Date: 03/05/97 Author: Ren Yanshi Page: 4
The State Department of the United States recently released its own state-of-the-world verdict on human rights around the globe.
The lengthy "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996" once again distorted and attacked at length the state of human rights in China and more than 190 other countries and regions.
The US Government, posing as a self-appointed " human rights judge of the world," turned a blind eye yet again to the serious human rights problems it has in its own country. It did not utter a single word about them in the report.
Indeed, it is the United States, the self-declared "global human rights authority," that has a very poor human rights record in the world.
1. Constitutional Protection Below International Standards
The United States Constitution does not provide adequate protection for human rights and basic freedom. First, the US Constitution does not have a general stipulation on the right to equality. As everyone knows, equality is the core of human rights and is a major theme in human rights documents and practices of the United Nations.
The right to equality is generally stipulated as a basic ingredient and principle of human rights in the constitutions of various countries, but the US Constitution adopted in 1787 and its amendment, the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1789, do not contain provisions concerning the right to equality. The word "equality" is not even found in either document.
On the contrary, the US Constitution of that time contains articles explicitly referring to maintaining the system of slavery and racial discrimination, excluding blacks, Indians, women and the poor from human rights protection.
After the abolition of slavery, the United States adopted the 14th Constitutional Amendment in 1868. It stipulated that "no State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." But the second section of the amendment specified the "person" as "male citizens above 21 years of age," "excluding Indians not taxed." Racial and sexual discrimination was explicit in that amendment.
In addition, the amendment only required states of the US, and not the "federal government," to provide equal protection under the law. In 1870 and 1920, the United States adopted the 15th and 19th amendments to abandon racial and sexual discrimination in respect of the franchise, but it did not as far as to establish equality among ethnic groups or between men and women.
A constitutional amendment was put forward in 1923 to ensure equality between men and women, only to become a dead bill as recently as 1982. After almost 60 years it had failed to be ratified by the required number of state legislatures.
Second, the US Constitution does not recognize people's economic, social and cultural rights as part of human rights. Human rights as defined by the US Constitution's Bill of Rights and other amendments do not go beyond the scope of civil and political rights.
Apart from a few rights, including the right to join trade unions or choose jobs, most of the economic, social and cultural rights specified in the World Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are not recognized as human rights, and therefore have no protection under the US Constitution.
Under the US Constitution, the right to food, clothing, shelter and education, the right to work, rest, reasonable pay, appropriate working conditions, labour protection and social welfare, and the right to sound physical and mental health and the protection of the family, mothers and children do not fall into the category of "human rights."
The US Constitution provides no guarantee for the American people to be free from starvation or want.
Third, human rights protection provided by the US Constitution is also very limited. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides a much wider range of protection and requires every country to adopt "legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognized by the present covenant."
The US Constitution, however, merely lists a few individual rights and stipulates that they should not be encroached upon by the government. But it does not ask or authorize Congress or the federal government to take positive measures to promote and protect those rights, or to adopt remedial measures when violations occur.
The United States always portrays itself as the incarnation of the "model of international human rights." However the level of constitutional rights granted to its citizens is far below internationally accepted standards. Even Louis Henkin, an American constitutional scholar, has noted that US commitments to protecting human rights, especially the right to equality and social and economic rights fall short of the international standards of today.
2. Moneybag Democracy
The United States, which boasts about being the model of democracy, has been peddling its democratic system throughout the world with wishful thinking. But everyone knows that the 200-year-old American democracy remains a democracy for the rich.
For a long period after the founding of the United States, suffrage remained, both in practice and in law, the privilege of a small number of rich, white males. It took 94 years for the black population, 144 years for women and 172 years for the Indians to win the right to vote.
It was not until 1971, nearly 200 years after the founding of the republic, that the United States legally recognized universal suffrage. Even so, universal suffrage has never been realized in its true sense. Voter turnout has always been low and the turnout in every election for the US House of Representatives since the beginning of this century has hovered between 30 and 60 per cent.
