Annual Report

Statement Of Dr. William F. Schulz Executive Director, Amnesty International USA


May 25, 2005

Good morning. I’m William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. Today, Amnesty International releases its annual report on the state of human rights around the world. What we have found brings shame to governments from Afghanistan to the United States. We have documented that the use of torture and ill treatment is widespread and that the US government is a leading purveyor and practitioner of this odious human rights violation.

The refusal of the US government to conduct a truly independent investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention centers is tantamount to a whitewash, if not a cover-up, of these disgraceful crimes. It is a failure of leadership to prosecute only enlisted soldiers and a few officers while protecting those who designed a deliberate government policy of torture and authorized interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The government’s investigation must climb all the way to the top of the military and civilian chain of command.

If the US government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior US officials involved in the torture scandal. And if those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them. The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned in 2002 that a failure to apply international law to detainees in Afghanistan may “provoke some individual foreign prosecutors to investigate and prosecute our officials and troops.” It’s not too late for President Bush to heed those words today and apply international law to all who are responsible for torture at all US detention centers.

Secretary Powell also argued at the time that adhering to international law “preserves US credibility and moral authority by taking the high ground.”
How far from that moral high ground the US government has fallen: Its descent into torture and ill treatment includes beatings, prolonged restraint in painful positions, hooding and the use of dogs at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Air Base and “rendering” detainees to countries that practice torture.

Tolerance for torture and ill treatment, signaled by a failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible, is the most effective encouragement for it to expand and grow. Like a virus, the techniques used by the United States will multiply and spread unless those who plotted their use are held accountable. Those who conducted the abusive interrogations must be held to account, but so too must those who schemed to authorize those actions, sometimes from the comfort of government buildings. If the United States permits the architects of torture policy to get off scot-free, then other nations should step into the breach.

Foreign governments that are party to the Geneva Conventions and/or the Convention against Torture—and that is some 190 countries—and countries that have national legislation that authorizes prosecution—and that is at least 125 countries—have a legally binding obligation to exercise what is known as universal jurisdiction over people accused of grave breaches of the Conventions. Governments are required to investigate suspects and, if warranted, to prosecute them or to extradite them to a country that will. Crimes such as torture are so serious that they amount to an offense against all of humanity and require governments to investigate and prosecute people responsible for those crimes—no matter where the crime was committed.

Amnesty International’s list of those who may be considered high-level torture architects includes Donald Rumsfeld, who approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping, and the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay; William Haynes, the Defense Department General Counsel who wrote that memo, and Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, who is cited in the memo as concurring with its recommendations.

Our list includes Major General Geoffrey Miller, Commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, whose subordinates used some of the approved torture techniques and who was sent to Iraq where he recommended that prison guards “soften up” detainees for interrogations; former CIA Director George Tenet, whose agency kept so-called “ghost detainees” off registration logs and hidden during visits by the Red Cross and whose operatives reportedly used such techniques as water-boarding, feigning suffocation, stress positions, and incommunicado detention.

And it includes Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who called the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and “obsolete” in a January 2002 memo and who requested the memos that fueled the atrocities at Abu Ghraib; Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former Commander of US Forces in Iraq, and Sanchez’ deputy, Major General Walter Wojdakowsi, who failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations at Abu Ghraib, according to the military’s Fay-Jones report, and Captain Carolyn Wood, who oversaw interrogation operations at Bagram Air Base and who permitted the use of dogs, stress positions and sensory deprivation.

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of those who deserve investigation, we would be remiss if we ignored President George W. Bush’s role in the scandal. After all, his Administration has repeatedly justified its detention and interrogation policies as legitimate under the President’s powers as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. And President Bush signed a February 2002 memo stating that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Taliban or al Qaeda detainees and that their humane treatment should be contingent on “military necessity.” This set the stage for the tragic abuses of detainees.

Without full and impartial investigations of all key players, the torture scandal will come to be as indelibly associated with the Bush Presidency as Teapot Dome is with Warren Harding’s or Watergate with Richard Nixon’s.

