(Warsaw, Poland, June 24, 2000) - Human Rights Watch today expressed dismay that a number of one-party states and governments restricting political freedom are attending the Community of Democracies Conference in Warsaw on June 26 and 27. Human Rights Watch questioned the participation of non-democracies such as Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Kenya, and Kuwait.
The concept of democracy is cheapened when it includes one-party states and governments which get 99% of the vote," said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "The Polish hosts of the conference should remember when the Polish communist party rolled up scores of almost 100% in so-called elections."
The conference is being convened by Poland, Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Mali, the Republic of Korea, and the United States. Representatives from more than 100 governments are expected to attend.
In an open letter to conference participants, Human Rights Watch praised the initiative, whose purpose is to strengthen, deepen and defend democracy. It called on the government delegates to commit to upholding human rights as an important way to achieve lasting democracy. "Democracy is more than elections," said Roth. "Democracy also means the protection of minorities, the rule of law, an independent judiciary and the accountability of public officials. We hope that in the future the ‘Community of Democracies' will be a broad and yet a very exclusive club."
A copy of the letter is attached.
Open Letter to the Participants in the "Community of Democracies" Conference
Warsaw, Poland,
June 26-27, 2000
June 23, 2000
Excellencies,
Human Rights Watch welcomes the creation of the "Community of Democracies." We hope that this new club of states will be a force for strengthening and defending democracy. As you gather in Warsaw to explore how to promote democratic institutions and encourage democratic transitions, we urge you to commit to upholding human rights as an essential part of democracy. We also urge you to make your club an exclusive one, one which admits only states meeting the genuine tests of democracy.
We are therefore gratified to see that the list of participants no longer contains Peru, where President Alberto Fujimori was re-elected by default, and Kyrgyzstan, where the February-March parliamentary election was fraught with irregularities. Absent from your list are also other countries where the democratic system has collapsed and severe human rights violations have erupted, such as Malaysia, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. We congratulate you on this selectivity and urge you to press these governments to restore their democracies.
At the same time, we are disturbed to see that the list of participants made public in Warsaw on June 16 included several governments that do not have even the thinnest claims to being democracies. The hosts of this meeting surely remember the elections in which the Polish Communist Party regularly gained nearly 100 percent of the vote. Unfortunately, several invitees rival that record. To justify their inclusion by referring to their supposed democratic aspirations is to mock the values that should underlie a conference of democracies.
In Tunisia, President Ben Ali won the October 1999 election by no less than 99.42 percent of the vote. Voices critical of government policies are actively suppressed. The Tunisian media provide no independent perspective on important
political issues, and Tunisian journalists who dare to publish abroad about the government's atrocious human rights record are harassed and even subject to physical attack. Human rights defenders face the same repression, and many have been persecuted for their efforts to raise fundamental rights issues inside or outside the country. Their trials have demonstrated the utter lack of independence of the Tunisian judiciary.
In Yemen, where power is concentrated in the executive, Ali Abdullah Saleh won 96.3 percent of the vote in the country's first nation-wide direct presidential election in September 1999. His opponent was a member of his own party.
In Egypt, where the right to establish political parties remains severely circumscribed, parliamentary elections have been characterized by massive fraud, intimidation and harassment of opposition candidates, and severe restrictions on freedom of assembly. In September 1999 President Hosni Mubarak was elected unopposed to a fourth 6-year term in a national referendum. According to official results he received 94 percent of the vote. Known or suspected adherents of nonviolent but unauthorized groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood continue to face legal harassment and arbitrary arrest. The government recently renewed for six additional years the emergency rule decree that has been in effect since 1981.
In Burkina Faso, President Blaise Compoare won re-election in November 1998 with 88 percent of the vote. The government's response to the overwhelming public demand for an end to impunity for abuses, particularly in several notorious political killings, was insufficient.
Azerbaijan has held four nation-wide elections since the 1993 coup that brought President Heydar Aliyev to power, and not one of them has met international standards.
Qatar is a monarchy with no constitution or political parties. The Amir holds absolute power.
In Kenya, President Daniel Arap Moi, who enjoys almost absolute power, has won elections through political repression, media control, and dubious electoral procedures. Laws that directly limit freedom of association and political organization continue to remain on the books. The government continues to stall on promises of constitutional reform that would bring greater democratization.
In Kuwait, women may not vote or stand for office. Nor may citizens naturalized for less than 30 years.
Elections, of course, are only one test of a democracy. In addition, a democracy must at a minimum contain safeguards concerning the rights of minorities and other vulnerable sectors. The rule of law, including an independent judiciary, is also an indispensable element of democracy. The rule of law means foremost that state officials are accountable, and that police, the military and other security forces abide by the law, protect the human rights of the country's citizens and are punished for abuses. Some conference participants fail this test. For example:
In Russia, government troops have recently committed atrocities against civilians in Chechnya. Yet the Russian government has not undertaken any serious investigation of these crimes.
Evidence collected by Human Rights Watch has linked half of Colombia's eighteen brigade-level army units to paramilitary groups that are notorious for their abuses against civilians. While the government has taken some steps toward purging the military of suspected abusers, cases involving high-ranking officers continue to be sent to military tribunals, where impunity is the rule.
Democracy must be constantly protected and replenished. For democracy to flourish, specific safeguards need to be put in place. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, just two months ago, called on governments to promote and consolidate democracy through the promotion, protection and respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
We urge the governments participating in the Democracy Summit to make an explicit commitment to upholding these basic human rights. We also urge you to encourage governments not in your group to take steps that would make it possible for them to join in, and to exclude those governments that do not yet merit inclusion in the group. We hope that in the future the "Community of Democracies" will be a broad and yet a very exclusive club.