In presidential elections, which are cited as a major political event in the country, the highest ever voter turnout was only 65 per cent. Since a presidential candidate needs only a simple majority of votes to win the election, US presidents can be elected by a very small proportion of the electorate, often less than 35 per cent, of eligible voters.
According to statistics, voter turnout in the 1996 presidential election was only 49 per cent, the lowest since 1924. That means the president had the support of only around 25 per cent of eligible voters. It is obvious that the results of the so-called general election reflect neither the will of the people as a whole nor the majority.
Political democracy in the United States has always been the game of the rich. Since the early days of the republic, the overwhelming majority of high public office holders, including presidents, vice presidents, members of the cabinet and the Supreme Court, have come from among the richest five per cent of families in the US.
Even the US Congress, which always boasts about its so-called link with ordinary people, is a congress of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
According to reports in the Washington Post in April 1994, at least 28 senators, more than a quarter of the Senate, were millionaires. Millionaires also accounted for 11.5 per cent of the members of the House of Representatives, adding to more than 50 Congress members. The ratio of millionaires in the US Congress was at least 30 times that in US society where the ratio is less than 0.5 per cent. At least a quarter of the Republican senators elected in 1994 were millionaires.
American democracy is, in the final analysis, a "moneybag democracy." In the United States, running for public office requires large sums of money. Without enough money, it is virtually impossible to run for offices like the presidency or Congress. Statistics show that the average spending per candidate who won a race for the Senate was $4.5 million in 1994, or more than six times that in 1976. A candidate had to raise an average of $15,000 a week over six years to get that amount of money.
The cost of a presidential race is even more breathtaking. According to a non-profit election watch group, the total cost of the presidential race and the Congressional elections hit a record high of $1.762 billion last year. The presidential race alone cost a record $1.145 billion, more than double the $550 million of the 1992 presidential election.
Results of past presidential elections show that the candidate who spends most tends to win. It is a rare exception for the candidate with less money to win the election. Even the Independent, a British newspaper, noted in a story on January 28, 1996, that money is the key to the White House.
American politics has become more and more the politics of buying power through money. Political campaign finances in the United States are funded mainly through donations from large wealthy organizations and individuals. According to statistics, 70 per cent of campaign donations come from big corporate donors. In the 1996 elections, both the Democrats and the Republicans raised huge amounts of money by auctioning opportunities to meet the president or congressmen.
At a fund-raising party of the Democratic National Committee, those who donated $100,000 won a place at the dinner table with the president and the vice president. Fund-raising parties of the Republican National Committee were just the same: those who donated $250,000 could personally present their views before some Senate or House committees and attend a luncheon with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The Public Ethics Centre published in 1996 a report entitled "The Buying of the President" after examining the relationship between presidential races and money. The report described the election as a package deal and a grand auction. The election not only selects political figures, but also sponsors and prioritizes.
An official of the US Natural Law Party noted on December 5, 1996, that although the United States calls itself a democratic country, there is no democracy in the nation's political life and the allowing of private donations in elections has actually legalized bribery.
3. A Land of Terror
Terrifying bomb explosions in the United States in recent years have stunned the world. In February 1993, a 1,500 pound car bomb damaged the underground garage of the 110-story World Trade Centre in the financial district of Manhattan, New York, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others, and forcing 50,000 employees and tourists to flee the building.
In April 1995, a powerful 1,200 pound car bomb destroyed a federal office building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people and injuring 850 others. Among the victims were 19 children in a day-care centre in the building. In July 1996, a bomb explosion in the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, killed two people and injured more than 110 others during the Olympic Games, a sports event that attracted world-wide attention.
It is not accidental that terrorist bomb attacks continuously occur in the United States, an excessively violent country where terrorism is deeply rooted in society.
The United States has the highest rate of violent crime in the world. An average of two million violent crimes occur annually with six million victims, of whom 24,000 are murdered.
