I’ve already posted this on Kos and elsewhere. I’m dissapointed at the near silence on this, and just want to raise the issue. -MfM
Further evidence that our government’s sense of shame has been fatally wounded comes today from new frontpager the stormy present at European Tribune. The Stormy Present links to an Al Jazeera article noting that the US has refused to sign a treaty banning forced dissappearances, defined as instances where state agents detain individuals then deny holding them.
Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, told reporters after the signing at his ministry in Paris: “Our American friends were naturally invited to this ceremony, unfortunately, they weren’t able to join us.”
In Washington, Sean McCormack, a US state department spokesman, declined to comment except to say that the US helped draft the treaty, but that the final text “did not meet our expectations”.
It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that our country refuses to sign a document that would ban the state from engaging in programs to snatch citizens off the streets and send them to secret prisons. We all know that our government has been engaged in precisely this sort of behavior running secret prisons in Europe, but this treaty is about more than that
When I first saw that the title of this treaty included the term “disappeared”, what immediately sprang to mind for me was the story of los disaparecidos, the men and women kidnapped and in some case killed by the military governments of Argentina and Chile during the 70s and 80s. Not only did the governments of those countries kidnap their own citizens, when the mothers, daughters, and wives of the men taken went to the authorities to ask where they were, they were simply told that their loved ones had dissappeared.
Left with no other recourse, these women took to the street and they danced alone. If you’ve ever heard the Sting song of the same name, this is what he’s singing about.
“They Dance Alone”
Why are there women here dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here
Their faces fixed like stone?
I can’t see what it is that they dispise
They’re dancing with the missing
They’re dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They’re dancing with their fathers
They’re dancing with their sons
They’re dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone
Unable to protest any other way the mothers of the dissapeared would gather every Thursday and walk around the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires for half an hour. They became know as Mother of the Plaza de Mayo. Several of the founders of the group would later meet the same fate as their children.
Dissappeared.
Sent to secret prisons, tortured, killed, then buried in an unmarked grave.
And our government refuses to recognize the evil of this. They insist that the simple acknowledgment of this of governments decide to kidnap and murder their own people does not meet their expectations.
In Argentina, not only where men and women taking from their homes and murdered. The military government would take the detained, drug them, them drop them from planes into the ocean. And even more insidous, there’s evidence that before being killed several pregnant prisoners gave birth to children who were taken from them and given to military families.
Does the Bush administration really support the taking of children from their mothers arms? The murder of those same mothers? The “right” of the state to pretend it never happened?
Have we as a nation lost any any sense of shame?
Just when I think I can’t get any sicker…
“The United Nations currently defines a disappearance as the deprivation of a person’s liberty, in whatever form or for whatever reason, brought about by agents of the State (or by persons or groups acting with authorization, acquiescence or support of the State) followed by an absence of information or refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or information, or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. It is the combination of the two main elements – the deprivation of liberty and the following refusal to admit by authorities to have anything to do with it – that make this practice particularly perverse.” “Disappearances are considered ongoing crimes, which should by their nature not be subject to prescription or statutes of limitation. The crime only comes to an end when the truth about the fate of the disappeared is revealed and the remains returned. The psychological consequences of this ongoing crime on the family members of the person made to disappear are enormous. Relatives are often trapped in an ongoing cycle of hope and despair about the fate of their loved ones and find it hard to find closure that is possible for victims and survivors of other human rights violations. Disappearances are very damaging for a civil society as a whole, as they are almost always committed with the purpose of repressing political opponents. When someone disappears, their entire family and sometimes community is terrorized, silenced and isolated from society.”
The reason this administration will never sign the Convention is because of the renditions and the ghost prisoners
Talking about shame, France, the host of the signing of the Convention has it’s own reasons to be ashamed: They were the ones who trained the Argentine military in the techniques they used. I also believe that several European Union members have failed to sign the convention.
A sobering account of French involvement in Latin America’s dirty wars [and] chilling reminder of what happens when unaccountable security forces and governments arrogate the right to target presumed enemies with the very terror that they claim to be fighting
By the way, why do I feel so envious of countries such as Germany Spain France Italy and Sweeden ? Maybe because all these countries have continued to seek justice for their survivors, while the US has burried their own citizens in some DOJ archive.
Correction:wrote survivors but meant disappeared :0(
Which means we didn’t expect this to apply to the United States as well.
Do as we say, not as we do.
What shame has it ever had? Who do you think paid for those desaparecidos? Operation Condor is still going strong today only it has a new name and a new region of the world. There’s no difference.
Pax
I know.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an international norm recognizing forced dissapearances as unacceptable?
Not to mention that the type of support provides Pinochet and the General in the past, and US direct actions in Europe and elsewhere would be prosecutable if this passes.
I don’t know if this will end it, but I think it can force these activities into the light of day which will make going after them much easier.
Originally 60 countries signed it. What just happened in France is the ratification of the convention. Only 20 counrties have to sign it for it to become universal law (as I like to call it). It is my believe that it has already reached and passed the necessary 20 signatures.
Have no doubt that it will become a reality
Poetic Justice: Leoni Duquet a french nun, together with Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, María Ponce de Bianco, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti founder of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo were all thrown out of a plane so they would disappear. Ironically their bodies returned to shore and had to be burried since people had found them. In 1995 their bodies were exhumed and identified. Now they are proof against Alfredo Astiz (aka the Blond Angel aka the Kid). alfredo Astiz was also captured in the Malvinas (Faulkland) war and released by England after the French government demanded his extradition for the murder of two French nuns.
Never Again.
At one of the other places I posted this, there seemed to be some people that thought I was suggesting that this is happening in the US now to American citizens. It maybe, we don’t know, that isn’t the point though.
The point is that this is unacceptable behvavior anywhere.
I suspected ever since Afghanistan that it has been happening. Remember the riot in which Jhonny Walker got busted? The only explanation I could find was that somthing really nasty was going on. Since those days I havn’t excluded the possibility.
we dont forgive and we dont forget Nunca Mas!
That’s not “our nation.” In fact, I don’t even think that the people driving this administration’s actions are Americans–or think of this nation and its constitution as their first loyalties.
Albright says the administration is “Treaty-phobic.” In fact, they resist anything (including legislation) that limites their absolute power.
their idea of government is no more than, “You’ve been punked!”
At home, Republican senators write and introduce two resolutions for debate on Iraq because they want to kill the debate by voting against them.
In foreign affairs, the Republican administration writes a treaty of condemnation over “disappearing” nations’ own citizens just so it can abstain from signing what it helped author.
Shame does not begin to describe what Republicans and this government lack. Honesty, sincerity, quality, worthiness, decency, community, respect, forthrightness, regard — these words only begin to describe what Republicans and this government lack.
Simple answer?
No.
AG