Kenneth Roth: Dump These 8 Unsavory Allies
During the U.S. presidential campaign, challenger
Mitt Romney famously accused President Obama of having "thrown
allies like Israel under the bus." It was an odd characterization of a
policy that saw Obama make a brief, abandoned effort to limit settlement
expansion, no serious attempt to stop the Jim Crow-like separate-and-unequal
treatment of Palestinians in Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank, and a
determined push to ensure that the International Criminal Court won't get
jurisdiction over war crimes in Palestinian territory.
But plenty of governments deserve, if not being
directed to the bus, at least being shown the door when it comes to
unconditional U.S. support. So-called realists will offer the usual
rationalizations for ignoring that prescription. Their view of the national
interest, however, is outdated in a world where modern communications make it
easy for people to coalesce around grievances and perilous for governments to
ignore them. The Arab Spring showed nothing if not the folly of relying on
strongmen to bring stability.
In this new world, standing up for human rights
reflects not only America's values but also its interests. It should be at the
heart of U.S. policy, not an option of convenience. If Obama wants to bolster
his legacy in his second term, he can and should get tough on some of the
United States' most unsavory friends and allies. Here is a good start:
Afghanistan: As the Pentagon bows out, it is counting on Afghan
President Hamid Karzai to see through the planned 2014 transition. But the
Obama administration hasn't used its considerable leverage to dissuade Karzai
from undermining women's rights, appointing an alleged torturer as intelligence
chief, tolerating rampant corruption, and blocking efforts to hold accountable
his warlord allies.
Uzbekistan:
During the 2005 uprising in the town of Andijan,
President Islam Karimov ordered troops to surround the demonstrators and shoot
everyone in sight. Hundreds were slaughtered. His government routinely tortures
dissidents and imprisons them for 15 or 20 years. Some have even been boiled
alive. Yet the Obama administration soft-pedals his brutality -- and waived
restrictions on selling him military equipment -- because Uzbekistan provides
an alternative to Pakistan for resupplying the troops in Afghanistan.
Especially as this rationale disappears, the Faustian bargain should end.
Cambodia: In
28 years as prime minister, Hun Sen has presided over the killing of countless
political opponents while increasing his control of the army, police, and
courts. But the Obama administration has done little to discourage him from
building a one-party state, such as insisting that exiled opposition leader Sam
Rainsy be allowed home without fear of arrest, and has placed no conditions on
increased military ties or aid. Cambodia is where Obama should demonstrate that
his Asian "pivot" isn't a competition with China for the loyalty of
autocrats but a vision for Asian democracy.
Rwanda:
Led by President Paul Kagame, the Rwandan
government has long benefited from Washington's genocide guilt (Bill Clinton's
administration sat on its hands during the 1994 massacre of more than half a
million people) and admiration for its progress rebuilding the country. But the
Rwandan Patriotic Front, which became the national army, itself murdered tens
of thousands of civilians in the 1990s; the government uses detention and
violence to shut down political opposition; and the military, despite
persistent government denials, has actively supported a succession of rebel
groups in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the U.S. Congress's
insistence, the Obama administration has finally suspended some military aid to
Rwanda, but it continues to run political interference for the government and
downplay its crimes, most recently its military support for the murderous M23
rebellion in eastern Congo.
Ethiopia: Washington had a blind spot for growing repression
under the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in August. In
return for Ethiopia's help fighting terrorism and battling al-Shabab militants
in Somalia, the Obama administration muffled its criticism of the security
forces' war crimes and the government's restrictions on civil society,
detention of journalists, violence against demonstrators, and pursuit of
development policies that penalize political opponents.
Saudi Arabia: Yes, it has lots of oil. But the Saudis, who need
cash to fuel their welfare state, are going to sell it regardless of how Obama
treats them. Meanwhile, the Saudi monarchy holds thousands in arbitrary
detention, imposes archaic restrictions on women, suppresses most dissent,
mistreats its Shiite minority, and insists that the neighboring Bahraini
monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement. Obama has been silent.
Bahrain:
Saudi Arabia's next-door neighbor is the most
glaring exception to Obama's generally supportive posture toward Arab Spring
demonstrators. The ruling Al Khalifa family uses lethal force, torture, and
arbitrary detention to crush protests. Yet out of deference to Saudi
sensibilities and fear of losing the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet base, the Obama
administration has allowed its security relationship with Bahrain to trump its
concern for the rights of Bahrainis -- a selectivity that undermines its
broader support for Arab freedom.
Mexico: The
country's drug cartels have committed horrific crimes, but so have the security
forces that former President Felipe Calderón sent to combat them. Obama
routinely praised Calderón's "great
courage" in
fighting the cartels with nary a word about widespread military and police
abuses. Instead, the administration has sent some $2 billion to support
Mexico's counternarcotics efforts, despite ample evidence of human rights
violations and security forces so corrupt that the Mexican government has
turned to its navy to crack down on the cartels.
Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights
Watch.
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty
Images
