RE: Human Rights imperialism

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a fine, albeit perhaps a bit dense scholarly monograph on
"rights":
Comparative Human Rights, ed. Richard P. Claude, (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins, 1976): 382.

In his own contribution to the collection,  "Comparative Rights
Research: Some Intersections Between Law and the Social Sciences,"
Claude noted, "Where human rights are concerned, the legal scholar
Edmund Cahn and the political science comparativist Ivo Duchacek have
effectively shown that bills of rights are invariably indictments of the
excesses or deficiencies of past regimes."  Claude refered to Edmund
Cahn, The Sense of Injustice, (New York: New York University Press,
1949); and Ivo Duchacek, Rights and Liberties in the World Today, (Santa
Barbara: American Bibliographical Center - Clio Press, 1973).

Without a doubt, Cuba's revolution sprang from the excesses and
deficiencies of past regimes.  Not content to merely indict the regimes
of the past, the Cuban revolution overturned the social order and
reversed the priorities of rights from the private, special and
exclusive to the general, common and collective. Cuban revolutionaries
determined to "have an association, in which the free development of
each is the condition for the free development of all."

Richard Claude's graph "Negative and Positive" rights is worthy of our
examination.  Paying close heed to the UDHR social justice Articles 22
to 29, one may realize that the rights with which the United States has
been most negligent are the same for which Cuba has the best record,
that is the "Positive."  "Positive," although it may connote benefit,
also denotes a real commitment on the part of the state (food, housing,
health care, education, etc.), as opposed to the state *not* acting
(being negative) in the case of restriction on speech, holding of
property, association, religion, etc.

 One of ur first obligations in the study of human rights must be to
determine a generally acceptable definition of "human rights." A compact
signed at a convention of the world's major states may provide a basis
for common understanding. A disagreement could provide some information,
as well.

 Ian Brownlie introduces his collection of Basic Documents on Human
Rights  Part One, "Standard-Setting by the United Nations Organization,"
with the tribute,
 ?A Major achievement of the draftsmen of the Charter of the United
Nations was the emphasis of the provisions on the importance of social
justice and human rights as the foundation for a stable international
order.?  (Basic Documents on Human Rights, Brownlie, Ian, 3rd Edition
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992):1.)

The Charter of the United Nations thus established an internationally
recognized consensus. When the points became particular, however, the
member nations began to discover they held different definitions of
"social justice and human rights." Whether it was as they related to
each other, or whether one should supercede the other, critical
disagreement developed between capitalist and socialist states.

Perhaps at this point it would serve us well to recognize the
ideological right viewpoint of rights.  In a pamphlet distributed by the
American Enterprise Institute, Richard Schifter concurred that many
nations do not agree with the "Western" definition of human rights.
However, for our purposes in a historical materialist study, we should
replace "Western" with capitalist.  (A Conversation with Michael Novack
and Richard Shifter: Human Rights and the United Nations, (Washington,
D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981):7.)

Dr. Walter Berns of the American Enterprise Institute asserted, "the
Soviet Union ought to find it difficult to talk about human rights as we
understand them, for the same reason that it is difficult for a
prostitute to talk about chastity. Marx himself denounced the idea of
rights in the Western sense (ibid. 15)."  Findings in Managua and Moscow
since the demise of their respective socialist regimes indicate that sex
is a more exploitable commodity in a free market economy that
commodifies everything, a situation recognized by Marx if not recalled
by Bern.  Bern correctly recollected his Marx primer, though; Marx did
denounce private property.

Michael Novack warned of the Soviet "empire of darkness (ibid. 20)," and
completed the bisection of his weltanschauung by confiding that a big
difference lies between the West and the rest: the West is the best
(ibid. 25).  These contentious assertions seem to be characterized more
by attack than by analysis.

 One begins to notice a trend with the passage of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Paris on December 10, 1948.
Communist states of the time abstained from but did not vote against the
Declaration.  They were in accord with the concept of human rights, and
categorically opposed to racism and sexism, but the document as a whole
had a distinct "Western bias" in favor of civil liberties over social
and economic rights.  Certain Articles of the Declaration, particularly
Article 17 pertaining to the individual right to property, contradict
notions of social justice as interpreted by historical materialists.
(Ibid.: 21.  Alison Dundes Renteln, International Human Rights:
Universalism Versus Relativism, (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications,
1990): 30.)

 The trend of separation of social justice and human rights took on
greater significance as time went along and especially as regards Latin
America.  Brownlie advised:   ?social conditions in nearly all of Latin
America entail inequalities and deprivation on such a scale that
recourse to the classical Western political and civil rights is
manifestly inadequate.?  Brownlie drove to the dynamic focus of Latin
America's "special features." Without being explicit, he left little
doubt as to the reason for the clash of opinions outlined above:
 ?The whole question of human rights is bound up with the status of
aliens and their property: powerful foreign corporations will wish to
rely on human rights standards to preserve an economic status quo
favourable to their interests. More significant is the relation of human
rights to the regional security system represented by the Organization
of American States. There is abundant evidence that the concept of human
rights in Latin America has been employed as a weapon against
revolutionary regimes, *particularly Cuba* [emphasis added]. (Brownlie
487).?

