Amnesty compares Bush to Pinochet

Washington
May 24, 2006 - 3:44PM

Amnesty International says President George Bush's tactics in his fight against terrorists have made the United States comparable to Augusto Pinochet's Chile and Hafez Assad's Syria in its acceptance of torture and disregard of legal restraints.

The Bush administration rejected the charge and said the human rights advocate could use its expertise better by helping Iraqi judges build their case against Saddam Hussein.

When speaking of Amnesty International, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack today said: "We see they're pretty good at press releases."

Among Amnesty's major condemnations of the US was the use of civilian contractors - Amnesty estimated 25,000 in Iraq alone.

"Outsourcing" unsavory jobs to largely untrained contractors, without contractual restrictions or legal restraints under military/civilian laws" has helped create virtually a rule-free zones sanctioned with the American flag and fire power", said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

In its annual report of human rights conditions around the world, Amnesty included the US alongside China, Russia, Columbia, Uzbekistan and others as states that claim anti-terrorism to justify gross violations.

Amnesty officials, speaking in a news conferences about release of the report in London and Washington, had particularly harsh words for the Bush administration.

"It's difficult to believe that the United States government, which was once considered an exemplar of human rights, has sacrificed its most fundamental principles by abusing prisoners as a matter of policy, by disappearing detainees into a network of prisons and by abducting and sending people for interrogation to countries that practice torture," Cox said.

"Governments around the world are using doublespeak and double standards to take advantage of this vacuum of moral leadership," he said.

In London, Amnesty's secretary-general, Irene Khan, blamed Bush's campaign against terrorists, which he began in reaction to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. "There is no doubt that it has given a new lease on life to old-fashioned repression," Khan said.

By its extensive use of unaccountable contractors in Iraq, she told AP Television News, that the United States "has basically mortgaged its moral authority on the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad".

McCormack found occasion three times during his daily State Department briefing to criticise Amnesty International for not helping in the trial of Saddam, who was facing various charges over more than 140 deaths, in the first of his trials for misrule.

"In the years of Saddam Hussein's rule, Amnesty International was at the forefront of bringing to light human rights abuses that were perpetrated by that regime - terrible, terrible things. They did great work in that regard," he said.

"But when it came time to put Saddam Hussein on trial, which is happening right now, they're absent. They've done zero, zip, nothing, to assist in those efforts."

Asked later what he felt Amnesty could do to help the trial, McCormack noted that Amnesty amassed a huge database about Saddam's regime.

He said the court trying Saddam is not only doing that, "but in a larger sense, they're trying to come to closure with their past. And we would think that ... Amnesty International would have an interest in assisting the Iraqi people - the now-free Iraqi people - in that regard".

Amnesty also slammed European countries, described in the report as "partners in crime" with the US by eroding civil liberties and allowing terror suspects to be taken to countries where they might risk torture, a practice known as rendition.

AP

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