|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
Report Finds U.S. Still Arming Abusive Governments at Alarming Rate |
Current rating: 0 |
by Council for a Livable World Education Fund
(No verified email address)
Phone: Luke Warren - 202.546.0795 x-127 |
15 Jun 2001
|
|
Same Old, Same Old |
WASHINGTON - June 14 - In the wake of the United States' removal from the UN's Human Rights Commission, a new report shows that the U.S. continues to arm some of the world's worst human rights abusers, according to the Council for a Livable World Education Fund.
"Human Rights and Weapons: Records of Selected U.S. Arms Clients" details the human rights records of 16 countries, and the types and amounts of weapons sold to them by the US government. According to the annual report, 78 of the 151 countries that the US approved for weapons sales 1999 were found to have serious human rights abuses by the US State Department that same year.
Based solely on State and Defense Department data, Human Rights and Weapons shows that despite the United States' stated commitment to improving democracy and human rights around the globe, it often undercuts this goal by arming abusive, repressive regimes with weapons used to perpetrate these abuses. For instance, the report states that "Haiti, known for its police brutality and extrajudicial killings, received over $30,000 in riot control ammunition from the Pentagon in 1999. That same year, the State Department licensed U.S. companies to sell over $190,000 worth of ammunition and riot control equipment to Haiti."
Another area of concern raised by the study concerns U.S. training of foreign militaries, known as International Military Education Training (IMET). While not large in dollar value, the human rights records of many Latin American graduates of the School of Americas, a part of the IMET program, demonstrates that IMET does not instill respect for human rights in its trainees, despite Pentagon claims to the contrary. Of the 16 countries discussed in Human Rights and Weapons, eleven received IMET.
Human Rights and Weapons provides data on State Department arms export licenses, Defense Department sales and deliveries, IMET and other forms of military aid. The State Department licensed a record $46.9 billion in 1999, a value almost double that of any previous year. However, it is unknown what percentage of these licenses result in actual sales. Pentagon arms deliveries totaled $16.4 billion in 1999, and its arms sales totaled $12.2 million.
The U.S. also exports the rights and the technical data for arms production. This manufacturing and technical assistance - the blueprints, instructions, and machinery needed to build American designed weapons, and the rights to produce them - totaled $22.7 billion last year. But, as the report claims, this could foster human rights abuses as well, "[a]s developing nations gain the ability to build U.S. weapons without U.S. oversight, the chances increase dramatically that those weapons will make it into the hands of human rights abusers and countries that sponsor or harbor terrorists."
For a copy of the report, more information or commentary, call Mr. Warren at the number above. |
See also:
http://www.clw.org
|