 The United States wished to keep conditions favorable for big American
investments in Cuba, to have unrestrained access to resources, and to
maintain predominance over the region for strategic reasons. Early
revolutionary Cuba opposed granting these prerogatives when people were
impoverished and living in misery while a few individuals lived
extravagantly.  The two nations were on a collision course if the
revolutionaries remained committed to the changes in Cuban society that
would benefit the Cuban people as a whole. Action and rhetoric from the
United States aimed at the preservation of particular human rights
pertaining to private property in Cuba were perceived as an assault on
the new Cuban society. Attempts to achieve social justice in Cuba were
equated by the United States as attacks on basic human rights and
provided the justification for intervention in a sovereign state's
domestic affairs. (See Stephen E. Ambrose, Rise To Globalism: American
Foreign Policy Since 1938, 5th ed., (New York: Penguin, 1988).

 After the Second World War, the United States righteously declared that
as a Good Neighbor it would continue to be opposed to intervention in
the internal affairs of the sovereign nations of Latin America.  Most
welcomed this announcement, for the United States held the record for
perpetrating interventions in the Western Hemisphere.  Non-intervention
became a key element in the Charter of the Organization of American
States (OAS), preoccupying both Articles 15 and 17.  Apart from a formal
declaration of war and the deployment of troops abroad, however, other
means of interference exist. Attention to Article 15, however, should be
maintained:
 ?No State or group of States has the right to interfere, directly or
indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external
affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only
armed forces but also any other form of interference or attempted threat
against the personality of the State or against its political, economic
and cultural elements.?
(Gordon Connell-Smith, The Inter-American System, (London: Oxford
University Press, 1966), Dumbarton Oaks 129ff.; non-intervention
201-202, 294.)

 It is difficult to argue convincingly that the United States is not in
violation of Article 15 of the OAS Charter; it has been since before the
revolution in Cuba.  The United States cannot truthfully claim that
human rights motivates their intrusions simply because Cuba is Communist
and Communism is against human rights. The United States intruded in
Cuban affairs before Castro declared he was a Marxist-Leninist on
December 2, 1961. (See Jane Franklin, The Cuban Revolution and the
United States: A Chronological History, (Melbourne: Ocean, 1992).

 Contravening OAS Charter Article 15, the postwar United States
marshaled plans for political and economic intrusions into the affairs
of Latin America.  U.S. policy, especially against Cuba, went against
the UDHR in just about every particular--except Article 17.  The
intrusions in Latin America, though, were by proxy or covert and never
direct (unless a particular problem made overt action necessary, such as
in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, etc.).  Examples range from
the toppling of the Arbenz regime in Guatemala (covert) to the Bay of
Pigs (proxy) to the appointment of ambassadors such as William
Schlaudeman (political) to the Alliance for Progress (financial aid
doled out as reward for proper behavior) to adventures as with the
Contras that broke U.S. law as well as every other known international
standard of conduct.

(In 1990 Harry Schlaudeman was appointed ambassador to the new
post-Sandinista government of Violetta Chamoro in Nicaragua.  He also
"played an important role in the reinforcement or reimposition of U.S.
hegemony in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s and Chile in the early
1970s.? (Thomas W. Walker, Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino, 3d ed., (San
Francisco: Westview Press, 1991):170).  Schlaudeman said, "Force works,"
and added, "Before you try to win hearts and minds, *first you have to
kill off the communist leaders*.? (Nicaraguan Network (D.C.) Monitor,
June 1990).   On December 11, 1992, U.S. President George Bush, pere,
gave his nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, to
diplomat Harry Schlaudeman (Bloomington, Indiana, Herald-Times, 12 Dec.,
1992). This is but one more indication of the humanitarian aims of U.S.
policy: to win the hearts and minds of all, some must be blown away.)

The example of a Chase-Manhattan warning to the Mexican ruling class to
eliminate the Chiapan insurgency demonstrates that immense U.S.
financial investment and corporate and subsidiary involvement in the
Latin American domestic scene cannot be credited with neutrality.
(Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch, August 1994).  International Monetary
Fund and World Bank credit and investment, and Structural Adjustment
Programs (SAPs) in Latin America are not just influenced by U.S.
capitalism.  They are part of U.S. capitalism, and influence the
domestic politics of recipient nations.  "Permission to trade" from the
foremost capitalist power on the planet also affects the internal
conditions of particular countries in Latin America politically,
economically and culturally.  All of which has a direct relationship to
adverse human rights conditions, and direct connections to maintaining
U.S. capitalist interests.

