Algeria: Un Panel report a whitewash on human rights
* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International * AI INDEX: MDE 28/32/98 16 SEPTEMBER 1998
Algeria: UN Panel report a whitewash on human rights
« The report of the UN panel’s recent visit to Algeria made public today, blatantly fails to address the key issues concerning the human rights crisis, » Amnesty International said today.
Set up by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and led by ex-Portuguese President Mario Soares, the panel visited Algeria on an ‘information-gathering’ mission, but had no human rights component and no power of investigation in its mandate.
« In a country beset by violence, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and more continue to be killed every day, such an initiative was meaningless without a human rights mandate », stated Amnesty International.
The lack of a human rights mandate is particularly regrettable in the light of the UN Secretary General’s stated commitment to including a human rights component in all UN activities.
The panel’s own admission, at the outset of the report, that they had « neither the means nor the mandate to conduct investigations », that they were not allowed by the Algerian authorities to meet certain people or visit certain places, and that the authorities responded to their specific questions with general remarks illustrates the limitations of this mission. The tendency in the report to repeat the government analysis of « terrorism » and to gloss over human rights abuses by government forces further undermines its credibility.
The panel’s visit to the notorious Serkadji Prison, where at least 96 prisoners were massacred in 1995, shows its failure to confront crucial aspects of the human rights situation. In a country where close to 20,000 people are detained on charges of « terrorism », the panel only met with one prisoner accused of « terrorism » and focused its visit on prisoners accused of economic crimes. Such an approach is astonishing especially given that no international organization or human rights expert had previously been allowed into this or any other prison.
In quoting the conclusions of the UN Human Rights Committee, issued during the panel’s visit to Algeria, the UN panel conspicuously fails to mention that Committee’s condemnation of grave violations by government forces, including torture, « disappearances » and extrajudicial executions and the lack of investigations into these abuses.
« Such disregard by the UN panel for the conclusions of a UN expert human rights body further illustrates how the report is permeated by double standards », Amnesty International said.
Like previous political initiatives of this kind, notably visits by the EU Troika and by the European Parliament at the beginning of this year, the UN panel’s visit was irrelevant to the human rights situation in Algeria. Massacres of civilians, targeted and indiscriminate killings and bomb attacks, and other crimes have continued since the UN delegation’s visit. In the last few days alone more than 50 civilians have been killed.
The readiness of the Algerian authorities to accept a UN political initiative such as the visit of this panel, with a restricted mandate and no investigative powers, stands in stark contrast with their persistent refusal to allow access to UN human rights experts and to international human rights organizations.
« From a human rights perspective the visit of this UN panel was a whitewash and is no substitute for an independent investigation into the human rights crisis in the country, which is long overdue », concluded Amnesty International.
The panel’s recommendations to the Algerian authorities include: to hold to strict standards of accountability law-enforcement, security and self-defence forces; to work resolutely to change the mentality in the judiciary, the institutions responsible for upholding human rights and in the police and army; and to give expeditious attention to complaints of arbitrary detention, extrajudicial executions and « disappearances ».
« Pending an independent investigation the implementation of these recommendations would go some way to addressing the human rights crisis in Algeria », added the organization. …ENDS/
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