The U.S.: Universal Judge of Human Rights?

When the State Department’s annual report on human rights came to light on the Internet at the beginning of April, three things came to my attention in a very special manner:

One was its extent. Nearly two million words are printed on more than 7,000 pages. The second is that almost no countries of the world escape criticism as it examines the practices of 194 nations. And the third is that Uncle Sam is considered perfect; it does not scrutinize itself while it reviews the respect of human rights in the rest of the planet.

One may wonder if this country considers itself perfect or what privilege Washington enjoys in order to award itself the title of universal judge and approve or condemn social conditions in the world.

Not in vain, the report has been issued each year since 1976 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently defined it as “the most complete record it has about the condition of human rights around the world.”*

But this, the only government-issued report that exists about the matter (there are others, but they are from independent or private organizations) cannot only be classified as complete as stated by officials, but is impressively critical and extraordinarily detailed.

In the case of Mexico, for example, there are 40 pages which analyze problems such as kidnapping, arbitrary arrests, corruption, torture, impunity, domestic violence, violence against journalists, human trafficking, abuse of minors and discrimination against the indigenous population, to cite only a part.

In general terms we are condemned. The report affirms that the strategy that the government follows against drug trafficking, put forth by President Felipe Calderon, does not respect fundamental rights citing judicial executions and other abuses; impunity for the military or members of local or state police is also involved.

However, the report not only talks about the countries with known social challenges, but in reality, as is popularly stated, spares no one. The critique includes nations that rarely come to mind as places where fundamental rights are trampled.

Take for example Switzerland, for many the living image of social paradise, but where, according to the report, the police “use excessive force”; or Canada, another that we think is nearly perfect, but where religious minorities are bothered and harassed, there is violence against women and human trafficking.

It is good that no one escapes. The scrutiny includes rich and poor countries, big and small, weak and powerful. The attention to detail case by case is impressive, as the analysis of the minute islands that make up the Vanuatu Archipelago in the South Pacific shows. Vanuatu only has 220,000 inhabitants, but the report dedicates more than 5,000 words to it to cite police violence, filthy jails and a slow and corrupt judicial system.

However, the critics of this annual report argue that despite its extension, work and force that it implicates, Washington does not design its foreign policy or relations with other nations based on this thorough study, but to the contrary. When its interests are involved, the human rights violations are not necessarily an obstacle to having close ties with any country.

In fact, according to experts, due to the stipulated criticisms in the report and the fact that this country paints itself as perfect while noting the failures of other countries, the only thing it achieves is anger and antipathy toward the United States at the international level.

Russia, which was strongly criticized in the latest report, has said that the document is the best proof of the two faces of Washington and of the politicization of human rights; Moscow offers the controversial prison in Guantanamo as an example.

For its part, China, which has not escaped either, has begun to issue its own report which analyzes only the United States — a country which, it says, totally ignores its own problems and uses human rights as a political weapon to make villains of some and advance its own interests.

For some analysts the recent events in the north of Africa and the Middle East are the best evidence that the White House does not demand the same universal values on all sides.

The United States has responded positively in some cases, allying itself with the opposition in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, but it has remained passive to what has happened in Bahrain, where dozens of dissidents have been killed, martial law has been imposed and hundreds of people have been jailed. But it is there that the Pentagon has a strategic and fundamental naval base.

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.