The top ten recipients slated to receive US foreign assistance in
2014 all practice torture and are responsible for major human rights
abuses, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other
major human rights organizations.
The violators and degree of aid they are expected to receive are: 1.
Israel – $3.1bn, 2. Afghanistan – $2.2bn, 3. Egypt – $1.6bn, 4. Pakistan
– $1.2bn, 5. Nigeria – $693m, 6. Jordan – $671m, 7. Iraq – $573m, 8.
Kenya – $564m, 9. Tanzania – $553m, 10. Uganda -$456m
Each of the listed countries are accused of torturing people in the
last year, and at least half are reported to be doing so on a massive
scale.
Financial support for such governments could violate existing US law
mandating that little or no funding be granted to a country that
“engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally
recognized human rights, including torture.”
The United States remains a signatory of the United Nations
Convention against Torture, ratified in 1994. That the top ten
recipients of US assistance all practice torture calls into serious
question the Obama administration’s overall stance on and understanding
of fundamental human rights.
The
top ten recipients of US foreign assistance this year all practice
torture and are responsible for major human rights abuses, according to
the findings of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other
leading human rights organisations.
This may be in violation of
existing US law,
which requires that little or no aid be provided to a country which
“engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally
recognized human rights, including torture”.
A
report
released by the Congressional Research Service lists the following
countries as the largest beneficiaries of US government-provided aid
planned for 2014:
1. Israel – $3.1bn
2. Afghanistan – $2.2bn
3. Egypt – $1.6bn
4. Pakistan – $1.2bn
5. Nigeria – $693m
6. Jordan – $671m
7. Iraq – $573m
8. Kenya – $564m
9. Tanzania – $553m
10.Uganda -$456m
All ten have been accused of torturing people in the last year, and
at least half of them are reported to be doing so on a massive scale.
In Afghanistan, for example, a UN report that torture in prisons continues to be “
widespread”,
with over half of the 635 detainees who were interviewed claiming to
have been abused. According to Amnesty International, torture is also “
widespread” in Uganda and remains “
common” practice in Iraq.
Elsewhere, in Kenya,
Human Rights Watch claim
that “police in Nairobi tortured, raped and otherwise abused and
arbitrarily detained at least 1,000 refugees between mid-November 2012
and late January 2013.” Tanzanians “at most risk of HIV” also face
“widespread police abuse” – including
torture – and are “regularly raped, assaulted and arrested”.
The worst abuses in detention, however, are alleged to be happening Nigeria, where in addition to the “
widespread” use of torture,
nearly a thousand people died
in military custody in the first six months of 2013. A senior officer
in the Nigerian army, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that
“about five people, on average, are killed nearly on a daily basis”.
According to the
Associated Press,
“if the number is accurate, Nigeria’s military has killed more
civilians than the (Boko Haram) militants did” in the same six month
period.
The “
abysmal”
human rights situation in Egypt, whose government still receives half a
billion dollars in foreign aid annually from the United States, is also
a pressing concern.
According to
Tayab Ali
of ITN solicitors in London, “the evidence suggests that Egypt’s
military regime has carried out crimes against humanity on a horrendous
scale, including murder, persecution, torture and enforced
disappearances”.
At least 1,300 protesters have been massacred and anywhere between 3,500 and
21,317 Muslim Brotherhood supporters arrested since the elected government of Mohammed Morsi was overthrown in a coup d’etat in July.
Although the crackdown shows no signs of letting up, with
dozens more killed
on the anniversary of the Egyptian uprising in January, the United
States is on course to increase its support for the military regime
after Congress passed
a new bill which will allow the US to restore the full $1.5bn in foreign assistance which is traditionally provided.
Israel, the top recipient of US military aid, has also been accused
of committing major human rights abuses over the last year, including
the torture of Palestinian children. A recent
report
by the Public Committee against Torture in Israel described how
detained children “suspected of minor crimes” have been sexually
assaulted by Israeli security forces and kept in outdoor cages during
the winter.
It found that “74 per cent of Palestinian child detainees experience
physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation.”
This would appear to back up the claims of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which last year
reported
that “Palestinian children are systematically subject to degrading
treatment, and often to acts of torture” by the Israeli military and
police.
Likewise, in Jordan and Pakistan, torture is practiced with “
near-total impunity”.
The Pakistani authorities have carried out particularly egregious human
rights abuses in the province of Balochistan, where 160 people have
been
extra-judicially killed and 510 “
disappeared” over the last year. According to
reports
from the country’s most widely read English-language newspaper, at
least 592 mutilated dead bodies have now been found since January 2010.
The United States, however, has kept silent on the mounting evidence
of atrocities and continues to provide over a billion dollars in foreign
assistance annually, making it Pakistan’s “
largest donor of development and military aid.”
A number of other recipients of US foreign assistance are also
alleged to practice torture systematically. In Bahrain, for example,
Amnesty International
report that “children are being routinely detained, ill-treated and tortured”, while in
Mexico and
Ethiopia, torture is described as “widespread”.
Controversially, the Obama administration has also recently restored
military aid to Uzbekistan, where the UN claim torture is practiced in
its “
worst forms”. In one particularly horrifying case, a man was actually
boiled to death in an Uzbek prison for allegedly being a member of an Islamist group.
In spite of this, the United States remains a signatory of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which
it ratified in 1994.
However, the fact that the top ten recipients of US foreign assistance
all practice torture raises serious questions about the Obama
administration’s stance on human rights.
If the United States wants to be taken seriously on these issues, a
serious re-evaluation of its foreign assistance programme is needed.
At a minimum, the Obama administration should respect existing US law
by placing conditions, such as an end to the practice of torture, on
the provision of military aid to foreign governments, which will
hopefully then push those governments towards reform and a greater
respect for human rights.
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