Letter to Donor Government Foreign Ministers

Your Excellency:

We write to you now to draw your attention to the many serious human rights shortcomings of the Wye River Memorandum, and to urge you to incorporate explicit human rights guarantees in all bilateral or multilateral agreements your government enters. In particular, we ask you ensure that any aid, trade, or security agreements with Israel or the Palestinian Authority address the two greatest shortcomings of the Wye River Memorandum: its failure to include any provisions for monitoring or enforcing human rights standards, and its subordination of human rights to security concerns. Your government's actions in this regard can significantly improve the degree to which the security obligations outlined in the memorandum are met in a manner that is consistent with international human rights standards.

Among the areas of special concern are clauses in the memorandum which appear to encourage violations of basic human rights. As we have noted in our Analysis of the Wye River Memorandum (enclosed), articles requiring the Palestinian Authority to arrest and transfer suspects to Israel, to take actions to prohibit "all forms of incitement," and to eliminate the "support structure that plans, finances, supplies and abets terror" may be read as stripping Palestinians of safeguards against torture and of their right to fair trial and freedom of expression and association. Indeed, since the signing of the memorandum the Palestinian Authority has arrested suspects named by Israel, conducted massive arrests of political opponents, imposed new restrictions on journalists' ability to report on public opinion, issued a presidential decree criminalizing incitement to "division" and criticism of agreements signed by the PLO.

We are also concerned with Israeli practices which violate Palestinian human rights, specifically torture; arbitrary detention including prolonged administrative detention without effective judicial review and hostage-taking; house demolition; as well as the imposition of closures and other restrictions on freedom of movement. Such practices violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture, both of which Israel has ratified.

Finally, Human Rights Watch is deeply disturbed by the formal delegation to officials from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of a primary responsibility for monitoring the memorandum's implementation via U.S.-Palestinian and U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli committees created by the agreement. These committees' responsibilities include "monitor[ing] cases of possible incitement" and "review[ing] and evaluat[ing] information pertinent to the decisions on prosecution, punishment or other legal measures which affect the status of individuals suspected of abetting or perpetrating acts of violence and terror." Secret intelligence agencies by their nature are poor choices for ensuring that human rights are not sacrificed in the quest for security—particularly when their functions include secret military and security operations as well as information gathering and analysis. The prominent role given to the CIA in the Wye River Memorandum—given its long history of involvement in gross human rights violations, typically by security forces and groups it monitored or aided—can only raise doubts about the seriousness of all parties' commitment to the prevention of human rights violations.

We urge your government to raise these issues in your meetings with U.S., Palestinian, and Israeli officials, to clarify your own government's understanding that the security obligations outlined in the Wye River Memorandum must be met in a manner that is consistent with international human rights standards, and to make your government's pledges of financial assistance conditional on such an understanding.

Thank you for your attention to this serious matter.