Over at the New International Times, I have built myself a special place called The Rant Room. It is specially designed to be sound proof, as to not disturb the rest of the members when I get off the leash. The INT Times is a cozy place, where thoughtful people from around the world can have a slower paced discussion of political changes that are happening across the planet. Not quite at the frenetic pace of dKos or here at Booman Tribune, but a small part of the effort to increase dialogue amongst the citizens throughout the world. Despite the membership spanning dozens of time zones, the New International Times serves as a meeting place to share and exchange information and opinion on developments in our individual countries and to discuss common global issues.
Last time I sent myself to the Rant Room it was over GWB’s single-mindedness over Social Security. This week, I find myself in a similar situation, only I am the one with the one track mind. It happened quite by accident, but I have not been able to shake my disbelief and no matter what else I have read, I can barely concentrate on anything else.
Earlier in the week, I stumbled across a WaPo article titled, Bush Meets Dissidents In Campaign For Rights, a collaborative piece by two of WaPo’s staff writers that appeared on the front page of the print edition…above or below the fold, I could not say.
If things had been different and I merely heard the cut-n-dried version, say, a matter of fact recounting in a radio newcast, I would have thought `that darn Bush…he’s diving for cover in light of the Amnesty International report and all the bad news out of Gitmo’. But as I read the article, I kept hearing love and admiration for our wonderful leader as he reaches out to the tortured and oppressed. Some two days later, I am still beside myself. There is a lot going on in the world and all I could think about was George W Bush taking political advantage of the victims of political oppression.
Facts are facts. Bush met in the Oval Office with Kang Chol Hwan, a North Korean dissident/defector who spent 10 years in a North Korean prison. In this meeting cum photo op, Bush asked, “If Kim Jong Il knew I met you, don’t you think he’d hate this?” “The people in the concentration camps will applaud,” the defector, Kang Chol Hwan, responded, according to two people in the room.
But, if we are to believe what was written, Henry Kissinger recommended to Bush that he read Hwan’s book, “The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag” and then began urging his senior advisors to read it…like Condi Rice and Mike Gerson. According to WaPo, Bush didn’t just read a book, he plowed through it. I find the whole notion of Bush reading a bit difficult to reconcile. It is not that he is a moron, it is just not in keeping with his natural and expressed interests.
WaPo characterizes the meeting with Hwan as powerfully symbolic yet potentially risky approach modeled on Ronald Reagan’s sessions with Soviet dissidents during the Cold War. And further, the WaPo staffers indicate that this is a furtherment of his personal commitment made in the 2004 Inaugural address where he vowed to activists around the world that “we will stand with you” in battles against repression.
Were this a personally held belief and worthy of action, then the White House and the State Department would not have turned their back on Chen Yonglin, a Chinese diplomat in Australia, a prisoner and subject to “re-education” as a result of the Tiananmen protests, who is currently being denied asylum status in Australia. How could this be? China asserts that Yonglin is a dangerous dissident and Bush cannot risk a diplomatic challenge at this point when he depends on China to bring Korea back to the table for non-proliferation talks. I supposed George has great faith in his ally Howard to do the right thing. However, the Australian government has already denied Yonglin political asylum, as has the US embassy and is very slowly evaluating a protection visa.
Human rights vs. free trade vs. political expediency…hardly a fair fight in GWB world.
Is this an isolated incident? No. Bush recently also played host to a Venezuelan hostile to the Chavez government, Maria Corina Machado, founder of a Venezuelan civil society group called Sumate and a leading critic of President Hugo Chavez. Machado faces a possible prison sentence after receiving a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy. It made for a wonderful photo op, she commented that the meeting was a “recognition and signal that the world does care about what is happening” in her country. She added that it has inspired people who face intimidation by the government. But she also said that the government has reacted negatively to the meeting, with its allies in the news media and the legislature threatening to revoke her citizenship. But will Bush be there for Machado when the chips are down? Was she sucked in by Bush’s cowboy charm?
The most truthful statement in the article came with this: So far, Bush has focused his attentions largely on activists from countries with which he is already openly hostile, while those from allies such as Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have not won Oval Office invitations.
That speaks volumes about the Bush Regimes commitment to fighting oppression, supporting activists and upholding human rights. As far as image campaigns go, this has not done a thing to Brasso the tarnish off the lamp that is Guantanamo. That genie is not going back in the bottle.
Good ol’ George will have another opportunity to test the depth of his commitment at the end of June. This again will speak volumes to the character of GWB and the nation’s obligation to be a leader on human rights and not merely political opportunists.
June 27th, Mohammed Salih, chairman of the Democratic Erk Party of Uzbekistan, a leading opponent of the Karimov government will visit Washington. There is little question that Bush is between a rock and a hard place one this one.
After the massacre of hundreds of protestors at Andijan last month, there were mixed messages coming from the United States with the State Department pushing for strong declarations repudiating the actions of President Karimov’s military police for firing on unarmed civilians and the Pentagon being both obstructionist and silent out of fear of losing their base access in Uzibekistan. Karimov has already restricted US military flights out of the base in response to the most modest of State Department statements.
This is what happens when a government keeps company with tyrants for purposes of political expediency. We have access to their bases, we have access to the air strips and we have used Uzbekistan as a defacto jailor and surrogate torturers under the rendition programs of the CIA and military. These are our allies in the global war on terror even though the US State Department’s 2001 report on human rights characterized Uzbekistan as “an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.”
This is a country where President Islam Karimov has banned genuine opposition parties and independent media and imprisoned thousands of government critics. Whether you are picked up by Karimov’s military police or rendered by the US, upon imprisonment, you can look forward to genital electrocutions, beatings, asphyxiations, having your toe or fingernails forcibly pulled out and by State Department accounts, you could be boiled to death. Karimov, the authoritarian is our ally. The bases and jails of Uzbekistan are key to Bush’s global war on terror.
I have no beef with the activists, dissidents, or political prisoners that Bush has met with. I have no argument human rights groups or NGO’s that benefit from White House exposure. But I do have a beef with this administration’s selectivity based on what is politically expedient.
Mohammed Salih may have a US travel visa, but I bet on June 27th, he will not be meeting Bush in the Oval office for another politically correct photo-op.