By Fred dela Rosa
Human rights were trashed, trampled and kicked around in most parts of the world last year, the US State Department reported recently.
The State Department has released its annual report on human rights observance around the world entitled, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” to the US Congress in compliance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.
The report provides a comprehensive picture of human rights conditions around the globe. It offers, according to the document, a basis from which the US “can continue to further (the) goals of promoting the rights and dignity of all peoples and assisting in the development of free, pluralistic societies.”
In the beginning, Washington focused on countries receiving US foreign aid and those that trade with the USA. The report was broadened to include all members of the United Nations.
The document takes a dig at traditional allies (the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Japan) and excoriates human rights abuses in unfriendly states (Cuba, Iran and Iraq). Not surprisingly, the latest report calls the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban “a triumph for human rights in 2001.”
Contemplating its navel, the latest report notes human rights violations in the United States, including the denial of immigrants’ rights, racial discrimination and tendencies to curb civil liberties in the name of national security, self-protection and anti-terrorism.
The latest report is tame on Israel, explaining Tel Aviv’s human rights violations as a consequence of its response to Palestine terrorism.
Filipino overseas workers laboring in Saudi Arabia will agree with the report’s finding that freedom of religion “does not exist” in the kingdom whose human rights record “remained poor.”
Among human rights abuses in China, the suppression of the Falun Gong followers and the crackdown on Uighur separatists in the Xinjiang autonomous region received particular hits from Secretary Colin Powell’s office.
The report devotes 21 pages to human rights practices in the Philippines in 2001. It is an interesting period because the nation underwent an upheaval on Jan. 20 when a people’s revolt drove president Joseph Estrada from power and installed vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The human rights infractions noted by the report sound like a reprise of old complaints. Apart from the abuses of the military and the national police, violations of the New People’s Army, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf group were duly noted.
“The Government’s Commission on Human Rights (CHR), established under the 1987 Constitution, again described the PNP as the worst abuser of human rights, although complaints against the police decreased significantly with 2000,” the report observes, “Police leaders at times appeared to sanction extrajudicial killings and brutality as expedient means of fighting crime,” the document adds.
The report goes on: “The New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the main Communist insurgent faction, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim separatist group, both committed serious human rights abuses, including killings, kidnappings, torture, and detentions.
“The terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which operates in southwestern Mindanao, committed numerous kidnappings and killings, including summary beheadings of hostages and local residents.”
A complaint that sounds familiar is this passage: “Judges and prosecutors are poorly paid, overburdened, remain susceptible to corruption and the influence of the wealthy and powerful, and often failed to provide due process and equal justice.
“Backlogs, limited resources, and a shortage of judges hindered the courts. Long delays in trials were common. The authorities failed to prosecute many persons who broke the law, and some persons committed abuses with impunity.
Why are many of our senators and congressmen traveling these days? Because the “estimated 7.4 million citizens living abroad remain effectively disenfranchised since the government has not enacted a system of absentee voting, as required by the Constitution.” The lawmakers are on a mission to “consult” overseas workers on the conduct of the 2004 elections on foreign soil.
Continuing: “Violence and discrimination against women and abuse of children continued to be serious problems. Child labor continues to be a problem, although the government has increased efforts to address it. There were some reports of forced and indentured labor in the informal sector, and the use of underage workers in domestic servitude continued. Child prostitution continued to be a problem. Trafficking in women and children was a serious problem.
“The government in some cases supported the forcible displacement of squatters from their illegal urban dwellings to make way for industrial and real estate development projects, often leading to disputes and human rights complaints; however, the practice decreased notably beginning in February when the government suspended demolitions in poor urban areas.
In general? “The government generally respected the human rights of citizens; however, there were serious problems in some areas.”