Darfur Ranks High in U.S. Annual Human Rights Report

Releasing its 2006 Annual Human Rights report, the U.S. State Department declared that the genocide in Darfur is the world’s gravest human rights abuse. In line with U.S. foreign policy priorities, it also focused its toughest criticisms on Iran and North Korea.

But surprisingly this year, the United States acknowledged that it, too, had failed to meet international human rights standards toward terrorist suspects. Larry Cox, Amnesty International U.S.A.'s executive director, commented:

“Until the United States changes its own policies of holding detainees indefinitely, in secret prisons, and without basic rights, it cannot credibly be viewed as a world human rights leader. Human rights abuses must not be hidden behind a facade of national security rhetoric.”

The report itself mentions, “Our democratic system of government is not infallible, but it is accountable.”

Nice that the U.S. government recognizes this. But U.S. failures to uphold human rights are not simply flaws in otherwise just humanitarian policies. Our invasion of Iraq and the resulting deaths of anywhere between 58,000-100,000 civilians and 3,000 U.S. troops, justified by an imaginary program of weapons of mass destruction, was a direct result of U.S. policy, not a mistake.

Our history of intervention in Latin America for reasons of economic and political hegemony violated human rights both directly and through our political and financial support for dictators.

And our current war on terror, allowing governments such as Sudan’s genocidal one to commit horrendous atrocities with impunity, is also a matter of policy, not a sudden lapse in thinking. Let’s not let the U.S. government continue to hide behind its rhetoric. The State Department has identified the genocide for what it is; it’s time for the United States to use its power to enforce its convictions.