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Obama’s Discourse on Human Rights : Rhetoric and Reality

20 février 2010, 00:00

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Barack Obama became the first US President amid widespread excitement and euphoria in the United States and the rest of the world. His election represented the realisation of the unthinkable and his arrival at the White House was a welcome change from everything that George W Bush epitomised during his Presidency. After over a year in office, Obama’s initial strong emphasis on human rights seems to be wanting. Obama started his career as the new President of the United States of America with a hugely symbolic gesture. He promised to end the use of torture during interrogations of suspected terrorists, put an end to detention without trial and to close down Guantanamo Bay within a year. On all three counts, he has failed.

While recognising some of the difficulties he faced domestically around these issues, I nevertheless think that he could have acted much more swiftly and decisively right at the start of his term in offi ce when his popularity was at its highest (>80%). A year down the line, he is no longer that popular judging by the regular flow of polling results – one poll carried out by CNN credited Obama with only 54% of American voters’ support...

Not only should Obama have taken the decisive step to close down that mother of all abominations which Guantanamo is, but he should also have paved the way for Cuba to recover its sovereignty on what is effectively part of its territory. In much the same vein, Obama could have used his powers to close down the US military base on Diego Garcia and exert pressure on the UK Government to accept court rulings, the UN Charter and international law, handing back to Mauritius its sovereignty on the Chagos Archipelago and giving the Chagossians the option of the right to return to their island homelands.

When he addressed the Arab-Muslim world in Cairo last year, Obama began his speech with a resounding Assalamoualaikum! and promised that he would do his utmost to bring peace to the Middle East and facilitate the creation of a viable Palestinian state. But Israeli settlements and colonization of Palestinian lands have continued unabated.

The US continues to support Israel financially, militarily, diplomatically even when this rogue nuclear power state denies that it is guilty of the most blatant violations of human rights against the Palestinian people and crimes against humanity in the Gaza strip. Obama has also remained on good terms with a number of undemocratic régimes in the Arab world while in Pakistan and Afghanistan, US ‘drone’ missiles have so far resulted in an unacceptable level of ‘collateral’ casualties among the civilian population. Prior to his visit to China, Hilary Clinton had made it clear that human rights ‘can’t interfere’ with other US interests in that giant capitalist country led by a communist party. Obama left without securing anything tangible on the human rights’ front. Over the past year, Obama has been long on rhetoric and short on delivery, especially with regard to human rights.

But somehow and if only because it is still early days, I would not like to ditch his infamous ‘Yes, we can’ into the dustbin of history.

By Noor Adam ESSACK
UK
(l’express Weekly – Friday 19 February)