 A policy of nonintervention as announced, however, allowed the United
States to sidestep any pressure to help overthrow human rights-abusive
dictators who acted in the interests of U.S. business and strategic
interests.  Batista in Cuba, the Duvaliers in Haiti or the Somozas in
Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile or Stroesner in Paraguay, the Generals of
Argentina or El Salvador, etc. etc., were never really threatened by
U.S. coercion.  But when Cuba introduced a motion concerned with social
justice and asked that "the right of resistance [be] recognized in case
of manifest acts of oppression or tyranny," the OAS Juridical Committee
rejected the proposal with no complaint from the United States.  The
committee explained that a right to resistance in the interests of human
rights would "involve radical transformations in the constitutional
systems in effect in all the Latin American countries." In practice, the
right to resistance was allowed--but only against leftist regimes.
(Connell-Smith 290; see also the Contras, the CIA in Chile, Goulart's
putsch, etc.)

 The expulsion of "Castro" from the OAS in February 1962, fairly on the
heels of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, removed a major stumbling bloc from
U.S. objectives.  American diplomat Dean Rusk had succeeded in getting
the OAS to sign on to the proclamation that "the principles of
Marxism-Leninism were incompatible with those of the inter-American
system." (Connell-Smith 178).  The U.S. Congress then passed a joint
resolution that declared Cuba the equivalent of a pariah state, a state
that by its self-identification as Marxist was reason enough to define
it as hostile to human rights.  As above, the United States remained
more concerned with proprietary rights than human rights, but the
ostentatious championing of the cause of human rights against Cuba
obviously had a more admirable luster than a selfish preoccupation with
property.

 As to how far U.S. "non-involvement" went in Latin American affairs
subsequent to the Cuban Revolution, the Dominican Republic intercession
provided a case study. Despite years of brutal repression, no overt
military interference in Dominican affairs came from the U.S. until the
military junta that deposed a democratically elected president was
toppled by an insurgency in 1965.  (Connell-Smith 180-181.)  Then
President Lyndon Johnson--against the OAS Charter--sent in the Marines
to quell the revolt.  In his own words, "The American nations cannot,
must not, and *will not permit the establishment of another communist
government in the Western Hemisphere* [emphasis mine]."  There was
little evidence that the popular revolt wished to do more than reinstate
the ousted elected head of state, and no proof that the revolt was a
Castroite conspiracy or led by the Communist Party as Johnson charged.
The facade dropped, the Monroe Doctrine came out?with the Marines?human
rights or not.  (Connell-Smith; For Cuban appeal, see p.290. For
Dominican invasion, see "Postscript, July 1965: The Dominican Crisis,"
p.336ff.)

Gordon Connell-Smith wrote The Inter-American System just after the
United States invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965.  Because of the
invasion the author added a "Postscript," but assured his readers that
his analysis was augmented rather than destroyed by the recent events.
His thesis was that the United States was the controlling member of the
Organization of American States, nicknamed the "One and Twenty" for that
reason.  The influence of the United States was felt in OAS
pronouncements, none of which could pass into official recognition by
that body without the agreement of the United States.  It appears,
therefore, based on Brownlie's comment and Connell-Smith's analysis,
among others, that the United States has been more concerned with
expanding private capitalism than with extending human rights, and would
go to any lengths to get what it wanted.  (Richard E. Welch, Jr.
Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolution,
1959-1961, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985):72:
"Castro posed a threat to national security,... Cuba was a Cold War
issue,... the essential objective of U.S. policy was the frustration of
the designs of international communism." One could argue that the
struggle against communism and the promotion of capitalism are two
different things, but on a certain level they are both sides of the same
coin. Anti-communism is the issue, not human rights.

 To underscore the subordinate status of human rights, note the words of
convicted millionaire cocaine dealer George Morales, implicated in the
Contra scandal, "it doesn't matter what we have to do to obtain the
money to fight the communists." That must include addicting youth to
debilitating drugs.  (From Leslie Cockburn, Out of Order: The Story of
the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms
Pipeline, and the Contra Drug Connection, (New York: Atlantic Monthly
Press, 1987):188.).

 Its own record as the Western hegemon contradicts any indications that
the USA in its foreign policies could be a model for the proper respect
for human rights.  Furthermore, no legal justification for United States
interference in Cuban affairs is provided by international law.  For
years the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly
against the United States embargo on Cuba.  We must conclude that ?human
rights? is an excuse used by the United States to harass and menace
Cuba.  Perhaps only in the United States has this realization been
overlooked?or ignored.

Chris Brady, 12 May 2003
In Memory of the 87th Anniversary of James Connolly's execution by
imperialist forces:
Hasta La Victoria Siempre.