If the War in Ukraine, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the armed conflict in Ethiopia and the persecution of Uighurs in China are clear examples of human rights violations in 2022, the NGO Human Rights Watch says that it is equally important to think about double standards adopted by democratic leaders.
The message is in the opening lines of the annual report that the organization launches this Thursday (12). “We have witnessed world leaders cynically trading human rights and criticism of violators in exchange for alleged short-term political victories.”
The NGO refers to positions ranging from Joe Biden’s meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia last July to the plan put into practice by the United Kingdom to send migrants to Rwanda who arrive in the country irregularly.
The US president, after all, traveled to the Middle Eastern country after promising, during the race for the White House, that he would turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah precisely because of human rights violations led by Riyadh. The justification, hastened the democrat, would be to prioritize American interests. “Energy resources are vital to mitigate the impact on supply.”
Human Rights Watch also mentions India as a symptomatic case. As they distance themselves from China, Western nations are cultivating trade and security alliances with the country of Narendra Modi, a prime minister who has spearheaded a policy of discrimination against religious minorities, curbing political dissent and freedom of expression —a scenario not so different from that of China. Chinese, says the NGO.
“Deals that leaders make involving human rights under the guise of closing deals ignore the long-term implications. Deepening ties with Modi while setting aside these violations wastes valuable leverage to protect civic space, critical to Indian democracy.”
The organization adds that this type of double standard is not exclusive to great powers. As an example, he cites Pakistan, which supported the UN in monitoring violence in Kashmir, but “turned its back on possible crimes against humanity against Uighurs in Xinjiang”.
Tamara Taraciuk, Acting Director for the Americas at HRW, tells Sheet that Latin America is no exception to the rule. “We have governments with a selective foreign policy that choose not to question human rights violations that occur in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.”
Beyond regional borders, she says, the most symptomatic example is in China, an important player for Latin American nations like Brazil. Along with Argentina and Mexico, the country was one of those that gave in to pressure from Beijing to remain silent on the accusation of repression of Uighurs. In October, with Brazilian abstention, the UN Human Rights Council rejected starting a debate on the subject.
The Human Rights Watch report provides an overview of human rights in around 100 countries. The war in Eastern Europe, of course, is highlighted, and the NGO praises the response of part of the international community and multilateral bodies, such as the UN, to the conflict. But it also recalls the lack of speed to combat Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism.
“Governments should reflect on what the situation would be like today if they had made a concerted effort to hold Putin to account much earlier — in 2014, at the start of attacks in eastern Ukraine; in 2015, for abuses in Syria; or due to the escalation in the crackdown on human rights in Russia over the past decade,” says an excerpt from the material.
In Latin America, Taraciuk says that what drew the most attention over the last year was the violence present in electoral processes, such as in Brazil, which witnessed last weekend the depredation of the headquarters of the Three Powers in Brasília by coup groups.
She claims that episodes like this reveal that the leaders’ challenge is “to show that democracy serves to provide people with basic needs”, such as education, health and security. “On the contrary, there are politicians, left and right, who use crises to promise fragile and abusive solutions.”
Maria Laura Canineu, director of the NGO in Brazil, says that the message for the country is even stronger, since the report marks the transition from the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), with “a declaredly anti-human rights agenda”, to the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who promised to take up the issue again.
She lists factors that, for her, if consolidated, would be good signs of the PT’s democratic impetus — such as the choice of an independent Attorney General of the Republic (PGR). But it does not fail to highlight the learning that the report wants to bring to foreign policy.
“Lula has to defend human rights also in foreign policy, consistently – something that Bolsonaro did not do, since he criticized Venezuela and Cuba, but applauded Russia and Hungary. This does not mean paralyzing negotiations or dialogues. It means being active and courageous to report violations.”
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