What’s more, it is the height of hypocrisy for the US government itself to use the very torture techniques that it routinely condemns in other countries.

The Bush Administration, which saw fit in its most recent “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” to criticize Syria for administering electric shocks, appears to have used the same torture technique in the war on terror. Amnesty International took testimony, for example, from Mohammad al Dossari, who alleged that US soldiers subjected him to electric shocks, death threats, assault and humiliation in Kandahar.

The Bush Administration cited Egypt for beating victims with fists, whips and metal rods. And yet US Major Michael Smith testified at an administrative review hearing last year that an autopsy of a captured Iraqi general revealed he had suffered five broken ribs that were “consistent with blunt force trauma, that is, either punching, kicking or striking with an object or being thrown into an object.”

When the US government then calls upon foreign leaders to bring to justice those who commit or authorize human rights violations in their own countries, why should those foreign leaders listen? And if the US government does not abide by the same standards of justice, what shred of moral authority will we retain to pressure other governments to diminish abuses?

It is far past time for President Bush to prove that he is not covering up the misdeeds of senior officials and political cronies who designed and authorized these nefarious interrogation policies.

Congress must appoint an impartial and independent commission to investigate the masterminds of the atrocious human rights violations at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers, and President Bush should use the power of his office to press Congress to do so. Attorney General Gonzales must appoint an independent Special Counsel to conduct criminal investigations into administration officials, including himself, who are suspected of having committed, assisted, authorized, or condoned these abuses or had command responsibility for them. Such investigations must apply to both military and civilian officials who may be complicit in these crimes.

It is inexcusable that the few military higher-ups who have been held accountable have received the equivalent of a parental time out for their wrongdoing, among them Col. Thomas Pappas, the top military intelligence officer stationed at Abu Ghraib in 2003, who was given only a reprimand and a fine amounting to one month’s pay.

Even worse, for President Bush to promote and reward those who should be investigated makes a mockery of the principles of justice on which this nation was founded. Those who were rewarded include Gonzales, promoted from White House Counsel to the highest law enforcement position in the land; Timothy Flanigan, just nominated to serve as Gonzales’ second in command and who allegedly contributed to several key legal opinions that lead to torture; Haynes, the Defense counsel who was nominated to serve on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Jay Bybee, former Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel whose August 2002 memo argued that only interrogation techniques that cause pain that would ordinarily be associated with death or organ failure constitute torture and who was later nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Furthermore, Amnesty International calls upon state bar authorities to investigate the Administration lawyers alleged to be involved in the torture scandal for failing to meet professional responsibility standards. The attorneys who wrote various legal opinions that may have provided cover for subsequent crimes and who should be investigated include Bybee and David Addington, General Counsel to Vice President Cheney; Robert Delahunty, former Special Counsel in the Office of Homeland Security, and three attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel—John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General. We also call on the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to make public the findings of its investigation into the Bybee memo.

A wall of secrecy is protecting those who masterminded and developed the US torture policy. Unless those who drew the blueprint for torture, approved it and ordered it implemented are held accountable, the United States’ once proud reputation as an exemplar of human rights will remain in tatters. Its shattered image will continue to fuel anti-American sentiment around the globe and make the world a more dangerous place.

Amnesty International’s new report documents just how dangerous the world remains.

Nepal is on the brink of catastrophe. Each day, civilians face possible torture, “disappearances,” political executions, abduction, arbitrary detention, rape and other abuses at the hands of government security forces and insurgents from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). New cases of torture are reported almost daily, and hundreds of student activists, journalists, trade unionists and human rights defenders have been arrested.

Despite the Nepali government’s poor human rights record, since 2001 the US government has provided it with more than $29 million in security assistance to fight the insurgents. Amnesty International strongly condemns the human rights violations committed by those insurgents but urges the US government to immediately suspend all security assistance to the Nepalese military until fundamental human rights protections are restored. We call on the government of Nepal to immediately release all prisoners of conscience, reinstate fundamental freedoms, and bring to justice security forces who commit abuses.