According to a report released in August 1995 by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department, a crime occurs every two minutes and a violent crime every seven minutes somewhere in the United States. In Florida, which is known as a "state full of crime", an average of 1.1 million crimes and 1,263 murders are reported every year.
In the US capital, Washington, DC, the annual murder rate is 80.6 out of every 100,000 people. In New York, 2,000 people are murdered, 3,000 raped and 93,000 robbed every year. According to a report released by the Inter-American Development Bank, between eight and 11 out of every 100,000 people are killed in the United States every year, 10 times higher than in China.
The United States also has the highest rate of rape in the world, with half a million cases reported annually, one case almost every minute. A report released by the US Justice Department in 1996 showed the nation's economic losses caused by crime amounts to $500 billion a year, twice the country's defence spending in 1995.
The United States is the world's No 1 gun-owning country. There are 220 million firearms in private hands, which translates into nearly one gun per person. Armed criminals are on the rampage, shootings are non-stop, a large number of innocent people have fallen prey to violence.
Statistics show that one million crimes involving firearms occur every year and more than 20,000 people are shot and killed. In addition, more than 10,000 people a year commit suicide by shooting themselves and 200 people are killed by accidental gunfire.
Data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 39,720 people were killed and about 110,000 others injured by firearms in 1994. In seven states, shooting incidents were the major cause of death and injury.
Official reports released at the end of 1996 claimed that the number of violent crimes has receded since 1992, with the rate of homicides falling to 8.2 per 100,000 people.
But a report issued by a crime committee in the same year noted that the nation's crime rate was actually much higher, with homicides, rapes, assaults and robberies 5.6 times as high as official figures. The report shows that contrary to official reports, crime figures remain at their highest level in history and that violent crime is a time bomb ticking away in the United States.
The United States has one of the world's largest police forces relative to its population and the largest prison population. A report released by the US Justice Department on June 30, 1996 revealed that the number of people serving a prison sentence in the country was 5.36 million, three in every 100 adults.
By June 30, 1996, there were 1.63 million prison inmates in the United States, up 120 per cent from the 740,000 prisoners 10 years ago or three times that 20 years ago, according to a Justice Department report released in January. One out of every 162 Americans is in jail.
The report says the incarceration rate in the United States is 615 inmates per 100,000 residents, the highest in the world, and was as high as 1,440 inmates per 100,000 residents in the capital of Washington, DC. A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union's prison programme noted that the United States is the only country in the world that has been putting more and more people behind bars.
There are more than 4,000 prisons in the United States, but the number and capacity is still too small to cope with the growing number of criminals and many are overcrowded. A report from the US Justice Department in August 1996 said that in 1995 federal prisons were overcrowded by 26 per cent and state prisons by 14 or 25 per cent, with some prisons having three times the number of inmates they were built for.
Crowded and lacking necessary sanitary facilities, prisons are permeated with hostility and have become breeding grounds for violence, rape and disease. Some civil rights organizations in the United States reported that certain prisons, filthy and run-down, are no different from the medieval lairs of small animals.
Prison guards mounted on horseback keep watch on inmates as though they are herding animals. Inmates are sometimes forced to fight among themselves and are whipped. Many are locked up in separate cells all year round without being let out into the sunshine. Others are handcuffed and fettered for violating prison rules and have to crawl on the floor to eat, and lick their plates like dogs.
US prisons are "schools" for crime, as more than 40 per cent of those who have served their sentences re-commit crimes. About 75 per cent of juvenile offenders freed from Washington, DC juvenile correction centres re-offend. At present, 45 per cent of the prisoners are in jail for the third time at least.
In the United States, violence and imprisonment are two sides of the same coin. The high crime rate leads to a high imprisonment rate which in turn breeds a higher crime rate, creating a vicious circle which is almost impossible to break.
4. Poverty, Hunger and the Homeless
The United States is the richest country in the world, but because of the serious polarization between the rich and poor, the issues of poverty, hunger and the homeless have always been an inherent malady in its society.
