Coalition-building in war on terror may undermine human rights fight

Date: 29/11/01

By David Cronin

"Ethical globalisation" was Guy Verhofstadt's catch-phrase last weekend.

Addressing business leaders in New Delhi, the Belgian premier argued that the wave of liberalising world trade must be accompanied by a drive towards global standards on human rights, development and the environment. The first industrial revolution was purely economic but modern globalisation must be political, too, he said.

The Belgian presidency had an opportunity to prove it was not simply engaging in clever rhetoric during the prime minister's visit to India. Before leaving Brussels, Verhofstadt's advisers received a dossier from Human Rights Watch, urging him to seek withdrawal of a new Indian law that would give police powers to arrest and detain on flimsy grounds.

The group believes it had good reason to fear that the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) would be open to abuse; its main provisions were almost identical to an act under which 76,000 people were arrested between 1987 and 1995. Fewer than 1 of those were later convicted, suggesting it was used as a pretext to arrest trade unionists and political agitators.

Privately, EU figures agree that the concerns raised by Human Rights Watch are legitimate. But one official has confirmed that the Union's delegation made no reference to them in talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The previous weekend in Cairo, Commission President Romano Prodi robustly denied suggestions that the EU is prepared to ignore acts of serious repression in states considered valuable allies in the fight against terrorism. But a comparison between the declarations made by the Union's chief policy-makers before and after the 11 September atrocities indicates that a blind eye appears to have been turned to violations perpetrated in many such countries.

When Chinese leader Zhu Rongji visited Brussels on 5 September, Verhofstadt publicly upbraided him over the persecution of religious minorities in Tibet and North Korean asylum-seekers in China, as well as the draconian nature of the "Strike Hard" anti-crime battle.

Verhofstadt's principled statements then contrasted sharply with the tone he adopted towards Russia a month later. As European Voice revealed at the time, EU leaders reached a tacit agreement at their summit with President Vladimir Putin that they would not complain about the storm-trooper tactics of his forces in Chechnya in return for Moscow settling age-old differences with Washington.

Russian soldiers continue to abuse human rights. According to the Glasnost news service, "drunken federal soldiers" shot dead two teenagers at point-blank range outside a Grozny hospital in the past week.

Also last weekend, Verhofstadt addressed a press conference with Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf, declaring that human rights were a priority issue. But he declined to answer directly whether he had registered concerns in his discussions with the military dictator over the heavy-handed tactics used by Pakistani security forces in repressing recent anti-Musharraf protests.

Verhofstadt has taken refuge in generalised statements on several occasions since 11 September. Early last week he met another despotic head of state, Syria's Bashar al-Assad. On that occasion, he said human rights are "generally" a matter of major importance for the EU but added that he had not raised any specific case concerning Syria, a country that imprisons people with the audacity to recommend constitutional change.

Perhaps more serious was the decision by EU foreign ministers on 5 November to limit the Union's embargo on the export of arms to Afghanistan to areas then controlled by the Taliban. The decision was aimed at paving the way for transferring weapons to the Northern Alliance forces, some of whom have been involved in massacres and mass rape in the past.

It also appears to contravene two UN Security Council resolutions, exhorting countries to cut off the supply of military equipment to all sides in the Afghan conflict.

On numerous occasions, it's been remarked that nothing could remain the same after 11 September. While that statement has already become a cliché, it certainly seems to apply to the Union's policy on human rights in the wider world.

Speaking during a recent visit to India, Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt argued that the wave of liberalising world trade must be accompanied by a drive towards global standards on human rights, development and the environment.