THE RESPONSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Pressure by the United States and Israel

The PA's human rights violations stem in part from PA intolerance for criticism and dissent. Another contributing factor has been the enormous pressure exerted by Israel and the United States on President Arafat to prevent and punish anti-Israeli violence by militant groups.

Israeli officials have shown no inclination in their public statements to demand that the PA respect human rights in its treatment of Palestinians. Just prior to signing the Declaration of Principles, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated:

The Palestinians will be better at [establishing internal security] than we were, because they will allow no appeals to the Supreme Court and will prevent [groups like] the Association for CivilRights in Israel from criticizing the conditions there....They will rule by their own methods, freeing, and this is most important, the Israeli soldiers from having to do what they will do.186

In response to the February and March 1996 suicide bombings, Israel made it clear that responsibility for preventing anti-Israeli violence lay with the Palestinians.187 Then, in June 1996, when the PA faced pressure from the population and the Legislative Council to release detainees held without charges, the PA pledged to release detainees. Once the releases started, however, newly-elected Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that a halt to the releases was one of Israel's conditions for continuing the peace negotiations. Israeli officials expressed no interest, at least publicly, in whether those being held were charged or put on trial; they simply urged that the releases stop.188 The Netanyahu government also conditioned the easing of the closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a halt in prisoner releases by the PA.

After the July 30, 1997 suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Netanyahu again demanded mass arrests, his government reportedly providing to the PA a list of 200 Islamists whose arrest it sought. Again, there was no Israeli suggestion that safeguards such as fair trials be respected.

Ironically, Israel, in a report published in October 1996 on PA violations of the Oslo Accords, criticized the PA's "abuse of human rights and the rule of law," citing violations including arbitrary arrests, detention and torture.189 This criticism ignores the relentless demands that Israel had made on the PA to prevent attacks against Israelis without reference to the means employed.

In 1996 and before, the Clinton administration demanded that Arafat act more decisively to prevent anti-Israel violence, but made no reference to the need for due process, even as the massive, arbitrary round-ups were taking place. Martin Indyk, then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel, said on February 26, 1996:

We want more stick and less carrot from Arafat. The process of coopting [Hamas] has failed. What Arafat does now will affect the very future of the peace process.190

As President Arafat cracked down on the opposition, particularly Islamist groups, by carrying out arbitrary arrests, detaining people without charge, and practicing torture, Israel and the U.S. praised the crackdown while remaining largely silent on the tactics used. After hundreds of suspects had been rounded up, often arbitrarily, and many had been subjected to torture during interrogation, then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced, "We are getting 100 percent cooperation from Arafat."191

In a May 3, 1996, meeting with representatives of Human Rights Watch, Dennis Ross, the U.S. Special Middle East Coordinator conceded the tension between the two different messages that the United States was giving President Arafat-to stop terrorism and to respect due process: "No one here wants to see an absence of due process. But the other side [Hamas and Islamic Jihad] does not observe the niceties or a code of conduct." Ross also emphasized that the PA's institutions had "started out at nothing," adding, "We've had these conversations with them....It's going to take time to see what we'd like to see."

Other U.S. actions have also indicated minimal regard for the human rights consequences of the PA's security policies. For example, despite clear evidence of the systematically unfair practices of the state security courts, neither Vice-President Al Gore nor any other U.S. official has publicly retracted the praise for their creation that Gore offered both during his visit to Jericho on March 24, 1995 and two weeks later in Washington, where he stated, "I know there has been some controversy over the Palestinian security courts, but I personally believe that the accusations are misplaced and that they are doing the right thing in progressing with prosecutions."192

The U.S. administration, while supporting Israeli demands after the July 30, 1997 bombing that the PA engage in an all-out battle against terror, showed more caution in its public statements than it had in 1996 concerning the measures it urged President Arafat to take. While Israel demanded a round-up of suspected militants, Secretary Albright said, for example, that the focus must include "bringing to justice those responsible for this act."193 Other statements from Washington avoided any suggestion that the crackdown should be executed in a manner that disregarded the rights of suspects.

Although the Clinton administration crafted its public statements more carefully in 1997, it also imposed on itself a heavier duty to oppose Palestinian abuses when it agreed, in August, to sit in on discussions between top Israeli and Palestinian security officials. According to press reports, the Tel Aviv station chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency began attending such meetings and would assess whether President Arafat was giving his full cooperation against armed attacks on Israel.194 Details of the new arrangement were not disclosed. However, should the PA proceed to violate human rights in the name of preventing terrorism, as happened on a massive scale during the round-ups of 1996, the U.S. presence at these security meetings - where Israel is undoubtedly demanding stronger measures by the PA - will make the U.S. appear deeply complicit unless it speaks out against the abuses that occur.

The U.S is a major participant in the international donor effort in the West Bank and Gaza, having pledged $500 million over five years to the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the signing of the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles in September 1993. The figure included $375 million in resources administered by the Agency for International Development (USAID) and $125 million in Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) programs.

