By STEVEN R. HURST
WASHINGTON (AP) – Advocates fear the Obama administration may be putting the human rights issue on the back burner to focus instead on coping with the global economic crisis and national security.
President Barack Obama sought the moral high ground on human rights with his early order to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and declaration that the United States would never again torture prisoners.
Those moves — which won nearly unanimous international praise — were made soon after Obama took office. He sought to repair the U.S. image abroad, correcting what he believed were mistaken Bush administration policies that had left the United States on the diplomatic outs with much of the world, even with some traditional allies.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dulled the luster, rights advocates say, when she said during a trip to Asia that the administration — while still deeply concerned about human rights in China — could not let that interfere with cooperation with Beijing on the worldwide economic crisis and the fight to ease global climate change.
“We fear she may be setting this tone as a signal to the rest of the world that human rights are not going to be one of the main issues for the administration,” said T. Kumar, Amnesty International advocacy director for Asia. “Trade and security should not be promoted at the expense of human rights.” [Hillary Clinton will turn out to be worse than Jendayi Frazer for Africa. Let’s not forget that the Rwanda genocide occurred under her husband’s watch.]
Clinton pushed back Thursday after a Washington meeting with China’s foreign minister, noting she and Yang Jiechi had a significant engagement on human rights and the situation in Tibet.
“Human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue” with China, she said. “It doesn’t take a front seat, a back seat or a middle seat. It is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing.”
Beyond China, however, there is a considerable list of Obama positions that have raised doubts about how far the new president will shift from the policies of his predecessor.
_The administration has filed a legal brief that echoed Bush in maintaining that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights and arguing that enemy combatants held at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention.
_Government lawyers continued to invoke the state secrets law in a federal court case that involves the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, in which U.S. operatives seized foreign suspects and handed them over to other countries for questioning. The law blocks the release of evidence the government deems secret and potentially harmful to U.S. security.
_The administration is feeling out Uzbekistan, which has one of the worst human rights records among the former Soviet republics, about using an air base to provide supplies and troops to Afghanistan. The move became necessary after neighboring Kyrgyzstan declared it was canceling the U.S. lease for a base in that Central Asian country.
_Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently greatly scaled back expectations in Afghanistan, declaring the United States was not going to be able to leave behind anything close to a western-style democracy. The U.S. rationale for its seven-year engagement in the country rested partly on having driven the Taliban from power. The Islamic fundamentalists ran a brutal regime that was particularly harsh in its treatment of women. The administration has recently said it was ready to reach out to Taliban members who are willing to work with the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Those and other human rights issues trouble advocates, but they emphasize Clinton’s very public remarks regarding China.
“Part of her challenge diplomatically is going to be able to work on many fronts,” said Amnesty International’s Curt Goering. “The United States cannot be credible on any issue unless it remains credible on human rights.”
He said Amnesty does not deny the need for pragmatism, but insists the United States must at the same time “signal it is serious about human rights.”
Kumar, likewise, acknowledged the pragmatism argument but said Clinton could have delivered her message in closed-door meetings with the Chinese. He said her public comments on human rights were bound to inspire serious questions about U.S. intentions under Obama.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked this week about comments by the Dalai Lama, the revered leader of Tibetan Buddhists who fled to exile as Tibet’s 1959 uprising against Chinese rule collapsed. The Dalai Lama said Tibetans were living in “hell on earth” because of Chinese repression.
“The United States respects the territorial integrity of China and considers Tibet to be part of China,” Gibbs said. “At the same time, we’re concerned about the human rights situation in Tibet.”
Gibbs noted that Washington believes the Chinese government increased cultural and religious repression in Tibetan areas last year, and urged Beijing to engage in further negotiations with the exiled leader.
“We believe that substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama’s representatives that makes progress and brings about solutions to long standing issues is the best way to achieve true and lasting stability in Tibet,” Gibbs said, in a muted response to the perennial and fundamental human rights sore point.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood also rebutted the criticism in response to a Washington Post editorial that said Clinton “continues to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy.”
Wood said: “She realizes you have to sit down with, for example, her Chinese counterpart and make these points on human rights. But she also knows that’s not necessarily going to get you what you want at the end of the day, so you’ve got to find new and creative ways to influence the human rights situation in China and that’s what she’s trying to do.”
Obama and Clinton will likely face even stiffer criticism as they move forward with a policy designed to repair U.S. standing globally. They are trying to show world leaders that Washington is once again determined to engage the world through diplomacy rather than what critics saw as the Bush administration’s tendency to rely on diktat.
The mission appears to be especially delicate when it comes to human rights, an issue that stands to block linkage with a number of countries unless the administration finds a way to finesse it by maintaining Washington’s historic standards while not using them as a blunt instrument.
7 thoughts on “Obama putting human rights issue on the back burner?”
First, my mother’s land, and then my father’s.
That is what Barack Hussein Obama is trying to tell us that he wants to serve his mother’s land first, and then, if time permits, he will look after his father’s land and its neighbor, Ethiopia.
