PREFACE
For the past eight years, Human Rights Watch has published a report surveying the US administration's human rights policy in many of the countries that we monitored. This year, for the first time, we have expanded the report to include not only an analysis of the administration's policy but also a description of human rights developments in the countries under review. We have also added a description of Human Rights Watch's work with regard to these countries.
This survey covers 51 countries, spanning every region of the world. The list of countries reviewed is not a comprehensive inventory of all governments that commit serious abuses of human rights, nor is it a catalogue of every nation in which US human rights policy warrants analysis. Rather, it reflects the countries where Human Rights Watch has devoted its greatest energies -- an allocation which in turn reflects the seriousness of abuses, our access to information, our ability to affect human rights practices, our priority on maintaining a balance in our work cutting across various significant political and other divisions, and our limited resources. Within each country, as well, the issues covered do not necessarily span the scope of human rights abuse, but reflect the areas to which Human Rights Watch has devoted its attention.
A compilation of this magnitude is a joint effort involving a large number of people, including the entire research staff of Human Rights Watch. The contributors were: Kenneth Anderson, Cynthia Arnson, Cynthia Brown, Holly Burkhalter, Mary Jane Camejo, Holly Cartner, Richard Carver, Allyson Collins, Catherine Cosman, Alex de Waal, Richard Dicker, Martha Farmelo, Janet Fleischman, Eric Goldstein, James Goldston, Patricia Gossman, Jeannine Guthrie, David Holiday, Michael Jendrzejczyk, Sidney Jones, Robert Kushen, Jeri Laber, Ellen Lutz, Anne Manuel, Mary McCoy, Juan Mendez, Joyce Mends-Cole, Robin Munro, Aryeh Neier, Rakiya Omaar, James Paul, Jiwon Park, Ben Penglase, Patricia Pitman, Dinah PoKempner, Edwin Rekosh, Clifford Rohde, Jemera Rone, Kenneth Roth, Kirby Simon, Patricia Sinay, Jeffrey Slade, Karen Sorenson, Thant Myint-U, Joanna Weschler, Andrew Whitley, Lois Whitman and Ted Zang. Scott Turner provided invaluable assistance in the physical production of the volume. The report was edited by
