further violence and
repression. The U.S. veto raises the question: What does the Bush
administration fear about what such a monitoring group might reveal?
Perhaps there was concern that the monitors might note how U.S.
military hardware--ostensibly sent to Israel for that country's
legitimate security needs--was actually being used for attacks against
civilians. Perhaps there was fear of raising awareness that U.S. arms
sent to Israel--like U.S. arms sent to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt,
Morocco, and other Middle Eastern allies of the United States--are not
furthering peace and security, but rather are promoting violence and
repression. These arms shipments to repressive governments in the
Middle East bring in billions of dollars to American arms exporters,
which would be in jeopardy if human rights considerations were taken
into account. Whatever the reason, the veto has put the U.S.
government at odds with almost the entire international community.
It's particularly disappointing to human rights activists that most
congressional Democrats have declined to criticize the Republican
administration's action at the UN. Even members of the Human Rights
Caucus in the House of Representatives have not questioned the veto.
With no pressure coming from Capitol Hill, the Bush administration
will have little incentive to change its anti-human rights stance in
the Middle East and elsewhere.
Wednesday's veto may be just the beginning of the Bush
administration's efforts to restrict UN efforts to defend human
rights. President George W. Bush's appointee as U.S. representative to
the United Nations is John Negroponte who, as ambassador to Honduras
during the 1980s, covered up widespread human rights abuses by
U.S.-trained Honduran army units, and withheld from Congress evidence
of large-scale human rights violations by the U.S.-backed government.
Public opinion polls indicate that the vast majority of Americans
believe that human rights are important and should be a major focus of
U.S. foreign policy, even if the perpetrator of human rights
violations is an important U.S. ally. Thus far, however, as with
popular concerns about the environment, the Bush administration
appears quite willing to ignore the sentiments of the American public.
It will be very difficult for the United States to speak out against
human rights abuses in Iraq, Iran, China, or any other country as long
as it protects its allies from international criticism or scrutiny.
Global leadership requires that principles sometimes must be placed
above ideology. Otherwise, the United States will find itself with
fewer friends and a growing number of enemies in an increasingly
violent world.
