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See No Evil

Bassiouni offends the U.S. by telling truth on abuses

By Douglass Cassel

05/29/05 "Chicago Tribune" - - Why did the United Nations fire its world-class human-rights inspector for Afghanistan?

Believers in the John Bolton school of international organizations might suspect that the fault lies in internal UN corruption or in political interference by some foreign tyrant.

They would be wrong. The answer lies closer to home.

The United States is one of 53 countries that are members of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Two years ago the commission asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint an independent expert to develop a program to advise Afghanistan on human rights "and to seek and receive information about and report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan in an effort to prevent human rights violations."

Then came a one-year delay; evidently it was difficult to find an expert acceptable to the Americans, whose 18,000 troops remain the real power in Afghanistan. Finally, Annan selected DePaul law professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who holds American and Egyptian citizenship. But Bassiouni's passport was not enough to shield him from Washington's pique.

During his 1-year term, Bassiouni traveled to Afghanistan twice, reviewed voluminous documents, and met with Afghan and international human-rights groups, officials of governments and UN agencies, and alleged victims.

He delivered two extensive reports, one to the UN General Assembly in October and a second to the commission this March. Both were sharply critical of the human-rights situation in Afghanistan--including alleged violations by U.S. forces, such as arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, and torture and murder of prisoners.

In April the commission held its annual meeting in Geneva. A consensus statement for the commission embraced, in general terms, most of Bassiouni's findings and recommendations.

But the statement omitted any mention of U.S. violations.

And the commission--reportedly under pressure from the U.S. ambassador in Geneva--decided it no longer needed an independent expert to monitor human rights in Afghanistan. Not only was Bassiouni in effect fired, but no one replaced him.

U.S. officials offer three explanations for this debacle.

The first, whispered to Newsday by a U.S. official who preferred not to be named, accused Bassiouni of grandstanding "to bolster his resume."

That slight is beneath contempt. Even if, at age 68, Bassiouni were to set his sights on some future diplomatic post, his resume needs no padding. He was head of the UN commission that investigated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and led the committee that drafted rules for the International Criminal Court. Also, he was nominated in 1999 for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Washington's second explanation--that Afghanistan no longer needs an independent human-rights monitor -- is equally hard to entertain with a straight face. In fact, despite last year's moderately successful presidential election, Afghanistan is at risk of becoming, once again, a failed state.

Much of the problem, as documented in Bassiouni's reports, stems from the resumption of widespread drug trafficking. UN data report that Afghanistan's opium crop now accounts for 60 percent of its economy and nearly 90 percent of the world's opium production.

Not only does this fuel "widespread corruption," reports Bassiouni, it "has reached a crucial moment, when well-armed factional commanders, backed by huge drug profits, have increasingly taken on the characteristics of organized crime and present a significant threat to the new State."

If Bassiouni sounds ominous, he is not alone.

The State Department's 2005 international narcotics report, released in March, reports that the area devoted to poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2004 was more than three times larger than in 2003.

Afghanistan's "illicit opium/heroin production can be viewed . . . as the rough equivalent of world illicit heroin production, and it represents an enormous threat to world stability," the report said. "Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state."

And this happened on Washington's watch. After the Taliban banned opium in 2000, production in 2001 fell to 5 percent of the poppy production of 2004.

The consequences for human rights and the rule of law are dramatic. As Bassiouni explains, "Most human-rights violations occur at the hands of warlords, local commanders, drug traffickers" and others who effectively control the provinces. And the Afghan state lacks the financial and military muscle to rein in their growing power and abuses.

Need for monitor is greater

So the need for an independent rights monitor is even greater now than two years ago.

The third red herring served up by the U.S. is the claim that there is no need for a special UN monitor because Afghanistan's national human-rights commission can do the job. The Afghan commission does not share that view. Joined by several human-rights and humanitarian aid groups active in Afghanistan, the commission this month asked the UN to renew the mandate of the independent expert.

His role, it said, was "essential" and lent "critical support" to the Afghan commission.

In addition, unlike the UN, an Afghan commission has no jurisdiction to investigate violations committed by U.S. military forces. Visiting Washington last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pleaded with President Bush to turn over Afghan prisoners to Afghan control. He was rebuffed.

And there lies the real explanation for Bassiouni's firing: his reporting of alleged abuses by U.S. forces (which he diplomatically calls "coalition" forces, even though they are nearly all Americans).

Coalition forces, he says, should be role models for the Afghans. When they instead run roughshod over human rights, they "create a dangerous and negative political environment that threatens the success of the peace process and overall national reconstruction."

Reports of serious violations by coalition forces include "forced entry into homes, arrest and detention . . . without legal authority or judicial review . . . forced nudity, hooding and sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation, forced squatting and standing for long periods of time in stress positions, sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death."

No confirmation of allegations

These allegations are difficult to confirm, Bassiouni admits, because the U.S. refused his requests to inspect military prisons, holds prisoners in field installations not visited by the Red Cross, and has classified last year's internal Pentagon investigation by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby.

But enough internal Pentagon reports have been leaked to the media to substantiate key allegations, and in October, an Army task force found probable cause to indict at least 27 guards and interrogators. To date, only seven have been charged, and none tried--for crimes involving deaths of prisoners more than 2 1/2 years ago.

In Bassiouni's words, "[T]he Coalition forces' practice of placing themselves above and beyond the reach of the law must come to an end."

What has come to an end instead is Bassiouni's mandate.

And with it another tattered shred of our country's credibility on human rights.

If we ever hope to win the battle for hearts and minds in the struggle against terrorism, especially in Muslim nations, the administration cannot keep blaming the UN--and eminent experts such as Bassiouni--for its self-inflicted wounds.

In other words, Washington needs to learn not to shoot the messenger, but to get the message on human rights.

Douglass Cassel directs the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University's School of Law; in 1990-98, he was a colleague of M. Cherif Bassiouni's at DePaul University's Law School.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune 

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