AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
'Amnesty' was founded in 1961 by Peter
Benenson, a British labour lawyer, and Eric Baker, a Quaker and
nuclear disarmament activist. Its initial focus was on letter
writing campaigns in support of prisoners around the world who
were 'tortured, imprisoned or executed because his opinions or
religion are unacceptable to his government'. In September 1962,
the organization was renamed Amnesty International (AI). Adopting
'prisoners of conscience' became a favoured technique of the organization
to exert pressure on governments.
Eventually, the ambit of AI's interests
widened to include general human rights including the problem
of child soldiers, the death penalty, and abortion rights. The
latter was adopted only in 2007, to the fury of the Catholic Church
which was a traditional supporter of AI. The question needs to
be asked as to why abortion was given a cold shoulder by AI up
until that time. Was this right suppressed in order to please
the Catholic Church? And what other issues have been ignored?
There has been criticism that the Israeli violations of human
rights were ignored by AI, although recent tussles with Israeli
authorities shows that that possible bias has now been corrected.
AI admits to focusing on democratic governments
in its criticism because they are more prone to bending under
public pressure. Famously, the Americans rejected AI criticism
of its behaviour at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. The Israelis piled into
AI for 'the pattern of biased, prejudiced, bigoted, one-sided
judgments'. They have a point because, by attacking democracies
for the sake of convenience, AI exempts terrorist organizations
that cause democracies to engage in conflict in the first place.
Compared to the lashings delivered to Sri Lanka by AI, the Tamil
Tigers have got off easily. Sri Lanka can take comfort in 'Moynihan's
Law' where the late US senator, a champion of human rights, stated
that the number of complaints about a nation's violations of human
rights is inversely proportional to actual violations.
Unlike well-funded and influential governments
like those of the US and of Israel, the government of Sri Lanka
is poor and is ill-equipped to handle the negative publicity that
comes with being blackballed by organizations such as AI. Indeed,
Sri Lanka is even at a disadvantage to handle the well-financed
propaganda of the LTTE; the country has to look after its people
with the little money it has. Therefore, when AI and competing
groups like HRW attack poor Sri Lanka, the perception is widely
held by Sri Lankans that they are part of a cruel conspiracy by
Western powers to intimidate and pressure weak countries. AI's
values also seem to have been corrupted by the money grubbing
that's part of the NGO business.
The 'White Ball' campaign that the geniuses
at AI's Sri Lanka desk dreamed up for the Cricket World Cup in
2007 infuriated Sri Lankans in a country where cricket is religion.
The campaign was supposed to highlight Sri Lanka's 'human rights
violations' in its fight against the Tamil Tigers but what it
did in the Caribbean was to exert unfair pressure on innocent
Sri Lankan cricket players. Where was AI's sound and fury against
the Brits and Australians whose governments were part and parcel
of the 'Coalition of the Willing' committing war crimes in Iraq?
AI's stock in Sri Lanka plummeted and has been in the tank ever
since. This website tallies AI's coverage of Sri Lanka.
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