Incensed at the recent State Department report wherein the U.S. wags its finger at the rest of the world for not respecting human rights, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has gone ahead and stated the obvious:
In the continent’s latest assertion of independence from its overbearing northern neighbour – Ecuador has already closed down a US airforce base in the country – Mr Correa hit back at what he termed the US government’s propensity to issue reports on other countries’ “progress” in advancing human rights while ignoring abuses committed by itself.
“What if Ecuador makes a report about human rights abuses in the US?” the president asked.
“In that country there was legalised torture – or has the US State Department forgotten that?”
This is a very, very good idea. Peru’s foreign ministry could express concern over Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and its implications for the “progress” of U.S. democracy; Chile’s state department could warn its citizens not to travel to Washington, D.C., because of its extremely high murder rate; and Guatemala could release a long, detailed report criticizing the U.S. for allowing torturers to remain in impunity.
(Original image courtesy Agencia Brasil)
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Freshly minted, the 11th annual Chinese report on US human rights (EngLang)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/12/c_13208219.htm
love it.
Come now…the first one is a real stretch.
If you wanted US atrocities, you could have mentioned Fouad al-Rabiah, or gone into some recent history and described our mass deportation/isolation of Americans of Japanese descent during WWII. But calling Citizens United a human rights violation is an insult to anyone who has been wrongfully tortured, ripped from their home, or left without justice at the hands of any government, much less ours. True victims don’t spend their time on high-technology platforms in first-world countries debating whether or not the government’s decision adheres to founding documents. Besides, we still have the vote; we just have the ability to be manipulated with greater ease.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m still outraged. Just not “Janjaweed is awful” or “Fouad is innocent” outraged.
Not at all. The U.S. human rights report is full of criticisms related to governance and the judiciary. Many observers consider Citizens United to be a threat to effective representative democracy and an independent judiciary (since many judges are elected), and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch imaging the U.S. State Department issuing criticism were a similar ruling to be issued in Honduras or Thailand (aside from the fact that U.S. companies would stand to benefit the most from such a ruling, so actually SecState would probably say nothing).
I hate to admit it, but you’re right – I read the report in more detail a few hours ago, and was quite surprised at how much less violent most of the details were than I had been used to hearing.
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[...] had threatened to do this when the State Department report on Ecuador was first released. Now I guess Chávez egged him on [...]