The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States is one of the widest in the western world. According to statistics, the richest 1 per cent of families today possess 40 per cent of the nation's wealth.
Figures from the US Census Bureau show that in 1994 the average income of the richest 20 per cent of families was 14.7 times that of the poorest 20 per cent of families. The Washington Post reported last year that the pay for chief executives of major companies in 1974 was generally 35 times that of the average workers, a figure which shot up to 120 times in 1995.
The city of New York is home to 36,000 millionaires, and at the same time is home to 36,000 poor people who survive by scavenging for food in trash cans.
As a result of this polarization, the number of poor people is increasing. The Christian Science Monitor wrote in 1995 that since 1973, the real income of 80 per cent of American families had declined or remained the same, their living standards had fallen significantly, and they have suffered a significant loss in their economic security.
At constant prices, the average hourly pay for American employees fell 0.73 per cent between 1974 and 1993. In 1978, 24.5 million Americans lived below the poverty line; by 1993 the figure had risen to 39.3 million. In its January 1995 issue, the Hong Kong monthly Wide Angle said the number of Americans living below the poverty line had climbed to 50 million, about one fifth of the nation's population.
Poverty results in hunger. A Reuter story on January 16, 1996, said 26 million Americans, one in 10 of the population, lived on hand-outs from charity institutions. Statistics from the US Congressional Hunger Centre show that there are 30 million Americans, including 4.9 million elderly, who cannot afford adequate food and have to go hungry. In 1995, one sixth of California's residents, 5 million people, did not have enough to eat.
The homeless issue epitomizes the social illness afflicting the United States. According to US official data, there were seven million homeless people in the late 1980s, accounting for 2.8 per cent of the population.
In May 1994, in a "strategic plan" on the homeless, the US Government estimated there were 9.52 million homeless people in the country, of whom 43 per cent were drug users, 26 per cent had mental disorders, eight per cent were Aids patients or HIV positive, and 40 per cent were alcoholics.
Every winter, about 1,000 homeless people die on the streets from the cold. Statistics show that in the winter of 1991, some 1,750 homeless people died in 19 large and medium-sized cities excluding New York, half of whom were found dead on the streets.
In January 1996, a US homeless organization reported that in the eight years to 1995, more than 100 homeless people died every year in San Francisco. In 1995 alone, the homeless death toll in the city exceeded 140. US President Bill Clinton has to admit that the issue of the homeless has become a serious headache and one of the most embarrassing issues in American society.
5. Deep-rooted Racial Discrimination
The world is well aware of racial discrimination in the United States. The racial genocide of native Americans and the bloody enslavement of black people based on the slave trade are two indelible blemishes on American history.
Recent years have witnessed one scandal of racial discrimination after another in America. The large-scale racial conflicts triggered by the 1992 beating of black driver Rodney King by white policemen, the popularity of the 1994 book "The Bell Curve" that openly advocates black inferiority, the racial response to the so-called "trial of the century" in 1995 in which O.J. Simpson was charged with murder, the "Million Man March" and the growing number of incidents against immigrants have all clearly demonstrated that discrimination against ethnic minorities remains the darkest abyss in American society.
In the United States, blacks and other ethnic minorities have always been second-class citizens. Black people, who account for 12 per cent of the American population, occupy only 5 per cent of elected positions at various levels and 1 per cent of the seats in the Senate.
A 1995 US Government survey indicated that although women and ethnic minorities accounted for two-thirds of the total population and 57 per cent of the total workforce, 97 per cent of the high-level executives in big businesses were white males. In contrast, the unemployment rate among black people was twice as high as that among whites.
In 1994, while the national unemployment rate was 5.6 per cent, 15.9 per cent of black adults, 40 per cent of black youth and 46 per cent of native Americans were out of work. The poverty rate among blacks, Hispanics and Indians was more than 30 per cent, three times that for whites, and the chances of black children living in poverty were four times greater than for white children.
Among homeless in the US, 48 per cent are black people. The mortality rate for black infants and the number of black women who die of heart disease are twice as high as their white counterparts.
