[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 69 (Monday, April 24, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2484-S2485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMBASSADOR NIKKI HALEY ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on April 19, CNN published a guest column
by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, ``An
unprecedented step on human rights.'' At a time when
[[Page S2485]]
President Trump has praised Egypt's President el-Sisi and Turkey's
President Erdogan, both of whom are responsible for brutal crackdowns
on dissent and for subverting the institutions of democracy, and after
the White House lifted human rights restrictions on the sale of
military equipment to Bahrain and Secretary of State Tillerson did not
participate in the public release of the Department's Annual Report on
Human Rights Practices, Ambassador Haley's op-ed is welcome.
In it, she made several statements that I think bear repeating. For
example, she said: ``[W]idespread human rights violations are a warning
sign--a loud, blaring siren--that a breakdown in peace and security is
coming.''
``[T]here is hardly an issue on the agenda of the Security Council
that does not in some way involve human rights.''
``The next international crisis could very well come from places in
which human rights are widely disregarded . . . we know from history
that it will happen. And when it does, the United Nations will be
called upon to act. We are much better off acting before abuse turns to
conflict.''
I strongly agree with all of that and commend her for saying it.
Ambassador Haley singled out several countries, including Syria,
North Korea, Iran, and Cuba, where violations of human rights--although
of different types and on vastly different scales--are common.
A few days later, Secretary Tillerson rightly criticized the
government of Venezuelan President Maduro, who has locked up his
political opponents and sought to decapitate what remains of the
institutions of democracy in that country.
It is not sufficient, however, as some in this administration have
been doing, to defend human rights only in countries whose governments
are regarded as adversaries of the United States. That is the
politically safe approach, and it weakens the credibility of those who
seek to defend human rights.
It is important to note that the governments of a number of U.S.
allies, such as Egypt, the Philippines, Turkey, Ethiopia, Bahrain,
Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, also routinely violate human rights by
arresting and imprisoning dissidents, independent journalists, and
members of organizations who peacefully protest against government
policies.
In the Philippines, anyone suspected of using or selling drugs is in
danger of summary execution by the police. Thousands have been killed
with impunity in the past 9 months. In Honduras, scores of journalists
and environmental activists have been assassinated, and rarely is
anyone arrested or punished. In Colombia, thousands of social activists
and human rights defenders have been killed, many of them victims of
the security forces and rightwing armed groups, and few people have
been held accountable. There are many other examples.
I hope Ambassador Haley's statement is a sign that human rights will
become a visible and consistent focus of the Trump administration's
foreign policy. Freedom of expression, association, and peaceful
assembly, and due process--these are all rights and ideals that
Americans cherish. They are also enshrined in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. As the world's oldest democracy, we have a
responsibility, and it is in our interest to defend them wherever they
are violated because protecting fundamental rights is necessary, not
only for justice and the rule of law, but, as Ambassador Haley points
out, for global peace and security, including America's security.
I ask unanimous consent that Ambassador Haley's guest column be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From CNN, Apr. 19, 2017]
An Unprecedented Step on Human Rights
(By Nikki Haley)
Imagine you are the parent of a boy--a teenager. Policemen
come to your home in the middle of the night and take your
boy away. He is held without explanation for weeks. And when
he finally comes home, your boy has all the marks of having
been tortured. Bruises from being beaten. Red, open wounds
from being burned. Then you look at his hands and the worst
is confirmed. Where his fingernails once were, there are only
raw, bloody, exposed nerves. Grown men with pliers, he tells
you, ripped his fingernails off in prison.
For a group of parents in Syria in 2011, this was not an
exercise in imagination but a horrifying reality. Their boys
were arrested and tortured for the crime of writing anti-
government graffiti on the wall of a school. When the parents
marched in protest to demand their children's release,
security services opened fire on them. When more people came
out to protest the killings, the government fired on them
again. Soon, the point of no return was reached.
``We were asking in a peaceful way to release the children
but their reply was bullets,'' a relative of one of the boys
told a reporter. ``Now we can have no compromise with any
security branches.''
The Syrian war is just one example of how human rights
violations can become a vicious cycle of violence and
instability that quickly spirals into all-out war. What began
as an act of free expression of the kind Americans take for
granted has become a conflict responsible for hundreds of
thousands of deaths and millions of desperate refugees.
Nations thousands of miles away have been impacted.
As the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, I've looked
at how we can do more to respond to human rights violations
before they reach the level of conflict. Traditionally, the
United Nations Security Council has been considered the place
where peace and security are debated, not human rights. But
Tuesday, at the insistence of the United States, for the
first time the Security Council took up the connection
between human rights and conflict. We debated how widespread
human rights violations are a warning sign--a loud, blaring
siren--that a breakdown in peace and security is coming.
Syria is not alone. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo
today, it is no coincidence that reports of government
soldiers and armed groups committing extrajudicial executions
of civilians in the Kasais region are occurring at the same
time that the security situation appears to be quickly
spiraling out of control.
These sorts of allegations demand answers from independent
investigations. And when violations are found to occur, the
United Nations cannot turn a blind eye. We must engage these
violators early and often, in the statements we make and the
measures we impose. Human rights violations and abuses
suffered by civilians rarely have a happy ending. At best,
they drive desperate people from their homes and from their
countries. At worst, they radicalize them to take up arms
themselves.
In other cases, human rights violations and abuses don't
lead to violence down the road, they exist side-by-side with
threats to peace and security. In fact, the world's most
brutal regimes are also the most ruthless violators of human
rights.
In the case of North Korea, human rights abuses literally
finance the government's nuclear and ballistic missile
programs. Political prisoners work themselves to death in
coal mines to finance the regime's military. Starvation,
sexual violence and slave labor in the prison camps help
supply the North Korean nuclear program.
In Burundi, the government is using human rights violations
to stifle dissent. The Burundian government services use
torture to crack down on protestors. This has forced hundreds
of thousands of people to flee to neighboring countries and
caused massive regional disruption. A U.N. report detailed 17
types of torture used by the government, including driving
sharpened steel rods into the legs of victims and dripping
melted plastic on them.
In fact, there is hardly an issue on the agenda of the
Security Council that does not in some way involve human
rights. As president of the Council, I've had great support
from U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres in driving home
the connection between threats to human dignity and threats
to peace. I'm grateful as well to my colleagues on the
Security Council, who agreed to take this unprecedented step.
The next international crisis could very well come from
places in which human rights are widely disregarded. Perhaps
it will be in North Korea or Iran or Cuba. We don't know when
the next group of desperate people will rise up or when the
next gang of violent extremists will exploit human suffering
to further their cause. But we know from history that it will
happen. And when it does, the United Nations will be called
upon to act. We are much better off acting before abuse turns
to conflict.
Imagine if we had acted six years ago in Syria. If we learn
nothing else from the torture of children, let it be this:
Evil is an inescapable fact of life, but the violence that
results from human rights violations and abuses is not
inevitable. We can choose to learn from history, not doom
ourselves to repeat it.
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