Between September 1993 and September 1996, the U.S. had obligated $225 million in assistance managed by USAID, more than half of which had been disbursed by the end of fiscal year 1996. According to an agency program overview, "USAID supports activities to help build democracy by increasing citizen participation, expanding institutions of civil society, increasing the flow and diversity of information to citizens, and strengtheningselected democratic institutions." 195 USAID funds have also gone toward start-up costs and the payroll of the PA, including police salaries. According to one study, the U.S. disbursed $44.9 million to the PA and the police between September 1993 and 1995. 196

The U.S. has documented PA abuses in detail in the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995 and 1996, and the Consul General in Jerusalem has raised human rights concerns with top PA officials on a regular basis. In its public dealings with the PA, however, the U.S. has focused not on patterns of abuse but rather on selected individual cases, and in particular on those cases where the victims were not members of groups opposed to the peace process. For example, the U.S. took a strong stance following the repeated arrests of human rights activist Dr. Eyad Sarraj and the detention in June 1997 of journalist Daoud Kuttab, a U.S. citizen who directs the independent Al-Quds Educational Television. Then-U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem Edward Abington met twice with President Arafat to urge Sarraj's release, and an officer from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv met with Sarraj in prison. Consul Abington also traveled to Ramallah to visit Kuttab in prison, and the White House demanded his release from detention. Abington also sharply criticized PA interference with Kuttab's live broadcasts of sessions of the Legislative Council, a project for which the U.S. Agency for International Development had provided a pilot grant. "Arafat must have been uncomfortable with what people were saying there," Abington said. "It's really remarkable."197

According to State Department officials, the U.S. also raised with the PA the August 30, 1996 death in custody of Mahmud Jumayal. And in an unusually strong expression of dismay following the death in detention of Yusif al-Baba (see above), Consul Abington declared:

Too many Palestinians have died while in [PA] custody. Palestinians must not suffer at the hands of other Palestinians. Those who break the law must be held accountable....Court decisions have not been enforced, undermining trust in the rule of law. Faith in government is eroded by rumors of bribery and corruption that go uninvestigated.198

That same day, he told the Reuter news service that, "Security is important but it can't come at the cost of human rights."199

Senior officials in the Clinton administration and the state department have disappointingly failed to echo this sentiment in their public comments. This failure is regrettable, especially at those moments when the U.S. is widely seen to be endorsing Israel's demands, which are generally issued without any public concern for the rights of suspects, for an "anti-terror" crackdown by the PA.

Legislative councilmember Dr. Haidar Abd al-Shafi remarked on the responsibility of the international donor community:

In my opinion, there is no excuse for the illegal actions of the authority. Of course, it is under pressure from Israel and the U.S. to crack down on terrorists and, in the process, it is cracking down on everybody. It is a case of moral laxity on the part of those conferring money. They could at least exercise pressure to see that things are done better. The violations are no longer a secret. But they are more interested in seeing that the process goes on rather than raising questions and problems.200

European Policy

European governments have been less vocal than the U.S. in demanding a tough PA response to anti-Israel violence. However, they also have been unwilling to make human rights protection a priority in their respective policies. This is particularly troublesome with respect to abuses carried out by the security forces, since these forces are at least partially funded and trained by European countries (see the section on training, below).

The high level of assistance that they grant to the PA provides European governments with considerable leverage. They have provided economic assistance to the PA through the European Union (EU), World Bank-administered multilateral aid program, and bilateral agreements. The EU has been the largest single donor to the PA, with U.S.$404 million in assistance between 1993 and 1996 and a commitment to provide an additional $63 million annually until 1998.

Despite their significant financial commitment, however, European governments have appeared fearful of disrupting the Israeli-PLO peace process and have not acted determinedly to stem abuses. Like the United States, European governments and the EU have privately criticized human rights violations by the PA but have generally shied away from public pronouncements. The exceptions have involved prominent individual cases, rather than wide-scale abuses where the victims have been less well-known and were arrested during crackdowns on purported militant opponents of the Israeli-PLO peace process. Norway, among others, has publicly condemned abuses in high-profile cases such as the arrest of Eyad Sarraj and the death in custody of Mahmud Jumayal.

The prospect of a EU-PA agreement on trade and cooperation gives the EU an opportunity to increase its human rights advocacy. The European Union raised human rights with President Arafat when he came to Brussels on February 25, 1997 to sign an interim trade and cooperation agreement. Emerging from a meeting with Belgian Foreign Minister Erik Derycke, Arafat told the press, "We are the people who have suffered. We don't accept anything against human rights," He stated that policemen who breached human rights had been and would continue to be punished.201 But he had been cautioned during his meetings that the accord was based on mutual respect of international human rights standards and could be suspended over abuses. In April, the European Parliament approved the interim association agreement, setting the stage for it to be taken up by the parliaments of the member nations.

The Need for Training

The desirability of human rights training and education at all levels of the Authority and its security forces has been widely recognized. The EU launched a US$10 million program in 1996 for the promotion of human rights, democracy and civil society. During 1996, Denmark, Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands participated in training the Palestinian police in various skills and subjects, including human rights. Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have pledged U.S.$6 million toward building a police academy in Jericho, and Germany has pledged U.S.$2 million to equip it. One European-funded training program enabled the West Bank-based Mandela Institute, an independent human rights organization that focuses on prisoners' issues, to train law enforcement officers andprint manuals on human rights, the rule of law and applicable international standards. The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) has included in its annual budget of $75 million for the West Bank and Gaza Strip projects intended to promote more responsive and accountable governance.

Such training and governance programs, however desirable, cannot curb abuses unless they are accompanied by a political will at the highest levels of the Palestinian leadership to root out abuses and hold abusers accountable for their actions.