A report from a US National AIDS Committee notes that black and Hispanic Americans, who make up 21 per cent of the total population, account for 46 per cent of the AIDS patients registered so far in the country.
Racial discrimination in America's judicial system is also a serious problem. Although blacks, Hispanics and other minority people account for less than a quarter of the American population, they account for two-thirds of criminals serving a prison sentence and 70 per cent of all those jailed. Blacks, who make up 12 per cent of the population, account for 54.2 per cent of the prison population and more than 40 per cent of those sentenced to death.
A study report presented by Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo, a special rapporteur of the United Nations Commission of Human Rights, who toured the United States in October 1994, said that sentences meted out to blacks and ethnic people were usually two or three times as severe as those given to whites for committing similar crimes. The number of blacks sentenced to death for killing whites were four times that of whites condemned for killing blacks.
The New York Times reported in 1995 that although the number of murder victims in the country since 1977 was divided almost equally between blacks and whites, 85 per cent of those who received capital sentences were black people for killing whites. Only 11 per cent of whites were condemned to death row for killing blacks.
Statistics in 1991 in the US showed that the country had the highest number of juveniles sentenced to death and that all juveniles condemned to death in the country were black.
A US national drug addiction research group reported that although 80 per cent of drug users in the country were whites, only 7 per cent of those arrested for taking drugs were whites while 28 per cent were blacks. Blacks accounted for 98 per cent of those receiving life sentences for cocaine addiction.
Racial discrimination is so pervasive in America that three of the country's five largest sites for hazardous commercial waste are in black or Hispanic ghettos, and 60 per cent of these minorities live in areas with hazardous waste sites. In 25 states and 50 major cities, two-thirds of black and Hispanic residents live close to toxic waste sites. Indian reserves are also targets pursued by waste disposal companies. Blacks and people from ethnic groups in very poor housing conditions have little access to the housing allowances or home loans provided by the government.
Washington, DC boasts of hundreds of branches of 15 major banks in addition to dozens of small and medium-sized banks. Yet the value of loans offered to white communities (areas with more than 75 per cent white residents) during the 1985-1991 period were twice as high as those offered to black communities (areas with 75 per cent black residents). Some black communities have never had access to home mortgages from the banks.
Racism in the United States has been growing in recent years, and racial violence erupts frequently. In 1991 alone, 4,558 such cases were reported. Since early 1995, more than 30 black churches in southern US states have been burnt down by white racists. Within a matter of 10 days in June 1996, five such incidents of arson occurred.
A study released on August 5, 1996, by the National Asia-Pacific American Legal Consortium reported that a total of 458 cases of anti-Asian violence were filed in 1995, 37 per cent up from 1993. An official Mexican report revealed that 1995 saw 72,864 human rights violations against Mexican immigrants in the United States. Some 100 Mexicans have been killed by American police and border patrols since 1990, but most culprits are free.
Discrimination against blacks and ethnic people is an inherent evil in the US and this tragic problem continues to plague American society.
Sex discrimination is a long-standing problem which still dogs American society today.
A survey conducted in September 1995 by a US company reported that 84 per cent of female respondents said they still faced restrictions and discrimination of one form or another. Not until 1920 did American women legally win the same voting rights as men. Today, women have only about 10 per cent of the seats in Congress and less than 12 per cent of senior federal posts.
The USA Today newspaper reported on January 27, 1997, that 12.2 million women stayed at home as housewives in 1995, more than double the 5.5 million figure reported in 1970. Statistics indicate that on average American women have 32 per cent fewer job opportunities than men, while their unemployment rate is more than twice as high as men's.
The majority of American women work in the low-paid service sector. A 1995 survey by the magazine Fortune reported that women accounted for only 5 per cent of top-level executives in US companies.
Moreover, men and women do not receive equal pay for equal work. Waitresses in restaurants are paid the equivalent of only 75 per cent of the wages paid to their male counterparts, and the incomes of male scientists are generally 24 to 35 per cent higher than their female counterparts. Female civil servants at different levels earn only about half of the salaries of their male counterparts.