He knows how much the American people are suffering as the result of the two unplanned wars: the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, and the third war is the collapse of the housing industry, the banking system, and the education system. So, he wants to solve such overwhelming problems before he tries to fix the human rights problem in Ethiopia and in other countries. No one can blame him for prioritizing his methods of helping other nations that need his help.
Right now, Ethiopia may not be in his agenda as far as human rights is concerned, and as far as Ethiopia is not in Obama’s agenda, we Ethiopians must be prepared for the worst, and that is Meles Seitanawi may remain in power for another eighteen years. We have been hoping that President Obama will do something tangible in Ethiopia and very quickly, but, at this time, it doesn’t seem he is going to bring any leadership change in Ethiopia. He is saying: “Let the statuesque in Ethiopia continue until seven times seven or until seventy times seventy. (1 time = one year; 7 X 7 = 49 years; 70 X 70 = 490 years, which means Ethiopians will be ruled for many generations under the offspring of one ruthless dictator after another ruthless dictator.)
Lets not forget that the US does not have enough leverage to challenge even a poor country like Ethiopia.
Dictators this days can survive with out US approval.
UD itself needs credit injection to sustain the collapsing superpowor’s empire and keep it running.
If China refuses to keep it’s surplus reserve in US gov bond it will be the end of stimulus and the downward spiral will contininue.
We should give Obama time to creat or help to creat a sustainable new 21 century bubble till then we need China and other dictators are also insulated .
I’m wondering about my fellow Ethiopians and Eritreans big expectation of the West or Obama. You guys are dreaming getting noticed from Obama or the likes to fix your problem without America’s interest in it. We’re the one who created the problem in our land and we’re the only ones to fix it with the help of Almighty God. Don’t blame someone for your problem or because someone putting your issue on the back burner. We all educated or not are ‘victim’ of colonial brainwashing of telling us they will fix our problem if we participate in their campaign to power or bring video to white house to prove they are inocent. These all are political gimmick. Fellow Ethiopians & Eritreans and Africans at large you better wake up save your high expectations for later days and return back the God of your fathers to repent from your wicked ways and take charge of your respnsibility by stopping blame someone and save your community from modern day colonialism.
May God bless the needy
West will come in your help only when they see helping a minority regime a futile effort. There is no a better servant than a minority regime which is solely dependent on them. If you expect a change of heart from them by demonstrations in their capital, you are just dead wrong.
The best strategy would be a strategic and tactical alliance with all who oppose Weyanes. But our politicians are not bold enough to choose the right path. They always look their shoulder before making any decisions. We lost golden opportunity time after time; May election was one of them. Ginbot 7 would be one of the most popular and strong organization by now if it would have left Kinijt intact and followed the same policy as it does now. Unfortunately, their hesitancy and reliance on the West cost them dearly.
Well said aba, but don’t forget that we live in global political economy and U.S. is a big actor as the sole supper power. All we ask of President Obama’s administration is fairness to our problem and not to repeat the past policies of protecting and financing dictators in our continent. If we stick to the truth and trust in the true God we will overcome out problems. God works his miracle through righteous men and women, it does not operate in a vacuums. We pray for President Obama to lead U.S. to its past glory of beacon of hope, freedom and justice for all. It is cheaper to help Africa people achieve peace than to finance war mongers to cling to power by dividing the poor through tribal, national, religious etc. differences, and that is not contradiction to U.S. economic solution. Africa’s peace and development will enable to sale more tractors, caterpillars than tanks and bullets. Therefore President Obama can not afford to keep Africa’s problem in the backburner for too long. If Africa remained poor and unstable economically it will drag the rest of the world and there may not be a lasting solution to the global economic and financial crises.One can not separate U.S. economic and security interest african peace and development.
This gentleman and great president has the most pressing issue concerning domestic affairs since the Great Depression. Why does he have to waste very valuable time on somewhat lost cause – Africa? Even he does, it will be a thankless task for him. Once he starts doing something about it, there will be a lot loud mouth complainers out there. Africa of today is not the Africa of the 50’s, 60’s and 80’s. It has more intellectual horse power than ever before, enough such property to take Africa out of such economic and political quagmire. The children she taught using all her meager resources have turned out to thieves, connivers, murderers and educated barbarians. They have refused to live in peace and harmony with other ethnic groups around them, they have vowed not to accept defeat and regroup for next rally and chosen condemnation and name calling as their main instruments of political campaigning. Then they push their naive supporters into raging fire as canon fodders and flee their countries or turn to what they call it peaceful civilian lives. And if they are on the way to winning, they dangle a bag of cayenne pepper to throw it into the eyes of the people in power. Leave Obama alone and sort things out yourself. Spit out these socialist jargons, jihads of the ‘Eyyalle Souks’ and ‘Zerrafs!!! Zerrafs’ of the 1890’s. They are too stale ideologies and stink to high heaven.
We have only the Almighty God and ourselves to come out from the hell that TPLF has created for us in the last 18 years on our watch. While any external help should not be ignored, it is ultimately our responsibility and civic duty as Ethiopians to free ourselves from the evil grip of turanny of the Meles regime.