Amnesty International--The Case of a Rape Foretold

[Say_What]

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By PAUL de ROOIJ


Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights, genuine human rights concerns.

-- Francis Boyle, Prof. of International Law and former board member of Amnesty International <1>.

Human Rights organizations used to play an important role raising awareness of human rights abuses, scoring an occasional point with one state or another, and were instrumental in releasing a handful of hapless prisoners. However, they have increasingly abdicated their role as modern-day paladins of justice, to become politically manipulated organizations that are more concerned with fundraising or appearing on TV. Several authors have described how human rights organizations have played a role in priming the propaganda pump prior to war; these accounts make sobering reading, and they dispel preconceptions about some of these organizations <2>.

A recent UN report confirmed that the situation for the Palestinians is desperate and has reached crisis proportions <3>. The report goes so far as to state: "a UN committee monitoring human rights abuses of Palestinians has concluded that the situation in the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank was the worst ever last year." This situation is chronic, and indeed, mass abuses of human rights have been going on for decades. Anyone concerned with justice for the Palestinian people must wonder what position human rights organizations have taken on the issue and what they have reported. In the case of Amnesty International, it is a sorry and dubious record. This article presents an in-depth look at AI's poor record in monitoring the plight of the Palestinians during the second intifada.

This article is a follow-up to: "AI: Say It Isn't So" (CounterPunch, Oct. 31, 2002).

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