GEORGE WALKER BUSH’S HUMAN RIGHTS LEGACY
By Emmanuel Onwubiko
As you peruse this piece, President George Walker Bush, the outgoing President of the United States of America would have finished off-loading his bags from the prestigious presidential residence- the White House in Washington District of Columbia.
Tomorrow, Tuesday January 20 th 2009 marks a turning point in world’s history as Barrack Hussein Obama; the first ever black president of the World’s super power country the United States of America will be inaugurated. Adrian Woodridge wrote in the Economist Magazine’s special publication titled; “the World in 2009” that; “the United States will start its next political season with a remarkable event. On January 20 th a country that, within living memory, denied some black citizens the right to vote will inaugurate its first black president. A man with a funny name and African blood will stand where 43 white men have stood before him and take oath of office.”
Woodridge sees the symbolism of Obama’s inauguration thus; “Barack Obama’s inauguration will do much to improve two things that desperately need improving-America’s reputation abroad and its mood at home. The Bush era had produced a dramatic decline in America’s global image, with anti-Americanism taking root around the world, from European capitals to the Arab street. In October 2008 only about 10% of Americans thought that the country was on the right track.”
“In these circumstances Mr. Obama is as close to a cure-all as you can get. His inauguration will mark the culmination of the civil-rights revolution. It will also help repair America’s relations with the rest of the world. It will be hard for Muslims to accuse America of prejudice when its president is a man whose first name is Hussein. And it will be hard for European to accuse America of being a land of yahoos when its president is the highly educated author of two excellent books.
“The balance of power in Washington will also be favourable to the new president. Democrats will be in charge of both Houses of Congress, in particular with a large majority in the Senate, the chamber that can most often frustrate presidents. Moreover, the Reputations, who have a history of tormenting ambitious Democrats, will be in no condition to torment anybody but themselves. Repudiated at the ballot box and locked out of power in the White House and Congress, they will spend the next few years squabbling among themselves”.
In that connection, what will remain uppermost in the minds of historians and political commentators is the ongoing debate on what exactly constitutes the Human Rights Legacy of the President George W. Bush’s eight years in the White House from 2001 to 2009?
Mr. Manfred Nowak, Director of the Ludwig Botzmann institute of Human Rights at the University of Vienna and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture wrote in his book titled; “Human Rights: Handbook for Parliamentarians” that; “Human Rights are the most fundamental rights of human beings. They define relationships between individuals and power structures, especially the State. Human Rights delimit state power and, at the same time, require states to take positive measures ensuring an environment that enables all people to enjoy their human rights. History in the last 250 years has been shaped by the struggle to create such an environment. Starting with the French and American revolutions in the late eighteenth century, the idea of human rights has driven many a revolutionary movement for empowerment and for control over the wielders of power, governments in particular”.
He wrote further that; governments and other duty bearers are under an obligation to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, which form the basis for legal entitlements and remedies in case of non-fulfillment. In fact, the possibility to press claims and demand redress differentiates human rights from the precepts of ethical or religious value systems. From a legal standpoint, human rights can be defined as the sum of individual and collective rights recognized by sovereign States and enshrined in their constitutions and in international law. Since the Second World War, the United Nations has played a leading role in defining and advancing human rights, which until then had developed mainly within the nation state. As a result, human rights have been codified in various international and regional treaties and instruments that have been ratified by most countries, and represent today the only universally recognized value system”.
The United States of America as one of the founding member States of the United Nations is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) endorsed by all member nations of the UN since December 10 th 1948.
Article one of the Universal Declaration of Human States that; “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and Rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
Opinion differs on whether President George W. Bush’s presidency kept faith with the declarations made in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While a few analysts would point to the bold effort his (Bush) presidency made in the fight against the pandemic of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV\AIDS) especially in Africa, contributing to the advancement of the frontiers of the respect for the Human Rights of Human Beings around the world, but strong opinion has it that president George W. Bush’s “War On Terror” waged since September 11 th 2001 against the violent Islamic extremists led by the renegade Osama Bin Laden that bombed the United States’ World Trade Centre in New York killing over three thousand persons, is characterized by wide spread grave human rights violations.
