Rights Group Says 5 Areas Poised for Tragedy

A leading human rights advocacy group warned Wednesday that civil conflicts in five global trouble spots could soon erupt into full-scale catastrophes, and it called on world leaders to help prevent the violence from escalating.

William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, expressed concern about rights abuses in Zimbabwe, Peru, the Indonesian province of Aceh, China’s Xinjiang province and the Russian Caucasus.

“When the international community fails to intervene, we pay for it dearly, not only in the tragic loss of life but also in the pocketbook,” Schulz said as the organization released its annual report on the state of human rights around the world.

Amnesty International’s survey, which covers 147 countries, provides evidence of both positive and negative trends in human rights practices.

The number of countries where people are subject to mysterious disappearance, for example, has increased by 58% over the past decade, while torture occurs in 23% more countries than it did a decade ago.

At the same time, the number of countries holding prisoners of conscience has declined by 24% over the same 10-year period.

“Human rights violations can . . . be prevented,” said Schulz, who accused the international community of turning a blind eye to many of the violations documented in the report.

The United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies could have saved many lives, and as much as $43 billion in peacekeeping costs, by acting preemptively in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the last decade, he said.

Just as the world waited and watched until military measures were necessary to end genocide in Bosnia, Schulz said, he fears the international community will not intervene soon enough in the five trouble spots named in the survey.

In Zimbabwe, where support for President Robert Mugabe has flagged in advance of elections this month, politically motivated violence has claimed 30 lives, Schulz said.

During 1999, the report notes, “the government program to redistribute land from white commercial farmers allegedly benefited people associated with the ruling party rather than the landless poor.”

The report warns that a crisis in Zimbabwe could spread to neighboring South Africa and to Kenya, which are also plagued by racial tensions over land ownership.

In Peru, human rights observers increasingly question the democratic legitimacy of President Alberto Fujimori, who won reelection May 28 in a contest boycotted by the opposition candidate.

Amnesty’s report cites the use of torture to silence opponents of Fujimori’s administration. It says 200 prisoners of conscience are incarcerated in Peru and that human rights defenders, journalists and dissidents continue to be arrested.

In Indonesia, members of the rebel Free Aceh Movement, which recently signed a peace agreement with the government of President Abdurrahman Wahid, have been subjected to detention and extrajudicial execution for years, according to the report.

The report also notes rights violations committed by the Free Aceh Movement in its campaign for independence.

Xinjiang in western China is home to the nation’s sizable minority Muslim Uighur community. Schulz noted that Amnesty has documented cases of torture in Xinjiang involving “the insertion of horse hairs or wires into the penis and the use of drug injections” to induce mania.

Schulz called on President Clinton to address human rights abuses in Xinjiang, particularly in light of his administration’s push to accord China permanent, normalized trade relations.

In the Caucasus Mountains, Schulz said, Russia’s invasion of Chechnya has prompted the flight of more than 250,000 people into neighboring republics. The conflict has provoked an ominous tug of war between the central government in Moscow and regional authorities, he said, noting that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin moved last month to limit the power of the regional leaders.

In addition to his commentary on the five potentially explosive areas, Schulz reiterated Amnesty International’s opposition to the death penalty.

The U.S. executed a record 98 people in 1999, the report notes. Schulz, stressing Amnesty’s position that capital punishment is a human rights abuse, called the U.S. “an egregious human rights violator.”

The group’s findings and recommendations were endorsed by a representative of New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“It is much cheaper to prevent a crisis than it is to try to put a country back together after a mass killing,” said Reed Brody, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Carroll Bogert, communications director for Human Rights Watch, said it appears Amnesty International picked the five areas with an eye toward geographical diversity.

“Of course, there are many problem spots, and I can tell that they’ve been careful to spread them around the globe,” Bogert said.