As if the tsunami disaster in Indonesia weren’t devastating enough, the human rights situation in the province of Aceh remains grave. The armed forces commit political killings, arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence. The Indonesian government must prosecute and punish all those who were involved in gross human rights violations or who aided or abetted militia groups. President Bush, when he meets today with Indonesia's President Yudhoyono, should urge him to allow human rights investigators into Aceh and seek assurances that the armed forces stationed there will not interfere with the delivery of tsunami disaster relief.
In Colombia, women and girls are caught in the crossfire of the country's decades-long armed conflict. For example, last July more than 10 soldiers from the Fourth Brigade apparently gang-raped two girls aged 16 and 17. Some of the soldiers reportedly threatened the girls and their families after they reported the rape to the Attorney General.

In October, armed groups allegedly killed four women, one of whom was pregnant, after accusing the women of having relations with security force members. The Colombian government must do more to publicly condemn such violence, aggressively investigate its security forces, and bring perpetrators to justice. With the US providing approximately $600 million a year in security assistance to Colombia, the Bush Administration must speak out about violence against women by Colombia's armed actors and withhold its certification of Colombia's human rights practices until they improve.

The Administration must be resolute in pressing for an end to the killing of civilians by all parties to the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly and deliberately targeted Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks, killing some 1,000 Israelis, including 110 children, in the last four and a half years. The Israeli army and security services have killed unarmed Palestinians in repeated reckless shootings, shellings and air strikes, killing some 3,200 individuals, including more than 600 children. While Amnesty International commends Israel’s planned withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip, the US government should press Israel to evacuate settlers from scores of other settlements throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Darfur region of Sudan remains in crisis, with 1.9 million people forced from their homes. The world stands idly watching, as government-sponsored militias systematically target innocent civilians for ethnic cleansing. The state of emergency permits Sudanese authorities to detain people indefinitely without charge or trial, break up peaceful demonstrations, and violate human rights under the guise of counter-insurgency. Rape, kidnapping and attacks on civilians increased just last month.

We urge President Bush to make Darfur a top priority of US foreign policy. While we welcome the President’s decision to send Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick to Darfur, he would send a far stronger message by dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the country without delay. We also call on the US government and the international community to provide support to the International Criminal Court in its investigation into the crimes committed in Darfur and to insist that all parties to the conflict cooperate with the Court.

Not all our findings are grim. Amnesty International, which has campaigned with local women’s organizations to end violence against women in Turkey, is pleased that the new Turkish Penal Code removes many of the gender-discriminatory articles of past penal codes and that towns now must establish domestic violence shelters. But more remains to be done. Amnesty International calls on Turkish authorities to create guidelines for those shelters, fund them, and conduct domestic violence training for police.

Other positive developments include the growing debate on political change in the Middle East, the US Supreme Court ruling that granted detainees in Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge their detention in US courts, which provided a check on the Administration’s overreaching, and a ruling by the British House of Lords that indefinite detention of foreign nationals suspected of being “international terrorists” violated their human rights.

Today, as we focus on the torture scandal, Amnesty International USA announces its new grassroots campaign, “Denounce Torture: Stop It Now!” Public opinion surveys have shown that Americans oppose the use of torture, and Amnesty International will work to turn that opposition into action. We will educate and mobilize tens of thousands of people around the country to take action to end torture and ill treatment and pressure the government to hold individuals accountable at all levels of the chain of command.

Mr. President, last year you said, “Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country. We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and being.”

President Bush, it is time to find out whether what you said is true and, if you did not order torture, then who did. It is time to prove that your words were not an artful cover-up of illegal actions. It is time to stop sheltering the apparent architects of torture policy, or else you will be known not for your promotion of democracy but for your perpetuation of demagoguery, not for your high mindedness but for your hypocrisy. Mr. President, tear down this wall of secrecy and silence! Thank you.

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