Patrick’s Notebook

By Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service — 31 January 2008

– Western governments, eager to pursue their political or economic interests, too often reward self-proclaimed and flawed “democracies” that clearly abuse the political and civil rights of their citizens, according to the latest edition of Human Rights Watch’s annual “World Report” released here Thursday.

The mere holding of elections does not make a state democratic, according to the report. Yet both the United States and the European Union (EU) have used such exercises to justify aid and closer ties to friendly or potentially useful governments, according to the report.

“It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the ‘victor’ is a strategic or commercial ally,” said HRW director Kenneth Roth, author of the report’s introduction.

In doing so, they undermine the causes of both democracy and human rights, according to the 569-report.

“(I)f dictators can get away with calling themselves ‘democrats,’ they will have acquired a powerful tool for deflecting pressure to uphold human rights,” Roth wrote. “It is time to stop selling democracy on the cheap and to start substituting a broader and more meaningful vision of the concept that incorporates all human rights.”

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AFP — 30 January 2008

— US Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Wednesday to define waterboarding as illegal torture, even while admitting that if he underwent the interrogation technique that he would “feel” it is torture.

Fending off pressure in a Senate Justice Committee hearing to categorically call waterboarding, which simulates drowning, as torture under US law, the top US legal official suggested that under certain conditions it could be legal, and said that learned people could disagree on the issue.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to pass definitive judgement on the technique’s legality,” he said.

“There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit waterboarding’s use. Other circumstances would present a far closer question.”

In his first testimony to the committee since becoming attorney general on November 9, Mukasey said that torture is illegal under US statutes, but that waterboarding is not definitively covered by those statutes.

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