In 1993, 14.9 per cent of American women lived in poverty, more than 1.5 times the poverty rate for men. A 1996 report by the Older Women's League of the US said that 73 per cent of American women over 55, who accounted for 60 per cent of the female workforce, lived below the poverty line and received only 66 per cent of the pay received by men of the same age group. In 1993, the average annual income of retired women over 65 was only 57 per cent of that received by men of the same age.
In the United States, the number of violent crimes against women is appallingly high. Each year, more than six million women were beaten and 4,000 murdered, according to a Los Angeles Times report on December 27, 1995. One case of family violence occurred every 18 seconds, and one in three women were victims of such offenses. Between 2,000 and 4,000 women were beaten to death every year.
The United States also has the largest number of sexual assaults of any country in the world. In 1993, 118 in every 100,000 females between the ages of five and 59 were raped. Sexual harassment of women has reached epidemic proportions in US society.
A 1995 survey reported that 76 per cent of women polled said that sexual harassment happened at their places of work and 62 per cent of them complained that they had encountered such misconduct. Sexual harassment is also rampant on American campuses. The American Association of University Women reported in a 1993 study that 80 per cent of female students had been the victims of sexual harassment.
The state of American children is worsening. America has the highest rate of violence against children in the industrialized world and the highest child fatality rate in the world arising from shooting, homicide and suicide.
Federal health officials reported in February this year that among the 26 industrialized countries surveyed, America's child homicide rate was five times as high as the combined rate of the 25 other nations.
Its child suicide rate was twice as high as their aggregate rate and the number of children shot dead was almost 12 times that of the other 25 countries combined. Homicide has become the fourth biggest killer of American children between the ages of one and four.
USA Today reported in 1995 that the number of US children who died because of violence that year was five times as high as 10 years earlier. Every day, 15 children were killed by gunfire. In 1994, one in every 14 school children across the country was threatened or hurt by gunfire.
Poverty is the No 1 cause of child death in America. According to a study issued by a Maryland foundation on June 3, 1996, 15 million American children live in poverty, accounting for 26 per cent of all children and 40 per cent of the impoverished population overall.
In 1994, 12 million children in the United States, or 20 per cent of the country's child population, were underfed, accounting for 40 per cent of all people across the country without enough food. In 1995, 301 in every 1,000 American children under 12 were starving. Information published by the Children's Defense Fund indicated that in America, 2,660 children were born into poverty each day, of whom 27 died of poverty.
It is estimated that 10,000 children die directly of poverty each year and 100,000 homeless children are forced to sleep in the streets.
Poverty and despair has turned many juveniles into criminals. The US Justice Department said in a March 7, 1996 report that more than 150,000 young people were arrested in 1994 for violent crimes such as murder, rape and robbery. The figure was a record high in American history. Over the previous decade, the number of juvenile murderers showed a two-fold increase and the number of juveniles arrested for violence jumped 50 per cent.
Child abuse is serious in America. Investigations indicate that 3 million children were abused or maltreated. A national centre for missing children estimated that 1.5 million children disappeared each year, with 1 million escaping from home or being thrown out by their parents.
The Associated Press reported on August 19, 1996 that America had more than 200,000 child victims of sexual abuse. The Children's Defense Fund said in 1996 that every day, 8,493 American children were abused or maltreated and three died as a result of abuse. Nationwide, more than 1,800 children under four died of abuse or maltreatment. The figure increased to more than 2,000 if children between four and 17 who died of the same causes were added.
The US human rights record outside its territorial boundaries is not that glorious either. Since its founding over 200 years ago, the US has launched more than 70 wars and acts of aggression against other countries, killing countless foreign civilians with its troops and weapons.
