[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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