The war on terror also included the United States’ involvement in the two wars going on simultaneously in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. There have been reported cases and allegations of gross Human Rights abuses committed by the United States-led Allied Forces especially in Iraq.
Ironically, the United States’ military operatives in Iraq are immuned from prosecution for alleged war crime or Rights violations; why? First, the United States under the presidency of George Walker Bush refused to endorse the International Criminal Courts’ (ICC) treaty even when the American government pontificates the doctrine of respect for the Human Rights of persons. Bush’s presidency, to put it mildly, represents a spectacle in hypocrisy, especially in the Human Rights Sector.
Scott McClellan who worked for president George Bush as his spokesperson but later resigned wrote in his book “WHAT HAPPENED” that the George W. Bush’s presidency was heralded with high hopes but eventually got itself entangled in the web of Washington Dc’s political trap of deceits and hypocrisy.
His words; “during the campaign, Bush had tapped into the mood of the broad majority of Americans who were in or who leaned toward the vital political center. He had urged an end to “the politics of anger” and the beginning of a fresh start after a period of cynicism.” Washington, Bush said, did not have to be “a place of zero-sum politics, with one winner and one loser”.
McClellan further wrote; “As I explain in this book, Washington has become the home of the permanent campaign, a game of endless politicking based on the manipulation of shades of truth, partial truths, twisting of the truth, and spin. Governing has become an appendage of politics rather than the other way around, with electoral victory and the control of power as the sole measures of success. That means shaping the narrative before it shapes you. Candor and honesty are pushed to the side in the battle to win the latest news cycle”.
Ironically, some distinguished Writers say Bush’s push against the ravaging effects of HIV\AIDS in Africa perhaps marks him (George W. Bush) as one of the greatest lovers of Africa- a continent under attack by retrogressive and reactionary internal forces of bad governance, corruption, greed and fratricidal and genocidal war-fare.
Michael Ekpenyong, a distinguished theologian, writer, thinker and preacher and the Secretary General of the influential Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) wrote in the journal titled CSN NEWS OF DECEMBER 2008- FEBRUARY 2009 EDITION that; “it is difficult to say whether President George Bush, the outgoing President of the United States knew what he was committing himself to when in 2003, he promised to lead the fight against global HIV\AIDS with the U.S President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). History however has shown us that PEPFAR represents the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease internationally in history. According to Robert Tuttle in his article in the Daily Telegraph of December 1 st, 2008, “through PEPFAR, the U.S. Government has provided $18.8 billion in HIV\AIDS funding, and the U.S. Congress has authorized up to $48 billion for HIV\AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over the next five years”.
George Walker Bush’s presidency will, however, for a long time remain one of the worst in the history of the Human Rights sector of the international community. Bush played a shameful role in not speaking it out against the massive Humanitarian catastrophe occasioned by the senseless and irresponsible Hamaz Missiles’ bombing of Israeli civilians and the brutal mass killing of civilians committed in Gaza by the rampaging Israeli soldiers.
Lastly, the establishment of Guantanamo Bay, a detention Centre off the coast of Cuba is another lasting grave human rights violations of the Bush’s presidency because militants (ENEMY COMBATANTS) were arrested from Afghanistan and warehoused like animals in that remote prison facility. Robert Guest a writer in Washington Dc correctly stated that Guantanamo Bay’s inmates exist in a legal black hole. The camp is on a slice of Cuban Territory, leased by the American Government. George Bush incarcerated the inmates there specifically so that they would be beyond the reach of the American legal system-although the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that, at least as far as Habeas Corpus (Human Rights Law) suits are concerned, they are not. Many have been held for years without a proper trial.
Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko
Heads the Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria.
