Champion of Human Rights

The recently declassified report on torture, practiced by the American CIA against people suspected of belonging to the al-Qaida organization, highlights the double standard with which the U.S. seems to deal with certain issues. It is true that the subject is attributable to the administration of a president who, like George W. Bush, reached the White House amid suspicions that at the very least, the will of the majority of Americans had not been respected.

It appears that for some politicians, the laws and the Constitution should be obeyed when they serve their interests, and never when they are opposed to them.

The daring Sept. 11 attack not only caused the fall of the twin towers, but also showed that the security system reputed to be the best in the world was vulnerable.

Press censorship, expressly prohibited by the internal norms of the country, was immediately applied after the attacks occurred. That the nation’s morale might have been in play is not an argument that could justify the prohibitions applied to the media, or that they accepted limitations that were clearly illegal.

However, this may be considered an internal issue, which is irrelevant to the rest of the world. It is an American problem if the U.S. prevents its citizens from knowing the truth about a certain event, but watch out if something like that occurs in another latitude. Cuba and Venezuela can attest to what is stated in this paragraph.

We have heard the media in charge of spreading Washington’s propaganda say that in the years Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union, concentration camps and repressive actions against political adversaries were common acts. Criticism and condemnation were commonplace. Television series, such as “Mission Impossible,” led these campaigns.

What moral authority could those same writers of messages have if in their own cesspools, suspects are subjected to brutal tortures, some of which have been documented, and at present there is no enemy country, like the USSR could have been at the time, to sanction such actions?

Moreover, these acts leave without a credible and consistent discourse the Cuban and Venezuelan exiles who present the U.S. model as the paradigm of freedom.

The northern country has not been able to hide the mud that floods its own prisons any longer.

In that regard, can the authorities of that enormous nation present themselves as champions of the defense and compliance with human rights? Surely, they will continue doing it, but increasingly, their credibility and interventions will be able to rest solely on the strength of their missiles and cannons, alongside their own instruments of torture.