As
awareness of human rights increased, as their definition expanded and
as new, often authoritarian polities, resorted to torture and
repression - human rights advocates and non-governmental organizations
proliferated.
On January 16, 2003, the European Court of Human Rights agreed - more
than two years after the applications have been filed - to hear six
cases filed by Chechens against Russia. The claimants accuse the
Russian military of torture and indiscriminate killings. The Court has
ruled in the past against the Russian Federation and awarded assorted
plaintiffs thousands of euros per case in compensation.
As awareness of human rights increased, as their definition expanded
and as new, often authoritarian polities, resorted to torture and
repression - human rights advocates and non-governmental organizations
proliferated. It has become a business in its own right: lawyers,
consultants, psychologists, therapists, law enforcement agencies,
scholars and pundits tirelessly peddle books, seminars, conferences,
therapy sessions for victims, court appearances and other services.
Human rights activists target mainly countries and multinationals.
In June 2001, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on
behalf of 11 villagers against the American oil behemoth, ExxonMobile,
for "abetting" abuses in Aceh, Indonesia. They alleged that the company
provided the army with equipment for digging mass graves and helped in
the construction of interrogation and torture centers.
In November 2002, the law firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll
joined other American and South African law firms in filing a complaint
that "seeks to hold businesses responsible for aiding and abetting the
apartheid regime in South Africa ... forced labor, genocide,
extrajudicial killing, torture, sexual assault, and unlawful detention".
Among the accused: "IBM and ICL which provided the computers that
enabled South Africa to ... control the black South African population.
Car manufacturers provided the armored vehicles that were used to
patrol the townships. Arms manufacturers violated the embargoes on
sales to South Africa, as did the oil companies. The banks provided the
funding that enabled South Africa to expand its police and security
apparatus."
Charges were leveled against Unocal in Myanmar and dozens of other
multinationals. In September 2002, Berger & Montague filed a class
action complaint against Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport. The
oil giants are charged with "purchasing ammunition and using ...
helicopters and boats and providing logistical support for 'Operation
Restore Order in Ogoniland'" which was designed, according to the law
firm, to "terrorize the civilian population into ending peaceful
protests against Shell's environmentally unsound oil exploration and
extraction activities".
The defendants in all these court cases strongly deny any wrongdoing.
But this is merely one facet of the torture business.
Torture implements are produced - mostly in the West - and sold openly,
frequently to nasty regimes in developing countries and even through
the Internet. Hi-tech devices abound: sophisticated electroconvulsive
stun guns, painful restraints, truth serums, chemicals such as pepper
gas. Export licensing is universally minimal and non-intrusive and
completely ignores the technical specifications of the goods (for
instance, whether they could be lethal, or merely inflict pain).
Amnesty International and the UK-based Omega Foundation, found more
than 150 manufacturers of stun guns in the USA alone. They face tough
competition from Germany (30 companies), Taiwan (19), France (14),
South Korea (13), China (12), South Africa (nine), Israel (eight),
Mexico (six), Poland (four), Russia (four), Brazil (three), Spain
(three) and the Czech Republic (two).
Many torture implements pass through "off-shore" supply networks in
Austria, Canada, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia,
Albania, Russia, Israel, the Philippines, Romania and Turkey. This
helps European Union based companies circumvent legal bans at home. The
US government has traditionally turned a blind eye to the international
trading of such gadgets.
American high-voltage electro-shock stun shields turned up in Turkey,
stun guns in Indonesia, and electro-shock batons and shields, and
dart-firing taser guns in torture-prone Saudi Arabia. American firms
are the dominant manufacturers of stun belts. Explains Dennis Kaufman,
President of Stun Tech Inc, a US manufacturer of this innovation:
''Electricity speaks every language known to man. No translation
necessary. Everybody is afraid of electricity, and rightfully so.''
(Quoted by Amnesty International).
The Omega Foundation and Amnesty claim that 49 US companies are also
major suppliers of mechanical restraints, including leg-irons and
thumbcuffs. But they are not alone. Other suppliers are found in
Germany (8), France (5), China (3), Taiwan (3), South Africa (2), Spain
(2), the UK (2) and South Korea (1).
Not surprisingly, the Commerce Department doesn't keep tab on this category of exports.
Nor is the money sloshing around negligible. Records kept under the
export control commodity number A985 show that Saudi Arabia alone spent
in the United States more than $1 million a year between 1997-2000
merely on stun guns. Venezuela's bill for shock batons and such reached
$3.7 million in the same period. Other clients included Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Mexico and - surprisingly - Bulgaria. Egypt's notoriously
brutal services - already well-equipped - spent a mere $40,000.
The United States is not the only culprit. The European Commission,
according to an Amnesty International report titled "Stopping the
Torture Trade" and published in 2001:
"Gave a quality award to a Taiwanese electro-shock baton, but when
challenged could not cite evidence as to independent safety tests for
such a baton or whether member states of the European Union (EU) had
been consulted. Most EU states have banned the use of such weapons at
home, but French and German companies are still allowed to supply them
to other countries."
Torture expertise is widely proffered by former soldiers, agents of the
security services made redundant, retired policemen and even rogue
medical doctors. China, Israel, South Africa, France, Russia, the
United kingdom and the United States are founts of such useful
knowledge and its propagators.
How rooted torture is was revealed in September 1996 when the US
Department of Defense admitted that ''intelligence training manuals''
were used in the Federally sponsored School of the Americas - one of
150 such facilities - between 1982 and 1991.The manuals, written in
Spanish and used to train thousands of Latin American security agents,
"advocated execution, torture, beatings and blackmail", says Amnesty
International.
Where there is demand there is supply. Rather than ignore the
discomfiting subject, governments would do well to legalize and
supervise it. Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American criminal defense
attorney, proposed, in an op-ed article in the Los Angeles Times,
published November 8, 2001, to legalize torture in extreme cases and to
have judges issue "torture warrants". This may be a radical departure
from the human rights tradition of the civilized world. But dispensing
export carefully reviewed licenses for dual-use implements is a
different matter altogether - and long overdue.
