Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Central American conflicts: a reading list Message-ID: <295@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-Jan-86 15:31:22 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.295 Posted: Thu Jan 9 15:31:22 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jan-86 03:56:34 EST Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 79 Ron Rizzo recommends: > Americas Watch, "On Human Rights in Nicaragua," May 1982. > > Describes how freedom of expression and of travel abroad > has been curtailed by the Sandinistas. One may also read "With Friends Like These: The Americas Watch Report on Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Latin America", ed. Cynthia Brown (1985): "In examining the true nature and scope of abuses of human rights in Nicaragua it is necessary to separate the facts, and their true context, from the U.S. government's portrayal of them.... "President Reagan has reserved for himself the most inflammatory words against Nicaragua. In a major televised speech on May 9, 1984, he called the Sandinista rule `a Communist reign of terror.' On July 18, 1984, he said that the Nicaraguan people `are trapped in a totalitarian dungeon' worse than the Somoza dictatorship.... "Freedom of expression should be demanded of any government without regard to the content of the opinion to be expressed. Thus, support for La Prensa's right to publish is not indicative of support for what La Prensa has to say. This does not appear to be the standard used by the Reagan administration, however. Every action taken against La Prensa elicits strong comment from the administration, while the murder of journalists in El Salvador, and routine violations of the right to free expression elsewhere in the hemisphere, are not condemned.... "Perhaps the highest expression of the Reagan administration's double standard vis-a-vis Nicaragua is the administration's attitude toward human rights violations by the rebels it generously supports. The State Dept.'s Human Rights Bureau employs entirely different measures for evaluating contra abuses than it uses for guerrillas elsewhere in the region.... "Significant abuses of human rights have taken place in Nicaragua. It is plain, however, especially when set alongside apologies for human rights abuses in nearby countries where far greater violations have taken place, that promotion of human rights in Nicaragua is not the Reagan administration's principal aim. Rather, the aim is to overthrow the Sandinista government, an aim that the administration also pursues through overt-covert support for armed forces attacking Nicaragua. In effect the Reagan administration's human rights policy with respect to Nicaragua is a degradation of the human rights cause, for it makes human rights criticism an instrument of military policy.... "[The State Department's *Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1981*] dates `the human rights movement in world politics' from 1776 and then ... defines the postwar human rights issue as a competition between East and West in which the West (the U.S.) is the champion of human rights, and the East is the vaguely defined opposite. Nazism and its effects do not appear in this account, nor is there a single mention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the worldwide concern that led to its drafting, or the contributions to human rights law and history made by any other nation.... "If anything, the contempt for law that is reflected in [the CIA manual `Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare' intended for use by the contras] was exceeded by William J. Casey, director of the CIA, in an October 25, 1984, letter attempting to defend the publication of the manual. The letter, which was sent to the members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees after the manual came to light, approvingly quotes a passage from the manual which justifies the practices it recommends on the ground that, `while not desirable, [they are] necessary because the final objective of the insurrection is a free and democratic society where acts of force are not necessary.' [Quoted in NYT, 11/2/84, p. A3] In other words, the end justifies any means at all, and certainly nothing so trivial as law -- U.S. or international -- should be a constraint.... Possibly the most disturbing aspect of the Reagan administration's attitude toward international and domestic laws concerning human rights is that the laws themselves are considered of no great moment." -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes