Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

For those of us Americans who oppose torture, including the use of water-boarding during the interrogation of detainees, it is a national priority to address the past human rights abuses committed by U.S. military personnel and military contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan and the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. If the present system inherited from the Bush administration continues, there should be criminal convictions of military personnel for human rights abuses committed during the course of the “war on terror.” However, Congress seems to be in no mood to chase U.S. military operatives who have committed human rights abuses. Nor does the White House seem inclined to investigate, let alone prosecute, human rights abuses. Hopefully, the Supreme Court might be found to be a haven for rights. Just maybe. So, realistically then, aside from our appropriate rage and continuing protest, what can be done to reform how we protect our national interests while upholding human rights standards?

Our military people believe that the present system of detaining and interrogating people suspected of being connected to terrorism allows for C.I.A. and Blackwater types to enjoy relative immunity while the average soldier runs a risk of going to jail for following orders. Thus, in cases where someone with good information is picked up and he or she needs to be interrogated properly and efficiently, we have a split in American military operations at a critical time. The prisoner, it is assumed, has real information which would save lives and help our soldiers avoid bodily harm. How best to get this information is the question. Who is responsible for that work? How can the United States operate so that the rules of warfare are not violated? And how can the United States credibly assert that it is not torturing detainees? The average soldier is not likely to know the rules and appropriate procedures for interrogating detainees. The C.I.A. and Blackwater types are not to be trusted without oversight and enforceable guidelines. A clear-cut process is needed.

My answer is a new kind of ‘SWAT’ team (Stop Water-boarding and Torture) for the military. I believe that a fundamental and structural change in the military is required to ensure that some degree of transparency and accountability is maintained for the treatment of detainees. The military should set up the SWAT school (unlike the School of the Americas which has taught torture methods) in order to teach military and C.I.A. personnel how to best get information and data from a prisoner while conforming to international human rights standards. The use of military contractors for interrogation of detainees should be banned outright, unless they are made to conform to the same standards as that of our enlisted personnel.

The SWAT school will work to develop efficient methods for training people to achieve the goal of getting information that will help prevent terrorist activity and/or bodily harm while keeping in mind human rights standards. Presently, this task is left to the darker side of our intelligence agencies or to some untrained soldier. Because of their lack of training or the lack of accountability, a person charged with interrogating a detainee can resort to the use of violence. Because interrogators are under pressure from their superiors to deliver good information, they can feel compelled to use whatever means necessary to extract information from those in their custody. When an interrogator cannot deliver, he/she may think that torture is the means to get what they feel they need to relax the pressure from a commanding officer. Furthermore, battle field conditions sometimes do not allow for the luxury of time to obtain information from a prisoner. So the closest soldier gets the nod to do the dirty work. He or she knows that, in their case, if they violate the rules, prosecution can result. If left to the darker side of our intelligence agencies, there is little threat of prosecution and so operatives can torture detainees with impunity.

What is needed is a training center unit that can develop people for deployment wherever the U.S. military is engaged in combat and the capture of prisoners. The established center would set appropriate standards with input from Congress and the White House. With clear standards for human rights protection in place, prosecutions would result without question in a case where human rights are violated during the course of an interrogation. Once this “SWAT school” is fully implemented into the operations of the military, the world might believe the U.S.A. when it says it is not torturing people in its custody. It would restore the balance between protecting our national interests and maintaining human rights standards for individuals.

President Obama got lucky; he won the Nobel Peace Prize a little early. Good on him. The award which is given on December 10 Human Rights Day in Oslo, Norway, of this year. The date is a remembrance of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Paris, France in 1948. This award ceremony honoring our president will be watched like an Oscar audience all over the world.

For those of us who voted for Obama, we hope he will not merit the treatment the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has suffered. Little known to most people, the UDHR has been read by less than 5% of the world. Governments neglect it and abuse it on a regular basis. They surely do not publish it, though that was mandated by the actual documents. Forgotten and neglected, the Nobel Award is the single annual event that honors the UDHR. Even Amnesty International until 1993 did not adopt all 30 articles of the UDHR. Most human groups seldom use it. Those collective rights bother the West and many human rights groups. There is a great love of individual rights in the West but little time for collective rights, though they live and breathe in the same UDHR as do the individuals rights. i.e. The lack of respect from Wall St regarding the common good has brought down the USA economy to near collapse. The common good in the UDHR is clear and straight forward.

After all, most human rights monies are raised and spent in the West. The left side of the UDHR has suffered from the lack of the strength, money and power of the constituency in the non-West. Not many large offices or big salaries in human rights groups outside of New York, London, Geneva and Washington.

A reading of  ‘Heartbeat and a Guitar’ by Antonio D’Ambrosio tells us the heartache and glory of Johnny Cash who use his music to remember moments of national embarrassment of slavery and land stealing away from the Native people. Awards like songs can become heavy burdens. For if one absorbs the agony of the Apache and the Cherokee, if we remember the ‘strange fruit’ of slavery, a musician changes as does the listener. Johnny Cash sang them all into musical history. Like Cash, the President is a student of history. Obama knows that December 10 is about the stories of the other Peace Prize winners; the struggle of Christians in Ireland, the loss of so many Cambodians, six million Jews, apartheid’s lasting for so long until Tutu and Mandela, the disastrous war of Vietnam for us and them, the massive human rights abuses of military regimes like Argentina, Chile, Burma, especially raping of women as a state policy….all these times and events lived and live in the souls of the Peace Prize winners. By osmosis, Obama will inherit them as well. They are a burden to bear. Surely, sad lessons to learn, but must be learned to avoid repetition.

Our young President will get a little older. The Prize wants him to become wiser as well. The chasm between rich and poor; the chasm between Islam and the other faiths; the chasm between a nation empire in  support of wars as opposed to a nation state in support of peace will emerge; ecology beloved or damned….these chasms and more will surface in the ceremony. Obama will be handed the greatest prize in the world……on the day the greatest document ever written for all of us on earth was signed. My question is simple….will our president accept the prize with the document? Or like former American presidents and award winners, he will take one without the other. Hope not.

The poor everywhere deserve nothing less.

The world will await Obama’s acceptance speech.  With the Peace Prize in his hand, I hope he gives the best speech he has ever given using the frame work of all 30, yes, articles of the UDHR. After 62 years, the real prize is the UDHR and what Obama will do about it.

After all, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin L King, Jr. used a document, namely the Constitution, to move this country forward. Maybe, this President will move our world forward using a document as well. The UDHR. The dream worked. Now for the hope.

Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

In the early 1990s, at the Vienna Human Rights Conference, the Chinese government would not allow the Dalai Lama to enter the building and attend the on-going conference. Now in 2009, President Obama just did the exact same thing by refusing to meet with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Washington, DC. In Vienna, it was more understandable because China forbade it as they sat in the conference as a key player inside the United Nations. The President leads a free nation.

My reaction to the exclusion of the Dalai Lama from the Vienna Human Rights Conference was to carry out a blockade of the conference building entrance as an act of civil disobedience. The New York Times carried a picture of that demonstration. If I could find a venue to organize a similar demonstration of Obama’s refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama this time, I would.

Let me say why.

The Dalai Lama represents the Tibetan people better than most governmental leaders represent theirs. Like Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, another popular leader kept out of power by her government and again backed by the Chinese. Why is it that he (or she) should suffer these kinds of slights? Should not the Nobel Peace Prize winners have anything to say about this? Is it not correct and proper that the winners of such prestigious awards be able to convene and talk about the state of peace in the world?

China is the answer. China is big. Big in dollars. Big in customers. Big in our national debt. Big in supplying guns, to Burma which itself oppresses its people with a serious determination. Big in human rights abuses. China often sends fearsome messages, in the form of military exercises and threatening diplomacy, to Taiwan. China is big in land and environmental abuse. China is big in labor abuses. Many corporations for fear of China will not do a certain kind of charity(funding of human rights groups for example) . Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State goes to China and goes easy on their human rights abuses. She was stronger when she spoke at a human rights event in China when she was the First Lady. We human groups are told that she is after a better economic relationship with China and that she needs to go easy. The President follows suit by avoiding the Dalai Lama. The administration is coordinated when it needs dissidence.

Our President, skilled in politics, terribly bright and a former community organizer, is afraid of being seen in public shaking the hand of the Dalai Lama. This is especially ironic in light of Obama receiving this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. There are vague promises that Obama can meet with the Dalai Lama later. If later, then why not now? One Nobel winner should be able to meet another Nobel winner without fear. Did not one of the President Roosevelt speak of the freedom from fear as a necessary ingredient for life in a democracy?

Thus, given this kind of timidity, hard questions need to be asked. Can President Obama ask the President of China if the Dalai Lama would be allowed back into Tibet? Take up his old residence? Calm his people? Walk familiar Lhasa streets now that he is in his older years? Hang out with his followers? Pray in monasteries that he knows? Dalai is old and it would be an appropriate gesture by both heads of state.

Tibet is the Dalai Lama’s “Vatican.” He is non-violent, unlike the Chinese government. Publicly acknowledging the Dalai Lama’s cause would be type of change I hoped to see when I gave money to Obama’s campaign. Can we advocate that the Dalai Lama be able to return to his home and join his people? Is this too radical?

Better yet, maybe the Dalai Lama ought to do what Gandhi did …march, not to the sea, but to the mountains. His mountains, Tibet. Maybe. Maybe not. But then, nothing comes from fear, not for the President, not for the Dalai Lama and not for the Chinese — it is time for the light.

Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

Governments need to lead the nation the way good drivers operate a vehicle (you may not talk on your cell phone while driving). To avoid trouble, one must look ahead as well as in the rear-view mirror. To neglect either direction will invite serious trouble.

Eric Holder has called for a limited review of the past regarding torture accusations of the CIA. A good decision but not a great decision. Let me try to tell you why.

Governments that torture will inevitably inherit the hatred of people everywhere, and appropriately so. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention is clear in its statement of No Torture. Any government that does not keep that standard before their soldiers, intelligence people and prison guards risks the friendships that decency brings.

Not looking in the mirror when there has been a pattern of torture, or even the torture of one person, is immature denial of a dark past that should not occur again. There needs to be a review, a probe, and a study.

Violators must be chased in each case. I have met more victims of torture and heard more stories than one man should hear. And what I see time and again is this:

First, victims of torture want the torture to stop and second, they want to know who gave the orders.

Who gives the orders to torture? Failing to provide that answer is not an option. Human progress demands answers for Human Rights violations. If you are the father or the mother of a victim, you want and deserve an answer. Democratic governments were made for the good of its citizens. Thus, once torture is alleged, the government must act and dig into the facts of all the violations, not just some.

If you want a moment of despair from which you can escape, ask a survivor of torture what happened to him or her (two separate issues usually). Ask the person when, how did it feel, how long did it last, where did they hurt you, was it once or twice or weeks and months? How did you survive? How did you recuperate? As you ask, watch the eyes, the body reactions, help wipe the tears and the sweat, be prepared to catch one if they fall, watch the fear come and sweep over the room like a tsunami. Suicide often becomes an unseen but real visitor.

Then remember this: Almost all torturers go free. That is the history. A few brave nations are recently trying to turn this fact around: Peru, Argentina, Chile, Rwanda, Bosnia. But the damage torture brings onto the citizens is immense and there is little interest in a real and wide pursuit of justice for the offended. Sixty-three years after the founding of the United Nations the wickedness of torture is alive and well, and spreading. Will this tide of abuse continue?

If you feel torture should be allowed to protect our national interests and therefore we are exempt as a nation, at least do this one thing: read or meet a story of a survivor of torture. Women in particular need to look closely at these stories, for their gender is usually abused for weeks and months by many. 300,000 rapes in the Congo, 30,000 in Bosnia, I could go on, but why?

When the dogs of war are let into the jails, into intelligence meetings and into hidden rooms in hidden countries, cold sweat should come to the back of your neck for any one inside that chamber. If that is your sister, cousin, friend, you will pray and beg God for help. Little relief will come but you will demand the standard of No Torture should be kept and all violators prosecuted, no matter what the President says.

When governments torture, the car is crashing. And, whether you like it or not, the citizens of the U.S. will be implicated in the post-crash police report. It is now time to remove ourselves from this list. By chasing all the violators of people, we begin a process of saying ‘no more’ once again. Maybe this time we might mean it. The world’s decent are looking to see how the U.S. will act. After preaching for years that we are the greatest nation on Earth, isn’t it time to prove it?

Posted by Jack Healey

in The Huffington Post

Sometimes in life, luck, unlike lightening, strikes many times. And every time it strikes, your life experience enriches. I have been fortunate enough to have luck strike about once a decade: In the 60′s, a twist of fate brought me to Dr. King’s March on Washington; in the 70′s, Dick Gregory and I connected on ways to continue King’s dream; in the late 80′s, I was lucky enough to have a front row seat to the Human Rights Now Tour with Sting, Bruce Springsteen and Peter Gabriel; in the 90′s, on a whim, I met Michael Aris, the late husband of Aung Sung Suu Kyi, and later in that decade I had a chance meeting with the imprisoned rightful leader of Burma herself. Recently, thanks to my friends at Causecast, a new start up to help non-profits, I met Shepard Fairey.

If there was one symbol that galvanized Obama’s movement of hope and change, it was Shepard’s red and blue image. The minute I saw it, I knew Obama would win.

Shepard has been kind enough to use his talents to create a dazzling image of Aung San Suu Kyi. My sense is that it will turn the tide and be the lift this campaign needs. Why? It strikes you immediately, one of the portraits that immediately morphs into an icon because it does what Aung San Suu Kyi does: waits, and in its simplicity, inspires. It is the canvas equivalent of Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” or U2′s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” or Sting’s “They Dance Alone.”

When I met Aung San Suu Kyi, in Rangoon in February of 1999, I promised her husband I would do everything possible to get his wife the “freedom to lead.” The US Campaign for Burma and Human Rights Action Center (HRAC) joined forces over ten years ago to give this movement more force.

Helping this cause is not easy. Few know where Burma is. Even fewer can pronounce Aung San Suu Kyi’s name. But the facts are impressive. She won the Nobel Peace Prize; she won as the candidate of her party, the National League for Democracy, with 82% of the vote. Her protest is non-violent. She could easily leave and live a grand life, traveling the world to receive awards, appropriate doctorates, etc. Instead she stays with her people as a prisoner. But unlike other leaders of her sort, she is not yet the Mandela of Asia. Nor the Gandhi of Burma. And yet, torture and rape remain state policy of the military and there are more villages destroyed in Burma than in Darfur. But no one notices.

We’ve all been inspired by the recent and courageous movement for democracy inside Iran. We’ve been horrified by that oppressive government’s response. This has been the status quo inside Burma for nearly two decades. What will it take for people to get outraged at this oppression?

I hope Shepard’s icon can help inspire people to care. It gave this seventy-one year-old radical a new lease on hope. Below is the image. If it moves you, please visit this site and do something. Time is running out.