Human Rights Watch Under Scrutiny

By Ian Williams

Ironically, just four days before Syrian and Iraqi forces fired upon each other for the first time in Saudi Arabia, the two Arab countries had united to block an application by Human Rights Watch for consultative non-governmental organization (NGO) status with the United Nations.

NGOs accredited to the UN can propose agenda items and address meetings of the UN's Economic and Social Council and its subsidiary bodies. Accredited NGOs range from the International Center of Social Gerontology to organizations with more of a sting, like the International Federation of Beekeepers Associations.*

But the human rights organizations always generate the most controversy at the biennial meetings. Indeed, there are signs that heavily criticized states maneuvered for membership on the human rights accreditation committee in order to thwart their accusers.

This year's 19-strong committee includes Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Oman and Cuba as members, with Algeria, Syria and Tunisia as observers. It only takes one member to veto applications, and Cuba spearheaded the opposition to Human Rights Watch with a criticism that its complaints about the Tienanmen Square massacre were "irreverent."

Charges of Bias

Iraqi delegate Samir Al-Nima said he "had special evidence to prove that the organization served some interests in the United States." His charges that "the organization is racially and religiously biased," were backed by Syria, Libya and Sudan.

Founded by the Fund for Free Expression, Human Rights Watch began by monitoring the Helsinki Accords in 1978. It expanded its geographical base when it started Americas Watch in 1981 and Middle East Watch in 1989.

Citing its recent work to prove the accusations of bias are "ridiculous," HRW's Deputy Director Kenneth Roth said its annual report, issued in January, criticized the Bush administration, saying: "Worse than a case of hypocrisy, the conflict over Kuwait was a ruinous blow for US human rights policy, as the Bush administration cozied up to one tyrant after another in its single-minded pursuit of an anti-Iraq coalition."

Although in 1990, Middle East Watch published highly critical, book-length reports on Human Rights in Syria and Human Rights in Iraq, it also produced that year The Israeli Army and the Intifada: Policies that Contribute to the Killings. This year HRW is compiling a report on the detainees held by the Israeli-directed Southern Lebanese Army.

It has been suggested that MEW accepted laxer standards of evidence when considering allegations against Arab countries than against Israel.

On the Gulf war, Roth points out, its reports had not been too flattering to any side. In May 1990, MEW had condemned the Kuwaiti government for widespread arrests of opposition leaders and pro-democracy activists. After Aug. 2, MEW discounted as exaggerated widely quoted reports from Amnesty International of Iraqi troops putting children out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital. On the other hand, HRW detailed and condemned many other brutal actions by the Iraqi occupation forces.

Roth pointed out that even Syria and Iraq felt constrained to agree that MEW had done good work "on certain countries—by which they presumably meant Israel—but both had raised the issue of the religious and political leanings of its board and staff.

Roth asserted, however, "The organization is not predominately Jewish. The board of Middle East Watch has people from Palestine, Iran, Egypt and America. Our staff and our boards are chosen so they will apply human rights to all countries impartially. We get no government funding as a matter of policy, nor from politically motivated sources. Seventy percent of our money comes from private foundations like Ford, MacArthur and Rockefeller, the rest from private donors."

It has been suggested that the organization accepted laxer standards of evidence when considering allegations against Arab countries than against Israel. Roth rebutted the accusation by pointing out the differences in evidence available. In the Israeli-occupied territories, there were organizations like Al-Haq, and generally journalists and investigators can personally check allegations.

"But Iraq, for example, was a closed society—we are forced to rely on refugees for evidence. But we're judging Israel by the same standard as everybody else—and we criticize them when they're violating the standards." He contrasted HRW reports with the State Department's annual human rights report which, he charged, downplays allies' faults and plays up enemies' breaches of human rights.

Environmental Problems?

While HRW's Middle East Watch has criticized most parties in the Middle East, some critical Arab observers suggest that its reports reflect the environment in which the organization works. Based in New York, MEW has to address an American audience which is hypersensitive, and often incredulous, about tales of Israeli wrongdoings.

For example, MEW's report on Jan. 27, condemning the treatment of curfewed Palestinians in the occupied territories, led with a condemnation of Scud attacks on Israel, as had MEW's Jan. 18 report urging both the allies and Iraq to stop attacking civilians. For some Arab observers, the largely ineffectual Scud attacks were scarcely comparable with allied bombs that hit Iraqi civilian targets.

On this point, Andrew Whitley, executive director of Middle East Watch, said, "We were calling upon the US and Israel not to intensify their repression against Palestinians. Then came the Scud attacks, which were so clearly the use of an indiscriminate weapon. If we had issued a generalized call to all parties, and had not mentioned the Scud attacks which took place the day before, we would have been guilty by omission."

He was at pains to point out that MEW was sending a mission to Jordan in February to report on bombings of civilians by the allies, and on the effect of what Jordan considered an over-restrictive embargo against Iraq.

Notwithstanding the governments at the UN, Whitley found that there was an increasing grassroots awareness of the need for individual political and civil rights—and activity—in the Arab region. "Just look at the number of elections—Jordan, Algeria, Tunis and Egypt. Or the extension of civil rights in unified Yemen, which will provide a telling example for neighboring governments."

But for the governments which blocked the NGO status, he says, more in sorrow than in anger, "I think it was unfortunate and rather stereotypical that they should do this. They probably regret it now—but we will have to wait two years to try again."

Ian Williams is a British journalist based at the United Nations.

*The American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, has consultative NGO status with the UN.