The United States is the only country in the world which has actually used nuclear weapons. It has conducted more nuclear tests than any other country and possesses the largest nuclear arsenal. A 1995 report said that America had 25,000 nuclear weapons. Since the explosion of its first atomic bomb in 1945, America has conducted 1,030 nuclear tests, accounting for more than half of the world's total of 2,037 tests.
Its military spending is also the largest in the world. In 1994, it amounted to $274.3 billion, more than twice as much as the combined spending of eight other countries including Russia, China and India. Currently, its average daily spending on nuclear weapons is $80 million. From 1940 to 1995, America's total nuclear weapons spending added up to $4 trillion. Its nuclear weapons spending in 1995 alone was $27 billion. If this money was used to solve the poverty problem in Third World countries, it would re
lieve hundreds of millions of people from poverty.
The United States has long maintained many military bases in various places outside its own territorial boundaries and deployed hundreds of thousands of troops there. Its overseas troops have committed numerous human rights violations against local citizens.
The rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl in Okinawa, Japan, in 1995 by three American servicemen and the beating to death of a South Korean woman in 1996 by a US soldier, are just two of the latest examples. Statistics indicate that since 1967, a total of 34,900 cases of rape, beating and murder of local people by South Korea-based American servicemen have been reported, on average three cases a day. Since 1972, US troops in Japan have committed 4,716 crimes, or 205 cases a year, against local people, 106 of which were targeted against women.
According to reports in the February 10, 1997, edition of the Washington Post, in late 1995 and early 1996 amid Okinawans' furious protests against American soldiers' rape of the schoolgirl, American troops there "accidentally" fired 1,520 uranium-tipped bullets on an island near Okinawa.
America is the world's largest arms dealer. Its overseas arms sales since 1989, according to a December 12, 1994 Time magazine article, hit $82.4 billion, more than the combined total ($66.8 billion) of all other countries in the world, and now its share of the world's arms sales market has reached 70 per cent.
The German magazine Der Stern reported in 1995 that America had captured three quarters of the post-Cold War world weapons market, reaching 146 countries and regions. More and more American weapons have been used to trigger wars and unrest, said Der Stern. USA Today also reported in 1994 that warring parties in 39 of the 48 ethnic conflicts around the world in the previous year obtained weapons from the United States. No wonder the US has been dubbed "the world's largest exporter of death."
America is also the world's leading waste exporter. To evade the responsibility of harnessing pollution within US territory, the authorities and capitalists have been trying all means, fair or foul, to export waste overseas, especially to developing countries. Such toxic garbage is seriously damaging the environments of those countries and jeopardizing the health of their people.
The United States reportedly produces 275 million tons of toxic waste a year, with over 10 million tons exported to the third world. An article last year in Thailand's New Chinese Daily News reported that in 1995 alone the United States exported 200 million pounds (90,800 tons) of plastic waste to about 30 countries and regions including China. US businessman William Ping Chen smuggled 238 tons of garbage to China in just six months from July to December 1995.
While US human rights reports rattle on about human rights violations in other countries, it has been refusing to join the major international conventions on human rights adopted by the United Nations. They include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid; the Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
As for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United States reluctantly ratified it only in 1992, 26 years after it was adopted by the United Nations. And it restricted the covenant's implementation strictly within the framework of its constitution by adding a string of reservations, understandings, statements and agreements so that the document would apply only to the federation, not to individual states, and could not come into force automatically. These preconditions make the document not worth the paper it is written on.
The United States' hegemonic acts of refusing to accept international norms and frequently infringing the soveriegnty of other countries and human rights have earned it the notoriety of being the most condemned country in the world at the end of this century.
As a popular saying goes, one should first correct oneself before trying to correct others. It is bizarre that the United States, with such a poor human rights record of its own, should act as the world's human rights judge and concoct human rights reports year after year, mounting "crusades" against other countries.
If the United States insists on having its own way, it will inevitably provoke more counterattacks from other countries. In the end, it will only hurt itself with the very stick it has been brandishing against others. The US Government would be strongly advised to put its own house in order before pointing its finger at other countries.
(Xinhua)